LTo THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sri,—Your articles on this Subject are eliciting a good deal of correspondence, and it is interesting to observe how strongly your views are commended by the various writers. You all appear to concur with the opening chapter of the late Lord Peel's Commission " that despite all ameliorative agencies a gigantic evil remains to be remedied." And you advocate a course of action which you assert will prove a -remedy. What the country through Parliament has done so far since the issue of Lord Peel's Report has •been •to convert an annual licence into a freehold, the greatest sacrifice of national in- terests that could possibly be conceived and without any equivalent quid pro quo. And having had their position in the country thus more firmly entrenched, the traders are now willing to be bought out at the enhanced value thus given to them by the State for nothing. It has been well and truly said, -what the State has given the State can take away, and no monopolist can legitimately claim compensation when his monopoly is withdrawn, -because he has had the benefit from it during its currency. And this must be especially true when the withdrawal is made on the ground that its existence has created a gigantic national. evil. Now to return to your remedy—the purchase by the State of the Drink Trade. Hitherto in the world's history the wit of man has failed to find a remedy while making provision for a continuance of the traffic. And yet you propose by making drink shops more attractive and bringing more people into contact with them to diminish the evil. One of the great roots of the evil is the persistent determination of the Britisher to associate drink with every form of amusement and recreation—thus Hippo- dromes and Empire Palaces, and such-like places, must have their liquor bars, though their patrons are in the houses only for an hour and a half at a time. Do you imagine that the substitution of public for private greed for profit will be any benefit? Can you name any civilized State that has adopted your plan? The evil is world-wide, and many nations have tried to cope with it, and it has been found that the only effective way to control a snake is to kill it. You assert that the country will not accept Prohibition. Why not? Because -writers like yourself keep on telling it it will not, instead of telling it that in its own best interests it must, and at the same time urging the Board of Education to enforce instruction in the truth of the subject in all our schools and colleges, as has been done in America with conspicuous results. I could write much more, but space forbids.—I am, Sir, &o.,
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