Publicans' Compensation in America

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 23, 11 August 1892, Page 4

Publicans' Compensation in America

The following was the judicial decision of the American judges in certain appeal cases respecting compensation, when valuable premise? ceased to be serviceable for their former use through prohibition o 1 the liquor traffic. The appellants were brewers who appealed from the Circuit Court of America for the district of Kansas to the Supreme Court of the United States, the appeal being, among other things, for compensation because the enacting of prohibition in the State of Kansas had rendered their breweries useless. Eight judges wera on the beach, and all but one concurred in the judgment given, and that one did not differ from tbe others on the point in question. The tollowing woras from the decision, which was given by Mr Justice Har- 1 lin, embrace the answer of the Court on the compensation argument. Mr Justice flarlin said : — The question now before us is what are strictly the police powers of the State exerted for the protection of the health, morals, and safety of the people. As already slated, the present case must be governed by principles that do not involve the power of eminent domain, in the exercise of which property may not be taken for public use without compensation. A prohibition simply upon ihe.use of property for purposes that are declared by valid legislation to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot in any just sense be deemed a taking or an appropriation of property for the public benefit. &uch legislation does not disturb the owner in the control or use of his property for lawful purposes, restrict his right to dispose of it, but is only a declaration by the State that its use by anyone tor certain forbidden purposes is prejudicial to the public interests. It is true that when the defendants in these cases purchased or erected their breweries, the laws of the S;ate did not forbid the manufacture of intoxicating liquors. But the State did not thereby give any assurance, or come under an obligation, that its legislation upon that subject would remain unchanged . The supervision of the public health and the public morals is a Governmental power, continuing in its nature, and to be dealt with as the special exigencies of the moment may require ; and for this purpose the largest legislative discretion is allowed, and the discretion cannot be parted with any more than the power itself. If the public safety or the public morals require the discontinuance of any manufacture or traffic, the hand of the Legislature cannot be stayed from providing for its discontinuance by any incidental inconvenience which individuals or corporations may suffer.