The Chancellor of the Exchequer obtained leave on Monday to
bring in a Bill establishing the plan of "local option" in dealing with the sale of liquor. Ten per cent. of the rate- payers in any country parish, or any small borough, or any ward of a large borough, may demand a vote by ballot once in three years on the grant or continuance of any liquor licence, whether to a publican or a grocer, and such licences may be withdrawn by a two-thirds vote. There will, after the first three years, be no delay except until the next annual renewal of licences, and no compensation whatever to those ruined by the prohibition. The law, however, will not affect inns, railway-stations, eating-houses, or private dwellings of any kind, including, of course, clubs. The rate.payers will also be enabled, by a bare majority, to enforce Sunday-closing. The Bill, it is said, though accepted by Sir Wilfrid Lawson as "the greatest measure since the abolition of slavery," does not satisfy the teetotalers, who wish for compulsory and universal Sunday-closing; but it will be met, as regards com- pensation, by a most determined resistance, especially as it is seen that the veto will only transfer business from the publican to the eating-house keeper. The refusal to compensate is bad enough, but we are not sure that we do not dislike the Local Option itself even more. One's neighbours are not one's representatives, and not the " people" either, and have no more right of interference with one's diet than one's cousins or creditors.
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