Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/787

UNITED KINGDOM] several of them are subvarieties and unimportant or are peculiar to Scotland or Ireland. The duties charged on them were greatly changed and increased by the Finance Act of 1909–1910, and it seems desirable to state the changes thus introduced. The table on the previous page gives the principal kinds of licence with the old and the new duties.

There are in addition “occasional” licences valid for one or more days, which come under the jurisdiction of the justices; the duty is 2s. 6d. a day for the full licence (raised to 10s.) and 1s. for beer or wine only (raised to 5s.).

The total amount raised by the excise licences in the United Kingdom for the financial year ending 31st March 1909 was £2,209,928. Of this amount £1,712,160, or nearly four-fifths, was derived from the full or publicans’ licence, £126,053 from the wholesale spirit licence and £88,167 from the beer-house licence; the rest are comparatively unimportant. But the licences only represent a small part of the revenue derived from liquor. The great bulk of it is collected by means of duties on manufacture and importation. The total amount for the year ending March 1909 was £37,428,189, or nearly 30% of the total taxation revenue of the country. The excise duties on the manufacture of spirits yielded £17,456,366 and those on beer £12,691,332; customs duties on importation yielded £5,046,949. The excise duty on spirits was at the rate of 11s. a gallon, raised at the end of April 1909 to 14s. 9d.; the corresponding duty on beer is 7s. 9d. a barrel (36 gallons). The relative taxation of the liquor trade in the United States, which has become important as a political argument, is discussed below.

Effects of Legislation.—The only effects which can be stated with precision and ascribed with certainty to legislation are the increase or diminution of the number of licences or licensed premises; secondary effects, such as increase or diminution of consumption and of drunkenness, are affected by so many causes that only by a very careful, well-informed and dispassionate examination of the facts can positive conclusions be drawn with regard to the influence of legislation (see ). There is no more prolific ground for fallacious statements and arguments, whether unconscious or deliberate. The course of legislation traced above, however, does permit the broad conclusion that great laxity and the multiplication of facilities tend to increase drinking and disorder in a country like the United Kingdom, and that extreme severity produces the same or worse effects by driving the trade into illicit channels, which escape control, and thus really increasing facilities while apparently diminishing them. The most successful course has always been a mean between these extremes in the form of restraint judiciously applied and adjusted to circumstances. The most salient feature of the situation as influenced by the law in recent years is the progressive reduction in the number of licensed houses since 1869. Previously they had been increasing in England.

The number of public-houses, including beer-houses for “on” consumption, in 1831 was 82,466; in 1869 it had risen to 118,602; in 1909 it had fallen again to 94,794. But if the proportion of public-houses to population be taken there has been a continuous fall since 1831, as the following table shows:—

The change may be put in another way. In 1831 there was one public-house to 168 persons; in 1909 the proportion was 1 to 375. The proportional reduction goes back to the 18th century. In 1732 there was in London one public-house to every 50 persons (see above).

In Scotland the number of public-houses has been diminishing since 1829, when there were 17,713; in 1909 there were only 7065, while the population had more than doubled. The number in proportion to population has therefore fallen far more rapidly than in England, thus—1831, 1 to 134 persons; 1909, 1 to 690 persons. In Ireland the story is different. There has been a fall in the number of public-houses since 1829, when there were 20,548; but it has not been large or continuous and the population has been steadily diminishing during the time, so that the proportion to population has actually increased, thus—1831, 1 to 395 persons; 1909, 1 to 249 persons. As a whole, however, the United Kingdom shows a large and progressive diminution of public-houses to population; nor is this counterbalanced by an increase of “off” licences. If we take the whole number of licences we get the following movement in recent years:—

The diminution in the number of public-houses in England was markedly accelerated by the act of 1904, which introduced the principle of compensation. The average annual rate of reduction in the ten years 1894–1904 before the act was 359; in the four years 1905–1908; after the act it rose to 1388. The average annual number of licences suppressed with compensation was 1137, and the average annual amount of compensation paid was £1,096,946, contributed by the trade as explained above.

The reduction of public-houses has been accompanied in recent years by a constant increase in the number of clubs. By the act of 1902, which imposed registration, they were brought under some control and the number of legal clubs was accurately ascertained. Previously the number was only estimated from certain data with approximate accuracy. The following table gives the official figures:—

Clubs represent alternative channels to the licensed trade and they are under much less stringent control; they have no prohibited hours and the police have not the same right of entry. In so far, therefore, as clubs replace public-houses the reduction of the latter does not mean diminished facilities for drinking, but the contrary. In the years 1903–1908 the average number of clubs proceeded against for offences was 74 and the average number struck off the register was 52. The increase of clubs and the large proportion struck off the register suggest the need of caution in dealing with the licensed trade; over-stringent measures defeat their own end.

Persistent attempts have for many years been made to effect radical changes in the British system of licensing by the introduction of some of the methods adopted in other countries, and particularly those in the United States. But it is difficult to engraft new and alien methods, involving violent change, upon an ancient system consolidated by successive statutory enactments and confirmed by time and usage. The course of the law and administration since 1869 has made it particularly difficult. The stringent conditions imposed on licence-holders have given those who fulfil them a claim to consideration, and the reduction of licences, by limiting the market, has enhanced their value. An expectation of renewal, in the absence of misconduct, has grown up by usage and been confirmed by the law, which recognizes the distinction between granting a new licence and renewing an old one, by the treasury which levies death duties on the assumption that a licence is an enduring property, by local authorities which assess upon the same assumption, and by the High Courts of Justice, whose decisions have repeatedly turned on this point. The consequence of all this is that very large sums