Licences for Shops The Trades Union Congress very wisely decided
to reflect a little longer before adopting a resolution calling for the licensing of all shops, on the ground that the country is overcrowded with shops today. On the figures quoted—one shop to every 4 of the population —it probably is, but the shopkeepers manage to make a living, or they would not be there, and the assumption is that they meet a public need, or they could not keep open. But the important issue involved in the proposal was emphasized by Mr. Bevin. The moment such a principle is introduced it becomes to the interest of existing shopkeepers to get licences refused to all would-be competitors. The tendency is seen in a flagrant form in the Government's hops scheme, under which the privileged holders of licences have the principal say in the granting -of licences to new growers—a close vested interest being thus created. The same element figures in the important pig and sugar and other agricultural schemes. The principle has its place within limits, but its operation needs to be jealously watched, for it can militate against both liberty and enterprise, and create monopoly values for which no due return is made. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress, to which the question is referred, might produce a very useful _report on
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