THE VICTORIAN METHOD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 20, 23 January 1914, Page 4

THE VICTORIAN METHOD.

The operations of the Victorian Lie- j easing Reductions Board has resulted, in the closing during 1913 of no fewer I than 96 hotels. The “Sydney Tele-| graph” points out that the law in A ic-’ toria is quite different from what it is. in New South Wales. When many years ago, the principle of local option | was recognised in legislation it nas combined with compensation to dispossessed publicans and effested landowners. This was found to involve so serious an outlay that it was never really effective as a means for restricting facilities for the sale of liquor, though it succeeded in reducing the number of licensed houses. The “Telegraph” goes on to say that when the late Sir Thomas Bent was in power he passed a more drastic local option bill, abolishing the right of the delicensed parties to pecuniary recognition for closing their businesses, but suspending for ten years the date of the new form of direct popular vote. This suspension was a substitute for compensation, and was to be accepted by existing houses as their last stage of freedom from a poll which could terminate their occupation without giving them the right to any monetary consideration. Meanwhile the Reduction of Licenses Board has been at work investigating the'character and watching the trade of hotels, with a view to eliminating those which do not carry on a. legitimate trade. The board, in the course of its operations, seems to have given preference, other things being equal, of course, to hotels at junctions of streets rather than hotels between blocks. The effect has been, on the whole, greatly to improve the quality of the Melbourne licensed houses. The cost of closing during seven years 710 hotels has been on the average £485 each, but, as the money, in theory at any rate, comes out of taxes paid by the houses that remain, the public is soothed by the reflection —it may be the illusion—that at any rate it escapes. The board, however, has accomplished much useful and necessary work, work along lines which had become an imperative need. When in about three years, the compensation for publicans in Victoria becomes exhausted, the reductions will have to be carried out in more difficult conditions. For then it will become necessary to discriminate between good hotels and the best wherever reduction is ordered to be enforced. But the principle of having a regulatory body like this to watch over the trade and to suppress houses which ought not to be allowed to continue is undoubtedly a good one. 4n Victoria it has proved to he a most salutory one also.