COMING LIQUOR LEGISLATION.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 104, 28 December 1868, Page 312

COMING LIQUOR LEGISLATION.

(T’rornthcfLetfda Mercury.)

The public- house .question is a jserio us -one; --.Xhsct _drinking is on the increase we neither'’trfTrrnrr*tioir'deny, but that'it is a terrible vice; ruining thousands 'and hundreds' of thousands, dragging .down to. misery, degradation, and, death -.more/ vict-.ius- than • any other single cause, is not to be doubted.

One cannot look’ over the', reports of the police courts for a single day, still less over the terrible stories of crime and misery unfolded* at every gaol delivery, without seeing the fearfnl.kavcc which, it is making in the morals .and happiness of the people. In one shape or other drunkenness is the root from which nearly all the crime of the country springs.- . Sometimes—more •ffoquoutly,' iudec d, than not—drunkenness is the direct .cause of the ciime committed, In other cases the profligate and drunken character of the prisoner is manifest, and it is clear from facts, if nofc. frbmVaciuul confession,that, drink was the source of the misery and. degradation which at length culminated in a criminal career. This is ho new .observation. It is, in truth,

one of the most hackneyed commonplaces of teetotal lecturers and writers. But it does not destroy the force or value of a fact that it is notorious, and that it has been frequently repeated. Its worth depends on its correctness, not on its novelty, and if anything is to be dolie-’to diminish this gigantic vice, if anything to prevent the misery and poverty which are continually resulting from it, the fact must be borne steadily in mind. There are various ways of dealing with the question. In Liverpool the applications for new licenses are very numerous', and the magistrates have long found it difficult to exercise any

:j - souacl discrimination as to the fitness of the applicants or the needs of the locality. There jire, we see, no less than seventy-six new. applications for licenses this year,. fif:y-one of which are from persons already keeping beerhouses. It is not difficult to under stand the impossibility of exercising a sound discretion in albthese cases, and we .are riot .sure , that the .magistrates of that town now* attempt it. Some years - ago, however, {hey declared their intention of not'attempting it, of giving . a license to every unless .grossly and notoriously .unfit, anu of confining the exercise of their own-powers to the removal or .suspension of licenses in' cases brought'before thein iq/rhe .police. •.•-.This free trade .in drink... as it has been, called, is’ one of the modes which some people have advocated of dealing with the acknowledged difficulty of the’liquor traffic. They argue that competition will prevent the frauds and adulteration now so common, and. that the. free trade principle is as applicable to the sale.oj spirits, and beer as to. the sale of.corn and coffee. The only fault of the comparison is’ that there is no sort of analogy. The great object of legislation with respect to commerce generally should be to remove all restrictions, so that it may developj as. freely as -possible.- Monopolies aud regulations are, therefore, swept ;out. of ike way, in order that a usefu bands wholesome trade may have ..full, room for expansion. Here the case is totally digerent, for it is acknowledged that the greatly increased' consumption of spirits arid other' intoxicating-'drinks would be, nothing but a social curse, and thus the removal; of restrictions and-regulations, if it operated to augment the traffic, would ‘ only briug misery in its train.' The very thing which is sought vpcost. in other trades is deprecated in this. In'them monopoly was injurious,- because -it checked commerce in this it is beneficial for the .very same reason. "We are aim-ing-at totally different' objects ,in the two cases, arid -it is necessary; therefore, to adopt different * courses of treatment.'; Tree trade is the best feeder of wholesome traffic, monopoly the - best starver of'injurious traffic—by -wbieli we mean, traffic-that will pertainly become : injurious when carried to the extent, to" which, if' un-. checked, it would probably attain, . We may, therefore, dismiss the socalled " “ free-trade* 5 theory as ' untenable- Its chief effect vyoald be to increase drunkenness, which is,' of all other results, the one to he most earnestly deprecated. But yet thriibis'a feolfng the prised law'il

imperfect. At a cqnferenfcg heflcllast week at Manchester,..the proposal which met with most favor .was one in firervery "op pos o rf fr o m That alreadyjliseiissed.. Instead of extending the free trade principle, they proposed to pat; an end to it where it now exists. Public-houses, as our readers are aware, require a license from the magistrates, who are bound, according tol general practice, if not according to law, to exercise a supervision, so as to prevent the undue multiplication of such places. But beerhouses require no such liceuse, and the proprietor,has only to pay a certain sum,-and obtain a worthless testimonial to- his respectability in; order to receive his license as a matter of Course. Though, the magistrates have certain powers over such, houses, they have no power to prevent any person applying for ami obtaining a license to conduct a beerhouse, nor is there any other body that attempts to exercise any raogisieiial decision in the mutter. The consequence is that while the magistrates jdo possess some control Over public I houses, they . have very little over beerhouses, Ho doubt, in spite of this, 'there are man;/ beerhouses quite as respectably conducted as public-houses, but still as a whole they are of a'much lower class, and being in the hands of | the brewers, who want to self as much' i beer as they can, and jean put in another man if the first tenant has his license stopped for permitting disorder ly conduct, there is virtually no sort of restraint upon them, and drunkenness is encouraged to the greatest; possible extent. The gentlemen who met at Manchester were, therefore, of opinion that the true way of meeting the evil would be to put the beerhouse in the same position with the publichouse, as far as regards the license required ;; that is, to make the license.jin both cases dependent on the magistrates, so that whatever restraints now operate in the one case may be brought to bear in the other. Such a change was advocated by the present Secretary of State for the ifo-mb Department years before he held his present office, and we should rejoice to learn that a bill brought in by himself, or i assisted by his powerful advocacy, was likely to be introduced into the.next [Parliament for. the purpose of carrying out this desirable reform. . But it seems' more than doubtful whether legislation will stop at this point. . How far it may go, or what character it may assume, we do no; venture to surmise, but there is a long tract to travel and many halting places on the road,; between the present system as altered by the reform-just suggested, uud the total prohibition which has been adopted as the law in some spart of the, "United States. In this ; country the principle of the Maine Liqour Law has not found much favor, but the modification of it known under the name of the Permissive Bill has-a large number of advocates, and, \vha« is very significant, counts its chief.promoters and supporters among the wS'rking classes themselves—that is. among the very class on whose interests the middle and upper class oppo nents of. the measure declare their hostility to be based. In the last Par liament, the question of the Permissive Bill was hardly a practical one, for nothing was clearer than that such a have.been laughed out of the.Ho,use. It seems pretty evident, though we, do not at all anticipate that there wiH'be a majority of members in its favor in the new assembly, that it | will become in this House a far more important and prominent question than in the House which is now virtually expired. It is not all improbable that many of the members for large towns* many of the members who most especially represent the working ■ classes, will hold views favorable to this -measure. This will'not, of course, ensure its success, but when ’we remember what the. large towns have done, it will make thoughtful men, whether favorable or adverse to the scheme -in itself 1 reflect seriously on the probabilities .of its ultimate triumph. la the meanwhile,.however, it" is quite possisibie that'a.sort of compromise may be effected 1 /and that while the sale of drink is subjected to no' iurther, or but little further, restraint than at' present, the permission to drink on the ■ premises may-be-'very greatly-modified 1 if not-eifin'c-ly"withdrawn, except'in the case ot travellers,.. Such is one of'the .suggested

for meeting the evijs-arising out of .the. drinking habits of the present! clay* and we confess that it appears to us to have'very great advantages, for while it avoids the objection of preventing people from drinking what they;ehoose, it gets rid of that public-house life and element front which the,chief evils of the present system result. , There may', nti doubt be objections, perhaps fatal ones to such a scheme, but considering the magnitude of the evil, and the vast variety of opinions as to the best mode of: encountering it, every proposal which tends to prevent or check the drinking habits of our country and age deserves the candid consideration of all thoughtful’and philanthropic men.