THE LICENSING QUESTION.
FAR be it from us to blame the publicans for complaining of that amendment of the laws by which the monopoly they have hitherto held is to be effectually broken up. When men are punished, they may lawfully cry out ; nor would we measure Very nicely the words which; the infliction has extorted. This is, however, all we can concede: we are not to refrain from doing right, because the right must in its very nature be injurious to him that has previously thriven upon wrong. And this is precisely the case of the publicans. When we take from an individual, for the sake of public convenience, a property lawfully acquired and lawfully holden, reason is that we should compensate him for his loss : but all reason cries out on the claim of compensa- tion for the abstraction of that which has been enjoyed not by law but by its abuse. We have been told that leases of publichouses, purchased some months ago for two thousand pounds, would not, if Carried to market at present, fetch five hundred. But while we regret that any poor, perhaps we might add simple man, should suffer so lunch loss, there is still one little question recurs—how came the lease of a publichouse to be three hundred per cent. better than the lase of any other house ? Do the licensed victuallers pretend to tell 11s, and to tell Parliament, that there is any thing in the law as it now stands, or in the law as it stood twelve months ago, that justifies the limitation of publichouses so as to enhance their value thus enormously? In the northern part of the island, beer licences are granted, and always have been granted, by the Justices of the Peace ; and a degree of caution is exercised in regard to the character of the applicant, which the crowded state of London renders impossible; yet there, a publichouse is not, apart from the natural advantages of situation, one tithe of a penny more valuable than a private house. Why ?- because there are no monopolizing brewers, no jobbing magistrates, to warp the statute from its purpose, to the promotion of their own or their dependants' interests. In the first place, then, the victuallers have not the slightest claim to legal compensation, because they suffer no legal loss. But, in the second place, Parliament cannot be called on to pay, in such a case as theirs, because they get nothing in return. Where an improvement-act comes in contact with a poor man's house, it would not, perhaps, be fair, instead of remunerating him for its site, to dispossess him by simple ejectment. When the hovels that crowded the line between Pall Mall and Portland Place were knocked down to make way for the magnificent street that now joins them, it was just and reasonable, that, small or great, these hovels should be paid for. But who ever dreamt, when the good thoroughfare from the south to the north was opened, and the crooked, dirty, and in- convenient thoroughfares raviously in use were in consequence dis- continued, that the possessors of houses in the latter should be com- pensated for their diminished value ? If Mr. CALcaarr's bill went to take away their licences from the publicans now holding them, then we should say it was an unfair one ; but all that it purposes is to give licences to such persons as apply for them,--which the Magistrates under the present law may do if they please. Possessing neither statutory nor chartered monopoly, how can the publicans talk of compensation for the extension of rights to which they neither have nor pretend to have any peculiar, much less exclusive claim ? But the argument in favour of compensation is answered in so com- plete amanner by the publicans themselves, that it is unnecessary for us to enlarge on it. By the statement of the petitioners, the total amount of fixed capital belonging to the licensed victuallers of England, is thirty millions ; the victuallers themselves amount to fifty thousand; the number of barrels of beer of all kinds, brewed for public sale, is six millions ; the retail profit on each barrel is ten shillings. The average fixed capital of each publican is of course 6001., and the average sale 120 barrels. Now let us see what these data—supplied by themselves,be it observed—necessarily involve.
Interest on 6001. at 5 per cent, per annum. . . £30 0 0
Wear and tear on ditto, at the same rate . . 30 0 0
Average charge for fixed capital £60 0 0 Profit on 120 barrels of beer, at 10s, per barrel . 60 0 0 Remains for house-rent, taxes, rates, and all other charges £00 0 0 I !
So that, by their own statement, the sum total of the value of the illegal monopoly in beer which the publicans at present enjoy, and for the breaking down of which they clamour for compensation, is iust nothing at all! Thus, after all the racket that has been held, it is the gin, and only the gin, that pays the licensed victualler ; and of the gin, Mr. CALcaArr's bill will not deprive him. " Oh ! that mine enemy had written a book I" said the patient man ; and perhaps in those cautious times it might require a book, but now-a-days a peti- tion is quite enough. The Brighton Gazette, we perceive, has been reading us a lecture on the subject of our opposition to the beer monopoly.
"A weekly paper, which is opposed to all monopolies in general, and to the beer monopoly in particular, condemns, strongly, the intended increase of duty on whisky. 'The makers of whisky (says the writer) are doing well ; the drinkers of it, for all the miserable cant on the subject, are doing very well; much capital is embarked in its production—capital compelled into the trade by Government : why then proceed to legislate:on a subject where legis- lation is called for by none, and where it can produce nothing but evil ?' All This _reasoning is equally applicable to the Beer trade, and for the sake of con- sistency we call on the writer to uphold henceforth the cause of the brewers and publicans."
i Now, with all respect for the general acuteness of our provincial ' friend,' we cannot admire his logic on the present occasion. We vantage to rum. So much for the question as one of economy. We added, as the Brighton Gazette has quoted, that all parties were doing well • under the existing law, and nobody asking for a change ; which Iis so notoriously false in respect of the monopolizers of the sale of , round, and by the imposition of an unequal tax, gave an unfair ad- blamed Government, and shall continue to blame it, because, having placed whisky on a level with rum, and thereby directed a large amount of capital towards the manufacture of the former, they turned beer, that every beer-loving throat and stomach in the kingdom is the worse for it, and no nuisance since the fall has ever been so loudly, so universally, and so continuously complained of. We are not con- sistency-mongers, but the aim of our arguments for the distillers in the one case, and against the publicans in the other, is perfectly identical.
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