CORRESPONDENCE.
AN OPEN LETTER FROM JUDGE HUGHES TO THE BISHOP OF CHESTER ON PUBLIC-HOUSE REFORM.
[Our readers will be interested by the letter which his 'honour Judge Hughes has written to the Bishop of Chester on Public-house Reform.—Enrrous OF Spectator.'
DEAR BrsHon,—You may claim me as a thorough—though you may think a somewhat tardy—convert, and may reckon on me for any help I can give to your plan, as I think it out- and-out the best thing we have yet had before us in England. I should have come to your standard sooner but for the fact that I am an old soldier in the Temperance campaign, and thirty years' experience has left me in Mr. Biglow's frame of mind, when, as an old and often-baffled Abolitionist, be wrote :— " Not as I'm one thet much expex Millenium by express to-morrer- They will miscarry—I recollox Tu many on 'em—to my sorrer." Twenty-five years ago, when I was Member of Parliament for Lambeth, I, with other members (amongst them Mr. Rath- bone, by the way, whose name I hope you have among your backers), made a resolute effort to unite all the sections of Temperance men in an attempt to pass a moderate measure. But we failed through the determined refusal of the "Stal- warts," led by their paladin, Sir Wilfrid, even to consider our compensation-clauses. And since that time no one seems to have had any better fortune, which I attribute in great measure to the fact that they have all gone on the old lines.
Now, what makes me more hopeful for your crusade is, that you have got so firm a hold on a new principle, so far as England is concerned. At any rate, that is how I understand it,—viz, (1), that you eradicate the motive of private profit on the sale of alcohol ; (2), that you leave the licensed victualler free to earn as large a bonus as he can on every class of solid and liquid victuals that doesn't contain alcohol ; (3), that you will give fairly assessed compensation to all bond -fide members of the trade; (4), that you will do this without touching the pocket of the ratepayer ; and (5), that the surplus profits from the sale of alcoholic drinks will be cautiously devoted to the benefit of the community, which has to bear the tremendous burdens resulting from drunkenness.
This being so, I really have some hope that you may even count on the support—or, at any rate, on the neutrality—of the " Stalwarts." They can scarcely oppose for very shame, after having gone in for the Bill of the present Government, which would probably, if it passed, leave three-fourths of the English people with at least all their present facilities for getting drunk, and set every parish by the ears. I cannot but hope that you will in time, and when your proposals have been well discussed, bring over to your side, not only the Unionist Party, but all reasonable men in the threatened trade. So with all good wishes for the good cause and its champions, I am, yours very truly, T. Humus.
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