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=5Q METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM.
the due freedom or convenience of any petson. The refueal of
dl new lioensee to publioana or beer-ahop keepere, so long aa
the number of the h o w e x d a one to five hundred inhnbitanta,
neeme to me 8 very proper and workable measure. It
waa among the propods of the National Union for the Suppression
of Intemperance. The d e might have to be relaxed
in the case of thinly populated diatriuts, dong the coume of
important highways, and in great centres of trade and traffio,
and Tsrious details would have to be considered relating to the
boundarios of districts, and the mod0 of estimating the popuhtion-whether,
for instance, by the laat census, or, sa I
ehould propose, by the number of houses on the rate books,
aounting five inhabitants for each house. But I see no considerable
difBonlty in applying such ta maximum to strengthen
the hands of the magistrates in their use of the licensing
powor.
Another measure which appears to me absolutely indispensable,
and to admit of no delay, is tho entire revocation of
grocers’ licenses. The panting of such licenses was no doubt
a well-meant atep ; it was supposed that people would be
dmwn away from the public-house by the facility with which
they muld obtain liquors of better quality to consume at home.
But I fear that for one who is drawn away from the publichome,
twenty or fifty will ultimately be drawn to it. The
mistake tho8 committed waa only exceeded by that of the
Bsershops Act, another well-intended measure, which was
to w0an people from the me of strong liquors by the facility
of gotting weak ones. There is the most overwhelming
evidence to show that free trade and competition in the liquor
trede lead to disastrous results. It is difEonlt to imagine how
anyone could ever have looked upon fscilities for the dktibntion
of liquors as a mode of diminishing intemperance. Competition
in dl other trades tends to the healthy development
af the trade, end the ooneequent inorease of the qnantity sold.
Bab in %he oeum of liquors our object ie to deamam, not to
fnareaee the de, and we mnet therefore fahe the opposite
00- tad p b obstaoles in the way d the trade which will
mske Eiiqaors deamr and more troublesome to get. At prerent