SIR ROBERT STOUT AND LICENSING

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 268, 1 August 1918, Page 6

SIR ROBERT STOUT AND LICENSING

Sir,—ln his address at the Unitarian Church. Sir l'tibert Stout talked about thi' need rf individual and national conscience. There is mueh need (or the cultivation of national ami individual conscience. Sir ltobevt Stout says: —"Alco-hol-drinking is a great social evil." This is a loose expression. Sir Itobert jncans that the drinking; of alcoholic liquors is to the majority of people a means to great social benefit, and that excessive alcoholic liquor (not alcohol noat) is u groat social evil. But Sir Kobert-never was precise in his English. But to the point. Here is a man with a licensed hotel. lie dies. The Government says Hie license is value for JI7OOO, and wanis legacy duty on that amount. The case is, let us'say, heard before tho Chief Justice, and he fixes the value of the license for legacy duty at .-CSOOO. Then he comes on to (he Unitarian pulpit, lired with the moral-uplift of ihc community, and he says licenses have no value, and there is no necessity for compensation. There is much need lor individual and national conscience. Again: The law bus set it out Hint if National Prohibition is carried the owners anil licensees are to have four ami a half years in which to carry on and'wmd up. Four and a half years' trading. is wprth a good deal of 'money lo this business, I should imagine. Well, what is it worth? The Efficiency Board says it is worth reasonable compensation to get immediate prohibition, wid the Efficiency Board is composed of business men with consciences. But Sir Robert fails to boo on what grounds couipeusulion should be paid. Of course. 'Why, tho leading men in the community— whoso consciences are not seared with (ho hot iron of prejudice—have said if this business is worth getting of it is worth paying for, and the Efficiency Board has sot them the course, and they are pursuing it. Men like Sir Thomas Whitnker, and papers like the "Baptist Times" and the "Spectator"—true temperance advocates-all hold that Slate purchase is the first step to prohibition. Sir Itobert Stout knows that all tho prohibition propaganda for twenty-fivo years has been absolutely barren of results, either in the reduction of drinking or tho individual expenditure thereon. .The attempts at prohibition have all been failures, and from the results of tho last national poll, taken in the worst hours of the war, it would appear that the cause of National Prohibition was further awny than ever. With compensation for the four and a half years there is g. chance of prohibition before the war ends., Does Sir Robert want again to spoil the prohibition policv?1 am, etc., q