Race, retailing and wartime regulation: The retail business (licensing) order 1918

Abstract

The Retail Business (Licensing) Order was issued by the Ministry of National Service (MNS) in 1918 ostensibly as a concession to shopkeepers who were drafted into the Army and as a means of preventing manpower being deployed on ‘unnecessary’ labour. The Order required that new businesses obtain licences to conduct trade. The number of new shops could thus be rationed, enabling conscripted shopkeepers, on their demobilization, to return to their old retail trades without facing intense competition from new businesses which had opened during their absence with the services. The hidden agenda, however, included discrimination against aliens in the granting of licences. The licensing authorities were local officials of the MNS. The study explores some of the policy issues in respect to alien treatment under the Order, and also pressures exerted on MNS officials from certain quarters, such as the Corporation and Town Clerk of Glasgow, to exercise the licensing powers as a means of discriminating against Aliens...