In England  in the late 19th and (esp.) in the early 20th cent. reduction in
numbers appears to have been decidedly more popular than local option
prohibition as a strategy for temperance reform.  Most of the
proposals for reduction in numbers in proportion to population provided
some kind of financial compensation for the license holders who lost their
(nominally annual) licenses for no fault of their own.  I don't recall that such
financial compensation was offered in the USA.  "High license" has
some similiarity to what in England was called exaction of "monopoly
value," so that licensed premises would have no more value than the
same premises unlicensed.