THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1892. LICENSING COMMITTEES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2371, 18 June 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1892. LICENSING COMMITTEES.

'J*»fc Sydenham Licensing Committee have disregarded the admonitions of the Court of Appeal, and *Mt up the hotels in their district.- The judges said the committee had no right to refuse licenses, but that no one had a right to restrain them. They have now refused the licenses, and it remains to be seen what power there is to compel them, jo reverse their decision. But the Sydenham Committee have done no worse than other committees have done. In several other towns houses have beer? shut up, but perhaps the most remarkable Of all is the slaughtering of the licenses in Ounedin. There a moderate committee was (-deeded, but they, as well as Sydenham, hat'p refused licenses, the only difference being that while Sydenham shut drink out altogether the Dunedinites only shut up some of the public houses. The Dunedin Committee,, too, does not seem to have exercised any extraordinary discretion us to the character of the houses they refused licenses to. For instance Wain's Hotel, one of the handsomest (if not the handsomest) buildings in the city, has been shut. This was really one of tuc best houses in Dunedin, situated within nvc minutes walk of the railway station, and within of the post '. and telegraph offices', and was tjccpnd onlv to * ll « Oraud Hotel, Thorni are many other hotels iu the vicinity which really are no credit to the city whose licenses have been renewed, and why Wain's Hotel was selected is difficult to understand. Wain's Hotel cost .£1;"),000 some few years ago, another of the Dunedin publicans whose license was taken away recently spent £2o(.)0 on his house, and so on. The people who invested their money in these houses, therefore, have good : grounds for complaining that their properties have been confiscated to i the public good. The law in effect ordered them to spend their money on improving their houses, and promised them a renewal of licenses during good behaviour, The law has no right to destroy their property in the hotel now. On the other hand the Temperance party say '-We do not touch a single nail in pour house: we do not interfere with your property in the slightest degree: we only take away from you the license to sell spirituous liquors in it. You never had more than one year's property in the license, and now it seems desirable for the public good tha.t the

license should be discontinued." Xow there is a great deal' to be said on both sides of this question. It is true that the publicans have been compelled by law to spend large sums of money to provide hotel accommodation, and it is also true that they would never have spent their money in that way only that they believed, and indeed had a right to believe, that their licenses would be continued. On the other hand what the Temperance people say is true, and in addition to j this it is true that drink is the greatest J curse of humanity, and that it would be a blessing if it were swept off the face of the earth. Incongruous as it may appear, we honestly I sympathise with both the publican and ! the prohibitionist. We sympathise with the man who sunk his all in a public-house only to find himself beggared twelve months afterwards, we unhesitatingly sympathise with any and every effort to put down intemperance—and our object is to suggest a means of doing justice • to both. To compensate the liquor traffic would be impossible. It would inflict a burden on the people that they could not bear, and the only thing that can be done, in our opinion, is to make the traffic compensate itself. Let us take Temuka, with its , five hotels, for instance, and let two of j these houses be shut up. Now the ■ sliutting up of the two hotels improves I the position of the other houses greatly, because of" increased trade. Let the license fees of the other three hotels be increased, and let the amount derived from such increases be used as a fund for giving compensation to those who lose their license. In a few years again shut up more houses and inincrease the license fee again—and so on to the end. Now in that way the liquor traffic would be wiped out gradually ; the present race of publicans would get something to start them afresh in some other line of business: no one would be ruined, and the ends of the Temperance party would in the course of time be attained. If the publicans and Temperance people took our advice they would both adopt this course, and endeavor to give it legal effect as soon as possible. But we do not suppose they will, for neither side seems disposed to reason. The publican sees no reason why he should be interfered with by a lot of fanatics; the Temperance party think it is better to take the license from publicans and let them do the best they can in other walks of life than that they should continue to deal ruin and misery and degradation, vice and crime all around them. Both parties are determined to have their own way ; so there is very little use in arguing the point with them. We may say, however, that a moderate course, such as we have, pointed out, would be the safest, the speediest, and the best, and we should not be surprised to see it adopted yet. [.Since the above article was in type we have learned, that the Hunedin Licensing Committee have recon= sidered thejr decision, and granted a license to Wain's Hotel],