Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/784

Rh amount, and in 1792 wine was brought under the same jurisdiction of the justices as other liquors.

It is clear from the foregoing that a great deal of legislation occurred during the 18th century, and that by successive enactments, particularly about the middle of the century, the licensing system gradually became adjusted to the requirements of the time and took a settled shape. The acts then passed still form the basis of the law. In the early part of the 19th century another period of legislative activity set in. A parliamentary inquiry into illicit trade in spirits took place in 1821, and in 1828 important acts were passed amending and consolidating the laws for England and for Scotland; in 1833 a general Licensing Act was passed for Ireland. These are still the principal acts, though they have undergone innumerable amendments and additions. The English act of 1828 introduced certain important changes. A licence from the justices was no longer required for the sale of liquor for consumption off the premises, and the power of the justices to suppress public-houses at their discretion (apart from the annual licensing), which they had possessed since 1495, was taken away. The removal of this power, which had long been obsolete, was the natural corollary of the development of the licensing system, its greater stringency and efficiency and the increase of duties imposed on the trade. Men on whom these obligations were laid, and who were freshly authorized to carry on the business every year, could not remain liable to summary deprivation of the privileges thus granted and paid for. The justices had absolute discretion to withhold licences from an applicant whether new or old; but an appeal was allowed to quarter sessions against refusal and also against conviction for offences under the act. The main points in the law at this time were the following. The sale of alcoholic liquors for consumption on the premises was forbidden under penalties except to persons authorized according to law by the justices. Licences were granted for one year and had to be renewed annually. The justices held a general meeting each year at a specified time for the purpose of granting licences; those peculiarly interested in the liquor trade were disqualified. The licence contained various provisions for regulating the conduct of the house and maintaining order, but closing was only required during the hours of divine service on Sunday. Applicants for new licences and for the transfer of old ones (granted at a special sessions of the justices) were required to give notice to the local authorities and to post up notices at the parish church and on the house concerned.

Excise Licences.—It will be convenient at this point to explain the relation between that part of the licensing system which is concerned with the conduct of the traffic and lies in the jurisdiction of the justices and that part which has to do with taxation or revenue. The former is the earlier and more important branch of legislative interference; we have traced its history from 1495 down to 1828. Its object from the beginning was the maintenance of public order and good conduct, which were impaired by the misuse of public-houses; and all the successive enactments were directed to that end. They were attempts to suppress or moderate the evils arising from the traffic by regulating it. The excise licensing system has nothing to do with public order or the conduct of the traffic; its object is simply to obtain revenue, and for a long time the two systems were quite independent. But time and change gradually brought them into contact and eventually they came to form two aspects of one unified system. Licensing for revenue was first introduced in 1660 at the same time as duties on the manufacture of beer and spirits: but it was of an irregular character and was only applied to wine, which was not then under the jurisdiction of the justices at all (see above). In 1710 a small annual tax was imposed on the retailers of beer and ale and collected by means of a stamp on the justices’ licence. In 1728 an annual excise licence of £20 was imposed on retailers of spirits, and in 1736 this was raised to £50 (see above). The object of these particular imposts, however, was rather to check the sale, as previously explained, than to secure revenue. In 1756 the previous tax on the retail sale of wine for consumption on the premises was changed to an annual excise licence, which was in the next year extended to “made wines” and “sweets” (British wines). Similar licences, in place of the previous stamps, were temporarily required for beer and ale between 1725 and 1742 and permanently imposed in 1808. Thus the system of annual excise licences became gradually applied to all kinds of liquor. In 1825 the laws relating to them were consolidated and brought into direct relation with the other licensing laws. It was enacted that excise licences for the retail of liquor should only be granted to persons holding a justices’ licence or—to use the more correct term—certificate. The actual permission to sell was obtained on payment of the proper dues from the excise authorities, but they had no power to withhold it from persons authorized by the justices. And that was still the system in 1910.

Licensing since 1828.—There was no change in the form of the British licensing system between the consolidation of the law in 1825–1828 and the time (1910) at which we write; but there were a great many changes in administrative detail and some changes in principle. Only the most important can be mentioned. In 1830 a bold experiment was tried in exempting the sale of beer from the requirement of a justice’s licence. Any householder rated to the parish was entitled, under a bond with sureties, to take out an excise licence for the sale of beer for consumption on or off the premises. This measure, which applied to England and was commonly known as the Duke of Wellington’s Act, had two objects; one was to encourage the consumption of beer in the hope of weaning the people from spirits; the other was to counteract the practice of “tieing” public-houses to breweries by creating free ones. With regard to the first, it was believed that spirit-drinking was increasing again at the time and was doing a great deal of harm. The reason appears to have been a great rise in the returns of consumption, which followed a lowering of the duty on spirits from 11s. 8d. to 7s. a gallon in 1825. The latter step was taken because of the prevalence of illicit distillation. In 1823 the duty had been lowered for the same reason in Scotland from 6s. 2d. and in Ireland from 5s. 7d. to a uniform rate of 2s. 4d. a gallon, with so much success in turning the trade from illegal to legal channels that a similar change was thought advisable in England, as stated. The legal or apparent consumption rose at once from 7 to nearly 13 million gallons; but it is doubtful if there was much or any real increase. According to an official statement, more than half the spirits consumed in 1820 were illicit. The facts are of much interest in showing what had already been shown in the 18th century, that the liquor trade will not bear unlimited taxation; the traffic is driven underground. It is highly probable that this accounts for part of the great fall in consumption which followed the raising of the spirit duty from 11s. to 14s. 9d. under Mr Lloyd George’s Budget in 1909. With regard to “tied” houses, this is the original form of public-house. When beer was first brewed for sale a “tap” for retail purposes was attached to the brewery, and public-houses may still be found bearing the name “The Brewery Tap.” At the beginning of the 19th century complaints were made of the increasing number of houses owned or controlled by breweries and of the dependence of the licence-holders, and in 1817 a Select Committee inquired into the subject. The Beerhouse Act does not appear to have checked the practice or to have diminished the consumption of spirits; but it led to a great increase in the number of beer-houses. It was modified in 1834 and 1840, but not repealed until 1869, when beer-houses were again brought under the justices.

Most of the other very numerous changes in the law were concerned with conditions imposed on licence-holders. The hours of closing are the most important of these. Apart from the ancient regulations of closing during divine service on Sunday, there were no restrictions in 1828; but after that at least a dozen successive acts dealt with the point. The first important measure was applied in London under a Police Act in 1839; it ordered licensed houses to be closed from midnight on Saturday to mid-day on Sunday, and produced a wonderful effect on public order. In 1853 a very important act (Forbes Mackenzie)