[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR." I Sin,—If we were
content to attach more importance to the value of time in working out our reforms, many of the diffi- culties in the way would disappear ; but we choose rather to delay indefinitely what we cannot accomplish at once. No one can defend the present system of licensing public-houses; but we allow it to go on, because to alter it at once involves either compensation on a great scale, or confiscation of that which may fairly be called property, in most cases acquired by purchase. We are unwilling to take time enough to avoid both. If a fixed term were given to each licence, the present value could be run off year by year in the same way as a lease for which a premium has been paid. In the Bill introduced by Mr. Bruce, the notice he proposed to give was too short. Had he made it twenty-five or thirty years, instead of ten, the demands of justice would probably have been met, and, by this time, more than half the period would have lapsed. We should now have been within reasonable distance of the time when all licences would revert to the nation, the legitimate owner of a monopoly without,the need for compensation, and without real injury to the individual. The nation would then have been in a position to let out such licences as were considered necessary, upon payment of their value, for limited periods, and suppress all objectionable ones. The difficulty at the present moment is increased on account of the enormous amount of additional capital which has been invested in licences since 1872, and which would not have been so invested had a date been fixed for their expiration. Any value in a licence beyond a limited number of years is very problematical, and, as the holders of licences must be prepared to sacrifice something for the sake of a permanent settlement of the question, it does not seem too much to ask that they should give up this doubtful value, while experience should teach a reformer that often as much time is lost by delay as would suffice for a fair notice to alter the existing state of things at a future date.—I am, Sir, &c., T. F. R.
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