THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1892. COMPENSATION TO PUBLICANS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2381, 12 July 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1892. COMPENSATION TO PUBLICANS.

The Compensation to Publicans Bill has been thrown out of Parliament on the voices. It was not allowed even to go to a division. A division list is given, but that does not represent the views of the members as regards the question of compensation. The division list was taken on Mr Duthie's amendment to the effect that the Government should take up the question of dealing with the liquor traffic. No division was taken on the Hill itself, its supporters no doubt regarding it as useless to call for one, and this, we presume, settles the question of compensation. Those interested in the liquor traffic have been deluding themselves with the hope that Parliament would come to their assistance and compensate them for loss of their license, but the result of their first attempt to secure such a boon must open their eyes very widely indeed. There has not been even a good fight made on their behalf. The Compensation Bill has not yet reached us, and we are not, therefore, fully acquainted with its provisions. We have seen a summary of it in some of the newspapers, but we notice that Mr Lawry, who had charge of it, said he had so altered it that it merely amounted to an insurance scheme, under which publicans could provide compensation for themselves. As soon as the Bill reaches us Ave shall have something more to say on it, but meantime we must deprecate any impediment being placed in the way of public?ns forming a fund out ef which compensation could be provided. To affirm as a princple that the country was liable for compensation to publicans would be wrong, but to carry this idea to the extent of standing in the way of the liquor traffic compensating itself would be going to cruel extremes. We presume, therefore, that, notwithstanding Mr Lawry's assurance to the contrary, there was something in his Bill which rendered local rates liable for taxation, and that that is what killed it. In the summary of the Bill we noticed local bodies were called upon to provide a share of the compensation, and doubtless that is what decided its fate. We have already suggested a means of making the trade compensate itself, but as that ! would have to be done systematically we do not expect that it will be adopted. The Prohibitionists are in a hurry to shut up tUe the Publicans will not haw tkem sh f up at all, and between the two u' iv systematic scheme for dealing with the subject cannot hope to receive fair consideration.

' THE RACE OF LIFE. By the last mail there came from Home news of a fearful catastrophe which recently took place at the Hampstead Heath railway station. It was on a holiday, and the Londoners were enjoying the fresh air of Hampstead Heath, when it came on to rain, and they made towards the railway station to return by train to their homes. About 80,000 people had to pass down a staircase to the railway station, and somehow as they were crushing their way through it one woman fell. Others fell over her, and shortly a large number of women and children were thrown in a heap at the bottom of the stairs while the crowd still surged forward, and trampled them under foot. This continued for some time, and when at last those on the ground were lifted up, it was found that eight children and two women were quite dead. Of course great indignation has been expressed at the conduct of those who trampled these poor creatures to death, but after all what is it but a very apt illustration of everyday life '? Every day in the year, in every so-called civilised country, the rich and the powerful, and the shrewd and sharp-witted, are trampling' the weak, and the poor, and the defenceless under foot, reducing them to abject misery and despair, crushing their v 'j"*v life out and laying them in an untimely wave. The trampling of ten persons To dea* u at the Hampstead Heath railway station a\7 akene J. gjeat indignation, but the continual o 7' nain £ of the poor, under which 76" per ceiu. of the British laborers die in the workhouse, goes on from day to day and year to year entirely unnoticed. And it is not always the poor alone who are trampled under foot. Very often the rich and the powerful fall also, because of some misfortune or intellectual inapititude for fighting life's battle, or probably having to contend with unscrupulous and shrewder persons than themselves. They too, very often fall, and notwithstanding the gush about the brotherhood of man. and the vaunted charitableness of Christianity, no one will stoop to pick them up. On goes the crowd, crushing them under foot, sinking them lower and lower in the social mire, till in the end they disappear. This is a true picture of our social system, and it appears ( to us that there is nothing wonderful in some people exhibiting a desire for a change. There is enough and to spare for all. and there is no reason why means should not be devised by which human beings should be placod beyond the danger of death from starvation.