CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 445, 17 April 1865, Page 5

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

By the brig Rita, from .Newcastle, wc hare received Sydney papers, from which ire extract the following late intelligence from tlie Cape:— The Commercial Gazette says :— There is little news of importance from the Cape. All was quiet in the direction of the Free State. The U. S. corvette Iroquois, on her arrival at the Cape, had on board a portion of the two crews landed by the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah (late (he Sea King), at Tristan d' Acunha, and taken off from there by t.ic Iroquois. There are twent}--three men of the ■whaler Edward, of New Bedford, burnt near the equator, and four of the schooner Lizzie Stacy, of Boston. The Shenandoah is commanded by Captain Waddell. The commander of the Iroquois expected to find the S-henaridoah somewhore about the Cape coast. There had been a fire on the morning of tho Bth at Port Elizabeth, which destroyed property estimated at about £20,000. We quote as follows from the Cape Argus of the °12th of January : — In our last summary per steamer Ivaffraria we announced that there was litt.;.- danger of any disturbances in the Free State, and that tho Basuto chief, Moshosh, had pledged himself to abide by the award of his Excellency Sir Philip Wodehouse in the matter of the disputed boundary. Since then the Basutos have quietly retired from tlie lands they were directed to abandon, and the President of the Free Stite, accompanied by the bulk of the patrolling iorce, has returned from Bloemi'ontein, the capital of the country. On the afternoon of Mr. Brand's leturn, the municipal commissioners presented him with an addrtsi, signed by one hundred and thirtyone of the inhabitants. In his reply the President, among other things, said that next to an over-ruling Providence he had to thank fcir Philip Wodehouse for the peaceful, and, so far, satisfactory, settlement of thi line question. A coachman,. extolling the sagacity of one of his hor.'oe, observed that "if anybody was to go for to use him ill, he would boar malice like a Christian,"

TTTBLTCAKB' LICENSES. To the Editor of the New Zealand IfEßAin. Sib,—l read with sinecro regret your remarks of this day relative to the approaching applications to the Auckland Justices of tlio Peace for " some forty licenses for new public houses." I must candidly confess that I finished the perusal of that articlo with feelings akin to anger, and was determined to set about the task of writing an indignant reply thereto. I thought I could perceive iu those remarks an attack upon morality, and a bowing down to mammon. In this view, however, I may be wrong, and X therefore give you tho benefit of the doubt, but if you did so write, it is only in unison with the actions of many in this city, -who are influenced more by the powor of tho pence, tliau the pleasure of labouring for the benefit of their fellow mon. The Pai Marires liavo their false gods, and so have those here who fall down and worship tho golden image which their cupidity sots up But I will not pursue this strain any further, but proceed at onco to reply to those portions of your remarks which I consider to be fallacious. Lot me at once inform you that I do not intend to put forward any opinion of my own upon thin subject, as antagonistic to that of yours, for were I to do so, it would bo placing myself iu a false position, for he who would presume to beard a lion in his den, must expoct to conio "out of tho contest completely vanquished, but I shall cull from tho records of tho British House of Commons theso items of proof which may havo considerable weight in tho minds of your unprejudiced readers, although but little in your own ; for as I know I am appealing from the decision of a.judge who hns given sentence before he has heard the evidence, I cannot expect to eeo his verdict reversed.

The fearful vice of drunkenness ■with all its attendant evils has on many occasions occupied the serious attention of Select Committees of tlio Houso of Commons, and their reports tho<*con are to bo found in the published records of tho British Parliament. Men, strong in mind nnd noble in heart, have given up their time aud have put forth their exertions in order to bring before those Committees the evidence of the fearful effects which drunkenness has entailed and does still entail upon tho peace and happiness of society. In bringing forward the following extracts, which represent facts, I trust, Mr. Editor, you will be liboral aud just enough to allow them to have some weight in your consideration, and not dismiss them because the case has already been decided by you, and that (Jreat Britain is not New Zealand. Tou state, " it ia a well known fact, tho moro public houses are increased in number the lean drunkenness there is in a city." The Parliamentary Committee on public houses in 1553 had submitted to it tho following return, which proved that the number of convictions arising from drunkenness in Preston and Blackburn va'iod according to the number of tho licenses granted :—

I'BESTOX. Year. Houses Committed Summary Licensed to Sessions. Convictions IS4B 177 13 51 1849 183 20 7l 2850 188 34 105 ISSI 224 55 116 BLACKBirny. 1848 165 13 53 18)9 170 9 157 ISSO 176 27 191 1851 196 23 193 Before that Committee Sir. Dawson, who represented the Liverpool publicans, gave the following answer to the Chairman's question, " Is the return which you have made given for the purpose of showing that the greater the facility for selling fpirits the more is the drunkenness ?" Answer —•' Yes." Mr. Alderman Wire, the solicitor of the Licensed Victuallers' Society, stated in answer to the following question, " And if there was a greater temptation offered, their improved habits (education of the people) would induce them not to accede to it?" Answer: " I think the more temptation you put iu the way the larger would be the consumption " Question: "Still they (the people) drink less spirits, do they not?" Answer: "The more the temptation is removed the les3 will bo consumed." The publicans of Birmingham put on record at a public meeting of their body, the following as their matured opinion : —" Tliat it is clearly shown by parliamentary returns that vice and drunkenness are in proportion to the number of public-houses and the facilities of obtaining intoxicating drinks." It is my intention to make this communication as brief as possible, and therefore I will omit many other points of proof which present themselves in the pailiamentary records relative to the foregoing phase of the subject and turn to another, that of " free trade" in alcoholic liquors. Sou remark upon that feature, " But in very justice we cannot see why free trado in the sale of one article of common consumption should be considered beneficial to one people and detrimental to another." Sir. Alderman Wire, in answer to another question bearing upon the subject of free trado in liquors, said " That a person who is licensed as a publican ought to have a district assigned to him, which would give him a legitimate trade, because he ilealt in a dangerous art irk " ~

I nil! not add any otlicr parliamentary evidence than the foregoing relative to the free trado nostrum in alcoholic liquors; but I cannot, however, avoid dire ting your attention to tlie reason assigned in tlie last reply, " because he deals in a dangerous article," and consequently the traffic in it should be restricted. But who ever beard of bread and meat being dangerous to the peace and safely of the community, and yet you advocate free trade in those articles from whenco spring all the crimes which tlesli ia heir to. The proposition of free trade in intoxicating drinks has been so often raised in Great Britain, and has been as often demolished there by tho majority of those guardians who take an interest in the moral well-being of the country, and those guardians are tlie representatives of the people in the British House of Commoni, tho jeers of tlie roahn, the learned judges, the justices of tho peace throughout the kingdom, and in fact every member of Bocicty who by his heart and hand labours to promote tlie moial and religious improvement of the people. All thf-ee of our countrymen appear to be of opinion, and have acted upon that conviction for years, that the trade in intoxicating liquors should be restricted and cot made free, but against that almost universal decision stands your own declaration, which says, " If houses are suitable and well conducted wo do not see what right any section of the community, on or off the bench, havo to interfere with restricting the free salo of an article in common use !" If you are right, then of course the majority of the people of Great Britain must be wrong ; but I leave the decision of this point to yourself, for I will not presume totread upon so delicate a ground. The gr<?nt moral phase of the drink question I must pass over, for its plague spots are too often paraded before the eyes of the public not to ba fully Known ; but I cannot avoid quoting a few words of that noble hearted woman Florence Nightingale, a name before which every knee should bend in reverence for her charitable deeds. In speaking of her toil and watchfulness whilst the pestilence was raging around her at Scutari, she said :— " All this I could have borne with deep joy ; but to see the stretcher brought to the gates every hour, laden with men, foaming in tho mouth, and black in the face—not witli the gore of battle, but with tho horrible defacement of a foe more dreadful or deadly than tho Russian or the plague—oh, it is horrible!" And what was that foe ? Why drunkenness. J.P.'s of Auckland, will you, by your coming votes, increase the powers and terrors of that foe which is in arms around us ? Your actions will soon tell. I am, &c., A Family Man. April 14, 1865. [We cannot answer the arguments of our correspondent in a foot-note, and wo have neither lime nor space to go into the matter fully to-day. The arguments are, we know, urged in all sincerity by our respected correspondent, but they will not stand the test of reasoning. The veiy statistics given do not, when examined, as we shall show, benr out the conclusions which those opposed to the granting of licenses would draw from them.—Ed. JT.Z.H ]