[Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.].

Date:
[1876?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/30 (page 52)
    PROHIBITION in OPERATION in LIVERPOOL* By these experiments,, the following facts have been clearly demon¬ strated I. —That, as a business speculation, builders find it a more profitable investment of their capital to exclude public-houses from the neighbourhood of the people’s dwellings. It has been found that a public-house depreciates the value of the surrounding’ property more than the extra rent obtained for the house itself; it attracts and creates rowdyism; rowdyism drives away respectable tenants, causes loss of rent, frequent removals, damage to property, and expensive cleansing operations after infectious diseases, to which the intemperate are specially liable. II. -—That residences in these prohibitory districts are much in demand, and people are willing to pay a higher rent for dwellings here than elsewhere. This is a sufficient answer to the objection of tyranny raised against prohibition. There has been no instance of a complaint from the residents in these districts of the absence of a public-house. If prohibition were applied by the vote of the occupiers, as well as the owners, would there not be still less probability of complaint P III. —The most common objections against the prohibition of public- houses are:—{!) That it would encourage the “illicit sale of liquor ; (2) That the number of public-houses around the prohibited district would be increased; (3) That the residents would crowd to the outskirts of the prohibited district and there indulge in drinking habits. Seeing is believing. Anyone interested may satisfy himself, by personal inspection, whether such objections apply to these districts ; if not, then one fact is worth a thousand objections, and we need not travel to Maine or Massachusetts, to Saltaire or Bessbrook, to witness the prohibition in actual and beneficial operation. IV. —That all the residents in these districts are not necessarily total abstainers, for many non-abstainers prefer, for various reasons, residing in localities where there are no public-houses near. The success of this experiment in social economy is a strong argument in favor of prohibition by the vote of a majority of the inhabitants of any district. The results of the prohibition of public-houses by the votes of two- thirds of the owners and occupiers together in any district, as proposed by the Permissive Bill, would be precisely the same as those now seen from the action of a few owners without consulting the occupiers. Most of the objections to the Permissive Bill arise from a misunder¬ standing of the simple and clear provisions of that measure. The Permissive Bill would not enforce total abstinence on the residents in a district where it was adopted; it would simply prevent the common sale of intoxicating liquor, not the use of liquor by people in their own houses. The Permissive Bill might be adopted and applied in any Ward, Parish, or Toivnship, and would not necessarily be adopted over the whole of Liverpool at once, unless a majority of the ratepayers in every Ward, etc., voted in its favor. The Permissive Bill, adopted in one or more Wards in Liverpool, would form a “ City of Refuge ”—an “ Oasis in the Desert ”—where those who wished to escape from the temptation and contamination of the public-house might resort. In other words, the area now under prohibition by the will of a few owners of houses and land, would be extended by the votes of a majority of the residents. For example, the Prince’s Road district, the largest district under prohibition, might, under the Permissive Bill, be extended over the whole of North Toxteth Ward, comprising the district bounded by Parliament Street, Park Road, Ullet Road, and Lodge Lane. This, in plain English, is the sum and substance of the Permissive Bill—nothing more nor less thaa conceding to a majority of the occupiers the same power as the owners exercise now to prevent public-houses. When this simple and fair proposal shall become clearly and generally understood, the friends of sobriety will support the Permissive Bill as a just, practical, and effective remedy for the evils of intemperance which all deplore.