EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. ySy 



ly through local authorities, whether the corporations of cities and 

 boroughs, or the benches of Licensing Magistrates. Before allowing 

 any very serious experiments, such as the abolition of the public sale, 

 the local authority would have to present evidence that the mass of the 

 inhabitants was in favor of such a measure, and the Commissioners 

 would then probably assign a suitable district, and authorize police 

 regulations suitable for the most advantageous trial of the experiment. 

 This method would carry out to the fullest point the idea of a " local 

 option." Free licensing might be tried in Liverpool, and such other 

 boroughs as liked to venture on such a hazardous experiment. The 

 Gothenburg scheme would be adopted by Birmingham and a few other 

 towns. Manchester might prefer the slighter measure of a rigid re- 

 striction and supervision of the public-houses. It is to be hoped that 

 Sunday closing and a lessening of the week-day hours would be voted 

 by many local authorities, and the experiment of remodeling the 

 trade, as suggested above, ought certainly to be tried I should also 

 much like to see some trial made of the important suggestion put for- 

 ward by Dr. John Watts, at the last meeting of the Social Science 

 Association. He suggests that in each town or district a limited 

 number of licenses should be sold by public auction or tender. His 

 purpose apparently is to limit the number of licenses, and yet to se- 

 cure the profits of the monopoly to the community. 



After the expiration of ten or fifteen years, Parliament would be in 

 possession of a great amount of really practical information, but the 

 probability is that it would not be found necessary to pass any great 

 act for the subsequent regulation of the traffic. The scheme which 

 was found to work best would by degrees be imitated in the districts 

 of corresponding circumstances, just as the Gothenburg scheme is be- 

 ing imitated in other Swedish towns. I do not think that in a matter 

 of this sort the final law need be exactly uniform. In the licensing 

 act of 1872 it was found undesirable to fix a uniform hour of closing 

 public-houses all over the country. Owing to the difference of habits, 

 the metropolitan area was allowed one hour later at night, and consid- 

 erable latitude was left to the Licensing Magistrates to vary the hours 

 of closing. Surely such matters approximate more in character to 

 hackney-cab regulations or matters of police, which have long been 

 left to the borough authorities. It is only the political question loom- 

 ing behind the social or legislative question, which could warrant Par- 

 liament in deciding that people shall go to bed one hour earlier in the 

 country than in London. But Parliamentary experience concerning 

 the Licensing Act of the late Cabinet, and the now defunct Permissive 

 Bill, can not encourage any party to press for a further great general 

 measure of licensing reform. As to the present state of things, it could 

 not be much worse nor more absurd. What with the great variety of 

 kinds of licenses, the doubts and fears of the magistrates as to their 

 powers of withdrawing licenses or restraining extension of premises, 



