• An important document bearing on temperance reform was issued
last week. This takes the form of a widely signed memorial outlining a policy on the lines of (1) a great reduction in the number of licensed premises; (2) wide ppwers of local initiative or control. Recognising that compensation has proved the fatal crux in all recent efforts after• reform, the signatories express their opinion that "it would be possible to consent to a scheme under which the Legislature made provision for constituting an independent, authority similar to the Irish Church Commissioners, through whose agency compensation would be provided entirely out of funds raised from the trade for licence-holders whose licences were not renewed solely on the ground that they were not required, or that all licences or any particular classes of licences were being abolished in the locality," it being ex- pressly provided (1) that all the money required should be raised from the trade, and should not pass through the national Exchequer ; (2) that such scheme of compensation should leave undisturbed the present full and unfettered discretion of the . Licensing Magistrates in respect of (a) applications for new licences, and (b) the renewal or transfer
of existing Heelless, and that their discretionary power should be extended to all classes of licences.
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