by Thomas Hardy
It cannot be too clearly understood, that this question assumes a different aspect according to the chemical and physiological point of view from which we look at it. There are those who consider alcohol, in any quantity and under any disguise, as a poison, in the sense in which prussic acid is a poison, and therefore, like prussic acid, to be taken only in carefully regulated doses, under medical advice. Such persons, if they carried out their principle to its logical consequence (as some of them do), would desire to restrain the sale of this among other poisons ; to put a stop to both the wholesale and retail trade, except so far as they were necessary for medical purposes; to shut up not only the public-house, but the wine-merchant’s cellar. In a word, they want to abolish drinking as well as drunkenness. Those, on the other hand, who think that “wine which maketh glad the heart of man” is a good gift of God and a lawful means of refreshment and exhilaration, will not only confine their efforts to the discouragement of drunkenness, without attempting to stop drinking, but even, so far as they go with the sterner ascetics, will be influenced by other motives and choose different methods. And this remark has a practical bearing upon the present state of the question. Outside the various associations which in one form or another are based upon the principle of total abstinence and prohibition, have grown up others, which aim, not at destroying, but at regulating the trade. Many excellent men, who may perhaps have given their adhesion to no formal programme, are anxious, for moral and social reasons, to throw their personal influence into the scale of sobriety. Cannot all these hosts be formed into a united army, and manoeuvred towards a single end? We are constrained to answer, that so long as the fundamental difference of view, to which we have alluded, remains, this cannot be hoped for. The ultimate object is different, however eagerly all may strive towards the same near results. It is better andsafer not to hide real divergence behind a cloud of friendly words, but to be satisfied with as much general concurrence as actually exists. The real danger is, lest advocates of entire prohibition should come to treat those whom they consider as halfhearted friends with less consideration than they are wont to shew to open foes. The partizans of the United Kingdom Alliance can hardly be expected to agree to a compromise with licensing reformers, which necessarily involves the abandonment of their characteristic principle; but, on the other hand, they will be wise to accept as friendly, and to allow free expression and development to every form of protest against the trade as it is at present carried on.
So far as we are aware, no one except the brewers and the publicans is willing to leave matters in their present state. But when we come to ask what is to be done, the answer is threefold. Say some bold theorists, throw the trade entirely open, and treat it just as you would any other. On the contrary, reply the Permissive-Bill advocates, place the power of absolute prohibition in the hands of the majority of the ratepayers of a given district. And between these are a class of politicians, larger, perhaps, even though less eager, than either of the others, who believe that by modification of the licensing laws, and police supervision thoroughly carried out, the trade may be brought within legitimate limits, and the misery produced by drunkenness diminished to as great an extent as can be effected by legislation. And in what follows, we propose to give reasons which have satisfied our own mind that this middle course is the one which offers least practical difficulty, combined with the fairest prospect of good result.
Those, then, who wish to throw the trade entirely open, begin by denying the existence of a constant ratio between the number of places where drink is sold and the amount of drinking, and point to statistics which in their opinion support this view. Take, for instance, the following table, which compares the number of apprehensions for drunkenness in Liverpool during the last five years, with that of the public-houses and beer-houses actually doing business:
Thus, while the number of public-houses remains substantially the same, and the beer-houses have decreased one-half, the apprehensions for drunkenness are greater by 50 percent. But to make these figures convincing, something more is necessary than merely to state them. We must know, first, that the number of persons arrested for drunkenness in a particular town, may be accepted as a fair test of that town’s want of sobriety. Surely it is a very familiar remark in regard to statistics of this kind, that an important factor in their production is afforded by the instructions given to the police, and that a little increase or relaxation of severity at headquarters will send the figures in this column of criminal returns up and down in a very remarkable way. And then, secondly, we should know whether any other causes were at work to increase or diminish drunkenness during the period to which reference is made. No one supposes that the multiplication of drinking-places is the sole cause of drinking, or that drinking would cease were they all shut up; still less would any reasonable person expect that habits which had been fostered through many generations, and which, notwithstanding the closing of these houses, can find the means of gratification at any street corner, should suddenly be transformed. It will be time enough to appeal to statistics when the policy of restricting licences has had as long a trial as the present plan; when its results can be estimated on an average of years; when a new generation, grown up under its influence, has replaced the old. Till then, it is more to the purpose to inquire whether, after all, there be not something in the nature of the trade itself which takes it out of the ordinary operation of the law of supply and demand.
But why not treat this trade like any other? At present it is a monopoly, and fastens upon the public all the characteristic evils of monopolies: its profits are unnaturally high; entrance into it is sought by every access of jobbery and intrigue; and the true interest of the customer—unadulterated liquor at a fair price—is the last thing thought of. Throw open the trade, and this state of things would cease, if not at once, yet before long; a healthy competition would set in; good beer would be the rule, not, as now, the exception; incompetent and dishonest publicans would have no chance; and the result would be less drunkenness, if not fewer drinking-places. But is, after all, even the boldest theorist quite prepared to put this business upon the same footing as any other? Because we must have no compromise here; no abandonment of the broad, clear ground of principle; no re-introduction of the idea of restriction by a side-wind. If licences are still to exist, they must be mere devices to raise revenue, like licences to sell tea and tobacco; and their price must be determined only by the policy of the national exchequer. It will not do to say that any man who brings evidence of good character, and is in possession of suitable premises, shall be permitted to sell drink. Nobody inquires into the character of the village grocer, or inspects the front room of the cottage, when he puts a few jars into the window and fixes a deal counter by the door. We must face the possibility that it may turn out to be as profitable to sell a little home brewed beer in every third or fourth cottage, as it seems to be now to vend sweetmeats and small wares in the intervals of domestic occupation. But not to insist upon the fact that the advocates of this view rarely go as far as this (desiring, we believe, for the most part, to preserve the magistrates’ action, while laying down strict general rules for their guidance), they bring in the principle of restriction under another form in admitting the necessity of the severest supervision of the trade by the police. Is there, then, any great difference in principle between limiting a trade in its inception and surrounding it with regulations in its progress? We say nothing of the needless labour thus thrown upon the police; of their abstraction from other duties; of the danger of demoralization (with its consequent peril to the public) to which they will be needlessly exposed;—does not the very fact sufficiently prove that this trade cannot be treated like any other? It would be essential, to secure any supervision at all, to preserve to the police the power which they now have of unrestricted entrance to any house where drink is sold under licence; is anybody prepared, or does anybody think it necessary, to extend that power to the case of the grocer who, equally under licence, s
ells coffee and snuff? Of course, under this new system, we are to have limitation of hours of sale: shall we have a parallel legislative enactment for the baker and the bookseller? Why should Acts of Parliament be necessary in the one case, while the other is left to public opinion? Or has any other trade like this a direct tendency to produce breaches of the public peace of which the law must take cognizance? The truth is, that even the so-called free-trader cannot frame his theory of the liquor trade without calling in the aid of ‘regulation.’ And regulation is only restriction in another form and applied at a different stage.
What, then, precisely is it that differentiates this trade from every other which is engaged in supplying men’s common wants? We cannot accept, we do not at this moment pause to state why we reject, the distinction which the total abstainer would draw sharply and without hesitation, that the trade, namely, is in its nature wholly unlawful, as the selling of poison is unlawful. Our argument is conducted upon the hypothesis that this trade, like any other, has a use; and we are quite ready to admit that every other trade has, like this, an abuse. But as we do not propose to shut up Fortnum and Mason’s because reckless gourmands destroy their digestion, or Poole’s because foolish boys run into debt for countless pairs of trousers, why should we interfere with the publican who intercepts an unreasonable proportion of the working man’s wages? First, then, because this trade is one of which the abuse is very quickly and surely developed out of the use, and stands to it in quite a startling ratio; and, secondly, because it is a case in which legislation, imperial or municipal, may hope to interfere with some prospect of success. It is altogether beside the mark to make a practical comparison between any shop in which a legitimate trade is carried on—a tailor’s, for example—and the corner gin-palace. In connection with the former, isolated instances of extravagance and folly will manifest themselves in the midst of a large and continuous supply of lawful needs; while in the latter, the abuses are the staple of the trade and the main source of the profit. What would become of the publicans of any large town if they were all at once confined to the purveying of ‘the poor man’s beer’ for domestic consumption, and were cut off from feeding the growing passion for drink in children; from adding to the intoxication of men already bemused with beer; from selling the noggin of gin, which is in every conceivable case needless and shameful, to the self-indulgent wife; from serving out the fatal anodyne of forgetfulness to the prostitute? And these are precisely the things which regulation can touch. We have thoroughly learned in this century the utter futility of all sumptuary law: we cannot prevent men from giving and eating dinners which end in gout and gravel; or women from running up milliners’ bills which may half-ruin their husbands; or working men, for that matter, from buying and consuming drink to excess—at home. But the simple reconversion of public-houses into what they once were, houses of entertainment, where drink was sold only or chiefly as the accompaniment of a meal, and the restriction within the narrowest limits of counters at which it is retailed simply for purposes of excitement or intoxication, would, we are convinced, have a most important effect upon sobriety, and all that sobriety will bring with it.
At the opposite pole of theory stand the advocates of what is called the Permissive Bill, which has more than once been introduced into the House of Commons by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, but has never yet succeeded in getting so far as the second reading. Its principle we understand to be this: The country is to be divided into districts, of size yet indeterminate; and within each district the control of the liquor traffic is to be committed to the ratepayers, who, by a majority of two-thirds, may absolutely prohibit it. The details of the scheme are to be left for future consideration, so that these fundamental provisions be not touched. And its chief defences, as reiterated, almost usque, ad nauseam, in the speeches of its advocates, are twofold: first, that the majority of the inhabitants have a right to put away this traffic from the midst of them, if they will; and, secondly, that as many landowners have already exercised, with good social result, the autocratic power of this kind which the law gives them, it cannot be unreasonable or undesirable that the same power should be entrusted to communities.
