NEW PUBLIC-HOUSES.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 418, 17 May 1902, Page 3

NEW PUBLIC-HOUSES.

(To the Editor of the Times.)

I was a good deal surprised to read the remarks of one of the speakers at the dinner given in honor of the opening of a new hotel in Gisborne, to the effect that hotelkeepers had beon “compelled” to build new houses. Now, sir, if tho Licensing Committee compelled anyone to build I am sure they exceeded their powers. The speaker also talked of hotels being closed by prohibition. There is no law in tho land to prohibit hotels, and if a substantial majority of.the community choose to terminate tho licensing system because they consider it bad, I want to know, in the name of common sonse, how does that close hotels any more than boarding-houses ? The Licensing Act never contemplated tho licensing of mere grogshops. Tho Legislature requires it in the first place to be proved that accommodation is required in the neighborhood. The committee cannot compel anyone to build, but it can intimate that a new license will not be granted to a certain class of building. If any other class of tradesman wants to open in a locality he has to take the risk without any promiso of a monopoly. If the liquor seller thinks the risk too great he is quite at liberty'to keep his money in his pocket. Those who advocate “no license ” have made no secret of their determination, and the fact that threefifths of the population of Gisborne declared against licenses two and a-half years ago is a pretty clear intimation that tho .thing called "vested interest” is tottering ; but tho houses built to accommodate the travelling public will not be touched —cannot be touched—by anyone. It is surely up to Mr W. D. Lysnar to jump on the villanous characters who “ compelled ” these folk to build, and I shall bo with him. A man should be no more compelled to build a pub than a bakery,—l am, etc., Liberty.