THE WEEK. The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1908.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 51

THE WEEK.

The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1908.)

•' Xnaqaaia allud aatura, allud MLplentia dixlt."— Jimu. "O»oil oavura amd ceod aeue niuunr j*la."— rora. The Licensing Bill just introduced into the Houee of Commons by The Importance Mr Asquith, Chancellor of •f the Ensliih the Exchequer, is, by Licensing Bill, common consent; the most important measure to which the Government will , invite the attention of Parliament during the present session. Some time ago the Prime Minister — Sir BLenry Campbell-Bannerman — whoee unsatisfactory state of health ib exciting the greatest apprehension, publicly that the difficult and thorny question of Temperance Reform in the United Kingdom was to be grappled with comprehensively with a new of putting the existing complicated, confusing, and largely ineffective licensing laws on a sound and permanent basis. The provisions of Mr Asquith's measure are likely to be the signal for the keenest and bitterest political fight which English parliamentary life has seen for a century. Already it is announced that the brewers and publicans are raising £100,000 as a fighting fund to conduct a gigantic campaign against Mr Asquith's bill — a bill which the Daily Telegraph, in an evidently inspired utterance, declares has signed the death warrant of the Government. The bill, which is to some extent 'based upon the minority report of Lord Peel's Comvisrion, contemplates a fourteen Tears'

time limit of compensation, with a con* puteorj reduction in the number of license* during- that period — a reduction. whicflj will suppress 52,000, or a third", of th«( existing licenses. The maximum number 1 of licenses will be fixed according to tha density of population, while at the sam« time the scale of compensation will bi greatly reduced. At the end of fourteen 1 years the value of all licenses will b* restored to the community, and somd system of local option will follow. Iq is these provisions which are ' denounced) by Mr Balfour as robbery, and whion have paralysed the brewery share market*, Indeed, the nominal marking down in tha value of brewery shares and allied stocks', following the introduction of the Licensing Bill, is estimated by the Financial! Times as amounting to an aggregate shrinkage of £32,000,000. The Financial News also gives credence to the rumout fliat the bill has been introduced for thflpurpose of filling the cup for the Housjj of Lords, and* also to convince the teetotal* lers how hopeless it is to think of indue* ing the country to agree to their views in the direction of spoliation.

It is interesting in this connection to recall an article contributed The Opinion to the Daily Mail Yeati tfa Book by Sir Thomas F» TeatMraace Whittaker, one of ths Member «f leaders of the Temperance^ Parliament. Party in the House of Commons, written before the actual provisions and scope of the bilr had been announced. It is of value at the present time as affording some idea of the probability of Mr Asquith's measure becoming law. Sir Thomas Whittaker writes: — "The history of the Temperance Movement, frqm the legislative point ofi view, is full of warning. During the last' half century earnest and enthusiastic, temperance workers, when they have had 1 Governments in power which were committed by their election pledges to legislate on this question, have so strenuously and persistently insisted that the measure which should be introduced must be one which contains proposals which each; Ministry in turn was convinced could not' be earned that extremely little has been accomplished*. For the last thirty-fiv* years no Liberal Government has carried! to a second reading a Licensing Bill for. England. The wheel of political fortune! has once more placed the Temperance Party in an extremely favourable position.; It largely rests with them to determine whether the great opportunity shall be used successfully. • The vast major*-.- i? the pteople are in favour of tei • - reform. But teetotallers are n«majority. I estimate that total al>. ..-u .. from the use of intoxicating liquor ,ire about one in ten of the electors. It i« clear, therefore, that no measure can be; carried and effectively administrated unlesal it, has the support of a substantial majority of the non-abstainers In ourt midst. * That fact is the key to the eituaV tion. What the Government and practical temperance men and women have to consider at this juncture is not only, and indeed not chiefly, what they as individual* would like to see enacted, but what can be carried through Parliament with sued a volume of public approval behind it, that it will be accepted: and vigorously administered as the definite expression ofi the will of the nation on this difficult butt extremely important problem." And after, outlining the shape which, in his opinion, the Government Bill should take— and ifl is a credit to his foresight and grasp of the situation that he should have «cf accurately hit the mark— Sir Ihomaa Whittaker concludes:— "lf these proposal* were embodied in an act, a great step forward would be taken. It is believed l that -they would be warmly supported by, an overwhelming majority of the Houso of Commons, and would not' be seriously, objected to by the House of Lords."

It is impossible to over-estimate the in* fluence of the liquor traffics Lord Randolph upon English parliamentary, Charckiil on life : over and over again Temperance, it has turned the tide at ft general election. In 187#* when the Gladstone Government resigned ac the result of the adverse vote of th* constituencies, Mr Gladstone wrote : — « " But more immediate operative cause* have determined the elections. I have nai doubt which is the . principal. We have* .been borne Tlown in a torrent of gin and| beer." In 1889 Lorft Randolph; Churchill made a trenchant speech on the. temperance question, the more notable be-< cause in the following year he introduced! his Licensing Bill, in the last great speech; he ever made to the House of Commons* which, while it affirmed the justice of compensation, asserted for the first time jri Parliament the principle of popular control! over the issue of licenses. Lord' Randolphs speech is worth quoting, since itl puts the English situation on the licensing question in a nutshell : — "The obstacle -to temperance reform undoubtedly is the wholesale manufacturers of alcoholic drink. Those manufacturers are small in number^ but they are very wealthy. They exercise enormous influence. Every publican mi the country, almost — certainly nine-tenthrf of the publicans in the country, are their aflbject and tied slaves. Publichouses in nine cases out ofi ten are tied houses. There is absolutely, no free will, and these wholesale manufacturers of alcoholic drink have enl enormously powerful political organisation, so powerful and so highly prepared thati it is almost like a Prussian army : it "can be mobilised at any moment and brouwliti to bear on the point which is threatened^ Up to now this great class has success* fully intimidated a Government", and sue* cessf ully intimidated members of Parlifc* „ ment : in fact, they have directly over* thrown two Governments, and I "do not» wonder, £ do not blame Governments fxwj being a little afraid of meddling with, them. But in view of the awful misery* which does ariee from the practically url* limited and uncontrolled sale of alcoholic! drinks in this country, I tell you my frank

Opinion — tie time b*e already ' arrived 1 when we most try oar strength with that , jWxty. . . . Do imagine what a proBhrfous social reform, what a bound in acrance we shook! hare made, ii we could curb and contzol this destructive and Aevilish liquor traffic, if we could manage id remove from amongst us what I have called on former occasions the fatal facility of recourse to the beerhouse which besete krnscj man and woman, and really, one may almost aay, every child, of tie working ciawes in England." Ihe Campbell-Bannermun Government has definitely thrown down the What will be gage to the- Liquor Party, tfcftOrteuMl and the ultimate outcome promises one oi the most significant and interesting straggles of modern times. Popular sentiment is on the side of temperance reform, but ii remains to be seen how far sentiment will carry when the public pocket and the pthHc comfort are threatened. The large, number of electors Wbo *re sbareUoldcre in the rarious companies, the prk© of whose shares, has already been affected by the new licensing Bill, will, without «w»ption, be> op in arms against the Government. • And in- the- Kght of past history 'it may reasonably be doubted whether, 'in the final struggle, "the people" will stand by th« Government. fer Thomas Lawaon, of "Frenzied Finance" fame r has just announced that he has retired from the fighfc against "The System," and gives as reason, for his abdication from his self-appointed position ol financial reformer of America m general, and Wall Street in particular, the fact that at the critical moment the people for whom he has dared so much and vectored so greatly have /orsaken him. la. the latest issue of "Everybody's," he writes:— "The people, particularly the 'American people, are a joke— a system wke. . . . Where i» all hktory does l* appear that the -people aided those who •battie< disinterestedly .for them? To-day the people are preparing to hustle to the town pump the> mas wEo has done more for them and more to their enemies than any other since Lincoln paid for hi& efforts for- the psople with his life. . . . and all because • the System's slime-brained p»ess has told the .yellow-flushed spaniels that the temporary of pie and sherbet from the people's dinner pails is doe to Rosevelt'e pursuit of the scabbiest pack of he wolves that ever harried' a civilised people." And right in the face of a heavy indictment of the facilities granted by the law- for tb* perpetuation of the drink problem, it is\ a question* whether public opinion in. England will support the legislative solution propounded bj Mr Asquitb. There is ever tbepossibilityxof the prediction of the Daily Telegraph being ■ - There was' last year published a most instructive volume entitled skA«)kiini "The Drink Problem in L«jri»iat •». its Medico - Sociological ' Aspects," by . fourteen medical authorities, being -a number of papers dealing with tie disease of aleboliam in its various aspects. And amongst' those p*pe-i& is one on "Akholkm and Legislation," contributed by Mr V. H. Rutherford, M.P., late medical officer to the Newcastk-on-Tyne School Board. Mr Rutherford very concisely points out the responsibility resting upon the Legislature in regard ' to the restriction of facilities in the following woxds : — " It ie estimated that nine-tenths of the publiehouaes are- in the bands of the brewers -and brewery companies, *rho compel their tenants to take all their liquor from them. This pernicious system of 'tied houses' puts a kaemiun on inferior brands and on adalteratioß. From, the time oi Edward VI the control of the trade has. been entrusted to the local magistrates, who have had power to grant licenses for.' one year and no longer,' and to refuse the renewal of licences. _ The Licensing Act of 1904 upset this arrangement, and deprived the local magistracy of the power to refuse renewals, leaving this serious question io the decision of Quarter Sessions. What the new Licensing Bill of 1907 will pro■Bose I cannot tell, but the Democracy demands effective popular control in some chape or other. ... As publichouses are incompatible with public health and public morality, the fewer there are the Better for tHe health, happiness,- morals, and prosperity of the people. A maxi-. feuni of drink shops per head of the population should be fixed bj statute, with local option for further reduction. Lord Peel's Gmuniasion recommended 'one for 750, but *feat proportion ,fc far behind 4he requirements of public "fcealth. One for 5000 .would be nearer the mark. In England it is one for 243. and in Scotland one for 360, 6o little regard have our rulers bad in the. past for the good of the citizens." The State briquette works at Weetport are turning out a considerable quantity of eggettes, which appear to b» in good demand in various parts of the Dominion. 'The eggettes require much less handling in manufacture th*n the briquettes. They, •re suitable for either household or steam purposes. A large displenishing sale is to be held jtt Oteksike on Tuesday* Wednesday, *ad .Thursday this week (3rd. 4th, and sth), ,wpen over 38.0Q& sheep, 145 bead of cattle, i7s horcee, in addition to implements, .furQiture, and sondriee, are to be^ sold. The Otekaike halfbred* have always had a good reputation, and now that the whole Sock is to be aoVi ' graziers wOf have the *are Opportunity ' of buying ewes of »nj ago they may require. The cattle axe a jjfbod line, and the hones touch above the leverage — some of thevmbroken onea being very good. There is a large number of tmplements and sundries io be sold after the sheep and horses on Wednesday, whilst ■Thursday will see the sale of the Otetaike homestead furniture. Full particulars are advertised, and with a. special $r»in leaving O&maru on each morning of •ale days, returning each, afternoon in time to connect with the expresses at ffukeuri, buyer* will find the arrangement* Per; convenient. ,