MR MACANDREW AND THE LIQUOR QUESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 3886, 7 August 1875, Page 3

MR MACANDREW AND THE LIQUOR QUESTION.

To the Editor. Sir, —In his]speech at Port Chalmers the other day, Mr Macandrew, speaking on _ the licensing question, is reported to have said-- “ I don’t know if I would have any great objection to the permissive clauses of the Bill, had they been confined to new licenses —that is to say, not to licenses already granted —but I must say that I consider it unfair that men, who, it may be, have embarked their all in hotel property, should be suddenly sent through the Insolvency Court, and receive no compensation for having their business destroyed.” Here it is evidently implied that hotel business is dependent on the sale of liquor. Permit me, in contradiction of such an opinion, to quote the following extracted, from an English journal from the report of a commission appointed by the Canadian Parliament to inquire into the working of the liquor laws in the United States. The paper from which I quote says:—“ In Rockland, a city on Penobscott Bay, the Commissioners met with Mr Kallock, one of the proprietors of the Thovndyko Hotel, who gave some remarkable testimony, which our liquor-trafficers should ponder over. The Commissioners say of him iihat: he spoke as an hotel-keeper, and thought ho was well qualified to do so, as he was bom in an hotel, and always brought up in one, and bud never been con nected with any other business. He wan now running this hotel on strictly temperance principles, and had been doing so for a year. It is the principal hotel'll in the City ; he was told he would fail in it, but was resolved to try it; it is largely supported Iby commercial travelleis ; and on his telling them that ho intended lo comply with the law and close the bar, but that he thought he would be compelled to raise his board half-a-dollar a day, they unanimously asked him to make it a do'lar, but he refused and said he would try the lower rate first. He had never done better, and ho had never bad as quiet a hmiro. Ho made no ninety beds, and he wan considering Hie prrtibilitv oi enlarging that number one-half. He raid he was in as good a position lo form an opinion an any man, and be war, decidedly satisfied that the effect of the law, as an educator, and as a restraint, was very great.”—l am, &c., A Permissive Bill Man. Dunedin, August 4.