Regulation of the Liquor Traffic (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. LOCAL OPTION. LOCAL option is a right, granted by legislative enactments, to the inhabitants of particular districts, to determine by ballot, whether or not licenses should be issued for the sale of intoxicating liquors within such districts.1 It is the attempt to combine Prohibition and the License System. Local Option had its origin in England. In 1853, some gentlemen residing in Manchester and Salford, impressed by the injurious working of the then existing local laws, formed themselves into a provisional committee and inaugurated the United Kingdom Alliance, "To procure the total and immediate legislative suppression of the traffic2 in intoxicating liquors and beverages"; and taking as example, the "Maine Law," which had then been in force some five years, they drew up what they called "A Permissive Bill," for the consideration of Parliament. In October, 1868, at the General Council Meeting of the Alliance, a letter by Mr. Gladstone was read, in which occurred the following sentence: "I could not go beyond a reference to my votes and speeches in the House of Commons, including declarations made in the session lately expired, from which you would see, that my disposition is to let in the principle of 'Local Option3, where ever it is likely to be found satisfactory." Four years prior to this time, Sir Wilfred Lawson, conceived the idea, that localities should be permitted to regulate for themselves whether they would have any saloons open or not; if open, whether the license should be low or high. Carrying out this idea, Lawson drafted a bill embodying this principle and called it "The Permissive Prohibitory Liquor Bill." On the 10th of March, 1864, he succeeded in having it read for the first time 1Bouvier's Law Dictionary. Local Option, p. 1...