12. All clubs in which intoxicating liquor is sold must be registered. If the liquor is the collective property of the members no licence is required for retail sale, but no liquor can be sold for consumption off the premises. Clubs run for profit, known as proprietory clubs, are on the same legal footing as public-houses.

13. Penalties incurred by licence-holders for offences under the foregoing provisions. For selling any other kind of liquor than that authorized—first offence, fine not exceeding £50 or one month’s imprisonment; second offence, fine not exceeding £100 or 3 months’ imprisonment with forfeiture of licence and, if ordered, confiscation of liquor and disqualification for five years; third offence, fine not exceeding £100 or six months’ imprisonment with forfeiture of licence and, if ordered, confiscation of liquor and unlimited disqualification. Under the Excise Acts the penalty for selling without a licence is—for spirits, a fine of £100, confiscation of liquor, forfeiture of licence and perpetual disqualification; for wine, a fine of £20; for beer or cider “on” consumption £20, “off” consumption £10. For sale to children; first offence, fine up to £2, second offence, fine up to £5. Permitting premises to be used as a brothel, fine of £20, forfeiture of licence and perpetual disqualification. Other offences, fine up to £10 for first conviction, up to £20 for second.

14. The following are offences on the part of the public. Being found drunk on any highway or other public place or on licensed premises; penalty, fine up to 10s. for first conviction, up to 20s. for second, and up to 40s. for third. Riotous or disorderly conduct while drunk; fine up to 40s. Falsely pretending to be a traveller or lodger; fine up to £5. Causing children to be in a bar or sending them for liquor contrary to the law; fine up to £2 for first and up to £5 for second offence. Attempt to obtain liquor by a person notified to the police as an habitual drunkard; fine up to 20s. for first offence, up to 40s. for subsequent ones. Giving drunken persons liquor or helping them to get it on licensed premises; fine up to 40s. or imprisonment for a month. Causing children under 11 to sing or otherwise perform on licensed premises, and causing boys under 14 or girls under 16 to do so between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M.; fine up to £25 or three months’ imprisonment.

The foregoing statement of the law does not in all respects apply to Scotland and Ireland, where the administration differs somewhat from that of England. In Scotland the provost and bailies are the licensing authority in royal and parliamentary burghs, and elsewhere the justices. They hold two sessions annually for granting licences and have considerably more power in some respects than in England. The hours of opening are from 8 A.M. to 11 P.M. (week days only), but there is a discretionary power to close at 10 P.M. In Ireland the licensing authority is divided between quarter sessions and petty sessions. Public-house licences are granted and transferred at quarter sessions; renewals and other licences are dealt with at petty sessions. In Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Londonderry and Galway the licensing jurisdiction of quarter sessions is exercised by the recorder, elsewhere by the justices assembled and presided over by the county court judge. The licensing jurisdiction of petty sessions is exercised by two or more justices, but in Dublin by one divisional justice.

Licence. Old Duty. New Duty 1909-1910.
Manufacturers’ Licences—
 Distiller (spirits) £10, 10s.

£10 for first 50,000 gallons, £10 for every additional 25,000 gallons.

 Rectifier (spirits) £10, 10s. £15, 15s.
 Brewer £1

£1 for first 100 barrels, 12s. for every additional 50 barrels.

 Sweets (British wines) £1 £5, 5s.
Wholesale Dealers’ Licences—
 Spirits £10, 10s. £15, 15s.
 Beer £3, 6s. 1d. £10, 10s.
 Wine £10, 10s. No change.
 Sweets £5, 5s. No change.
Retail Licences On—

 Full or Publican’s (spirits, beer, wine and cider)

£4, 10s. to £60 according to annual value of premises.

Half the annual value of premises, with a fixed minimum ranging from £5 in places with less than 2000 inhabitants to £35 in towns having over 100,000 inhabitants.

 Beer-house £3, 10s.

One-third of annual value of premises, with a minimum as above ranging from £3, 10s. to £23, 10s.

 Wine (confectioners’) £3, 10s.

From £4, 10s. to £12 according to annual value.

 Cider £1, 5s. From £2, 5s. to £6.
 Sweets £1, 5s. From £2, 5s. to £6.
Retail Licences Off—
 Spirits £3, 3s.

From £10 to £50 according to annual value.

 Spirits (grocers’, Scotland) £4, 4s. to
£13, 13s. 6d.
 Spirits (grocers’, Ireland) £9, 18s. 5d. to
£14, 6s. 7d.
 Beer (England) £1, 5s. £1, 10s. to £10.
 Beer (grocers’, Scotland) £2, 10s. and £4, 4s. £1, 10s. to £10.
 Wine (grocers’) £2, 10s. 0d. £2, 10s. to £10.

Excise Licences and Taxation.—The excise licences may be divided into four classes, (1) manufacturers’, (2) wholesale dealers’, (3) retail dealers’ for “on” consumption, (4) retail dealers’ for “off” consumption. Only the two last classes come under the jurisdiction of the justices, as explained above. The total number of different excise licences is between 30 and 40, but several of them are subvarieties and unimportant or are peculiar to Scotland or Ireland. The duties charged on them were greatly changed and increased by the Finance Act of 1909-1910, and it seems desirable to state the changes thus introduced. The table on the previous page gives the principal kinds of licence with the old and the new duties.

There are in addition “occasional” licences valid for one or more days, which come under the jurisdiction of the justices; the duty is 2s. 6d. a day for the full licence (raised to 10s.) and 1s. for beer or wine only (raised to 5s.).

The total amount raised by the excise licences in the United Kingdom for the financial year ending 31st March 1909 was £2,209,928. Of this amount £1,712,160, or nearly four-fifths, was derived from the full or publicans’ licence, £126,053 from the wholesale spirit licence and £88,167 from the beer-house licence; the rest are comparatively unimportant. But the licences only represent a small part of the revenue derived from liquor. The great bulk of it is collected by means of duties on manufacture and importation. The total amount for the year ending March 1909 was £37,428,189, or nearly 30% of the total taxation revenue of the country. The excise duties on the manufacture of spirits yielded £17,456,366 and those on beer £12,691,332; customs duties on importation yielded £5,046,949. The excise duty on spirits was at the rate of 11s. a gallon, raised at the end of April 1909 to 14s. 9d.; the corresponding duty on beer is 7s. 9d. a barrel (36 gallons). The relative taxation of the liquor trade in the United States, which has become important as a political argument, is discussed below.

Effects of Legislation.—The only effects which can be stated with precision and ascribed with certainty to legislation are the increase or diminution of the number of licences or licensed premises; secondary effects, such as increase or diminution of consumption and of drunkenness, are affected by so many causes that only by a very careful, well-informed and dispassionate examination of the facts can positive conclusions be drawn with regard to the influence of legislation (see [Temperance]). There is no more prolific ground for fallacious statements and arguments, whether unconscious or deliberate. The course of legislation traced above, however, does permit the broad conclusion that great laxity and the multiplication of facilities tend to increase drinking and disorder in a country like the United Kingdom, and that extreme severity produces the same or worse effects by driving the trade into illicit channels, which escape control, and thus really increasing facilities while apparently diminishing them. The most successful course has always been a mean between these extremes in the form of restraint judiciously applied and adjusted to circumstances. The most salient feature of the situation as influenced by the law in recent years is the progressive reduction in the number of licensed houses since 1869. Previously they had been increasing in England.

The number of public-houses, including beer-houses for “on” consumption, in 1831 was 82,466; in 1869 it had risen to 118,602; in 1909 it had fallen again to 94,794. But if the proportion of public-houses to population be taken there has been a continuous fall since 1831, as the following table shows:—