HOTEL LICENSES AND LAND TENURE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1291, 26 November 1896, Page 19

HOTEL LICENSES AND LAND TENURE.

TO THE EDITOR. " With what measure ye meet, it shall be measured uuto you again." Sir, —The above are the words of earth's greatest Teacher. They are memorable words ; burning- words ; true as Holy Writ, and strong as the foundations of the Commonwealth. Our friends the Prohibitionists are, with regard to hotel licenses, advocating a system of wholesale spoliation. They are promulgating far and wide the doctrine of confiscation without compensation. Are they aware of the inevitable tendency of such a doctrine, should it once take firm hold of the public mind? It is all very well to talk glibly about robbing hotelkeepers and turning their families out of doors, but has it ever occurred to these would-be reformers that the next step the public will take will be to confiscate the land ? Let once the idea take firm hold of the public mind that, by an Act of Parliament, they can invade and subvert individual rights, and lay violent hands upon private property, and the end of social order will be not far to seek. The Prohibitionists have much to answer in this respect. They are instilling into the minds of the colonists dangerous and revolutionary ideas. For if we can take one man's living from him without compensation, we can, just as justly, take another man's land, or his house, or anything that he has. Our friends are "sowing to the wind," and, if they succeed, they " will reap the whirlwind." The principle which they are now industriously promulgating will, in the end, recoil upon themselves, and they will receive ' f Good measuro, full to the brim and running over." —I am, &c, Libertas.