On behalf of the Executive Committee of the Central Public-House
Trust Association, Lord Grey has addressed a circular to the Press on the Licensing Bill, with which we heartily concur. He justifies a strenuous opposition to the adoption of any legislative proposals which may prevent the application of Trust principles to the management of new licenses, and in particular to those provisions of the new Bill empowering the sale of a new license to the highest bidder. His Committee do not object to the compensation, out of a fund supplied by the trade, of the holders of existing licenses, which may be extinguished as being unnecessary. But they regard the proposal to empower licensing authorities to create a vested interest in licenses not yet granted as open to the strongest objection, and they express the hope that the Government may accept amendments preventing the realisa- tion of the evils threatened by the passage of Section 2, Clause 4, in its present form,—i.e., the gratuitous creation of enormously valuable vested interests in new licensee, which will be made into "tied " houses ; the providing of a direct induce- ment to owners to push the sale of alcoholic liquors; and the bestowal of surplus profits obtained by a pushing manage- ment on privileged individuals instead of the publics.
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