Morning journal and courier., 1883-09-14
JOHN BRIGHT ON TEMPERANCE.

SO1AN ON
 What John Bright has to say on any sub- ject is well worth attention. for he is both good and great man. He has recently made some very interesting remarks upon the temperance question, the oc- casion being the opening of 8 new and handsome coffee-house building by the Tenn peranee Alliance at Birmingham, England. Mir. Bright is himself total abstainer, and has always shown a deep interest in the cause of temperance, yet his address was not much like those which temperance meetings are accustomed to.
 He started in by announcing that he could not agree with those who believe that drunk enness can be eradicated by prohibitory leg islation. The question, he argued, was, af- ter all, one of politics, and it's advocates had not used very admirable tactics. They had gone before Parliament with bill whose suc- cess in the present state of opinion, was ab- solutely impossible. They proposed at one step to get everything or to get nothing. They declined to go, step by step, as all great reforms and improvements in legisla- tion must necessarily go, or to work in 8
 -AAAAASA public opinion of the country. This was not only unwise, it was also unjust. It was his opinion that if a trade in a country is permit ted by law it has right to be defended by law, and so long as that trade is not con- demned by Parliament it has a right to de- mand that it shall not be subjected to pas- sionate and nasty legislation. The prohibi- forv hill TYrnrnooa fn Darliopoapk chon consideration for the interest of the keepers Of public houses There were 1000 houses which sold Intoxicating drinks in Birming- ham, and the bill provided no compensation to them for the destruction of their business, but would extermirate them as if they were vermin.
 When he came to tell what ought to be done MT. Bright gave utterance to some rath- CT novel views He would place the power to issue licenses in the hands of the munioi- pal corporations, and would have them for bidden to increase the number at present granted, except in proportion to the popula ton. The corporations should have the power, within certain limits, of fixing the amount of the license tax, and when the temperance sentiment grew stronger in 8 town or borough the traffic might be limited by increasing the amount of the tax. part of the money obtained from taxes might be used to pay the police expenses, thus reduc- ing the burden of local taxation, and another portion might be used as compensation to the owners of houses which the corporation might decide to suppress outright as being injurious to the community. The corpora ton might select each year the houses which were most injurious and ill-conducted, sup press them, and pay their owners just com pensation for their loss oat of the license-tax fund. MT. Bright thinks this plan would gradually close out all the dramshops, and would make the public houses which were licensed more orderly and respectable.
 MT. Bright calls prohibitory legislation Legislation by hurricane" His plan for the regulation of the liquor traffic has some ex- eellent featurss, but his idea of compensat. ing liquor dealers for suppressing their busi- ness will not strike the advocates of prohi- bition favorably, though it will not displsase the liquor dealers and their friends. Prohi- bitionists in this country think nothing of wiping out by Hurricane legislation" all the liquor business they can get at, and they do not for moment think of allowing liquor dealers whose business they can annihilate any compensation.