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The position in regard to licences, as we know perfectly well, has been sensibly and, indeed, entirely altered in the course of the last few years.
"Yes, I remember I was puzzled as to the details of Hallin's scheme," said Aldous, his mouth twitching. "I wanted to know who was to pay for the licences; how game enough for the number of applicants was to be got without preserving; and how men earning twelve or fourteen shillings a week were to pay a keeper.
The Destitute Board kept in its hands the issuing of licences, and appointed a lady to visit the babies till they were two years old, and did good work; but when that department was properly turned over to the State Children's Council there was even more vigilance exercised, and the death rate among these babies, often handicapped before birth, and always artificially fed after, was reduced to something less than the average of all babies.
"There are some few amongst the lately arrived who expressed dissatisfaction with the result of their labours and observations, while others, who have been working for the last month, have promptly renewed their expired licences. "The Hon. the Colonial Secretary."
The regulation of the liquor traffic provided the next battle-ground. In 1876 Ontario had passed the Crooks Act, which took the power of granting licences from the municipalities and gave it to provincial commissioners. Two years later the Dominion parliament passed the Scott Act, giving counties power to prohibit the sale of liquor within their limits.
It may be necessary to forbid a child to go into a gin-palace in order to secure it the privilege of not being driven into a gin-palace. Prohibitions are as necessary to human liberty as permits and licences. At the same time, quarrel as we may with Mr. Chesterton's mediaevalism, and his application of it to modern problems, we can seldom quarrel with the motive with which he urges it upon us.
It is indeed a lamentable fact that the principal revenue of the Hawaiian government is derived from the fines levied upon, or rather the licences taken out by Vice, the prosperity of which is linked with that of the government. Were the people to become virtuous the authorities would become poor; but from present indications there is little apprehension to be entertained on that score.
These licences were an authorized mode of evading that very prohibition which the belligerents conceived it to be for their interest to maintain.
Under a licence to import, the British merchant must not also be the exporter. He is not permitted under such a licence to go to the enemy's country, and there act as an enemy's merchant, carrying on the export trade of that country. Sometimes, in describing the property in licences, the privilege is extended to all property of a certain class, "to whomsoever the property may appear to belong."
We take the view that land cannot be regarded as an ordinary commodity, nor are we prepared to place publicans' licences in the same position as ordinary property. A licence is a gift from the State, and the licensed trade is subject to special restrictions and special taxation; this has been recognised by all parties and by all Governments.
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