XX. Compensation to the Drink Trade

COMPENSATION TO THE DRINK TRADE. (Fortniyhtly Review, 188JS.)

The political history of the last fifty years is marked by a development of the self-governing power of the English people greater than is to be found in any century of our annals. The frequent and large extension of the Parliamentary suffrage has placed in the hands of four or five millions of our people the direct power of modifying or controlling the legislation of Parliament. The national character, which is the growth of long tradition, and the political education, which is unconsciously received in some degree, greater or less, by a large multitude of Englishmen, render the possession of such political power comparatively safe. Nevertheless, we are suffering from a too great centralisation, which has overwhelmed Parliament with such a multiplicity of legislative matters as is absolutely beyond the power of any Legislature to deal with. A very large part of the matters which block and obstruct the Houses of Parliament ought to be dealt with locally; but there is no local organisation adequate to deal with them. We are in the condition described by Laminenais. He said: "La centralisation c'est 1'apoplexie du cerveau et la paralysie des extremites." There is no doubt that we are suffering from a congestion of the Parliamentary brain, and from a palsy of the extremities of the people. When, therefore, the Local Government Bill of the Ministry was first announced, it was received with a goodwill and a confidence seldom equalled since the year 1833. Men hoped to see Parliament hecome truly Imperial in the elevation of its legislative Acts, liberated from the crush and clamour of private Bills and petty interests, which have so long defeated its efforts and dishonoured its supreme prerogatives. They already began to foresee the vigorous and wide spread development of municipal life in every county, and of the local and personal energies of intelligence and will which pervade the self-governing character of our people. But these bright hopes were rudely destroyed by the clauses which place the great drink traffic at the very outset of the Bill, as if it were the palladium of our liberties and the most vital interest of the Common wealth.

The reaction which has set in, not against the high and statesman-like structure of local government, but against the housing, establishing, and endowment of the drink trade under the Imperial roof in this wise extension of the English Constitution, is widespread and profound. The drink trade, like the shirt of Xessus, so clings to the Bill as to he identified with it; and if it be not fatal to the Bill, it will be fatal to the moral and domestic life of the people.

Hitherto the great drink trade has been both tolerated and encouraged by law; nevertheless, its toleration has been subjected to rigorous limits. A license to sell intoxicating drink is not a personal favour granted to any man, but a legal limitation and precaution taken against the trade. It is a restraint imposed upon all men, except the holder of the license, in order to restrict and to minimise the extent of the trade. It was in order " to put away tippling houses," and to restrict the number of places where intoxicating drink was sold, that the first licenses were granted in the time of Edward VI. They were legal restrictions intended, as. far as possible, to lessen the evils of intemperance, which had already become enormous. They were of the nature of " faculties" or "privileges," given to men who were supposed to be trustworthy, and recommended by local testimony as fit to hold the responsible duty of checking the vice of intemperance. And even this license or permission was granted under two limitations. It was limited in time, and ceased at the expiration of the date assigned. It was limited also to good conduct, and was forfeited by any proved abuse. It created no personal claim beyond the letter of the license, no vested interest in the holder of the license, and, above all, no local privilege in the house where he carried on his trade. Such was in the beginning, such has ever been, and such is at this moment the nature of a publican's license. But the six clauses, from 9 to 14 inclusive, of the Local Government Bill would create a vested interest in the man and in his house of trade. The Government is already a sleeping partner in the drink trade, as every Budget shows. This Bill and Mr. Goschen's Budget will create.as many sleeping partners as there are counties in England.

Every conceivable effort has been made of late years by publicans, brewers, and licensed victuallers to establisb their claim " of vested interest." How this claim has been dealt with by those who have treated it judicially may be known from the following facts. The Act 35 & 30 Viet. c. 27, s. 6, thus defines the tenure of a license: "It shall be in force for one year from the date of its being granted." The Act of 9 Geo. IV. c. 1, s. 13, says for one year "and no longer." Mr. Justice Stephen, in the Court of Queen's Bench, November 1882, said: "The Legislature says when we talk of a renewal of the license we do not mean that: but we mean a new license granted to a man who had one before." Mr. Patterson, in his book on the Licensing Acts, says of the Act of 1874: " There is nothing in this or other Acts to make it compulsory on the justices to renew the license any more than in ordinary cases." In the Justice of the Peace, in 1883, it was laid down that " the discretion of the licensing justices to grant, or refuse, or transfer a victualler's license is absolute; and they are not obliged to state any reason for their refusal." Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in the Court of Queen's Bench, May 1878, said: " According to the Act of 1828, the justices had the same discretion to refuse a renewal as they had to refuse the grant of a new license." Viscount Cross, when Home Secretary, declared "that magistrates had just the same power to refuse renewals as they had to refuse new licenses." And Sir William Harcourt, when Home Secretary, in 1883, said: " The law is that every license is annual, and maybe refused. The magistrates have the power to prohibit any sale." How, then, can any man have a " vested interest " in a license, or a right of compensation if it be refused?

Mr. Justice Field, in the Court of Queen's Bench, November 1882, said: " In every case, in every year there is a new license granted. You may call it renewal if you like, but that does not make it an old one. The Legislature does not call it a renewal. The Legislature is not capable of calling a new thing an old one. The Legislature recognises no vested right at all in any holder of a license. It does not treat the interest as a vested one in any way." Baron Pollock, also, in the Queen's Bench. January 31st, 1884, said: " The notion that there is a property of the landlord in a license cannot be considered as sound law." The late Mr. Nash, barrister-at-law, and counsel to the Licensed Victuallers' Association, said: "Now, I a in sorry to say, having looked into this question most exhaustively, and having compared notes with my brethren well versed in these matters, that there can not be the smallest doubt that in the strict sense no such thing as a vested interest exists.... The mere mention of the term ' vested interest ' should be avoided, as it infuriates every court, from the Queen's Bench downwards."

Finally, Mr. Justice Field and Mr. Justice Wills, on Monday, April 30th last, united in the same judgment. Judge Wills said: " In 1874 a new license is defined as a license granted at a general annual licensing meeting, in respect of premises in respect of which a similar license has not been granted before;

1 See pamphlet by Mr. Malms on " Compensation," p. 4-5.

which was a little modified from the definition of the Act of 1872, but only to correct a mistake from the use of the words ' licensed premises,' inasmuch as premises never were licensed, the license being in all cases a personal one."

The compensation clauses, therefore, of the Local Government Bill are not an old right, but a new gift to the publicans. They create a new law, and that by indirect action. If the Bill were entitled " To Amend the Licensing Laws," dealing openly and exclusively with the drink trade, the main issue would be raised upon its own merits. It now comes in by the way, enveloped in a Bill to which, in its constitutional effects, we have as earnestly wished God-speed as we resolutely resist and refuse its action in rooting and extending by new enactments the fatal traffic in intoxicating drink, which henceforward would become ineradicable. In saying this, we are speaking deliberately and calmly. Its roots would spread through the whole government,.central and local, of England, which would be bound over by heavy pecuniary securities to protect and even to extend it.

The effect of creating a vested interest in publicans and public-houses would render it impossible to touch them without compensation; and the amount of compensation may be judged from a statement drawn up by Mr. Caine, based on careful inquiries. He writes as follows: "A new house was built at Newcastle-onTyne at a total cost for site, building, and incidental charges of KOO/. A license from an old house was bought and removed to it, and its value rose to

G300/. The house was shortly afterwards sold for that sum. Under the proposed Bill it would be impossible to withdraw the license, even on grounds of public convenience, without compensation of 5500/. A house in Liverpool with a license, worth 2000L, was bought by a brewer for 10,500J. The compensation would be 8500/. Another house in Liverpool, purchased a few years ago for 800/., before the grant of a license, was lately sold for 8500/.; which would require compensation of 7700J. A gin-palace, near the docks, was built for less than 8000/. All the steamship owners in vain opposed the grant of a license. A leading brewer has offered 20,000/. for it, but the offer has been refused. The compensation would be 12,000/." Other cases might be added; but it is enough to say that Mr. Caine calculates that the Government Bill would endow and protect the drink trade at the cost of 200,000,000/. or 250,000,000/. of money. This compensation would go not only to publicans, but also to brewers, and even still more to ground landlords. Surely the Government itself cannot have foreseen and weighed the consequences of these clauses of the Local Government Bill.

The records of our history show that from the time of Edward III. to this day Parliament has dealt with the drink trade, reducing and prohibiting its sale in England, Scotland, and Ireland, often by extensive and peremptory measures without a particle of compensation. In our Colonies, as in Canada, Local Option and temperance legislation have no shade of compensation. In the United States, as in Maine, Vermont

New Hampshire, Iowa, and Kansas, there is no compensation. A claim for compensation was brought in appeal before the United States Supreme Court. The appeal was dismissed.1

We may leave the question as a question of legal right, and, it may be hoped, also as a question of national policy. On this, if we were to begin to say anything, we should have to say much. But we will only add that the drink trade, which is growing every year, is our national sin, our national shame, and, if not arrested, will be our national ruin. It is destroy ing, more than any other malignant agent, the domestic life of our people, corrupting the manhood of our men, the womanhood of our women, and the innocence of our children.

But it may be said that, if there be no vested interest in strict law, there are equities by which a publican may claim compensation, as for money spent during his year of license upon improvement or enlargement of the house in which he carries on his trade. To this it must be answered: first, that he has had his compensation in his year of monopoly. He has prospered, to the exclusion of all his neighbours excepting those who are licensed monopolists like him self. The facts above quoted, of the sudden and enormous rise of value in houses where the trade is carried on, prove to demonstration the abundant profits upon a slender investment of capital. And next, that if he spends money upon a yearly tenure it is his own imprudence. And imprudence has no claims. 1 Malins on " Compensation," pp. 10, 12.

Who compensates the victims of the drink trade? The havoc and wreck by disease, madness, poverty, crime, and death, of body and of soul, spread without measure through every class. Of all this a little is known to police or to public opinion; but to God, Who reads all the hidden calamities and miseries of private life, one abyss of human sorrow calls to another in the shadow of death. Legislators are bound by the most strict responsibility to know the manifold evils of the drink trade. In this no ignorance can be pleaded in excuse. They can know all, and are therefore bound to know, or to cease to make our laws. Whatsoever be the financial or political interests at stake, we are bound to say, " Salus populi suprema lex." Let all Bills and clauses perish; the salvation of the people is the supreme law.