descendants retain it even in hot and dry climates. The Slav peoples and the Magyars in central Europe are much more intemperate than the Teutonic and Latin peoples living under similar climatic conditions. These natural differences lead, in accordance with the principle discerned and enunciated by Montesquieu, to the adoption of different laws, which vary with the local conditions. But social laws of this character also vary with the state of public opinion, not only in different countries but in the same country at different times. The result is that the subject is in a state of incessant flux. There are not only many varieties of liquor laws, but also frequent changes in them, and new experiments are constantly being tried. The general tendency is towards increased stringency, not so much because the evils increase, though that happens in particular places at particular times, as because public opinion moves broadly towards increasing condemnation of excess and increasing reliance on legislative interference. The first is due partly to a general process of refining manners, partly to medical influence and the growing attention paid to health; the second to a universal tendency which seems inherent in democracy.
Liquor laws may be classified in several ways, but the most useful way for the present purpose will be to take the principal methods of conducting the traffic as they exist, under four main headings, and after a brief explanation give some account of the laws in the principal countries which have adopted them. The four methods are: (1) licensing or commercial sale for private profit under a legal permit; (2) sale by authorized bodies not for private profit, commonly known as the Scandinavian or company system; (3) state monopoly; (4) prohibition. It is not a scientific classification, because the company system is a form of licensing and prohibition is no sale at all; but it follows the lines of popular discussion and is more intelligible than one of a more technical character would be. All forms of liquor legislation deal mainly with retail sale, and particularly with the sale for immediate consumption on the spot.
1. Licensing.—This is by far the oldest and the most widely adopted method; it is the one which first suggests itself in the natural course of things. Men begin by making and selling a thing without let or hindrance to please themselves. Then objections are raised, and when they are strong or general enough the law interferes in the public interest, at first mildly; it says in effect—This must not go on in this way or to this extent; there must be some control, and permission will only be given to duly authorized persons. Such persons are licensed or permitted to carry on the traffic under conditions, and there is obviously room for infinite gradations of strictness in granting permission and infinite variety in the conditions imposed. The procedure may vary from mere notification of the intention to open an establishment up to a rigid and minutely detailed system of annual licensing laid down by the law. But in all cases, even when mere notification is required, the governing authority has the right to refuse permission or to withdraw it for reasons given, and so it retains the power of control. At the same time holders of the permission may be compelled to pay for the privilege and so contribute to the public revenue. The great merit of the licensing system is its perfect elasticity, which permits adjustment to all sorts of conditions and to the varying demands of public opinion. It is in force in the United Kingdom, which first adopted it, in most European countries, in the greater part of North America, including both the United States and Canada, in the other British dominions and elsewhere.
2. The Scandinavian or Company System.—The principle of this method is the elimination of private profit on the ground that it removes an incentive to the encouragement of excessive drinking. A monopoly of the sale of liquor is entrusted to a body of citizens who have, or are supposed to have, no personal interest in it, and the profits are applied to public purposes. The system, which is also called “disinterested management,” is adopted in Sweden and Norway; and the principle has been applied in a modified form in England and Finland by the operation of philanthropic societies which, however, have no monopoly but are on the same legal footing as ordinary traders.
3. State Monopoly.—As the name implies, this system consists in retaining the liquor trade in the hands of the state, which thus secures all the profit and is at the same time able to exercise complete control. It is adopted in Russia, in certain parts of the United States and, in regard to the wholesale trade, in Switzerland.
4. Prohibition.—This may be general or local; in the latter case it is called “local option” or “local veto.” The sale of liquor is made illegal in the hope of preventing drinking altogether or of diminishing it by making it more difficult. General prohibition has been tried in some American states, and is still in force in a few; it is also applied to native races, under civilized rule, both in Africa and North America. Local prohibition is widely in force in the United States, Canada and Australasia, Sweden and Norway. In certain areas in other countries, including the United Kingdom, the sale of liquor is in a sense prohibited, not by the law, but by the owners of the property who refuse to allow any public-houses. Such cases have nothing to do with the law, but they are mentioned here because reference is often made to them by advocates of legal prohibition.
THE UNITED KINGDOM
England has had a very much longer experience of liquor legislation than any other country, and the story forms an introduction necessary to the intelligent comprehension of liquor legislation in general. England adopted a licensing system in 1551, and has retained it, with innumerable modifications, ever since. The English were notorious for hard drinking for centuries before licensing was adopted, and from time to time sundry efforts had been made to check it, but what eventually compelled the interference of the law was the growth of crime and disorder associated with the public-houses towards the end of the 15th century. Numbers of men who had previously been engaged in the civil wars or on the establishment of feudal houses were thrown on the world and betook themselves to the towns, particularly London, where they frequented the ale-houses, “dicing and drinking,” and lived largely on violence and crime. An act was passed in 1495 against vagabonds and unlawful games, whereby justices of the peace were empowered to “put away common ale-selling in towns and places where they should think convenient and to take sureties of keepers of ale-houses in their good behaviour.” That was the beginning of statutory control of the trade. The act clearly recognized a connexion between public disorder and public-houses. The latter were ale-houses, for at that time ale was the drink of the people; spirits had not yet come into common use, and wine, the consumption of which on the premises was prohibited in 1552, was only drunk by the wealthier classes.
Early History of Licensing.—The act of 1551–1552, which introduced licensing, was on the same lines but went further. It confirmed the power of suppressing common ale-selling, and enacted that no one should be allowed to keep a common ale-house or “tippling” house without obtaining the permission of the justices in open session or of two of their number. It further “directed that the justices should take from the persons whom they licensed such bond and surety by recognisance as they should think convenient, and empowered them in quarter session to inquire into and try breaches by licensed persons of the conditions of their recognisances and cases of persons keeping ale-houses without licences and to punish the offenders” (Bonham Carter, Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing Laws, vol. iii.). This act embodied the whole principle of licensing, and the object was clearly stated in the preamble: “For as much as intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth of this realm doth daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common ale-houses and other places called tippling houses.” The evil was not due merely to the use of alcoholic liquor but to the fact that these houses, being public-houses, were the resort of idle and disorderly characters. The distinction should be borne in mind.
The act seems to have been of some effect, for no further legislation was attempted for half a century, though there is
