public-houses owned by brewers, as much eventually will bring untold happiness, tied houses as any tied public-house. I comfort and health to the people of this deplore the want of courage on the part country. certain politicians in grappling with this question. I do not fear the club vote. I do not believe the club vote is so strong numerically as some seem to think. I feel so strongly the need for dealing drastically with this question that I am prepared to defy the club vote. Without the treatment of this question drastically you might as well give up all hope of temperance reform. There is just another matter in connection with the Bill to which I have heard no reference made so far, and that is the fact that it does not deal with grocers' licences. Had it proposed to deal with grocers' licences I believe that would have been the most popular clause in the Bill. No one supports grocers' licences except grocers who have licences, and I think it is universally admitted that they are as potent a cause of intemperance, especially among_women, as the ordinary public-house. The last speaker made a suggestion that the time-limit should be extended. I hope the Government will do no such thing. From what I know of the feeling in the country I am convinced that if the Government extend the timelimit they will take the heart out of those who are agitating and supporting this Bill in the country. Fourteen years is far longer than the trade had any right to expect. It is far too generous. We want something doing in ou: lifetime. We do not want to wait twenty-one years. Very brave words have been uttered from that bench and even braver words have been uttered in the country by responsible Ministers. They have declared that they mean to stand by the main provisions of this Bill. I hope they will. They have upon their side in supporting this Bill such a combination as I think has never supported a measure before. They have all the churches and religious organisations of the country, they have the organised labour movement solid in their support, and the enthusiastic support of those of us who sit upon these benches. Therefore I hope they will not take their hand away from the plough, that they will persevere and pass this measure into law, and I am perfectly certain that by so doing they will have made a beginning which

*MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH (Anglesey): We all recognise the authority with which the hon. Member speaks and the sincerity of purpose that inspires all his speeches, and I am sure all Liberals, as far as I know on this side, are especially glad to know that we have organised labour also upon our side. It has been gratifying, at any rate, to know in the course of the debate that everyone who has spoken, whether on this side or that, is a very strong supporter of the temperance movement, especially hon. Members on the other side. Their voices grow quite pathetic when they declare their adhesion to the great temperance cause. Their only regret is that they could not support this particular Bill because it did not attain the purpose so dear to their hearts. The remedy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Honiton was quite simple. When he found a man who got drunk he would fine him the first time at a pretty big figure, at a still bigger figure on the second occasion, and send him to prison on the third-a very drastic and heroic remedy for drunkenness. As far as the Royal Commission is concerned, the unanimous Report has been referred to more than once in the course of the debate. There were direct representatives of the trade on that Commission, and they came unanimously to the conclusion that there was a gigantic evil to be remedied, and that no sacrifice was too great in procuring the diminution of what they unanimously called a national degradation. I have listened during the debate to discover what is the remedy and who is to make the sacrifice. So far as I can understand, everyone recommends everyone else to make the sacrifice and find the remedy. I take it that this Licensing Bill, at any rate, is the answer of the Liberal Party to the remedy and to the sacrifice asked of the country. With regard to this, I think the leading point of difference between the two sides on this occasion has been that the Conservative Members say: "You really cannot do much by Act of Parliament. What you want to do is to enlighten public opinion.' It is said you cannot make a man

sober by by Act of Parliament. In licences and freeholds. The Leader of a certain sense that is true. You the Opposition, whose absence we all cannot make him industrious, educated, regret, has said more than once that and learned. But that does not he never pretended for a moment that prevent us from passing Acts of Par- there was a freehold in licences in this liament on these questions. If I were country. That being so, we must look asked the question I should think an Act at the property that we are time limiting. of Parliament has more power over the As far back as eighty years ago an Act sobriety of the people than almost any of Parliament was passed which said that other part of public life. The existence these licences should be for one year of licences and the restrictions with only. At the end of the year it was not which the trade is surrounded is the a continuation of the old licence, but the very admission of the right of Parliament granting of a new licence for the subto regulate the trade, and why should sequent year. That went on until 1882, we not say that Parliament will diminish when a case was tried in the High Court the number of licences-that is, the tempta- which decided the principle that we say tion to drinking? In the second place, has always been the law of England as far as local option is concerned, it as to the discretion of the magistrates. will not make a man sober, but it will give In 1883, Thomas Nash, the legal adviser him the opportunity to make himself to the Licensed Victuallers' Association, sober, which is a much more important wrote to the papers saying that this was thing. Is there or is there not any no new thing to him, but a secret of the relationship between the number of trade for many years past, and it had licences and the temptation to drinking been divulged, perhaps unnecessarily, and to drunkenness? There are two by this case, and that they all knew that answers to that question. First of all, subject to the appeal to quarter sessions the experiment of free trade in drink, the justices had unlimited discretion that is, an unlimited number of licences, over the licences. In 1891, it was put has been tried. If the number of licences beyond controversy in the Sharpe has nothing to do with drinking, how and Wakefield case. The trade comes it that when the free trade experi- knew all about the matter, and so ment was made drunkenness was more it remained until the Act of 1904. rife than it had ever been before, and What we have to consider is what when the converse of that movement difference the Act of 1904 made. took place in Liverpool, the city again What the Act of 1904 does is to provide grew more sober? Is not that really that, when a licence is taken away simply almost a conclusive answer? It proves on the ground that it is not required, that the increased number of licences compensation shall be paid by the remainincreased the facilities for drinking, and ing members of the trade. The Conled to drunkenness. In the Act of 1904, servative Government of that time did the whole principle underlying the not venture to say that there was a measure was that if you decrease the freehold in licences. It was never sugnumber of licences you have a great gested that they were taking something temperance measure. It seems to me which the licensee possessed, but that that there is no answer to those two the surviving licensees should compensate suggestions of mine. The Liverpool free the man whose licence was taken away. trade experiment and the Act of 1904 Under these circumstances I venture to prove conclusively that there is a relation- suggest that really the 1904 Act was ship between the number of licences simply the corollary of what took place and the facilities for drink. In regard under the boom of 1896. During those to the second principle in the Bill- years the brewers tied the houses, and the time-limit-that is a point on which in 1904 the Conservative Government there is considerable difference of opinion. tied the magis ates. The question of the I do not propose to go as far as my hon. principle is not in doubt, and it is simply friend's philosophical disquisition on this a question of how long. Although point. You must look, when you have not much is heard about it in this House, regard to the time-limit, at what you are the licence is talked of in the country time limiting. Something is said about as if it were a freehold. In the case of a

which must be fought out. Everyone are religions, where the use of alcoholic knows that the liquor trade lies at the liquors is entirely prohibited, but it is a root of most of the poverty, crime, and matter of common knowledge that a cermisery in the country, and until this tain proportion of the people of every problem is dealt with drastically we country are devoid of self-control. shall never have that happy and con- and in those countries evils of a kind tented England which we all desire. to which, in comparison, drunkenness is a very feeble one, undoubtedly MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: abound. Where potable alcohol in our I desire to offer a few words own country and in America cannot be in opposition to this Bill on the obtained the people take to such liquors ground that it is a destructive and as methylated spirits, and there are things restrictive measure which is only worse than that, such as the drug habit. masquerading as a temperance measure. I venture to lay down two principles: It has been said that we on the Opposition firstly, that all excessive drinking is adside of the House are devoting ourselves mittedly a great evil, and that we should to the interests of the brewers and publi- take all reasonable means to put cans. I will leave others to speak an end to it, provided that in doing for the brewers and publicans; I wish so we avoid the risk of incurring to give the view of the man in the street even greater evils; and, secondly, that -the man who is a moderate consumer the moderate consumption of alcohol is of alcoholic drinks, who does not get not in itself wrong or harmful. Whilst, drunk-in short, the representative per- therefore, we should not be concerned son in England and Wales, who is not a tee- to interfere with the moderate and totaller and not a drunkard. I think that legitimate refreshments of the people, in considering this question it is certainly we ought to be directly concerned-and desirable to look at the question from we ought to be prepared to do everything the point of view of the consumer. I that in us lies to diminish it-with this admit with the last speaker, and with the great national vice. How are we to most fervent of the teetotaller orators carry this into effect? Well, the offwe have heard on the other side, all the hand answer to this question is that we evils of drunkenness. In 1907 we had should begin by closing up one-third 197,000 convictions for drunkenness in of the public-houses. That is the answer England and Wales, and every man in made by this Bill, and I venture this House knows of cases in his own to say that the off-hand answer made experience where homes are blighted, in this way is made by people who have where prospects fail, and where homes not studied the question of intemperance, are broken up by this terrible evil. We or by people who have no practical on this side claim to be as anxious to put experience of public-houses themselves. down drunkenness as any of those hon. Those people who have no practical Members who have addressed the House experience of public-houses may be in support of the Bill, and we are pre- divided into two classes. There are pared to make allowances for some of the teetotallers themselves, whose views our friends, because those who are total are absolutely prejudiced on the questior, abstainers themselves honestly think that and we who claim to be reasonable men the same course of conduct would be the should not allow ourselves to be misled best thing for everybody else. Those either by teetotal views on the one hand, men are certainly entitled to put their or by the arguments of merely interviews before the community in the face of ested people on the other. We should the terrible evils which undoubtedly exist, try to look at the thing fairly and squarely. but their views should not be allowed on The other class includes the whole of the an occasion like this to obscure our views, better classes in this country. The or to cause us to take any mistaken view bishops, to whom my hon. and learned of the general position. My proposition friend referred just now, know nothing is that it is not the use of alcoholic liquors at all in practice of the inside of publicthat ought to be interfered with; it is houses. They have got their private the abuse, and mere repression is no cellars, and they have got their clubs, remedy. There are countries, and there the Athenæum and so on, where they

imposed on clubs are practical hardships, not upon the best and wealthiest clubs, but upon poor men's clubs, and that is a kind of class distinction to which I very much object. What are these distinc tions? First of all, the Bill provides for the compulsory annual renewal of club registration. That is a trifle in the case of the Athenaeum or the Reform; the club would send down the secretary to carry out the formality. But it is a serious thing to a club consisting of a few poor men, because it involves the expense of getting the renewal. Then there is the transfer to the licensing justices of jurisdiction over clubs which is an intolerable thing to inflict upon a voluntary assembly of Englishmen. They do not want their clubs to be put in the category of licensed houses. They prefer the court of summary jurisdiction which has always had charge of these affairs in the past. Then there is the right of police entry. That, as you know, would be a mere farce with regard to a club like the Reform or the Devonshire, but it is a very serious thing indeed in the case of a club of a few working men. [An HON. MEMBER : Why ?] Because a police inspector would not dare to go into the Reform or the Athenæum and act as he would do in a poor man's club. In a poor man's club he would say to a member You walk this chalk line." The police inspector would behave himself in the same way as when he goes into a public-house. The indignities to which the poor man's club would be subjected by the police inspector would never be dreamt of in the case of the wealthy man's club in Pall Mall. Then there is the question of the £20 fine. If Lord So-and-So, or the Duke of Something, had been keeping a birthday at his club and, if coming out apparently the worse of liquor, he should be "spotted

may meet their special friends and talk clubs are harshly and improperly dealt over matters with them. When they with. Everyone of the five restrictions travel they go to first class-hotels. The common inn or public-house knows not the bishops or the gentlemen of the superior class, and it is equally true that they are not qualified by personal experience, and much less by necessity, to say anything really important on the subject of licensed houses. Without any disrespect to the Members of this House who are present to-night, may I say that the same thing applies to them? Members of Parliament in dealing with the question of licensed houses are merely legislating for classes of the community of whose habits and necessities, by experience at all events, they know little or nothing. They know nothing about their homes, their work, their leisure, or their requirements. Members of Parliament can get at any hour of day or night-those who are not teetotallers any alcoholic liquors they like within the precincts of this House, and therefore there is no necessity for their going into public-houses. I venture to point out that there is not merely one means of obtaining alcoholic refreshments. There are four means open. First of all you have the wine merchant to whom any member of the public can go, and by paying for them get wines and spirits to replenish their cellars. Then you have clubs, with respect to which a good deal had been said in the debate. In 1904 there were 6,371 clubs registered in England and Wales, in 1905 the number had increased to 6,589; in 1906 the number had increased to 6,721, and in 1709 the number was 6,907. There has been a steady and regular increase in the number of clubs. All classes of the community have got their clubs. You have the House of Commons, which has been called one of the best clubs in London. You have clubs for the bishops and others, the Athenæum, the Carlton, and the Reform, and then you have clubs in which a few poor working men meet in small inexpensive rooms in back streets. This Bill does not reduce the number of clubs automatically or in any other way; it practically imposes no restrictions upon their formation, but it imposes five distinct annoyances. Here I am opposed to my hon. and learned friend who has just spoken, because I think that

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'spotted" by an extra intelligent policeman, a £20 fine might be imposed. That would be nothing to the wealthy club, but such a fine in the case of a working man's club would be ruination. And, further, the penalty of five years' forfeiture is the most outrageous suggestion in regard to clubs ever heard of in any Bill previously brought before this House. I have described two of the means which are open to people to