SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[L' ruler this heading we notice such Books of the week as hare not been• reserved for review in other forms.] Practical Licensing Reform. By the Hon. Sidney Peel. (Methuen and Co. is. 6d.)—Mr. Peel will carry with him most a his readers —the laissez-faire partisans excepted—for at least a considerable part of his way. In licensing there has been a deplorable laxity in the past. After all allowance has been made for a changed condition of life—the coaching system, e.g., accounts partly for the crowd of licensed houses in the suburban towns—there must have been something like partiality. Then the present action of the Quarter Sessions as the Court of Appeal is lamentable. "At Plymouth seven Justices unanimously refused a license to a tenant twice convicted within the year of serving druuken men. Three County Justices sitting at Exeter, fifty-two miles away, reversed their decision." The police censorship is distinctly ineffective. Other points Mr. Peel makes with success. But be does not deal adequately, it seems to us, with the compensation question. It is impossible, in justice, to ignore the action of the Revenue authorities, who have for years put an artificial value on licensed houses.
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