THE NEW ENGLISH LICENSING BILL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 39

THE NEW ENGLISH LICENSING BILL.

A SCHEME OF COMPENSATION.

(Fbom Oub Own Cobebspondent.) LONDON, April 23. Three days ago Mr Akers-Dougkus, as Home Secretary, introduced, on behalf of the Government, the measure which, after

long and -earnest delibration, had been decided upon by the Cabinet as the most feasible and convenient mode of dealing with the vexed question of the liquor trade. The purport of the new Licensing Bill has been very lucidly and succinctly summarised as follows: — "The bill recognises that, whatever be the exact legal definition

of a publican's status, that which is rated as property, taxed as property during his life, and made subject to the death duties when he dies, must in equity be treated as property when the State wishes to dispossess him. Penalties for misconduct remain exactly as they are, but the bill piovides that, when a renewal of a license is refused upon public grounds to a man who has not forfeited it by misconduct, he shall receive compensation calculated upon the same basis as the death duties which would 1 be exacted from his heirs if he died 1 in popsession of the license. It proposes, further, that the compensation, fund shall be pTOvided by a graduated tax upon all the publichousee in the district, to be locally raised and administered under uniform rules drawn up by a central body. Thus the individual is compensated while the " trade" is not ; an arrangement which seems to give

equitable consideration to the fact that, while the individual has been induced to invest his capital upon faith in the continuity of public policy, the monopoly as a whole is one which has grown up irregularly and by public oversight."

Sir Henry- Oampbell-Bannerrran once more displayed his curious ineptitude and out-of-tcuchmess', alike with the House and with his own (alleged) party, by promptly announcing that he and his party would give " the most strenuous opposition to the bill at every stage." He objected (1) to the license-renewal powers being transferred from the. local magistrates to the quarter sessions ; (2) to anything which gave the licensee a vested interest in his license ; (3) to any compensation out of public funds to licensees dispossessed as supje-rfluency. But Mr Balfour promptly pulverised these contentions, as well as others by different

speakers, which had evidently been prepared in ignorance of the (nature of the coming bill. The Premier pointed out that the Quarter Sessions constituted the present Court of Appeal, and only the intermediate authority would be removed, while compensation would be paid' to dispossessed publicans only out of a fund virtually subscribed by the publicans who were left in possession.

But Mr Balfour's most effective point was his answer on the vested interest question. "How can you, the Liberal party, possibly object with any consistency to the publicans' veabed interest in their licenses being recognised," he said in effect, " seeing that your own Government recognised publicans' licenses as property for the purposes of the death duties and for other purposes of taxation? You can't have it both ways. If you make licenses property in order to

levy taxes cm their value, you must do so also if for the public benefit you dispossess tho owner." Or, in the words previously quoted : That which is rated as property, taxed as property during his life, and made subject to the death duties when he dies, must in equity be. treated as property when th^ State wishes to dispossess him. This reasoning impressed the House very strongly, and when a division was taken the Go-vp-nnment scored more than double their normal majority, beating Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman and his supposed followers by the handsome balance of 167 — more than two to one. Sto much for Campbell-Banner-man's command over his " followers" (?), who would join him in resisting the bill "at every stage" ! Either he was a dreadfully bad prophet or else he must be a singularly feeble leader. Can he by any chance be both?