by Thomas Hardy
We believe that the scheme only needs to be stated in a plain, straightforward way, to be rejected as inadmissible by all sober political thinkers. As a matter of fact, it very rarely is so stated; the form in which it is invariably put by its advocates being, Have not the people a right to put away this intolerable nuisance from among themselves? Ought they not to have the power of regulating their own life? But to what extent this is a mere declamatory and ad captandum statement of the case, appears the moment we discern clearly that this Bill proposes to give two-thirds of the population of a given district the right of regulating in an important matter the life of the remaining third. In one word, the political principle upon which this legislation proceeds must be taken to be, that the rights of the majority over the minority are practically unlimited. If this Bill become law, it is difficult to see at what point any further resistance can be successfully made to the tyrannous will of the greater number. Of course it will be pleaded on the other side, that the sickness is one which requires this drastic remedy; that for the removal of so great an evil, the partial surrender of liberty is not too large a price to pay. We do not yield to any advocate of this Bill in sorrow and indignation at the present drinking habits of the people, and the misery which they produce; but we cannot believe that the way to a better state of things is through a violation of the fundamental principles upon which civilized society is built up. To one who believes that all noble ethics are founded on the freedom of the will, it seems the strangest dream to restore morality by sinning against liberty.
But it is alleged that many landowners already exercise this prohibitory power with excellent results, and it is asked, Why should not a majority of any community be entrusted with the same power? Would it not be more logical to inquire whether this power is one which ought to reside in owners of great estates, before taking for granted that it is desirable, and proposing to extend it? Surely all political thinkers who have any faculty of disentangling their minds from the actual prejudices of society, and of gaining some imaginative glimpse of the future, are convinced that the rights of property, and especially of landed property, are in England stretched to the hurt of the general good, and that nothing is more certain than the gradual recognition of the principle, that all land, in a country where every foot of soil has an owner, must be held under restrictions imposed by the State with reference to the common interest. We know a Welsh county where one nobleman perpetually adds estate to estate, building everywhere great walls to shut out, as far as he can, even the sight of the everlasting hills from the passer-by; putting a gate, only to be opened by a sixpenny fee, at every waterfall; fencing off the very heather, which is almost as guiltless of grouse as it is of pineapples, from the traveller’s foot; and throughout the whole of his vast and increasing domain ruling like an absolute monarch in the matter of sites for churches and chapels and school-houses. We know a Nonconformist congregation in a midland county village, which dates back to the Revolution, and comprises in its members industrious, thoughtful, frugal, devout men which any community might be proud to count as citizens, which is being slowly, and without visible persecution, crushed out of life, because the neighbouring landowners have entered into a tacit combination to let no farms that fall vacant except to Churchmen. There is perhaps not a county, from Sutherlandshire to Cornwall, in which instances of this kind may not be found; instances of arbitrary and oppressive power exercised within the limits of the law, and from the circumstances of the case unrebuked, or ineffectually rebuked, by public opinion. And the question which we would ask those who so constantly adduce this analogy is: If this conduct is right, and ought to be imitated in regard to public-houses, can it be wrong in the case of Dissenting chapels? If the squire is to be praised for shutting up the Red Lion, can he be blamed for refusing a site for the Methodist meeting-house? The clergy of the province of Canterbury, whose evidence upon this subject is so often quoted, have probably an equal objection to both.
At what point is the power of the two-thirds over the life of the remaining third to be restrained? We think that, on the principles of the Permissive Bill, and in the spirit of the arguments by which it is defended, we could make out a good case for the suppression of Unitarian chapels; a case which, if it did not approve itself to the majority of the ratepayers of Birmingham or Manchester, might yet be convincing to two-thirds of those of an English, and much more a Scotch country-town, where the dead-level of Evangelicalism had been for the first time disturbed by some adventurous missionary who had lectured in the town-hall and was meditating a permanent settlement. For what can be of more importance than the eternal welfare of the townsmen and their children? Surely fatal heresy must be as much worse than drunkenness, as eternity is longer than time. And if, even in this extreme case, it is dangerous for the public authorities to meddle with opinions—look at the moral consequences which must result from the toleration of Unitarianism! Morality is founded upon dogma: to live well, men must believe truly; and Pope’s famous line must be read the other way, “He can’t be right whose faith is in the wrong.” There may indeed be produced, in connection with this heresy, a specious imitation of Christian morals; but it is only the electro-plate which simulates the silver, and is the more dangerous the more perfect the delusion. Lord Blank, who holds all the land hereabouts, will grant no site at all to any Non Conformist society: why should he have a right which is not possessed by an ancient and respectable municipality? It would be easy to find as many clergymen as have testified to the moral benefit of having no public-house in their villages, to bear witness to the equal advantage resulting from the absence of dissent; and this, it must be remembered, is no common dissent, but precisely the most noxious and intolerable form of all. On the whole, we are afraid that if a general Permissive Bill were passed, empowering two-thirds of any community to prohibit anything they disliked in the life of the other third, it would go hard with Unitarian chapels in some towns, and all kinds of Dissenters in many villages, and everywhere with the little knot of men who think for themselves and lead public opinion, and represent the common belief of the next generation but one. Who knows whether in the universal crusade against crotchets in which the British Philistine with such encouragement might engage, the great principle of the infallibility of two-thirds might not be used to put down teetotal meetings?
Some of the more obvious practical objections to this legislation have been so often urged, that we shall not enlarge upon them in these pages. There is the difficulty of what we may call geographical sobriety; neither public house, beer-shop or wine-merchant, on this side of an impalpable line; and on that, the whole system flourishing with double vigour. There is the certainty that the most drunken places would be precisely the last to adopt a voluntary remedy. There is the impossibility of coercing the recalcitrant minority of a great city: one-third of the population of Liverpool or Glasgow is 200,000 souls—a city in itself. There is the fact, that if in such a city the requisite majority could by any means be attained, the stoppage of all public sale of liquor would leave behind it an enormous mass of appetite for drink, demanding the gratification which an illicit trade would find it most gainful to supply, and which would add to drunkenness the new pleasure and the keener excitement of breaking the law. But a more general and even more cogent objection to legislation of this kind is, that it confounds the removal of temptation with the extirpation of vice. We do not dispute that the presence of temptation is one element, and often a very important element, in the committal of a sinful act; and that insofar as it can be lessened or taken away, the probability of the sin is diminished; though even here we might be inclined to maintain that the entire abolition of any lawful means of gratifying a natural desire, will put the passion very eagerly on the scent for unlawful ones. We admit that the liquor trade, as at present carried on, surrounds the average working man with a persistency and seductiveness of temptation which he finds it almost impossible to resist; and we allow that in some cases even an enforced sobriety,
inasmuch as it may lay the foundation of habits of abstinence, is better than a freedom which is only liberty to fall. But what is the moralist to think of a virtue which is at the mercy of temptation? We have been told stories of the paradisiacal peace and virtue of certain villages which fell into swift demoralization as soon as a public-house was opened; but it did not seem to strike the tellers of them how little nerve and strength there must have been in the goodness that was so soon and so easily debauched. If to take away temptation can be said very indirectly to add to a man’s moral force, inasmuch as it may save him from the weakness which is part of the punishment of sin; on the other hand, it is only in conflict with temptation that any manly vigour can be won. An untried virtue is no virtue at all. It is an old story, that those who have been brought up out of sight and hearing of evil are the surest to go down in the first real conflict with it. Presently we may find that no voters are so open to intimidation as those who have most sheltered themselves behind the protection of the ballot-box; and that drunkenness may rage most fiercely among populations which have grown up in the enervating air of prohibition.
If, then, it is equally inexpedient to throw the liquor trade entirely open and to prohibit it, we are shut up to the policy of restriction or regulation. The rationale of this policy we take to be, that the trade has within certain limits a public use, and therefore a right to existence; but that, as it is very apt to overpass these limits, and in so doing to become a nuisance, every precaution must be taken to keep it within them. The objections to the present method of securing this end are many and weighty. The magistrates who grant the licences rarely act upon any fixed principle, and the assumed standard of the requirements of the population varies from district to district. The exercise of their authority is peculiarly liable to be suspected of yielding to influence and intrigue, and in some cases at least is actually determined by these ignoble forces. But the great evil—that which lies at the foundation of the present difficulty in dealing with the subject—is the practical perpetuity of the licence. It is of no use to point out that in form it is only granted for one year, and that it is given to the person and not to the house. A system of transfer has grown up, converting a licence into a valuable property which, under the transparent veil of ‘good-will,’ is openly bought and sold. This transfer is so much a matter of course—it is so perfectly understood that a licence will not be forfeited except under very exceptional circumstances of offence—that one man of straw is boldly put up to succeed another in the management of a productive but disreputable business; and the personal responsibility to the law, which it is the very object of the licence to secure, is systematically evaded. But, in truth, a very large part of the present legislation, in regard to the regulation of the drink traffic, is a mere dead letter. Whether, as it stands, it needs to be more rigidly administered, or requires amendment in the direction of severity, is a question which we leave to those who are better acquainted with the state of the law than ourselves. But, to take only one fact, out of many that might be adduced, it is a disgrace to our civilization that in all our large towns public houses which are the known haunts of thieves and prostitutes, and which are reported as such in municipal police statistics, should be permitted to exist, and to carry on their gainful and disgraceful traffic with almost complete impunity.
But, in truth, the system of licences is surrounded with immense practical difficulties. For its effect is to create a lucrative monopoly. It is well understood in London and Liverpool and Manchester, that no trade is so profitable as this. It requires little or no capital beyond what is requisite for the purchase of the good-will; the brewer and the wine-merchant are accustomed—taking, of course, their own precautions—to give ample credit. A publican needs no education, not even any manual skill; but only a somewhat callous conscience, a not very tender heart, and a power of abstaining from his own drink: with these qualifications, pecuniary success is rapid and certain. But this is not all, nor the worst. Behind the keeper of the beer-house or the gin-palace, who is often a mere agent, stands a capitalist who has discovered that this trade can be profitably worked on the large scale; who pulls indeed all the strings, but whom the law never sees and never touches; who has large investments in house property, in plant, in breweries, in importation of spirits, and contrives to make them all cooperate in the production of an enormous revenue. Does one of his managers—the landlord of the house, in the eye of the law and of the public—draw down upon himself the animadversion of the police? He is replaced by another, to whom the licence is transferred, and all goes on merrily as before. The real publican may sit on the bench of magistrates, to administer ‘40s and costs’ to the poor wretches on whose drunkenness he has grown rich; and when the licensing day comes round, retire gracefully in favour of friends and associates in whose hands his interests are safe. Beer is so potent a persuasive at municipal elections, that he finds the access to town councils, with its result of direct power and indirect influence, not difficult. There is a well-known brewing interest in the House of Commons itself, which commands votes and has the ear of Ministries; much more is there in every constituency a large phalanx of publicans, able to put strong pressure on the lowest stratum of voters, resolute in the defence of their own interests,and now led, more or less openly, by men of a larger knowledge of the world and a subtler policy than themselves. And the sum of the whole is, that here is an enormous vested interest in the immorality and degradation of the people, which withstands eager reformers and timid statesmen alike in their efforts to remove this great evil, and declares that not a step shall be taken in the direction of better things without an enormous compensation to itself.
This, then, is the great difficulty in the way of restriction, that by diminishing the number of licences you make each one of them more valuable, and concentrate, if you do not absolutely increase, the force of the vested interest which is arrayed against reform. And it lies with those who would take this step to propose some concurrent measure which shall prevent the monopoly (if monopoly there must be) from remaining in one hand, and shall divert a part of its profits to the public exchequer.
This is not the place to sketch the outline of a Licensing Bill, nor are we disposed to accept the responsibility of so doing. It will be sufficient if we have indicated some of the difficulties which attend upon any of ‘the short and easy methods’ of dealing with this problem. But at least we may state our opinion that a new licensing authority, commanding greater public confidence and proceeding upon more definite principles than the present, is urgently needed, and that the ratepayers are entitled to a voice either in its election or in the revision of its action; and in the next place, that all licences should be strictly personal, issued for only one year, and not capable of transfer. Whether it would be possible to lay such a tax upon this trade, as at once to make it less attractive to capital and a large contributory to the public revenue, we leave to abler politicians to decide; it is enough to notice here that at Gothenburg this has been accomplished. Shorter hours of business, and on Sundays an almost entire closing, with the prohibition of any drinking upon the premises, are matters upon which all reformers are agreed. And in order that legislation should not end in good intentions, a much more efficient inspection than any which now exists must be made of all licensed houses, and the law put in force with impartial strictness.
But will restriction in any shape diminish drunkenness? That it will to a certain extent, is admitted, we think, by that very large class of persons who are in favour of shorter hours. It cannot be necessary, they say, that public-houses should be open before a reasonable hour in the morning; and it is proved that a large percentage of drunkenness occurs in the last hour or two of trade at night. But what is the difference in principle between compelling the existing houses to trade for a shorter time and lessening their number? If one plan is efficient in diminishing drunkenness, why not the other? It is unreasonable to talk as if all drunkards belonged to the incorrigible class, as if no m
an ever got drunk who was not also a dipsomaniac. Many a poor fellow, very ready to fall and yet very willing to stand if he could, finds himself overpowered by the ubiquity of the temptation; he cannot get out of sight or hearing of it; occasion is always ready to inflame and gratify desire; no part of his daily path but offers this stumbling-block to his feet. This multiplication of more drinking-houses in our great cities is certainly the product of moral corruption, but not less certainly a perpetually corrupting agency: drinking habits make drinking-houses, and in return drinking-houses make drinking habits. No one can be more profoundly convinced than we are that legislation cannot do everything for the repression of this national vice ; but it is an extreme of opinion, in our view even more pernicious, to believe that it can do nothing.
At the same time we must confess that we have watched with regret so large a part of the zeal and strength of the old Temperance movement diverted from the work of reforming drunkards one by one, of spreading sobriety little by little, towards the production of a change in legislation which we believe to be unattainable, and which, if attained, would not produce the result desired. There are no royal or legislative roads to moral reform; nothing is so deceptive, because so full of apparent promise, as a ‘shortcut’ to great changes in the habits of a nation. All that the collective wisdom of a people, as expressed in law, can do in regard to vices which cannot be treated as crimes, is to take away any unnecessary and overpowering temptation to their commission; so to modify circumstance as to make it clear that the responsibility for them rests upon the individual conscience; to give a fair chance of virtue to a coming generation. But at the same time it must be remembered that any attempt to protect men from sin by surrounding them with a hedge of prohibitions,—to take private morals, as it were, into the keeping of the State,—necessarily recoils upon itself. It is no triumph of legislation to have converted vice into crime. External protection is not the same thing as inward strength, and very often does not even tend to produce it. And therefore when legislation has done all that it can, we shall still have to fall back, for the result which we desire, upon the operation of indirect causes which are slowly raising the level of popular life, and upon that gradual progress of good from heart to heart which is the sure, though slowly working, method of Christianity. The old Teetotallers were, after all, more upon the right track than their successors of the United Kingdom Alliance; and even if the latter were to succeed in the attainment of their end (which we do not believe), the characteristic work of the former will still have to be done.
