Sober by Act of Parliament

by Fred A. McKenzie

After this attempt the trade was allowed to go on almost without restriction till the end of the fifteenth century; but then the evils caused by it became too apparent to be longer passively borne. In the year 1494, power was given to any two justices of the peace to stop the common selling of ale; and fifty-eight years later, in the reign of Edward VI., a serious attempt was made to grapple with the trade. Parliament complained that “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 or other houses called ‘tippling houses’;” and in order to check these evils it passed various laws for the regulation of public-houses. This act is the foundation of our present licensing laws, and the three main lines which it laid down for the limitation of the business have continued to be observed ever since. These are: (1) that the retail trade in intoxicants is an exceptional business, which the State can only permit to be carried on by duly licensed persons; (2) that the power of granting licences lies with the justices of the peace; and (3) that the magistrates have power, when they think fit, to take away such licences.

Notwithstanding this Act, the national drunkenness showed no signs of decreasing; and when James I. came to the throne fresh efforts were put forth to check it. For many years past the inns had been steadily changing their character; and from being places of rest and refreshment for travellers they had become principally tippling houses. So a measure was passed “to restrain the inordinate haunting and tippling in inns”. According to the preamble of the Act, “the ancient, true and principal use of inns was for the receipt and relief and lodging of wayfaring people travelling from place to place; and for the supply of the wants of such people as are not able by greater quantities to make their provision of victuals; and not meant for the entertainments and harbouring of lewd and idle people, to spend and consume their time in lewd and drunken manner”.

To prevent this improper use of the taverns, various stringent regulations were made. No resident in the district or city where any inn was situated was allowed to remain drinking in it unless (1) he was invited by and accompanied some traveller staying at the inn; (2) he was a labourer, in which case he would be allowed to stay at the inn for an hour at dinner time; (3) he was a lodger; or (4) unless he was there for some other urgent and necessary cause, allowed to be such by two magistrates. A ten-shilling fine, to go to the poor, was the punishment for breaking this law.

Two years later, a further Act was passed for the prevention of drunkenness. According to the preamble, “The loathsome and odious sin of drunkenness is of late grown into common use, being the root and foundation of many other enormous sins, as bloodshed, stabbing, murder, fornication, adultery, and such like, to the great dishonour of God and of our nation, the overthrow of many good arts and manual trades, the disabling of divers workmen, and the general impoverishing of many good subjects, abusively wasting the good creatures of God”. This time it was provided that any person found drunk should be fined five shillings, or confined in the stocks for six hours. In 1609 a further Act was passed dealing with the matter, in which it was admitted that no success had attended the former attempts. “Notwithstanding all laws and provisions already made, the inordinate vice of excessive drinking and drunkenness doth more and more prevail.” In order to more effectually suppress it, heavier penalties were provided, the landlord who permitted tippling was to lose his licence, and less evidence was required to secure a conviction. Not long afterwards the penalties were again increased.

It is notorious that all these measures failed to effect their purpose. But the country was soon to learn that difficult as it may be to promote sobriety by law, it is easy enough for Parliament to encourage and promote drunkenness. Soon after William and Mary came to the throne, the nominal policy of previous reigns was altered, with immediate and overwhelming results. Formerly almost all the spirits used in England had been imported from the continent, and the conditions under which their manufacture could be carried on at home were such as to keep the business very small. But in 1689 Parliament changed this. The Government was in great need of money to meet the plots of traitors at home and carry on its campaigns abroad; and it was thought that a considerable revenue might be obtained by encouraging the home spirit trade. Accordingly, the importation of distilled waters from foreign countries was prohibited, and the right to manufacture them was thrown open to all, subject merely to the payment of certain excise dues. The natural consequence was that the price of spirits fell so greatly as to place them within the reach of all classes. Before long dram drinking had, to use the expression of Lecky, “spread with the rapidity and the virulence of an epidemic”. The results of free trade in drink were visible all over the land. Gin shops arose in all directions in every large town; and in London there were, outside the city and the borough, over 6000 spirit dealers to a population of 700,000. In less than fifty years the consumption of British spirits rose sevenfold; and everywhere the same tale was heard of the ruin it was bringing on all classes. It was at this time that the gin dealers hung out signs announcing that customers could get drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and have straw to lie on for nothing. Nor was this a mere boast; for many of the innkeepers actually provided rooms whose floors were covered with straw on which the intoxicated customers could lie until they recovered consciousness.

Such a condition of affairs could not be long permitted to continue. Parliament, alarmed at the results proceeding from its own action, set about for a remedy. As a first step, dealers in spirits were compelled to obtain licences, like ale house keepers; an annual charge of £20 was placed on the spirit licence, and the principle was introduced of having the licences renewed annually. But the change was made too suddenly, and the licence fee was too high; and this resulted in an extensive illicit trade springing up. In order to stop this, Parliament repealed the Act and passed another, forbidding the sale of spirits except in a dwelling-house, under a penalty of £10. That is to say, every householder was given leave to sell drink in his own home.

The last state was worse than the first. In 1736 the magistrates of Middlesex petitioned Parliament, stating forcibly the terrible results from the state of the law. A Parliamentary Committee was appointed to consider the whole matter; and it reported that the low price of spirituous liquors was the principal inducement to their excessive use; and that, in order to prevent this, a duty should be placed on strong drink, and the right to vend it should be restricted. The same year the Government passed the famous Gin Act, a measure so stringent as to practically prohibit the sale of spirits. No person was allowed to dispose of them unless he had paid an annual licensing fee of £50; and the penalty for breaking the law was a fine of £100. A tax of twenty shillings a gallon was also placed on all spirits manufactured.

The Gin Act came too late. The passion for spirits had become firmly rooted among the people, and they would not consent to have their supplies cut off. They rose against the officers appointed to carry out the Act, and in many of the larger towns there was for some time danger of rebellion. The legal sale of proof spirits dropped in a year to two-thirds of its former proportions; but an immense illicit trade was carried on, which far more than balanced the reduction. All the power at the back of the Government was not enough to obtain the enforcement of this measure, though the magistrates made strenuous efforts to carry it out. In two years 12,000 persons were convicted of breaking the law, but all the prisons of the country would have failed to hold a tithe of those who openly set it at defiance. The excise officers were held in general detestation, and informers or any who dared to appear in excise prosecutions went in danger of their lives. At last the Government had to give way, and in 1742 the Act was repealed.

In 1828 the various Acts relating to the licensing of public-houses were consolidated, and the control of them was made more stringent. Two years later a new and most unfortunate departure was taken. With the hope of causing people to abandon the drinking of spirits, Parliament determined to encourage the sale of beer; and an Act was passed permitting any householder to open a beer shop on paying an excise fee of two guineas. The consumption of beer rose twenty-eight per cent. in consequence; but it was soon found that this, in place of checking the rush to spirits, aided it; and the increase in the spirit trade was even greater than that in beer. The number of houses for the sale of intoxicating liquors rose from 88,930 to 123,396; and many old inns, that formerly had been respectably conducted, were now driven by the stress of competition to very doubtful means for the promotion of their trade. At the same time crime showed a great increase, and, to quote from a Report of a Committee of the House of Lords, “The commitments for trial in England and Wales in the years 1848-49 were, in the proportion to those of 1830-31, the two first years after the enactment of the Beer Act, of 156 to 100; that this is not a mere casual coincidence the Committee have the strongest reasons to believe from the general evidence submitted to them, but more especially from that of the chief constables of police and the chaplains of gaols, who have the best opportunities, the one of watching the character of the beer shops and of those who frequent them, the other of tracing the causes of crime and the career of criminals”.

The Report of a Committee of the House of Commons in 1854 was still more emphatic. “The beer shop system,” it said truly, “has proved a failure.”