WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, 12 September 1918, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE NEW ISSUE. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Sept 11. State Control is very much in the air just now as a result of the demand of the National Council of the Licensed Trade that the issue should be placed on the ballot paper at the next licensing poll, but few people seem to realise the full scope and significance of the term and none to "know what particular form of State control the promoters of the present movement are contemplating. Several Ministers of the Crown, a nur„ber of members of Parliament, and many social workers have expressed themselves as favourable to the extinction of the proprietary interest in the Trade as a means the removal of its admitted evils, but scarcely one of them has given us an original thought or a new idea oh the subject. In these circumstances it may not be uninteresting, nor unprofitable, to glance for a moment at a scheme which has been suggested by a Wellington gentleman who confesses himself unable to make a satisfying choice between continuance and no-license. Hitherto he has voted with the Prohibitionists, not because he thinks they are offering a just or wise or final solution of the problem, but because*" he believes : the aceptance of their panacea would clear the way for a more effective and a .far more enduring reform. This attitude may not be very admirable, savouring, as it does, of doing evil that good may come, but it is nomaterial to his scheme and sc may be allowed to pass. ACQUISITION.

He would connoe ine State's acquisition to the liquor trade and to the liquor trade alone. That is, he would /ake over ouly such parts of the hotels as were requirerd for the supply of liquor under proper conditions, and would leave the propietors in uudistubed possession or the rest of their premises. But he would make the importation, manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors of all kinds a national monopoly in which no private individual, directly, or indirectly, would have any monetary interest. The hotel-keeper, the members of his family, and his bona fide lodgers would enjoy the privilege they enjoy now in obtaining liquor for consumption on the premises during the hours and on the conditions prescribed by the existing law. The bars would be converted into refreshment rooms, with easy access from the street, where in addition to alcoholic liquors, tea aria col" fee and other light refreshments, not meals, would be provided at strictly moderate rates. The whole system would be under the control of a responsible Board of Commissioners, freed from political influence and inter ference, who would be entrusted with the appointment of a manager for each refreshment room, who in turn would have the appointment of his assistants and be accountable to the Board for the good conduct and efficiency of the business. The Board would make arrangements for the supplies and would fix the rates at which refreshments would be paid.

COMPENSATION. The compensation to be paid to the. proprietors of the hotels would be based upon the difference between the value of their houses when licensed to sell liquor and when converted into lodging and boarding-houses with the State refreshment rooms attached. This difference would be determined by competent valuers appointed by the Government whose valuation might be reviewed, on appeal by either party, by a properly constituted Court* Included in the amount finally determined upon would be a sum to cover the loss of profit the proprietor of the premises might have reasonably expected to obtain over a certain number of years from the sale of alcoholic liquors. The total amount would be paid in bonds bearing interest at the current rate for sinmilar State securities and maturing on a date coinciding with the number of years for which compensation was paid. When the licensee were <ont the owner his share of the accruing profits would be assessed by thes came valuers and paid to him in cash or bonds, at his own option, and the amount deducted from the payment due to the owner. The State would have the option o'f acquiring an>>part of the premises adjoining the ha'r or the whole of the premises at a valuation and would be at the cost of structural alterations made necesary by its acquisition and the nationalisation of the liquor trade. A FAIR PROSPECT.

This, of course, is the barest outline of the author's scheme. A hundred and one details cannot bereciteS here. It must be stated, however, that he would insist upon the Trade, even when nationalised, remaining under the direct control of the electors. To begin with he would accept the issues proposed by the National Council—National Continuance, National. Control and National Prohibition —decided by the single transferable vote, popularly known as preferential voting. This would ensure a majority of the electors getting what they liked best, or, at any rate, securing themselves against what they disliked most, be it continuance, prohibition or State Control. His own predilection is frankly for State Control, and he quotes what has happened at Home under this system as a conclus"ive answer to all the objections that have been urged against it in the past, by both the friends of continuance and the friends of prohibition, who he thinks must s"sare the responsibility for the unsatisfactory conditions that surround the Trade. Whichever issue might be carried he would have them all, with the necessary alteration in the wording of "continuance" submitted to the electors every third year. His own personal opinion, however, is that in the event of State Control being carried it would have proved such a success even at the end of three years that the poll would be simply an iteration of the electors' verdict, to b? reiterated and reiterated at succeeding polls, till the consumption of liquor became purely a personal questlofa riitd not an occasion of political strife at all.