THE DRINK TRAFFIC IN LIVERPOOL.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 121, 26 May 1881, Page 3

THE DRINK TRAFFIC IN LIVERPOOL.

A long and interesting discussion (says a London paper) took place on Wednesday in 'the Liverpool City Council upon the licensing question. The councillor who raised the question Baid that the annual drink bill of Liverpool was estimated at thiee millions Bterling, and aa the average income of a Liverpool laborer is £60 per annum, he maintained that the sum spent in drink would support 50,000 families, or 250,000 individuala—that ib to say, half the population of Liverpool. He proposed, therefore, that' the Council should petition Parliament to pass, as speedily as pos-ible, a licensing bill which should give to the ratepayers adequate powers to restrict largely the facilities for the sale of drink, and which would destroy the existing monopoly by providing for the sale of licenses by auction. In the course of a long debate, the Mayor stated that although the population of Liverpool had increased 54,000 in the last ten years, the number of public-houses had diminished by 22, and the beerhouses .by 147. The apprehensions for drunkenness had fallen from 21,113 in 1870 to 14,252 in 1880. A councillor fresh from a tour in Norway and Sweden strongly advocated the adoption of the system prevailing there, and ultimately, after considerable discussion, two hostile amendments being rejeoted respectively by 34 to 6 and 26 to 11, the amended resolution, modified so as to iuolude a reference to a Licensing Board and to exclude the proposed sale of lioenses by auction, was passed without a division. The disoussion and the decision are significant, for Liverpool has usually taken a line of its own in dealing with the drink question, and the majority of the councillors are Conservativea.