LORD RANDOLPH AND TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION.

Evening Star, Issue 8279, 26 July 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

LORD RANDOLPH AND TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I read in your Saturday's issue with no little interest the remarks made by Lord Randolph Churchill when introducing his Licensing Bill. Those who have closely watched the public utterances of the noble Lord must admit that no Tory has advanced so quickly or given that close attention to licensing reform as be has. His leaps and bounds forward upon this question have been prodigious. At the rate of his progression he cannot be far from being in accord with the popular will upou this question, for again has the Government of the day been obliged to withdraw their licensing proposals because of their compensation clauses. One must almost come to the conclusion that the day is by when such proposals stand any chance of being accomplished, fori note that the London County Council by a vote of 64 against 49 petitioned the Government against their compensation proposals ; and, judging by the by-elections and Lord Randolph's utterances thereon, there is small prospects of compensation being given by the next Parliament.

The following is the concluding portion of an article in ‘Shortcuts’ by Lord Randolph upon ‘Temperance Legislation’;—“ Prudent observers will have noticed that every Radical or Liberal supporter of Mr Gladstone, when a candidate for parliamentary election, bow pledges himeelf, as a matter of course, to popular control of the liquor traffic, and against compensation to brewers, distillers, and publicans. A few years ago the members of Parliament bound by such pledges were a mere handful ; in the next Parliament they will comprise the entire Gladstonian party. What if they should have a majority ! The trade, attacked and injured as it had never been before, will look in vain to the House of Lords. That august estate will have its hands full with other matters, and will bo in no condition to offer resistance to licensing law reform. A most drastic and, from some points of view, a most unjust and unwise measure might be swept through Parliament, and ‘ the trade ’ would be left lamenting. Such are the signs of the times which the opponents of licensing law reform should seriously consider. If, when that reform comes, as come it must, many of them are injured, and some of them ruined, the responsibility for that calamity will rest solely upon the shoulders of those who obstinately neglected tho favorable time, who blindly allowed the day of salvation to pass away.” Here the claimants for compensation can never make as good a case as at Home, for there, as in Victoria, licenses are often granted before the house is built; here never, as several in this City know to their cost, —I am, etc., Observer, Dunedin, July 23.