THE PROHIBITIONIST.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4098, 27 April 1892, Page 2

THE PROHIBITIONIST.

Pvhlifhi by the courtesy of the Editor of Wairaraya My Tims, wider Me auspices of the New Zealand Alliance for the prohibition of the liquor traffic, Maskrlon Avxilhry.

When ratepayers demand th> entire extinction of oil places for Ote sale of Ifgtwrs, f/ieirprai/en/iouM iegratiM, — Charles Mm, Brewer,

[Communications tor this column must ' be addressed to "The Frohibitionißt," care of (Editor of Wairarapa Dam Times.]

The Hon John Balhnce at Fielding the other day announced that compensation to publicans was a plank in his Eadical platform. Mr Ballance is entitled to respect for courageously expressing Lis . opinions, but the sober, steady, overtaxed Radicals of Now Zealand have thus got a nasty slap in the face, In the Old Country the.Tories tried to make compensation to publicans a plank in their platform, and their humiliating failure is fresh in the memory of our readers. This-rotten'Tory plank our Radioal Premier iB prepared to stand upon. We believe fie will crash through it aud meet his political death. This leading New Zealand. Radical thus grovels at the feet of Kinq Bung, and vows that he will serve him unto death. In the real Radicalism of the Old Country a very different state of things is disclosed. A clear, open-, and avowed enmity to the ; liquor traffic is part of the confession of faith ol Home Radicals. This open declaration of Mr Ballance is further remarkable'for the' reason that the Licensed Victuallers who had a little Bill framed in their interests during last session of Parliament had not (he audacity to make' a claim for compensation I Mr Ballance offers more than the publicans have dared to ask I We would like Mr Ballance to tell us by whom this compensation is to be paid, Is he prepared to float a loan and put mote of the property,ol the Colony in pawn to. do this ] Does ho wish the ratepayers in districts that are already groaning under the burden of a poor rate to maintain paupers made by the publicans to do this 1 We would also like to know to whom is the compensation to be paid? The publican gets his license for one year, and at the end of the year he has no legal right to a renewal, Then the publican is generally only a tenant, A' bloated' capitalist in one of our colonial cities, who owns several dram shops in a colonial town, is boasting loudly of how his gold crushed the vote ot the people. The publican tenants of this man have no. chum to compensation; Is the Radical Mr Ballance willing to compensate tbo capitalist? We.should like Mr Ballance to tell us how far his pot compensation scheme is to extend? The barman, the barmaid, and the "chncker out" lose their occupation when the dram-shop is shut; Should they be compensated 1 Then the pawnbroker also will find his occupation gone; Should he be'componsatedl We trust Mr Ballance will speedily expound his beer-burrel principles and gratify the reasonable curiosity of all true Reformers.

Considerable interest was taken recently by the readers of this column in tho exposure of the astonishing untruths circulated in aid of the publican party about the failure of prohibition in Victoria. We, pointed out that Victoria so far from being a prohibU tiou colony was really the most, drunken Colony in the Southern Seas and that in its present financial distress it was reaping the fruits of the profligacy of the'" Moderate" policy, A very striking confirmation of our representation of the cause of VictoriaVmisery has just come to hand in the shape of a leading article in the Melbourne Age of April 2nd, This influential Bidical journal is no barrel organ of the publicans, We would respectfully request the Honorable Member for Masterton to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the following extract from thiß article : " Our drink expenditure is about £7,000,000 per annum, or a little over £6 per head, including again babies, women, and teetotallors, .If Great Britain spent on the same scale, its drink bill would be about £260,000,000 per annum, or about three times its publio revenue. The human imagination can scarcely picture the general alarm, of mankind if England were actually expending suoh a sum for suon a purpose, Tho " progress of the: nation, " under such conditions, would of coarse bo a brief and breathless pilgrimage into the Insolvouoy Court or the Lu'natio Asylum—probably into both. But this is our actual performance in this 'colony, We' are 'depressed;" we are sighing for new Ipaus; we are anxious, about English deposits and depositors; wo think prosperity will only .return when fresh showers of English gold begin to fait out of the heavens upon ns. Yet we drop, say three new loans 0f.£2,000,000 eaoh down our own throats every year in the lorm of intoxicating liquors I We expend in drink annually enough money to give effect tea new and big liailway Bill every twelve months or to provido every artisan with Bix days' work at full wages every week, and to. turn Victoria into a mere terrestrial paradise. A nation is to bo judged by its ideals, and an 11 ideal" is something for which a community is willing to put its hand into its breeches pocket, Judged by this test, tho true ''monument" of English character would bo an Alps, a yearly renewed Matterhom of empty beer barrels—27,soo,ooo of them in one stupendous pile I While as, lor Victoria, it 3 opitapb might be recorded in the fact thatin its darkest hour of'' depression," amid tho orash of falling bauks and the clamor of unemployed .multitudes, ,it kept its spirits up by pouring seven millions worth of bad spirits down its melanoholy throat,"

Mr Balance's Oompensation-to-pubhcari-plapk looks curious in the light ofEngl'ish history, The trulpc has again and again been restricted, and no compensation was ever given. Some of these precedents,' says Sir Wni. Fox, go back as far as the time of Edward 111, (1317), Henry VII (1495), and Edward VI (1652), More, recently in 1757, a time of famine in Ireland, aSdistillerieswere prohibited, and again in 1706,' 1809, and 1814, In 1853 the B'cbt.bh Sunday Closing Bill was passed, when the sale of spjrits immediately felloff by 1,250,000 gajlons. In 1878, the Irish {3unday Closing-Act took from the publicans the best day Qf the week, equal to all the other.- 'six, when the trade tried, but unsuccessfully, tp get a compensation clause inserted. In. 1860,' Mr Gladstone's Wjne Bill was/passed avowedly with the intention of lessening the publiehouse trade. In 1869, Sir- Selwyn 'lbbetson's. Aot closed a large number of beer shops—in Liverpool alone, 300. 10,1872, ljord:Auerdare , s.BJii'reu:!Cf t !.t h ? jipur's p'f sale in publichouses by 24 in every,week,. ; !'lu;lßJ7i'LordMeldon'B Apt closed 557 houses iti Dublin 'ln JSB7, tjje Jrisb* Sunday Closing Bjlj, a compensation clause, was deliberately rejeoted in Parliament. .In 1881,- the Welsh 1 Sunday Closing Bill, and, in 1882, the Scotch Steamboat Sunday Closing.-'Bili were passed ; arid in 1888 came the prohibition of : the use of publichouses as election committee rooms, and another prohibiting the payment of wages ln'publicbousesi In yot'.QM of ikst mm, though all largely ; the ■ profits'- or" the traffic, was compensation granted,