The government, having yielded to the dictation of the Publican interest,
indicated that either the Magistrates must be hindered from exercising
their ancient power of not renewing annual licenses when in their
discretion they deem such renewal to be against the public good; or else
that some measure of compensation must be enacted, whereby this wealthy
liquor monopoly should have its huge financial profits made permanently
secure by the grant from Parliament of a vested interest in their
licenses. If after the passing of such a measure the Magistrates should,
for the protection of the people, refuse the renewal of a license, the holder
of that speculative public-house investment would be by law guaranteed
against loss. He would thus no longer need to insure himself against
the risk of non-renewal, for the State would have turned this annual
license into a freehold property. Then for the first time this dangerous
'Trade' would have obtained that fixity of tenure which it has so long
coveted, but which Parliament in its wisdom has always vigorously refused
to grant; and the nation, which has already too long suffered under the
oppression of the Liquor Traffic with its terrible licensed temptations,
would then be permanently crushed under one of the most perilous of
all the political tyrannies that ever sapped the strength and the freedom
of a great people. For these Liquor Traffickers have proclaimed cynically
their anti-social aloofness, from the ideals of good citizenship; "they
know no interest but their own," and their defiant boast is heard at all
elections, "Our Trade our Politics.
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