ENGLISH LICENSING BILL

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 444, 22 December 1908, Page 2

ENGLISH LICENSING BILL

The English Licensing Bill which was recently killed by the House of Lords, had for one of its chief aims the reduction of a number of hotels or public-houses, as they are called at Home, to reasonable proportions. Of course, the question as to what are such proportions is a debateable one. Viscount Peel, ex-Speaker of the House of Commons, and Chairman of the latest Royal Commission on Licensing, and a Conservative withal in politics came to the conclusion, that, considering the present tastes of the English people, reasonable proportions would be 1 hotel to every 700 people in the towns, and 1 to every 400 in the country districts. The bill virtually embodied Viscount Peel’s suggestion, though varying it to the extent of adopting a sliding scale, with 1 hotel to 400 people at the bottom and 1 to 1000 at the top, and special provision for the treatment of exceptional cases. In practice this would have meant the suppression of 30,000 licenses in England and Wales, Some parts of the Old Country are alarmingly overstocked. Winchester, for example, has 1 publichouse to every 167 people, Stamford 1 to every 125, and Monmouth Ito every 63. The bill d'id not propose to effect this reduction all at once, but to extend it through 14 years, a period which was altered in Committee to 21 years. Compensation was to be paid for the licenses suppressed, though the compensating fund was to be raised by a levy upon the publicans who retained their licenses, and not by a draft from the public purse. Moreover, the granting of compensation was purely an act of expediency. In strict justice, the licensees had no right to it. A second chief aim of the bill was to secure for the State the monopoly value of licenses. Just what this is there is some difficulty in defining ; but it may be thought of in a general way as the value which is added to a publican’s business through the State’s limitation of the number of his competitors. If everybody was as free to sell beer as to sell boots, they would have no monopoly value. Up to 1495, everybody in England was free to do that. Since then the licensing system has more or less limited the number of publicans, and as time has gone on this action of the State has, in ever increasing measure, given the publican a profit over and above his legitimate profit as a trader. It is the principle of the unearned increment applied to business. The bill provided that after a period of 14 or 21 years that increment is to come into the public purse. The way in which it was to be got there was perfecty simple. During the period named licenses would be renewed on payment of present fees but at the end of that period, fees corresponding to the value of the licenses would be charged. That applies to old licenses. From the first new licenses would have to be paid for according to their full value. Now that the Licensing Bill has been dropped, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will possibly accomplish this aim of the bill by raising the English license fees to some such level as that of the high license system of America. A third aim of the bill was to place the drink issue in the hands of the. people. Now it is entirely out of their hands. Landlords and Magistrates are mastery of the situation. If the owner o£ a wide domain says there are to/ he. no public-houses on that there are none, even , thougjjfthis tenants,’ in any, number, wjjfcto. iiatiave. some. If the'M^gistratjy;

percent of the people wish them not to be there. Huge majorities of the inhabitants of some districts have asked for Sunday closing, and yet it is denied. Gallant little Wales has sent to Parliament a body, of representatives every one of wfiom is pledged to local veto, but local veto is withheld. The publican party pretends to oppose the bill in the interests of the people, whereas in truth it is afraid ot the people. If not, it would support; the bill, which stands for popular control. The bill proposed to let the people at once decide as ! to whether new licenses shall be granted, and ultimately to decide whether any licenses shall be| granted. Other proposals of the bill were the reduction of the hours for the Sunday sale of drink from 6 to 3 per day, the increase by at least 3 miles of the distance which the bona fide traveller must go on Sunday for a drink, the provision of an arrangement for excluding children from hotel bars, and the registration and inspections of clubs. Each of these proposals, though not as exhaustive as it might be, is capable of effecting immense good. Take, for example, the one referring to clubs. No one can now check their formation. They can sell drink every hour of the day and night. They are as closed to the public as private houses. In their secret chambers every nameable type of devilry is believed to thrive unchecked. This useful Bill has been iguominiously murdered by the House of Lords. What is that House? In the main, it is simply a mob of aristocratic hooligans. Worse than that, it is very largely a conglomeration of drink traders. One out of every four of its members is financially interested in the drink traffic. Lord Salisbury owns n publichouses, Lord Cowper 22, Lord Dudley 33, the Duke of Northumberland 36, the Duke of Rutland 37, the Duke of Devonshire 47, the Duke of Bedford 50. Lord Derby 72. How loug will England tolerate this state of affairs ?