What is Thought of Compensation in the United States, the British Colonies, and Elsewhere.

Numerous States of the Union have passed prohibitory laws, in some cases absolutely, as in Maine, Kansas, and Iowa; in others by local option, as in Massachusetts, Michigan, parts of Pennsylvania, and others. In Canada absolute prohibition is in force in the Great Western Territory, and local option in the rest of the Dominion, under which a large number of counties and cities have put down the sale of intoxicants. Now, in not one of these has the right to compensation been granted, and the traffic has not even dared to ask for it. In the Australasian Colonies, Queensland page 9 has enacted local option, without compensation. In New South Wales an active agitation for local option is in progress, the promoters of which are emphatically against compensation. In New Zealand, after many years' legislation, local option has been given, the Licensing Committees having power, entirely or partially as they choose, to suppress the traffic, without compensation, a power that has frequently been exercised. In Victoria only has compensation been granted, and there an attempt is being made to pay it out of an extra license fee imposed on the surviving licensees; but it is not a success, and a strong feeling is growing against compensation. The small independent kingdom of Rarotonga, in the Hervey Group, Southern Pacific, made prohibition a part of its original Constitution, and has never had a licensing system at all, consequently has no provision for compensating anybody, and certainly will not give it to the infamous smugglers from New Zealand, who, as their Queen complains, are surreptitiously introducing intoxicants into the islands, a practice against which she appeals to the Government and the Temperance reformers of this Colony.