THE Mount Ida Chronicle THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1877.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 436, 23 August 1877, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1877.

Tee Licensing Bill introduced by the Hon, William Eox is an attempt to place the control of the absse of the liquor traffic in the'hands of the public. It is not attempted to place a new principle upon the Stsitute Book. The principle of local option is not contained in the Licensing Act of 1873; it is, however, in nearly all cases as imperative as if it had never been embodied in law. The failure of the Act of 1873 to give local control is attributed to the fact that the licensing districts constituted under it were too large, and also that action is required of a very invidious nature on the part of the reformer, who would fain make his district Bober by the local option of dissent contained in the Act. Under the law, a certain number of inhabitants must sign an objection against each individual licensee. _ Under Mr, Fox's Bill, the protesting inhabitants need only require that a ballot should be taken in a very simple way throughout the district. During the debate upon the second reading the great bugbear raised was compensation. The Bill does not recognise any such right. Mr. Fox himself takes a very strong stand against it. Dr. "Wallis, of Auck° land, who curiously was returned on the Permissive ticket, made the strongest attack upon the Bill upon this very ground, and quoted England's example when she compensated the Blaveowners upon emancipation bein» enforced in her dominions with some twenty millions of money. The question is a very difficult one. It is almost impossible to state how much of the increased value of an hotel is due to the fact of the State annual license, or what right of expectation of permanent license could be recognised when the law gives at present the Bench ample power to close any house, quite irrespective of fitness or otherwise of the premises or of the licensee to conduct such premises. If compensation is to be paid it should come out of the license fees. ' To this we fear our Mayors and County Chairmen would object. As a Colony we have chosen to bribe our local bodies to exert their influence to swell the revenues under the Licensing Acts, because the moneys received are made their own. Thus, with the price of blood, often at the cost of the happiness of hundreds of innocent women and children, we dole out our sinews of war to 1 cSI bodies, never considering that our kindness is cruel and productive only of waste of our capital, which otherwise, would' be husbanded for the better welfare of the Colony.. At the same time, by the stimulus given to public-house con struction by local governing influences, the ratepayers are less able to cope with the.pauperism and disease rapidly springing up as worshipper after worshipper pays his constant homage at the public-house bar. The respectable publican now established in business has nothing'to fear from a workable Local Option Bill. His worthless neighbor, driving, a roaring, bar trade

in liquors beyond all. analysis—imported, as be assures his victims,, direct by himself- prill be relegated to a more honest livelihood. To get over the difficulty of districts being too large, it is now proposed to make them too small, and to make local option triumphant by getting in its thin edge in the out-streets of big towns. To apply the Bill as it is introduced to Dunedin, inferior houses would be quickly "stamped out. To apply the same Bill to Blackstone Hill, Hamilton, and St. Bathans, every house, good and bad, would have to closethat is, so far as bar trade wan concerned. This is an inequality of things" that cannot be permitted. The Local Option Bill, with its 18,000 signatures, will, whether a new law passes or not, have fulfilled a great function in guiding and forming the public sentiment of the country. In that direction is to be found the true local option—the true reform of the inherited tendency to diminish our too scanty brains by the pernicious drinking habit which is undermining the best part of our manhood.

In 1872 the General Assembly by resolution sanctioned the appropriation of £IO,OOO to be offered in rewards for new Goldfields. About the middle of the next year, in pursuance of the resolution, regulations were gazetted, to be in force until December, 1874/ or a space of eighteen months. These regulations offered certain sums of money, increasing in proportion to the number of ounces raised on the new field. A provision was framed fixing the limit of distance from existing fields, which should be the primary condition upon which a claim for reward should depend. This limit in the North Island was thirty miles, and in the South Island ten miles. The regulations ran the gauntlet for the prescribed eighteen months with perfect safety to the Colonial Treasurer's purse, and died intact and probably unread. From time to time it has been urged in these columns that the only true incentive to mining enterprise is the removal of special taxation. The Government tax with the one hand, and with the other (with a great show of ostentation and generosity) offer a reward to men to still further swell the Colonial purse It is a curious fact that the grant offered in 1873, although to the eye it looked fair, was nothing more than a remission of the 2s. duty on the gold produced. In other words, the Government were prepared to take the tax and then return it as if it were a gift—a reward for great risk and much personal enterprise. The question has been again re-opened this session by the Hon. Mr. Gisborne, member for Totara. The Goldfields Committee's report will be found elsewhere. The Commiftie hive this year introduced anew principle into their recommendation, which is perhaps worth a trial. Instead of basing the reward upon the amount of gold produced in any locality, it is to be based upon the population supported. This is undoubtedly a more legitimate test, but it also will be exceedingly difficult of proof. In some portions of the Colony, where the ranges are precipitous and densely wooded, two miles is comparatively as great a distance as twenty on our open plains. We are not very sanguine as to the results likely to follow if the House adopts the Committee's suggestions. Still, as we are still less sanguine of the possibility of reducing taxation, the experiment is worth a •trial.