T HE Licensing Bill is a gainer by the number of
the objections to which it is open. It is difficult to defeat and amend a measure at the same time, and yet this is what most of its opponents are anxious to do. Ordinarily a Bill is either right or wrong in principle, and according as it is one or the other, the attempt is made to improve it in Committee or to reject it altogether. But here both efforts have to be carried on contemporaneously. There is no single feature in the Bill that we wish to see preserved ; consequently, the best thing that could happen would be its defeat either on the third reading or on some some form or other this miserable Bill, unless some happy accident prevents it, will find its way into the statute- book. It behoves us, therefore, to make it as little objectionable as possible. End it if we can, for that is by far the best thing that can happen to it; but mend it if we cannot end it, because in that way we shall at least make the inevitable burden somewhat lighter.
There are some very good men who cannot understand this anxiety to reject the Bill altogether. Bishop Barry is one of them. In a letter to the Times be urges that the Bill "has its good points. It brines the beer-houses under proper control. It virtually acknowledges that the number of public-houses is dangerously in excess. It is the first adequate attempt to face that thorny question of an equitable compensation." And it rightly provides that this compensation " shall come out of the pockets not of the public, but of the trade." This imposing array of legislative virtues hardly stands close examination. Doubtless to bring the beer-houses under the control of the Licensing Justices is a good thing in itself, and it would be a better thing still if it were not accompanied by a large reduction in the powers a the Justices. But this provision has no necessary connection with the object of the Bill. No reasonable person• has ever denied the claim of the beer-houses to compensation. Their independent position could not be withdrawn from them except by statute, and laws which take away a private right are not passed until the interests of the holder of the right are properly safeguarded. But this might, and should, have been done by a separate Bill. Nothing is gained by mixing up cases in which compensa- tion is legally due with other cases in which it is legally not due. This solitary merit of the Bill only places its vices in a stronger light. Beer-houses are to be com- pensated. Why ? Because the Bill makes a complete change in their lee-al position. Public-houses are to be compensated. ? Because the Bill makes no change whatever in their legal position. The whole theory of i compensation is that it s money paid for losses inflicted on private owners by Act of Parliament. But no Act of Parliament has inflicted any loss on public-houses. Whatever loss they have suffered has been due to the operation of the ordinary law. Therefore their claim, though we would not ignore it altogether, is one in the nature of a compassionate allowance. Their licenses have always been held subject to the discretion of the Licensing Justices. Nothing has happened either to enlarge or abridge their discretion ; consequently, nothing has hap- pened to create any legal or strict right to compensation. The utmost that brewers or publicans can plead is that they have ignorantly acted on a reading of the law which has not been sustained by the Courts of Law. What the present Bill does is to give compensation in advance of any wrong done, and in doing this to create a vested interest where none existed. This is not our notion of facing the thorny question of compensation, though, as we have said, our objection to compensation claimed as a legal right does not extend to compensation of a moderato kind given to prevent hardship resulting from the action of the Justices.
The acknowledgment that the number of public-houses is dangerously in excess seems to us a very small advan- tage in any circumstances, and a positive disadvantage when the reduction of that excess is effected in the way proposed by the Bill. The connection between the number of public-houses and drunkenness is one of the most dis- puted points in the whole licensing controversy. The uncertainty in which it is involved has always seemed to us a good reason against the adoption of any of those drastic proposals of forcible closing which were more in favour formerly than they are now. The 'advantageof the present' law is that it 'leaves the question to be settled tentatively and gradually by the action of the Licensing Justices. If it should become clearer that for every house closed there are so many fewer convictions for drunken- ness, the Justices would be found refusing more licenses every year. If, on the other hand, the experiment proved to have no effect on the number of convictions, but merely to transfer the drunkards from one house to another, the Justices would learn to look in other directions for the desired improvement. What the Bill does is to forbid
them to refuse any license except there is money forth- coining to pay the difference between the value of the house without a license and its value with one. In the case of a license still in the hands of the person to whom it was first granted, this provision only gives compensation for what in the first instance was a free gift from the State. A has bought a house for £1,000. He gets a license for it, and finds that it is now worth £5,000. He has done nothing whatever in return for this added £4,000. It is as much a gift from the community as it would have been if the Licensing Justices, instead of presenting him with a piece of stamped paper, had given him four £1,000 notes. But if the Bill becomes law A's house must not be closed without this £4,000 being paid to him in cash. This seems to us to be only making the thorny question of compensation thornier. A has lost nothing of his own, but he is enabled to claim compensation for the withdrawal of a privilege which the State was fool enough to give him for nothing. Any reduction in the number of public- houses effected on these terms would be far worse than no reduction at all.
For these and other reasons the progress of the Bill ought to be resisted at every point in the hope of defeat- ing it in some unforeseen way. Still, in view of the diffi- culty of attaining this end, the necessity of amending it in Committee ought not to be lost sight of. There is a very general agreement as to the importance of introducing a time-limit. This would not remove all, or even the chief, objections to the Bill. But though we should be doing mischief, we should only be doing it for a limited time; and if we have to choose between this and doing it for ever, there can be no question which is the better course. So far we agree with Bishop Barry. A time-limit "must be fought for with all possible energy, and with strong in- sistence on all necessary safeguards against the resusci- tation of claims, direct or indirect, when the appointed time has passed." The alternative, therefore, to be pre- sented to the Government is this : either subject your provision of compensation to a time-limit, or withdraw the Bill. If Temperance reformers cannot accomplish this much, they must be a much weaker body than has been supposed.
When the present Bill is withdrawn, and we have got rid of this most profligate attempt to destroy a great potential source of revenue, we shall be quite willing to consider a reasonable and equitable scheme for compensation in the case of refusals to grant a license. As we have stated elsewhere, we hold that there is a great deal to be said in favour of the proposal to make a time-limit of five years for all existing licenses, after which period all claim to com- pensation, equitable or otherwise, shall be considered to have ceased. If before that five years has elapsed a license is refused, but not on grounds of misconduct, we would give compensation equal to the number of years' purchase—five, four, three, two, or one—still to run. That would meet all the equities of the case.
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