The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-30 00:00:00

THE PUBLIC-HOUSB IlloNoroLy Ayb t.
JUTE NEW BEER Piidtc-- :4,..•„--j\, ,
~...........,...- v,.;-tairr-
(Prom the Examiaprs) 1,,, 4
ir,
The committee of the House of *Csonses' os,s, 'I7:Y.: e' ass's st :
quired during the past session into Vtiesssosera-40!: ~;
laws affecting public-houses, have recseramk4e4 s.ssissesielp4
in the system of licensing. Any person at preteigirtsi.
complying with certain conditions, can Ibtitainvilitice
from the Excise for the sale of malt-liquor ; but the
power to grant licenses for the sale of spirits rests utith
the magistrates, who confine the privilege to a ieleot
few, instead of throwing open the trade to all respectable
applicants. The right to vend spirits as well as beer
proves so advantageous to the publican, that the seller
of beer alone finds it impossible, in the vast majority of
instances, to sustain the competition ; and thereby the
maeistrates have virtually the power of nominating the
'dealers in both departments of this enormous branch of
trade. Such a system, which is opposed to every sound
principle of commerce, has produced its natural results.
It is admitted-that the magistrates are guided more
by private feelings than:by public convenience in the ex-
ercise of their discretion. -One man gets a license
because the brewer who owns the house has friends
atth e e
ibeeenticohn
s; aonno tht
here issafma ve o usri edde
horeeaacnqseuainhtea
"vesoteosn
of his judges ; a third, because
hweithhasthehemenajbutler or footman to one of their wor-
ships. The applicant who had not had luck to sit or
wait at the table -of a magistrate, or whose opinions
on matters of Church and State are not in accordance
with those of the justices of his locality, has very little
chance of being permitted to sell spirits.
In towns, nevertheless, a sufficient amount of competi-
tion is managed to be kept up. There, in spite of these
unjust partialities, a sufficient number of contiguous
houses exist in different bands to prevent a monopoly.
But it is otherwise in the country ; and it is here that
the mischief of the licensing system is most strongly felt.
The license once granted. it is practically considered as -
attached to the house. If the latter changes hands, it
sells for a price which is quite disproportionate to the
value of the building, because the purchaser knows that
he is likewise buying the right to supply the neighbour-
hood with ale, beer, and spirits. Permission to open
new houses is very sparingly granted ; and the brewer
who Owns the village public-house, or, as frequently hap-
d pens,
r i
ett,h the
awshtohlee o f
monothep
oplyu hot ife -thhoeu
market.ses of a
Theconsiderable
report
is full of evidence upon this head which is quite irresis-
tible. Knowing that the people must drink his beer, or
go without, the brewer's only care is to make it of such
a quality as that it shall seem better than none, The
publican, again, who receives an inferior article, of
which the worst ingredient is commonly an excess
of water, adapts it to the dull and crayiug palates
of his customers by a large admixture of salt, sugar,
and drugs. Those who are accustomed to whole-
soiner beverages can seldom drink a glass of beer at
a wayside public-house without having to pay hea-
vily for the refreshment with headache. A single cir-
cumstance is of itself sufficient to show the advantage
which is taken by the country brewer of this monstrous
privilege—for such it surely is—to be the exclusive ven-
der of particular liquors in particular districts. When a
public-house has an independent owner who can choose
his market, they are accustomed to furnish him with
far better beer than that which they impose upon their
' own publicans. This fact is proved in fifty instances.
But in truth such evidence is almost superfluous. To
state the case is to expose it. Competition is the life of
trade ; when it stagnates, it grows corrupt.
To remedy these-evils, the committee proposes that
the distinction between beer and spirit licenses should
cease ; that one license should confer the right to sell all
intoxicating drinks ; and that any respectable person
should be entitled to the privilege, on giving his own
bond, with that of two sureties, as a security for con- .
forming to the regulations of the Legislature. To this
it has been objected that the multiplication of public-
houses will give a stimulus to drunkenness. The objec-
tion comes too late. The brewers have already taken
care that wherever a cluster of houses exists one of them
shall be set apart for the accommodation of the thirsty.
It is no longer a question of whether the labouring man
should be supplied with beer, but whe shall brew it ?
not whether he shall confine himself to tea, coffee, and
water, but whether he shall drink from a good tap or a
bad one ? The lady who asked her butler how she could
economise her barrel of small beer, was told that the surest
method was to place a barrel of stronger beer by the side
of it. This will be the ordinary effect of a reform in the
licensing system. The drugged and worthless barrel of
beer will be left untasted, and the barrel of generous ale
will be drunk in its stead. It is probable that in very
many country places no additional public-house will be
Opened ; for the instant the monopoly ceases, the brewers
will have the prudence to secure- that-custom by the ex=
cellence of their goods which they now attain by the pro-
tective. tyranny of their licenses. Or, if a successful
rival springs np, it will soon absorb the opposition estab-
lishment, and the only change will be that a new house
is built out of the ruins of an old one.
But it is urged that labouring men are more attracted
by cheapness than quality, and that it will not be so
much a race of who shall produce the best beer, as of who
shall sell it at the lowest price. If this should in some
instances prove the case, the change will still be advan-
tageous. At present the consumer has neither cheapness
nor quality. As he is entirely at the mercy of the
' brewer and publican, they sell him the worst mixture
they can venture to concoct at the highest price they
can venture to charge. With free competition he can
take his chance ; and either he will give less money or
he will get better beer. Those who profit by an abuse
readily persuade themselves that the system which is
most ad van7ageous to them is most beneficial to the pub-
lio ; but all other persons will probably be of opinion
that it is high time this anomalous and pernicious mono-
poly should be broken-down.
Our legislators, however pressed for tinie,have preferred '
to give us a new Public house Bill of another sort. And
this piece of notable legislation, very fat from having
touched the real evil pointed out by the committee, has ac-
tually had the support of those "licensed victuallers" most
interested in maintaining the grievances by which they
profit so largely. 'To avert a good, those who are most
anxious to maintain the close system of licensing have
connived at an evil. Something, it was foreseen, must
be sacrificed to public opinion ; and the sprat has been
resigned, in the hope of being rewarded for such an act
of virtue by permission to keep the whale.
In other words, the more influential among the li-
censed victuallers have allowed the " New Beer Bill" to
pass, that they may defeat the proposition to throw open
the trade. In both cases the poor man is the victim. By
the licensing laws he is confined to dear and often dele-
terious drink, and by the New B.,er Bill he is not per-
mitted on ?undays to drink at all except between the
hours of one and half-past two, and between six and ten.
Such a restrictidli will .commonly be found in practice
either useless or mischievous. The man who is sottishly
inclined will find abundant scope for his prcipeneities in
the hour and half at noon, and the four hours of evening;
while his sober neighbour, whose wholesome tastes carry
bins out of noise, smoke, and tainted air, to seek health
and quiet in the suburbs, will find that he is debarred
the ordinary refreshment which nature craves. If, when
he is outward bound he does not arrive at hio goal till
half-past two, he must remain thirsty and jaded till six ;
if on his return, 'he is not at his destination before
ten, he must wind np his one day of ease in the
seven with a mug of cold water. The complications
of life are so various, and indeed endless, that not a
single Sunday can ever pass without the stipulated hours
in this vexatious act interfering with the convenience,
the comfort, the necessities of thousands. It is almost
impossible to calculate the effect of social restrictions ;
but there is a much greater likelihood that the orderly
man who finds-his innocent recreation turned into a
penance, will have recourse in its place to some neigh-
bouring public-house where he can tipple and smoke
from six to ten, than that those who are in the habit of
profaning the Sunday by their over addiction to drink
will be driven by the New Beer Bill to church between
half-past two and six.

In; the meanwhile, the difficulties which might have
been anticipated bare arisen in the interpretation of the
act. As it was impossible to decree that no person,
under any circumstances, however urgent, should be
permitted to taste drink at certain hours at a place of
public entertainment, an exception is made in favour of
lodgers and bona fide travellers. The police have main-
tained that the passengers who arrive in London by rail-
way are not travellers within the meaning of the act ;
which, now that nobody comes from a distance by any
other mode of conveyance, is equivalent to saying that a
bona fide traveller cannot exist. If, on the contrary, the
plea be admitted, and the person who has come all the
way from Plymouth or York is no longer to be told, in
defiance of truth and common sense, that what makes a
traveller on Saturday does not make one on Sunday, by
what magic is the publican to distinguish between the
man who is really just alighted from a carriage, and the
man who feigns a journey to obtain a pot of beer ?
,It is evident at a glance that the act must either be a
nullity or an intolerable oppression.
The determination of which it shall be rests for the present with the magistrates. At the Marylebone Po-
lice-court on Slturd; last, Mr. Long, in the first deci-
sion which has taken place under the act, rejected the
stringent interpretation of the police, and gave a liberal
construction to au illiberal bill. He held that a gentle-
Man who went every Sunday from Northainpto(nii-nsquaret
to Hampstead heath for the express purl
)osefoefsh airghe
the Castle Tavern, and breathing the onlis;
could get in the week, was a bona fide
Greenwhich, would
excursion to Richmond, Hampton, serener. An
an equal title to refreshreent i
may adopt
It is to be hoped that his brother magistrates
diminish as much as,possible
in Mr. Long's judgment, for thensta:areie
preraoshoincitceodnshtoituurste
until
has
bPeaern-
this view. They will thus
.
liament can satisfy the judgment
A gammeennd or do away with it
passed by the Public, -n hic h measure,
already
altogether.
the evils of a harsh and ill-digested
At the best
construction of it can only result in
But any r4!iii .
contradictions, injustice, and, what
it will be a bill of pains and penalties.
endless absurdities,
M Long is wo the lenient views of tr. and the
is tried between .
doctrine of the police, who virtually deny
rst of all, fraud. On the other hand, if any Medium
preposterous
-ale .
t.,possibility of a Sunday traveller, the necessities of
life will break through the ordinary trammels of the
law. While honest men suffer, the less scrupulous will
get by trickery what they are refused as a sight.

advises from Hamburg yesterday
mention a further increase in the demand for money, dis-
count having advanced tp 24 to 3. The French rate of
exchange is steady, with a tendency to renewed firm-
ness. From Alexandria, also, the quotation shows an
improvement, which will probably check the export of
sovereigns to that quarter. The Odessa ad vices are to
the 18th inst., but they contain no information, except
that one or two vessels had been engaged to carry hu-
mid to London at 120 a. per ton.