Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/791

EUROPEAN COUNTRIES] France.—The present law governing the licensing of establishments where liquor is sold for consumption on the premises was passed in 1880; it abrogated the previous decree of 1851, by which full discretion was vested in the local authorities, and freed the traffic from arbitrary restrictions. It provides that any person desiring to open a café, cabaret or other place for retailing liquor must give notice to the authorities, with details concerning himself, the establishment and the proprietor, at least 15 days beforehand; the authority in Paris is the préfecture of police and elsewhere the mairie. Transfers of proprietorship or management must be notified within 15 days, and intended transference of location 8 days beforehand. The penalty for infraction is a fine of 16 francs to 100 francs. Legal minors and persons convicted of certain crimes and offences—theft, receiving stolen goods, various forms of swindling, offences against morality, the sale of adulterated articles—are prohibited; in the case of crimes, forever; in the case of offences, for five years. Otherwise permission cannot be refused, subject to conditions which the local authority has power to lay down regulating the distance of such establishments from churches, cemeteries, hospitals, schools and colleges. But persons engaged in the trade, who are convicted of the offences mentioned above and of infraction of the law for the suppression of public drunkenness, are disabled, as above. The law practically amounts to free trade and the number of houses has increased under it; in 1900 there was one to every 81 persons. This proportion is only exceeded by Belgium. Under the Local Government Act of 1884 municipal authorities are empowered, for the maintenance of public order, to fix hours of closing, regulate dancing, forbid the employment of girls and the harbouring of prostitutes and make other regulations. The hours of closing differ considerably but usually they are 11, midnight or 1 The trade is lightly taxed; retailers pay from 15 to 50 francs a year; wholesale dealers, 125 francs; breweries the same in most departments, distilleries 25 francs. The excise revenue from liquor amounted to £20,000,000 in 1900.

Germany.—The German law and practice are broadly similar to the French, but the several states vary somewhat in detail. Under the imperial law of 1879 inns or hotels and retail trade in spirits for on or off consumption may not be carried on without a permit or licence from the local authority which, however, can only be refused on the ground of character or of unsuitability of premises. This is the general law of the empire; but the state governments are empowered to make the granting of a licence for retailing spirits dependent on proof that it is locally required, and also to impose the same condition on inn-keeping and the retailing of other drinks in places with less than 15,000 inhabitants and in larger ones which obtain a local statute to that effect. Before a licence is granted the opinion of the police and other executive officers is to be taken. The licensing authority is the mayor in towns and the chairman of the district council in rural areas. The provisions with regard to the dependence of a licence on local requirements have been adopted by Prussia and other states, but apparently little or no use is made of them. Permits are very freely granted, and the number of licensed houses, though not so great as in France, is very high in proportion to population. Three classes of establishment are recognized—(1) Gast-wirthschaft, (2) Schank-wirthschaft, (3) Klein-handel. Gast-wirthschaft is inn-keeping, or the lodging of strangers in an open house for profit, and includes “pensions” of a public character; the imperial law provides that a licence may be limited to this function and need not include the retailing of liquor. Schank-wirthschaft is the retailing for profit of all sorts of drinks, including coffee and mineral waters; it corresponds to café in France and refreshment house in England; but the mere serving of food does not come under the law with which we are here concerned. Klein-handel is retail sale either for on or off consumption, and the liquor for which a licence is required in this connexion is described as branntwein or spiritus, and is defined as distilled alcoholic liquor, whether by itself or in combination. A licence for Schank-wirthschaft includes Klein-handel, but not vice-versa; none is required for the retail sale of wine which is the seller’s own produce. Licences may be withdrawn for offences against the law. Licensed houses are under the supervision of the police, who fix the hours of closing; it is usually 10, but is commonly extended to 11 or midnight in the larger towns and still later in the case of particular establishments. Some cafés in Berlin do not close till 3 and some never close at all. Persons remaining on the premises in forbidden hours after being ordered to leave by the landlord are liable to punishment. Serving drunkards and persons of school age is forbidden. Drunkards, in addition to fines or imprisonment for disorderly conduct, are liable to be deprived of control of their affairs and placed under guardianship. For music and dancing special permits are required. With regard to taxation, in Prussia all business establishments beyond a certain value pay an annual tax and licensed houses are on the same footing as the rest. Businesses producing less than £75 a year or of less than £150 capital value are free; the rest are arranged in four classes on a rising scale. In the three lower classes the tax ranges from a minimum of 4s. to a maximum of £24; in the highest class, which represents businesses producing £2500 and upwards (or a capital value of £50,000 and upwards) the tax is 1% of the profits. There is also a stamp duty on the licence ranging from 1s. 6d. to £5. The latter goes to the local revenue, the business tax to the government. Beer and spirits are also subject to an excise tax, from which the imperial revenue derived £7,700,000 in 1901; but the total taxation of the liquor trade could only be calculated from the returns of all the federated states.

The laws of France and Germany are fairly representative of the European states, with some minor variations. In Holland the number of licensed spirit retailers is limited in proportion to population (1 to 500), and the taxation, which is both national and local, ranges from 10 to 25% of the annual value.

In Austria-Hungary and Rumania the licence duty is graduated according to the population of the place, as used to be the case in Prussia. In 1877 a severe police law was applied to Galicia in order to check the excesses of spirit-drinking. The Poles, it may be observed, are spirit-drinkers, and the exceptional treatment of this part of the Austrian empire is one more illustration of the trouble arising from that habit, which forces special attempts to restrain it. The law, just mentioned, in Holland is another instance; and the particular cases of Russia and Scandinavia, described below, enforce the same lesson. Where the drink of the people is confined to wine and beer there is comparatively little trouble. In Switzerland the manufacture and wholesale sale of spirits has been a federal monopoly since 1887, but the retailing is a licensed trade, as elsewhere, and is less restricted than formerly. Before federation in 1874 the cantons used to direct local authorities to restrict the number of licences in proportion to population; but under the new constitution the general principle of free trade was laid down, and the Federal Council intimated to the cantonal authorities that it was no longer lawful to refuse a licence on the ground that it was not needed.

Russia.—In 1895 Russia entered upon an experiment in regard to the spirit traffic and began to convert the previously existing licence system into a state monopoly. The experiment was held to be successful and was gradually extended to the whole country. Under this system, which to some extent resembles that of South Carolina but is much less rigid, the distilleries remain in private hands but their output is under government control. The retail sale is confined to government shops, which sell only in sealed bottles for consumption off the premises, and to commercial establishments which sell on commission for the government. Spirit bars are abolished and only in a few high class restaurants are spirits sold by the glass; in ordinary eating-houses and at railway refreshment rooms they are sold in sealed government bottles but may be consumed on the premises. The primary object was to check the excesses of spirit-drinking which were very great in Russia among the mass of the people. The effect has been a very large reduction in the number of liquor shops, which has extended also to the licensed beer-houses though they are not directly affected as such. Presumably when they could no longer sell spirits it did not pay them to take out a licence for beer.

Sweden and Norway.—In these countries the celebrated “Gothenburg” or company system is in force together with licensing and local veto. Like the Russian state monopoly the company system applies only to spirits, and for the same reason; spirits are or were the common drink of the people and excessive facilities in the early part of the 19th century produced the usual result. The story is very similar to that of England in the 18th century, given above. From 1774 to 1788 distilling in Sweden was a crown monopoly, but popular opposition and illicit trade compelled the abandonment of this plan in favour of general permission granted to farmers, innkeepers and landowners. At the beginning of the 19th century the right to distil belonged to every owner and cultivator of land on payment of a trifling licence duty, and it was further extended to occupiers. In 1829 the number of stills paying licence duty was 173,124 or 1 to every 16 persons; the practice was in fact universal and the whole population was debauched with spirits. The physical and moral results were the same as those recorded in England a hundred years before. The supply was somewhat restricted by royal ordinance in 1835, but the traffic was not effectively dealt with until 1855 when a law was passed which practically abolished domestic distilling by fixing a minimum daily output of 200 gallons, with a tax of about 10d. a gallon. This turned the business into a manufacture and speedily reduced the number of stills. At the same time the retail sale was subjected to drastic regulations. A licensing system was introduced which gave the local authority power to fix the number of licences and put them up to auction or to hand over the retail traffic altogether to a company formed for the purpose of carrying it on. The latter idea, which is the Gothenburg system, was taken from the example of Falun and Jönköping which had a few years ago voluntarily adopted the plan. The law of 1855 further gave rural districts the power of local veto. Four-fifths of the population live in rural districts, and the great majority of them immediately took advantage of the provision. The company system, on the other hand, was not applied by the towns until 1865, when Gothenburg adopted it.

In Norway the course of events was very similar. There, too, distilling and spirit-drinking were practically universal in the early part of the century under the laws of 1816, but were checked by legislation a few years sooner than in Sweden. In 1845 a special licensing system was introduced, giving the local authority power to fix the number of licences, and in 1848 the small and domestic