THE LICENSING BILL.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 257, 23 July 1908, Page 7

THE LICENSING BILL.

ALL-NIGHT SITTING. "A SCENE." MR. A. CHAMBERLAIN AND MR. ASQUITH. (BI TELEGRAM—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) London, July 21. The House of Commons spent an all-night sitting over tho first clause of tho Licensing Bill, wliicn provides that tho Licensing Justices shall reduce tho number of licenses in their district so that at tho end of a period, of fourteen years from April 5, 1909, tho number of licenses shall not oxcced the scales in tho schedules of tho Act. No progress was made. There was much ljeat displayed during tho debato. A sharp passage occurred between Mr. Asquith (Primo Minister) and Mr. Austen Chamberlain, tho latter declaring that the Premier was discourteous in suggesting that lie (Mr. Chamborlain) had not read the Bill. Lord R. Cecil (Conservative) and other mombers intervened. The Chairman, finally stopped tho tumult, narrowly averting a scene. I ' FAIRNESS OF TIME-LIMIT. ■ In the "Contemporary," .Sir Tlios. Whittaker writes in defence of tho fourteen years' time-limit in*tho Licensing Bill, and discusses the whole financial. position. Ho points out that "expectation" of license renewal is not "property," though it may havo a market value. "The Stato is under no bond or obliga-' tion to onable investors to recoup • themselves for moro or less imprudent'purchases at precarious and often grossly inflated values." The capital invested in breweries and on-licenses in England and Wales tho writer estimates at •£190,000,000, about half of which represents the values of liconsos. But as theso represent only a very flimsy sccnrity they have probably been "writtten down" freely. It follows that an amount of per annum to the end of tho time-limit will recoup tho trade for its license losses—less than 2J per cent, of tho retail receipts. Ho arguos the real loss the brewers are having to fnco is tho nemesis of imprudent trnding. The Bill is not responsiblo for their troubles.