COMPENSATION FOR WHAT?
' Sir—'What have the licensed victuallers done for the community to warrant compensation'being paid to them? I have made a study of the liquor problem for wellnigh fifty vears, and have come to the conclusion that if anybody is deserving of compensation it is the unlicensed victualler, for lie has supplied a public need unaccompanied by the rum. and degradation caused by drink, minus also the lucre. There are ten licensed victuallers within a radius of three or four hundred yards of the hostel at which I lunch, and I can just imagine the amazement ,of any one of these ten licensed victuallers if a person went in expecting to get a meal. I believe the hostel referred to supplies as many meals in one day as the ten supply in a year. What, then, do the licensed victuallers (save the mark!) supply? I was passing one of these houses a short time ago when a one-legged man, under the benign influence of the publichouse, was escorted to the door and thrown upon the sidewalk, being unable to rise again or stand without assistance. Some time previously I was passing the same bote] in company with a friend, and we narrowly escaped receiving about half a gallon of beer, gratis, from an inebriate who came to the door. About the same time a. young lady in the Brooklyn car— I must pause here. By a strange coincidence a friend called on me this moment and mentioned incidentally, though he did not know what I was writing, that a man had iust been ejected from the hotel. just referred to with great violence, and it was a wonder his skull was not fractured. My friend, remonstrating with the publican, said, "You should, above all people, deal gently with these poor unfortunates. Do you not know that it is your trade which has brought them'to the, gutter?" Yes, re. plied I, and the Trade has the effrontery to demand compensation if the State decides, to promote efficiency and economy and save these creatures in the only way possible—by closing liquor bars. But to return; the young lady in the tramcar was not so fortunate, for she received a cargo of beer all over her, without compensation. The unlicensed victuallers do not inflict these horrors on the community. It is proposed that the
State shall pay to the publican tho difference between tho value of tho house .as a "temperance" hotel and an "inlem■peranco" hotel.' This would l>o paying tho Trado for something to which it; lias no right. Tho license value belongs to. tho State, although it is a lillle goldmine to tho publican, and should the State, for its own well-being, refuse- lo allow licenses to bo granted, /(.ho value of Iho houso simply reverts to what it was previously. The hotel owner paid nothing to tho State for prospecting this "little goldmine," and the State owes him nothing when tho license is refused, Had, for instance, tho Windsor Hotel had a license to sell strong drink, tho probability is that ,£20,006 compensation would bo demanded, whereas the position today is that, never having been licensed, there is no license value attaching. Tho question of compensation, therefore, does not arise. Tho fruits of tho liquor traffic aro degradation, demoralisation, and destruction; would it not,' therefore, be more equitable to compensate, tho unlicensed victuallers who liavn been exeluded from this "Tom-Tiddler's ground" of their licensed brethren? It is customary to roward virtuo and punish vice; to pay compensation lo purveyors of alcohol is to rnivard men For propagating the greatest evil with which our raco is cursed, and T, myself, don't beliovo in it, much as 1 believe in returning good for evil.—l am, etc., JOHN PLOWMAN. By the way, do yon know . who finances tho "Moderate League, and what is their attorney's retainer?—J. I.'.
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Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3155, 6 August 1917, Page 7
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645COMPENSATION FOR WHAT? Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3155, 6 August 1917, Page 7
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