PUBLICANS' LICENSES.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3399, 8 June 1868, Page 3

PUBLICANS' LICENSES.

To the Editor of the Daily Southern C*om. Sir,— A letter, Bigned "An Old Publio»n," appears in this morning's iHsue of your paper. The advice contained in that letter is deserving of the graves* consideration of every individual eDgaged in that at present unpopular traffic. Being unfortunately obliged to follow the same vocation for a livelihood as th*t of your correspondent the " Old Publican," I take the liberty of offering a few suggestions in reference to the trade, which it seems he has by wme overnght omitted. Your correspondent, "An Old Publican," although he has glanced at the a'tered circumstances of the province, ha* forgotten two material facts necessary to the elucidation of hw argument. In 1863-4, when the three million loan was flying about— when it was thought that the confiscated land of the rebel natives would in a short time repay all the expenses of reducing them into subjection — a publican, or any other shopkeeper or person engaged in trade, could afford to pay any amount demanded for a license to carry on his business- Then, every man that came from the Wailcato or any other military settlement had his pockets full of monej. Now, the military settlements ara aban* doned. The debt remain^ but the increased population, whose consumption of dutiable articles it wai imagined would pay the interest on that debt — where are they ? What has become of Tauran^a and Opotiki settlements that two years ago rivetted the eyes of all speculators ? Now they are nearly depopulated. But;, Mr. Editor, I am forgetting my argument, which I ought to have stated without 10 much digression. I do not exactly remember when the £40 license fee was imposed in Auckland ; but this I know, that exactions imposed when the province was at the meridian of prosperity, when her timber and firewood trade gave employment to her whole population, are, to use the mildest term that I can employ, oppressive to-day. In 1854, when the then Governor, Grey, called the Provincial Council into existence, what were the pecuniary circutnttancea of the province ? Then, alth >ugb we had been governed for some twelve years previously by a Government in whose appointment we had no voice, we had fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds on hand to commence housekeeping with. How much have we nowt After deducting ihe expected publicans 1 licenses on the Ist day of July, how much will the annual provincial revenue amount to? It seeoo» that our present Superintendent, with all, his boasted clearheadedness, c mmitted that fault, during last session of the General Assembly, of so effectually pawning, or, to use a more classical term in use with tha General Assembly, hypothecating his dividend of the provincial revenue that he has nothing more to expect from that quarter. Ihe greatest source of revenue at present is the publicans 1 licenses, and, if they will be advised by me, they will not pay one shilling more into the Provincial Treasury until their trade is relieved from those oppressive restrictions which are equally unknown to England, Ireland, and all the Australian colonies. — I am, &0., , A Young Pdbmoan. t