HC Deb 13 April 1826 vol 15 cc157-63
Mr. Hume

rose to present a petition from Thomas Edwards, a doctor of laws, and a magistrate for the county of Surrey, on the subject of the present Licensing System; a subject that must be viewed by all as one of very great importance. The petitioner had selected the present period, because the hon. member for Oxford, had introduced a bill respecting the licensing system; and he hoped that the suggestions contained in his petition would not be disregarded, It was manifestly necessary that well-regulated houses should be established for the benefit of the public, and that a proper power should be given to keep them in a quiet and orderly state. But an attentive perusal of the whole of the evidence taken before the committee on this subject showed that the existing system, so far from having the effect of encouraging the establishment of well-regulated houses for the public good, had, on the contrary, been a cloak for the establishment of houses of the worst description. They all knew, that when a licence was granted, it raised the value of a house from 500l. to 1,000l. The profits on money thus laid out were very great; and were raised by charging the public exorbitant prices for beer and spirits. It was a very lamentable thing to find a magistrate speaking, as the petitioner did, of the conduct pursued by his brother magistrates in granting licences. He stated that, on licensing-day, he had often witnessed a system of jobbing, altogether disreputable to persons holding the situation of magistrates. There were twenty public houses in some streets, while in others there was not one, because no person had taken the precaution to induce the magistrates to grant a licence. Now, he could not see why any licence should be required for a public-house more than for a house in which tea and coffee were retailed. The person who wished to obtain a licence for the sale of tea and coffee produced his money, and the licence was granted as a matter of course; and if the same practice were adopted with respect to persons who sold beer and spirits, it would be attended with great convenience. If any abuses were discovered, the law in existence was sufficiently powerful to put them down. The petitioner was anxious, and so was he, to do away with the necessity of applying to magistrates for licences, and thus to put an end to the jobbing system which at present prevailed.

The petition was then read, setting forth,

"That although the provisions of the present act which regulates the licensing of ale-houses may, with some modifications, be sufficient in the country divisions, where the public-houses are thinly scattered, where irregularities are less likely to occur, and, above all, where the weight and influence of the owners of public-houses are of small amount compared with the rank and independence of the country gentlemen who act as magistrates, a total change of system in the divisions adjoining London is requisite to prevent those abuses which were proved in evidence in the years 1816 and 1817, before the committee of your honourable House, called the Police committee.

"That in a single division, in the vicinity of London, the number of public-houses licenced by a few individuals greatly exceeds the total amount licenced by all the other magistrates in the county; and that the temptations which the patronage holds out for mercenary characters to endeavour to get into the commission of the peace are enormous, as the grant of a licence immediately raises the saleable value of a house five hundred pounds and upwards. That from eight hundred to a thousand public-houses are licenced in a single division adjoining London; that sometimes twenty public-houses are licenced in a single street; that in other places they are licenced in clusters, and even next door to each other, without the smallest regard to the legal principle of public utility, for which object alone the power to grant licences was placed in the hands of magistrates; and that this excess is stated by independent magistrates and publicans, in their evidence before the Police committee, to be one of the greatest causes of crime, as it is impossible for the publicans to live by fair means where they are so numerous, and equally impossible to have a sufficient watch over their conduct.

"That although the legislature has been anxious to exclude brewers and distillers from acting as licencers, the independent magistrates, in the divisions adjoining London, find themselves associated, at licencing sessions, with brewers, back-makers, brick-makers, timber merchants, and other tradesmen, who are identified in interest with the owners of old, and the applicants for licences to new, public-houses, and that it is impossible so to multiply the exclusions as to destroy personal interest and private connection.

"That although the licence is a personal grant to the publican of one year's duration, requiring only that the House should be specified in order to secure the convenience to a neighbourhood where it is alleged to be wanted, a most pernicious patronage has been created, by treating the licence as an appendage to the house for the benefit of the owner, in consequence of which, the owner is enabled to extort an oppressive rent from the publican, or to compel him to take his beer of a particular brewer, to the great injury of those respectable brewers, whose superior liquors would, under other circumstances, command a preference, and to the ultimate ruin of the publicans, while the public are obliged, by this monopoly, to drink beer of an inferior quality, and at such a price as will cover the extravagant rents and premiums given for houses which magistrates thus endow with perpetual privilege. That, among other evils, this perpetuity of privilege has the effect of preventing the victuallers' trade from finding its natural and wholesome level; for, as long as the owner of the privileged house can find enough on the premises to satisfy his exorbitant and unjust rent, extorted from another man's licence, or can hope to obtain a large premium from a brewer by threatening to sell to an opponent, it will be his policy to draw in successive victims, and to keep his house in a trade which must inevitably bring his tenant to a gaol. That it is in evidence that some of these houses will change their tenants three or four times in a year.

"That it is in evidence before the Police committee, that the worst-conducted houses are often the most valuable on account of the increased consumption; and that when an unprincipled owner has put in an unprincipled tenant to push a profligate trade, licensing magistrates have protected the interests of the owner, and perpetuated the licence by allowing the tenant to transfer as soon as a complaint has been made or threatened. That it is in evidence before the Police committee, that when parish officers and respectable inhabitants have attended to establish their complaints on the day fixed by the magistrates themselves for the hearing, they have been immediately silenced, and told by the magistrates that a new man had been since put in under a transfer, and that the complaints which applied to the former tenant could not be heard against the new one. That in reference to this practice, the Police committee, in their report to your honourable House, have observed, that "the most disorderly and licentious conduct of houses belonging to particular owners does not insure the loss of licence; but that if at last, from the notorious infamy of the parties complained against, the magistrates are compelled to interfere, the least possible punishment is inflicted, the tenant is shifted, a real or fraudulent transfer is made, and a newlandlord takes possession, to follow the old practices with aggravated misconduct.

"That Mr. Bowles, in his evidence before the Police committee, as a licensing magistrate of the Brixton East half-hundred, states that a house was licensed in an improper situation, at Camberwell, as he believes, through the influence of a brewer, who held the lease, and that, after repeated misconduct, the publican was allowed to save the licence from forfeiture, and himself from punishment, by a transfer—a majority of the magistrates stating that under counsel's advice, which they had taken, they had no discretion or power to refuse a transfer under any circumstances.

"That, at the licensing session, in the same division, in 1824, your petitioner had occasion, with others, to oppose an attempt, supported by the votes of seven magistrates, to allow a publican, in a neighbourhood greatly overstocked with public-houses, to transfer his interest to another, after a complaint which was fatal to his own renewal had been fully established, and the same advice was again adverted to; but when such advice—viz. the opinion of sir Samuel Shepherd—was produced and read to the end, it appeared that his advice was, that the magistrates had a discretion, and Mr. Bowles had therefore been misled. That in the course of the same proceeding, in 1824, the publican applied to transfer, after he had notice that the complaint had been entered, and it was on two several days proposed to take the application respecting the transfer into consideration, without waiting to hear the complainant's evidence, on the ground that, in the case of a transfer, the magistrates had nothing to do with the misconduct of the party transferring. That on one of those days, a bye-law of the division was produced, which enabled an owner to put forward a new man at the same session, whenever the licence should be forfeited by misconduct.

"That it is in evidence before the said committee, that active and respectable parish officers have ceased to complain of disorderly houses, finding it to be useless; and that respectable magistrates have withdrawn, in despair, from licensing sessions. That the proceeding by criminal information is of very rare application, from the difficulty of proving the corrupt motive. That it appears from the evidence before the Police committee, and it is known to your petitioner from other sources, that contests for opposite principles have occasionally taken place; but that the disinterested magistrates, who, in the neighbourhood of London, are much occupied with their own professional or commercial pursuits, cannot spare the time necessary to enable them to counteract the artifices and concealments of interested parties on the several transfer days, and at licensing sessions in divisions, where from eight hundred to a thousand houses are licensed.

"That the existing act has left all those abuses which were proved before the Police committee completely untouched and open to repetition, and that your petitioner is fully convinced that it is impracticable, by any legislative provisions, to guard against the most serious injury to the public interest and the public morals under the present system, in the divisions adjoining London. That he humbly submits to your honourable House, that the separation of the patronage in those divisions from the magisterial authority, by which the patronized are now expected to be controlled, can alone preserve the unpaid magistracy from the hazard of that degradation and disgrace which must always attach to practices such as were proved before the Police committee. That if it could be supposed that magistrates derive any additional respect from the exercise of extensive discretional powers, the suburban magistrates, by availing themselves of their right, as Country; magistrates, to attend the licensing sessions of the nearest country divisions (to which, since the institution of police-officers, they more properly belong), may still participate in a discretional power, more abundant than that which is enjoyed in the more remote divisions by country gentlemen, where the public-houses are but few.

"That your petitioner further most humbly submits, that if the trade were thrown open in the divisions adjoining London, under strong penalties for misconduct, and good securities, the public: houses would be less numerous and more; respectable—the public would obtain their beer at a lower price and of a better quality; while the respectable brewers would no longer be subject to the hard- ship of being compelled to purchase privileged houses at large premiums, to preserve a trade which, under a better system, the superiority of their beers would command, and to the mortification of seeing their property, thus compulsively purchased, placed at the mercy of tradesmen acting as licensing magistrates, whom, if they do not employ, they may offend—of tradesmen who are also the fathers of brewers, their rivals, and of tradesmen who supply the speculating builders of new houses with materials, and the payment of whose bills may depend on the speculator being able to obtain a license for an opposition house to that which the system has already obliged the brewer to purchase, at a large premium. Your petitioner, therefore, most humbly implores your honourable House to take such measures in respect of the premises as to your wisdom shall seem meet."

Ordered to lie on the table.