All

Ireland and Scotland part of our people? | is carried-and I hope it never may beSurely they are, and if this is the object into law. Let me ask another question. of this Bill and it is good for England, What is this going to justify? What are can it be less good for the people the Government going to gain by these of the other two countries also? harsh and cruel methods that they are If that be so, why is it not extended to adopting? Surely they must know by Ireland and Scotland, where at the this time; they surely must have realised present time it is notorious that the by now that there are hundreds of humble consumption of alcoholic liquor is investors in this country whom this Bill in greater than it is in England? If the its present shape will bring to poverty, Government did extend it it might and I am afraid in many cases to absolute bring them into sharp collision with ruin. What are the Government going their greatest allies and principal sup- to do? What is their great object? porters in those countries. But if that They have shown us nothing at the is what accounts for their exclusion from present time to give warrant to the this Bill, I must remark that it says Bill, or to show that the reduction of very little for the genuine character the licences and the diminution of and the reality of the Government's drunkenness will proceed pari passu reforming zeal in the campaign into together; that the substitution of clubs which they have entered against which they cannot control for the publicthe evil of drunkenness. At this houses which they can, and do, is likely to lead in the smallest degree to the spread of temperance among our people so simply, widely, and happily as everyone. on all sides of the House desires. the facts and figures so freely quoted in this debate appear to me, and I have done my best to master them, to lead to absolutely opposite conclusions. I believe myself, with the most absolute sincerity, that this measure, whatever. the expectations and anticipations of the Government may be with regard to it, is more likely to lead to increased consumption of alcoholic liquors privately or otherwise. It will be enough to quote the statement of Mr. Gladstone, that there are three great principles which ought to guide us in the consideration of this question, and one of them is that changes should be made with due and careful regard to the state of public opinion in the country. That reminds me of something I was told a great many years ago-I do not like to think how many-by Mr. Delane, the famous editor of The Times, to whom, in those days, I was often indebted for much kindness and encouragement. What he said to me was this—

period of the debate it is needless for me to dwell at any length on the measure of the loss they are going to inflict upon large numbers of the people of this country. That has been done, I think, pretty thoroughly already. But what is the use of doing so in the face of the callous indifference, as it appears to me, of the Front Treasury Bench with regard to the effect of the Bill on large numbers of people in this country? That weighs with me more than anything else in my opposition to this Bill, an opposition I am determined to continue to offer to it. One hon. Member of the Front Bench spoke in terms of the greatest pity of the poor and widow investors, who, he said, would suffer greatly. I would fain believe the pity he expressed was genuine, but if it was, what pity do the Government show them in this Bill? Where is it to be found in any single one of the forty-seven clauses? Why, that document as it stands at present is not one but a whole series of clauses designed, and very cleverly designed, to complete the ruin of these people. I say that it is the Government and the Party who support them who have made already and are continuing to make the position, which they declare to be bad enough, infinitely worse. [Cries of No."] Yes, a thousand times or more, as is shown by the opposition to their measure even at the present moment and before it

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VOL. CLXXXVII. [FOURTH SERIES.]

SIR FRANCIS LOWE (Birmingham, Edgbaston): It is a decreasing evil.

in regard to the taxation of ground eloquent words which he used towards values; they seem to have invested in the close of his speech. those. In respect of bad housing accommodation, widows and orphans have invested largely in that class of property. Then as to Chinese labour. The widows and orphans seem to have picked out all the worst mines in South Africa, all the mines that could not pay without coolie labour, and invested heavily in them. I thought they had lost all their money there, but it seems that the money they have lost they have re-invested in Meux's brewery. Then the right hon. Gentleman trotted out "The Coach and Horses." That is a most useful electioneering wheeze, but if the right hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to investigate the circumstances he would have found that there is really nothing in it.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I should be very glad to believe that that is the case, but I am sorry to say, looking at the statistics, it is not decreasing; on the contrary, in some respects it is increasing, and far and away the most serious increase is that of female drinking. From the point of view of the future of the race, I cannot conceive of any graver symptom than that. At any rate I do not know that it is denied by anybody that it is a very grave social evil, and the gravest of the moment. Yet nobody listening to the speeches on the other side of the House could conceive that we are really discussing the method of curing that evil. On the contrary, it is all about debentures, and preference shares, and investments, and Stock Exchange transactions, while at the bottom of the whole thing you have this very grave social symptom. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite had come to the House and said: "We I are

MR. CHAPLIN: I gave the facts of the case, and asked you to answer them.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I think the right hon. Gentleman might have at least taken the House into his confidence. The House would then have known that the facts stated have nothing in common at all with the facts as they really are. will deal with that later. I want to come to the question of expectation. The right hon. Gentleman finally has come to the conclusion that this is a Bill which will lead to an increase in the consumption of drink, and yet it will ruin the brewers. All those who are engaged in making beer and selling beer are to be reduced to beggary, and yet this Bill is somehow or other going to increase the consumption of drink throughout the country. It is a very remarkable Bill if that is the case. But, having listened to this debate for three or four days, there is one thing that has struck me very forcibly, more especially in listening to the speeches on the other side of the House. No man listening to those speeches could come to the conclusion that we were debating a proposal made by a Government which is supported by all the organisations that have made a special study of this problem -debating a Government Bill to deal with the greatest social evil of the moment, an acknowledged evil, not disputed by any section, and acknowledged by the right hon. Gentleman in those

dissatisfied with your proposals dealing with the property invested in the liquor traffic," and if they had said: "Provided there is some equitable provision made, we will help you to the utmost of our power to solve the problem, to do something to decrease the evil of intemperance, by equipping magistrates and local authorities with full powers to cope with the evil," then, speaking for myself, I say I should not scrutinise so closely the title of the publicans and the licencees to even generous treatment. But they have not done so. They have treated it purely as if it were a property question. And, therefore, we are bound, in the first instance, to examine the claim which is put forward by them to the treatment of this as property and to examine closely the character which they claim the property has and the treatment which ought to be meted out to it as a property when the State takes measures for the purpose of dispossessing, for public reasons, those who are in the enjoyment of that property. Well now, what is that property? We have heard a good deal about vested

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EX- We h CHEQUER (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Car- orpha narvon Boroughs): In the last solemn Ever words which the right hon. Gentleman wh addressed to this House, he threatened us with a flood which was to sweep, away. I do not know when

honour to quote from speeches made by me licences have a market value. There about ten years ago a licensee in a particular district says:

(the very speeches which the right hon. "We have had local option in this Gentleman quoted here)

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passages favouring within limit of terms, and favouring in some degree the principle of compensation in its application to the liquor trade. I should have been obliged to the right

hon. Gentleman if he had mentioned two

circumstances which, in my opinion, are one of

them material and the other vital to the cases

now before the House. The one that is material since that date in a mauner which, in my judgment and in the judgment of most men, saving the distinguished exception of the Solicitor-General, is highly unfavourable not only to the doctrine of vested interests which the Home Secretary shrinks from maintaining in those terms, but likewise to the doctrine of permanent interest on the part of the publican

is that the law has been cleared and settled

in his annual licence."

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particular country for about twenty or thirty years, but it has not been exercised." Take Montreal or Toronto. There they say it is not likely to be exercised. They gauge public opinion and they come to the conclusion that as far as Toronto and Montreal are concerned, there is not the remotest probability that there will be any public vote which will take away the expectation of the publican of renewal. What is the result? A licence there has a market value which it has not got in a rural district which is much more liable to fluctuations of public opinion, and where you may get a vote which may So he made it perfectly clear that he had deprive the licensee of his licence. altered his view in regard to the question That is exactly the case here. The of compensation. And he went on, in magistrates have the full power to withthe course of the same speech, to say hold the renewal of a licence, but the that never had he committed himself to licensee says they have not done so; compensation to anybody except the they have only done so in cases of mislicensee who was actually in the enjoy- conduct, or in cases of redundant houses ment of the licence himself. That makes which would create a good deal of misa very substantial difference in the posi- chief; and they just calculate the tion of Mr. Gladstone on this matter. probabilities of the market and they With regard to that position we are buy that. Well, that is a real market told: Yes, you say it is only an ex- value which can be taxed in Canada pectation; but you tax it." There and in the United States of America. was a question put this afternoon by It is taxed here, and there is no disthe hon. Member for Tewkesbury in tinction between one case and the order to show that the Inland Revenue other. Before I dispose of this question, at the present moment taxed it as I would like to answer our point. It property. Well, of course, it has a is said-I think it is said to-day in a market value. But so have new licences leading article in The Times-that it is true granted under the Act of 1904. There that the licence may technically have you have no right to renew. It was only been granted for one year, but still it specifically provided by the then Prime is acknowledged as a matter of custom Minister, for he said you must make it and unbroken habit that there was a clear in future that you are going to right of renewal. That is not the case. create a new licence-there is to be no Times out of number magistrates have right of renewal. They are absolutely withheld licences on grounds not within the discretion of the Bench. merely of misconduct, but of And even if you had local option in- dundancy; and any one who will take troduced here to-morrow you would still the trouble to read the book of Mr. have an expectation which would have Sidney Webb on the licensing system. a market value. Take Canada. It is in England, where he seems to have perfectly recognised there that a licence taken an infinity of pains and trouble is for one year and no longer. Nobody in order to get at the facts and facts which disputes it. The law takes away the previously, I think, have not appeared licence without a penny of compensation, in any history, can see that for himself. though you get local option over the What happened? At the end of the whole of the Dominion practically. By eighteenth and the beginning of the vote you can put an end to every nineteenth centuries, when the law licence in the district, and still those was substantially as it was before 1904,

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