PUBLIC HOUSES. (Hansard, 14 July 1835)

§ Mr. Hume
intreated the hon. Member not to press the Bill, but to be satisfied with bringing up the other two. The regulations affecting public-houses and coffee-shops were constantly changing, greatly to the injury and loss of their proprietors. He trusted the House would not sanction eternal legislation on this subject. It was beginning at the wrong end. Let the hon. Member educate and improve the people first, find deal with public-houses afterwards. The Bill imposed a variety of new restrictions, whereas he would remove all those which now existed, and render the sale of beer and spirits as free and open as that of tea and sugar.

§ Dr. Bowring
thought that the morals of the people would be more served by enabling them to have wholesome beverage, than by any other means that could be devised.

§ Mr. Buckingham
said, that all he asked was to have the Bill introduced for the purpose of printing and circulation, and if this were conceded he would not press it to a second reading if the sense of the House should be against him.

§ Colonel Leith Hay
considered that it was highly inconvenient to allow Bills to be brought in which were not intended to be persevered in.

§ Mr. Wilks
thought that there had been too much petty legislation already on the subject of public-houses. For his part he wished the trade to be thrown open.

§ Mr. Bagshaw
hoped the hon. Member for Sheffield would not persist in his Motion.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
said that as the hon. Member did not mean to press his measure to a second reading, it would be wholly useless to introduce it at all, especially at this advanced period of the session. He could expect to gain nothing by bringing it in, and, therefore, the wiser course would be to withdraw it for the present.

§ Mr. George F. Young
said, that he must, as an independent Member of that House, protest against the course pursued on the present occasion, when it was no later than one o'clock that morning that a Bill was brought in by a Member of the Government, who, at the time, admitted that it was not his intention to proceed with it during the present Session. He, however, could not see the advantage to arise from the introduction of any of the Bills.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
wished to assure the hon. Member for Tynemouth 579 and the other Members of the House, who were quite as independent as the hon. Member, that the two Bills were totally different in their nature and circumstances. The one had reference to the consolidation of the existing laws relating to turnpikes, and the other was a Bill which went to affect the rights of property.

§ Mr. Buckingham
I am bound to show every proper deference to the opinions of the House, even when I cannot adopt those opinions as my own; and therefore I shall be disposed, after the manner in which my first and second Bills have been received, not to press the third against the sense of the House, at least for the present session. But I must, at the same time, say that I cannot agree with my hon. Friend, the Member for Middlesex, in thinking that the cheaper you make spirits, and the more extensively you spread places for their sale, the more sober the population will become. On the contrary, all experience and all evidence proves that the increase of beer-shops and dram-shops, in this country at least, leads to an increase of drunkards; and considering that drunkenness is the most fruitful source of crime, disease, and poverty among the labouring population, it is as much for their benefit as for that of the community generally, that the facilities for drunkenness, and the means of indulging in that vice, should be diminished rather than increased. If the hon. Member would ask any officer of the navy or army whether he thought the granting free access to an unlimited supply of spirits or beer would improve the sobriety of his crew or regiment, the inquiry would be thought an insult to common sense; or if he were to ask the policemen or overseers of any district in town or country, whether open houses for the gratuitous or cheap supply of intoxicating drinks would make the neighbourhood more sober or tranquil, they would think the question proposed in jest. As to the hon. Member's statement, that I am beginning at the wrong end, it is somewhat difficult for me to understand which he would think the right one. I have endeavoured to begin at both ends—the one by the way he recommends, education and healthful pleasure for those who are to be operated upon by these means; the other, by restriction for those to whom neither instruction nor recreation will have the least attraction from their habits being too confirmed to yield to this mode of treatment. If I thought it possible to wean away from habits of drunkenness, all those 580 who are now addicted to this vice, by the operation of the attractive measures, I should be too happy to confine myself to these. But being persuaded that the operation of these inducements would be confined to the younger part of the population, who are not yet so far steeped in degradation as to be incorrigible, and being convinced that an immense number of confirmed and habitual drunkards, male and female, will he wholly beyond the reach of the education proposed, I am satisfied that some restrictions and regulations for the houses of public resort are absolutely necessary; and that without these, our work of reformation will be but half accomplished. Still, as I admit the force of the argument urged by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the lateness of the Session will prevent the possibility of my carrying through a Bill that is likely to be much opposed; and as I am desirous of pressing the two measures which the House has given me leave to bring in, to a completion, if possible, before the Session is over, I will, for the present, content myself with these, and defer the other till the approaching Session. In the mean time, hon. Members will have an opportunity, on returning to the country during the recess, of seeing the large amount of property destroyed, and labour lost, and crime, and disease, and misery created by the operation of excessive drinking in their several counties and towns, and come back to Parliament more fully impressed with the necessity of doing something in the way of restraint, as well as in the way of allurement, to correct this degrading and destroying vice. Let them inquire of the magistrates, coroners, medical practitioners, overseers, and others connected professionally with examinations into the state of crime, disease, and pauperism, as to the chief cause of each, and I know well what their answers will be—that excessive drinking is the most prolific source of all. Without shrinking, therefore, from any opinion I have advanced on this subject, and being satisfied that the meddling legislation, as it is called, for the regulation of public houses, is mainly occasioned by the want of some general, comprehensive, and effectual measure for this purpose, which does not now exist, and in consequence of which, there are now no less than three partial measures of most inadequate reform, already passing through the House during the present Session—namely, the Bill of the hon. Member for Lambeth, (Mr. Hawes) for facilitating the 581 transfer of licenses, and opening all descriptions of public houses after one o'clock on Sundays; the Bill of the hon. Member for Middlesex, for permitting music and dancing in all the public houses of the Metropolis; and the Bill of the hon. Member for Durham, for the better regulation of beer houses; being convinced that one large and extensive Act, embracing every thing relating to public houses, such as the one I have ventured to propose, would be far better than ever so great a number and variety of those piecemeal productions, I shall adhere to my original intention of taking the sense of the House upon the measure in an early period of the next Session, if I should then have the honour of a seat in this House; but for the present, though for the present only, and in consequence of the solicitations made on all sides, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for the third Bill, and content myself, during the present Session, with the two already permitted me to bring in.