A second limit to any scheme of compensation should be that no one, save the licence holder himself, should be entitled to any consideration. Big brewing firms that have bought up large numbers of licences are well acquainted with the risks attaching to them. The British public may be anxious to treat the poor licensed victualler generously; but it will hardly sanction the appropriation by wealthy wholesale firms, that thrive by fostering public misery, of large sums of public money. This is the opinion of many by no means opposed to any compensation. Mr. Gladstone, in the House of Commons (15th May, 1890), in speaking of this matter, declared: "This I must say, I cannot conceive any state of things in which the State authority would have the smallest duty or the smallest warrant for looking to anybody in these transactions, except the man with whom it deals--that is to say, the man to whom the licence is issued, and on whom it imposes its responsibility". In any plan of compensation the money should be raised from the publicans themselves. Those remaining benefit by the closing of other houses; for there are fewer shops selling drink, and therefore those left get more custom. This has already been done successfully in Victoria by means of increased licence fees, etc. As the publicans have no legal claim to consideration it cannot be expected that any scheme for their compensation will be permanent. It will rather provide for a softening to them of a time of transition. Within these limits, surely some practicable scheme can be formulated. The following, while dealing liberally with the keepers of licensed houses, would yet be an advance on the present position. Let it be arranged that for ten years the men at present holding licences shall be allowed to retain them; and if during those years the authorities wish to close any public-houses they shall pay the holders compensation based on the following scale: during the first two years, five years' purchase, reckoned on the average profits of the previous three years; during the third and fourth years, four years' profits; during the fifth and sixth years, three years' profits, and so on till at the end of the tenth year no compensation would be payable. The funds for such payments to be raised by increased licensing fees and an extra tax on liquor. No money to be paid to any person but the licence holder himself. At the end of the ten years the number of houses could be reduced to a fixed scale, say one for every 500 or 1000 of population.