substitution of stronger and more dangerous liquors.[356] The result of that inquiry was the repeal in 1875 of the Prohibitory Bill, and the passing of an Act which regulates the price of licenses according to the kind of liquor sold. For example, the licensing committee _may_ charge up to 1000 dollars for a license to sell liquors of any kind to be drunk on the premises; whilst they may not charge to any one, not being a brewer, more than 150 dollars for a license to sell malt liquors, cider, and light wines containing not more than 15 per cent. of alcohol, to be drunk off the premises.[357] This Act (which is now in force, an amendment of it having been vetoed by the Governor) is intended to be a test of the efficacy of permissive legislation coupled with restrictions where licenses are granted, as against entire prohibition. For, as Governor Rice said, in his address to the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1876,[358] “It expressly declares that nothing in it shall be so construed as to require the mayor and aldermen of a city or the selectmen of a town to grant licenses. Every city and town, therefore, has the right and the opportunity secured to it to forbid altogether the sale of intoxicating liquors within its limits; and in this particular and in others the present law seems to involve the principles and measures which the most advanced temperance men in Great Britain are seeking to carry out in that country.”[359] Governor Rice then recites the penalties and forfeitures that attach to breaches of the licensing regulations, which include the very important restriction “not to sell at a bar;” and he goes on to say, that the Board of License Commissioners of the city of Boston believe that under the law “something has been gained.”[360] The law is recognised; there is a decrease in the sale of intoxicating liquors; and the number of liquor shops had diminished from 3090 in December 1874 to 2483 in September 1875. And finally, the Governor confirms what is usually held to be the case, namely, that whilst it is impossible to enforce prohibition in large towns, “in sparsely settled agricultural districts almost any measure of repression approved by the more intelligent and virtuous citizens of the neighbourhood can be enforced.”[361]