THE LICENSED VICTUALLERS' BANQUET.

Feilding Star, Volume xv, Issue 335, 9 June 1894, Page 2

THE LICENSED VICTUALLERS' BANQUET.

TO THE EDITOH OF THE STAR Sir, — A smile of amusement mast have passed over the faces of a good many of your subscribers when in last Wednesday's issue of your paper they read the report of the Licensed Victuallers' banquet, held at Marton on Tuesday evening. Truly, the " publican's party " is appearing in a new role when it poses as a friend and benefactor of the people. Surely the speaker was mis-reported. Can this be true ? — " A benevolent fund was being raised by the licensed victuallers, and anyone, whether Prohibitionist* or: not, and without respect to creed, on making application, would be assisted from the fund." [The italics are mine.] It is hard, sir, when one can not give a body of men the credit of meaning well in what they are doing; buc such a step as this is so utterly inconsistent with the pursuit of a trade that above all others helps to make our people poor and keep them in poverty, that it is evident this step is a sort of "last effort "to bring the party into favor with the people and to try to save a drowning cause. How tliin the veil is ! Far too thin to stop the tide of public opinion that is beginning to roll in upon the drink question and all connected with it. So the publicans are going to help the poor Prohibitionists ! That is very kind, lam sure ; but it strikes me they will have very few of such unfortunates to help, for it is not the temperance party that creates the ' need for philanthropic institutions and | societies. And the fund is to be ex- ' pended without respect to creed. How farcical! What do drink-sellers care about a man's creed when he has good money to spend ? Creed, forsooth I As well might they talk about complexion. As regards the alleged assistance given to the needy at Marton, I would ask whether these men were Prohibitionists, and whether it was through their principles that they were brought to want, or * were they publicans' samples — men who 1 had contracted the drink habit — and j was that the cause of the poverty ? Perhaps, an the publicans are becoming ' philanthropic, their "party" will become a centre from which will spring suggestions and institutions that shall * have as their aim the benefit of human- ' ity as a whole. If so, what will become ' of their own abominable traffic, for it is \ one of the most fruitful causes of trouble, and, as public benefactors, it would be I inconsistent to retain it? I must not take up more of your valuable space, 5 but just permit me to remark that it is extremely interesting to watch the turn 3 affairs are taking when the publicans' party, to try to save itself, poses as a helper of the people—giving back a very little of what has been expended by folly, and which shonld be in the people's homes, adding to the people's comfort. 1 If the wretched traffic could be done 1 away, pauperism would almost—if not ; quite —disappear [are these same publi--1 cans so philanthropic as to thus attack the roots of pauperism] , and " the party" would bo saved the humiliation of bay- ' ing to adopt such measures to protect 1 themselves as were mentioned on Tues- \ day evening. I am, 4c, W. H. Judkins, 1 President Prohibition League. Feildiug, 7th Jane, 1894.