LIGHT-HEARTED BURGLARY

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 947, 30 April 1908, Page 21

LIGHT-HEARTED BURGLARY

But the most serious feature of ‘ this Bill is the carejess and light-hearted manner in which (the Government have treated the vast financial interests in-

volved. The capital invested, and lawfully invested, in the brewing trade is Of this, by a stroke of the pen; a very large part is to be absolutely wiped out. Of the 250,000 shareholders in breweries, a very large number Will be deprived of all interest on their shares for fourteen years, and many will lose their capita' as well. The effects of such a financial cataclysm cannot be foreseen, but they may well prove exceedingly grave. Thousands of men and women, for no fault of their own, are to be reduced to penury. Banks and insurance companies will suffer in the general upheaval, but the worst feature of all will be the destruction of al confidence in the Ministry. When we remember that ■credit depends on confidence, and that there is no reason why similar methods should not hereafter be applied to other trades than the licensed one, we obtain some idea of the immense harm wnich is being done by thus confiscating some hundred millions of capital.—* “Daily Mail.’ NOISY AND INEFFICIENT. One obvious flaw is that it takes .no notice of the fact that licensed premises ■differ from those next door, not merely by having a license, but also by reason of heavy expenditure, dictated in great part by the licensing authority, to make them fit for pub ic-house purposes, and thereby unfit for any ot’ner. . • •

Like a great deal of Radical legislation,' it (the Bill) makes a great show ol action, and causes great disturbance and annoyance, but what it is really going to do for the promotion of temperance is not easy to discover. —“Times.” AN OUTRAGEOUS BILL. It is the fashion to belaud Licensing Bills, however ill they are contrived, as honest attempts to advance the cause of temperance. We cannot think that this present Bill deserves any such praise. It is so outrageous in its provisions that it is difficult to believe that any Government could seriously contemplate its ever being permitted to pass into law. And yet a worse Bill on which to go to the country it is hardly possible to conceive. Docile as the majority is, it ought not to be impossible to defeat such a measure even in the present House of Commons. The effort to do so is at all events worth making.—“ Morning Advertiser.” CONTRARY TO THE WILL OF THE NATION. We shall deal at greater length with this iniquitous measure when opportunity has been afforded for greater study of its full scope and- significance. But its character stands exposed. It means spoliation, the dislocation of a great industry, the disturbance of an immense capital and the actual destruction of a large portion of it. It is an unnecessary Act because licenses are being extinguished under the Act of 1904 with all the rapidity that is prudent, having regard to the danger of inflicting unmerited loss and suffering. That it will fail in its object the example of Scotland, where with far fewer licenses there is far more drinking in proportion to the population than in England, is sufficient to demonstrate. Moreover, the evil of the clubs is left practicably untouched. It is to be hoped that the very virulence of the Bill will prove to be its undoing, for we are convinced that as it stands it is contrary to the will of the nation. —“Financial Times.” DEMAND FOR JUSTICE.

What the State has given it has given ; what the present holders have they have in many cases, probably in nearly all cases, paid for in hard cash. They must be treated as thev stand in the market

to-day, and not with an retrospective investigation of their titles.—“ Morning Post. ” A MEASURE OF SPOLIATION. Never, indeed, in bur Parliamentary history has a Minister of the Crown proposed such a measure of spoliation. It is aimed frankly and fair’ly at the destruction of that branch of the liquor trade which conducts its business on licensed premises. “Globe.” DUMBFOUNDING PROPOSALS. That the Bill will become law we do not for one moment believe, and it may well be that it will prove the undoing of the present Government. Nothing would give the Stock Exchange as a body more genuine delight. • • • Brewers aB over the country must have been dumfounded at the drastic character of the measure. Spoliation is the key-word of the Bill from beginning to end. Thousands of investors who, in perfect faith in the value of their security, have put their money into brewery property are to suffer. —“Pall Mall Gazette.” THE OBVIOUS EFFECT. The most obvious effect of a time limit is to disorganise the industry and force the people who depend upon it to compensate themselves in one of two ways. The more fraudulent, in spite of pains and penalties, will be tempted to adulterate their beverages. Honest dealers, whether wholesale or retail, will be compelled to raise their prices.—“ Standard.” AN INCREDIBLE AND IMPOSSIBLE BILL. The Licensing Bill is simply incredible and impossible. It is a declaration of war against all interests connected with the liquor trade, and a manifesto that it is not for the future to be considered in the category of legitimate occupations. What else can be said of it when it proposes at a swoop that thirty thousand houses shall, without yea or nay, be swept out of existence? This is to happen by the mere action of Parliament, and local differences and discretion are disregarded. . . . And what is the object of all this change? Professedly it is the reduction of drinking; but experience shows that such wholesale attacks on an open trade only drive drinking into secret recesses and increases intemperance. Drinking clubs will almost surely be fostered, in spite of the provisions of the Bill for their registration and inspection. —“Saturday Review. ” MODIFICATION IMPERATIVE. The man who makes and sells intoxicants is not a scoundrel, and must not be treated as if he were an enemy of the human race. If, then, it can be shown that the Bill will produce the wide-spread . ruin in the trade which some of the speakers recently declared, its financial 1 provisions must be modified.—“ Spectator. ” AN INTOLERABLE BILL. The Bill will reuire very considerable remodelling if it is to become at all acceptable ; the country will not tolerate proposals of the kind now put forward. — “Yorkshire Post.” HIGH-MINDED TYRANNY. The Government has got itself into bad odour by a good many of its measures; but the Licensing BiT introduced by Mr Asquith has sealed its doom. Englishmen are patient and will stand much; they will not stand the high-handed tyranny of this Bill. —“Sheffield Daily Telegraph.” A LAW FOR THE RICH. The publican alone is not to feel the result of the Government’s reforming zeal. All classes of people who are not teetotallers are directly or indirectly to be affected, except the rich who possess a well-stocked wine cellar.—“ Western Morning News.” THE MORALITY OF THE HIGHWAYMAN. We imagine that the more people consider the Bill the clearer will it become that Mr Asquith has over over-reached himself. The measure promises to be as bulky and il-knit as Mr Birrell’s Education Bill, and its fate in all probability

will be the same. Under the pretence of removing a social evil, it exalts the morality of the highwayman and the bandit. The cause of temperance will not be advanced by such means.—“ Liverpool Courier. ” THE STAMP OF BIGOTRY. If the Government had laid a deep scheme to give the nation a couple of electric shocks, no one would question its entire success. If, on the other hand, the Bills which were brought in on Monday and yesterday are meant for serious attempts at legislation, there is nothing left for the ordinary person to do but to wonder what name to give to the mental trouble from which the Cabinet must be suffering. . . . There is hardly a section of the Bill as it stands which does not bear the stamp of bigotry. The assumptinon on which it is based would seem to be that trade in alcoholic liquors is an evil which has to be stamped out, and also that it is a profitable evil 1 from which the Government should obtain every penny that it can while the stamping process is going on.—“ Manchester Despatch. ” HUMILIATING AND INSULTING. Obsessed with the fallacy, over and over again disproved, that sobriety is the direct result of a diminution of the number of public-houses, the Government have embarked upon a huge scheme of confiscation in the cause of temperance which will arouse the bitterest hostility throughout the country. ... In the light of the most favourable construction which Mr Asquith could put upon its provisions, it must be condemned at once as a measure which violates every moral and legal conception of ownership, and which interferes with the liberty of the individual to a degree that places the communtiy at large, and especially the poorer section of it, in a most humiliating and insulting position. —“Western Mail.”