[To THE EDITOR OF THE "spiarreroa..1 SiR, — It is seldom that
one can fairly accuse the editor of the Spectator with unfairness to a correspondent, but I sincerely hope you will be able to qualify your note in reply to "A Liberal" in your issue of the 24th ult. He makes what seems to me to be a good point in contending that compensation which is paid for by "the trade" should not be held up to reprobation, or for alteration; and you reply that you "do not admit that the trade' provide the compensation out of their own funds," and that "the money out of which compensation is paid belongs to the State as much as rates and taxes." The contributions to the compensation fund are undoubtedly pro- vided by "the trade," and the Act of 1904 means nothing unless that the money so contributed must be employed for the purpose of compensating owners of extinguished licensed properties. I follow the Spectator so closely that it will disturb my strong sense of its fairness if in its desire to see an attempt made to raise more money from licenses it would advocate confiscation of the compensation money. Incident- ally, may I mention that I do not think that more money can be raised by increasing the license money, as only another-
turn of the screw is necessary to bring some of the over- capitalised breweries to the ground P—I am, Sir, &c., [We cannot see that we were unfair. We merely stated our position, which is that the so-called compensation money is really a belated payment in consideration of the value of the license, which ought to go straight into the Treasury. If compensation is granted, it should come out of national funds. In our opinion, however, a time-limit was the proper way in which to deal with compensation. We cannot publish any more letters on this subject.—ED. Spectator.]
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