§ Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [26th March], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
§ Question again proposed.
§ Debate resumed.
§ MR. CROOKsaid, he rose to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that there were two parties who objected to this Bill. He rose to advocate the claims of one of these parties. With the licensed victuallers he had no sympathy or desire to contribute to their objects. He appeared before the House simply as the advocate of the opinions which the temperance societies of this country had expressed in their petitions, and which petitions had been largely signed by persons who were not members of temperance societies. He desired not to be understood on the present occasion as advocating any prohibitory system or a Maine law. The temperance reformers had not come before the House for such a purpose, but simply in the interest of general sobriety. They waived their peculiar views at this time, and took issue with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his own conditions. The right hon. Gentleman had recommended the Bill to the House as a wise and good measure, calculated to promote sobriety, although he confessed that, while he expected it would lead to a large increase in the consumption of foreign wine, he did not anticipate any sensible diminution of the sale of spirits and beer. The question, then, for the House to consider was the 1763 effect this measure would have on the sobriety of the country. The petitions presented to the House by those who disapproved of the Bill contained 120,000 signatures. In the borough he represented (Bolton) there had been two large public meetings, which had pronounced unanimously against the Bill. Thirty out of forty-eight of the members of the Town Council had recorded their opinions in petition against it, although not more than five or six of them were connected with temperance societies. There were also twenty-one Christian ministers of Bolton who had expressed in writing their deprecation of the Bill; and he was not aware that there had proceeded from that town a single petition in favour of the Bill. Indeed, he was not aware that so much as one petition from any part of the country had been presented in support of the Bill. He could not put his finger on any person who wanted the Bill. The temperance advocates, at all events, sympathised with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the shudder to which he confessed in the contemplation of the multititude of people who were already licensed by the Legislature to distribute intoxicating drinks. At the present moment 105,000 individuals were specially set up by law to administer to the comforts or to corrupt and demoralize and debase the people; and it was considered that they were amply sufficient to distribute any further importation of foreign wine. This Bill would immensely increase the facilities for the consumption of intoxicating drinks, and in the same proportion increase the facilities for intemperance. In the borough of Bolton there were 120 public-houses and 240 beerhouses, which was quite enough for a population of 60,000 persons. It was estimated that an equal number of shops would take out wine licences under this Bill. Would that be at all calculated to promote sobriety? On the other hand, would not such increased facilities tend greatly to augment the consumption of intoxicating drinks? Wine being constantly on the counters of general shops would be very dangerous to young people and servants, and they would frequently be disposed to give a preference to those shops which offered the temptation. He believed that the houses of the licensed victuallers and the beershops were nothing like so dangerous as those places would be. He might remark, further, that the provisions of the Bill were in direct opposition to the Report of the Committee of Inquiry which sat in 1764 1854, of which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, the now President of the Poor Law Board, was Chairman. In short, the Bill rendered the labours of the Committee quite useless, and would prevent the House acting upon their Report at any future time; and he wondered why the right hon. Gentleman had not proposed to allow ardent spirits to be sold by every shop. The Committee of 1854, in the most emphatic manner, decided that no intoxicating drink should be sold without a licence, and that in no case should it be less than £6 a year; but under this Bill licences could be had for three guineas a year; so that for 2d. a day any shopkeeper might have a licence to sell wine, and if he only had a little bread and cheese, he might possess the power of selling it to be drunk on the premises. The main point of the Committee's Report was, that the facilities for the distribution of intoxicating drinks should be largely reduced; while this measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have a totally contrary effect. He would appeal to hon. Members who were fathers of families, or commissioners of the peace, whether they could, in the face of such facts, conscientiously support the measure? Again, he would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he had the approval of the clergy or of dissenting ministers, the heads of police, chaplains of gaols, or boards of guardians in his favour? Had there been one public meeting in favour of the Bill? Nay, more; was there any friend of the I Bill who dare call a public meeting? If this was so, surely the Bill ought not to be passed by the House. If, however, it should unhappily be imposed upon the country, he did trust that the local authorities, representing the people, would have given to them a discretionary power to prevent, suspend, or annul all licences under the Bill, in any district where two-thirds of the ratepayers were opposed to it. He trusted, however, that they would reject it altogether.
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
MR. DIGBY SEYMOURsaid, that he did not rise to second the Amendment, for all the reasons advanced by the hon. Mover. He was not there as the representative of any society, or of any body of men whatever; but he desired to give 1765 his testimony as the Recorder of a large town in the North of England, that no one in the habit of attending the criminal courts could resist the conviction that three-fourths—he might say five-sixths—of the crime of the country was directly referrible to the demoralizing influences of the low public-houses and beershops. He did trust, therefore, that this Bill would not become law. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had more than once declared to deputations which had waited upon him, that he did not bring this Bill forward simply as a fiscal measure, but more especially as a social and moral question. It stood before the House, recommended on fiscal, sanatory, and moral grounds, and he thought he should be able to show that it ought not to be accepted on any of those grounds. Look at it first in a fiscal light. He owned he did not look forward to any great increase of refreshment houses from the operation of the Bill, and therefore he thought the fiscal benefits anticipated from it by the right hon. Gentleman were greatly exaggerated. Light French wines were not suitable to a northern climate, and it was stated by Mr. M'Culloch that the only effect of a reduction of duty would be a reduction of revenue, and that even if there was no duty on such wines as it was now proposed to introduce, beer would still continue to be the chief drink of the people. Another great authority, the right hon. Gentleman himself, in 1856, declared that light wines would never be very largely drunk in this country. What then became of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that a pure and wholesome wine would now be supplied at a cheap rate. The cloven foot was revealed by The Economist, in which paper he observed it stated that French wines might be easily strengthened for the British palate by the introduction of a little brandy. It was patent to every one that the advantage which the French expected was not a better market for good wine, but a market where they could get rid of their bad vintages. In the words of Horace—
Vile potabis modicis Sabinum "Cantharis,which he might familiarly translate, "They were to drink wretched claret out of pewter pots." Then as to the moral and social aspects of the question. There had been no demand for this Bill by the public; and although there had been hundreds of petitions from persons, independent of publicans and teetotallers, against it, he had not 1766 heard of a single petition in its favour. It was a fallacy to suppose that in winegrowing countries the population were more sober. He believed that the consumption, of alcohol was more than double per head in France that which it was in England, and he was supported in that opinion by the observations of such men as Horace Greely and Fenimore Cooper. The inducements to drink in England were abundantly sufficient, and the Legislature ought to pause before they thrust upon the people greater facilities and temptations. The process of reasoning appeared to be that because there must be a treaty with France wine must be freely admitted, the revenue must suffer, and to recover the loss this Bill must be passed; but that was a line of argument against which he protested. Besides the objections which he entertained against the principle of the measure, he must say that in the form in which it now appeared it was the most clumsy piece of legislation he had ever seen in his life. Every shopkeeper, whether a tailor or tobacconist, might take out a licence, and every customer might be exposed to the temptation of this wine being recommended by the shopkeeper. Every oysterman and every orange woman would be obliged to take out a licence, and the evil which would follow was that, with French wine they would introduce a French police. It was not at the dictation of the temperance societies, but by his own instinct, as a lover of constitutional freedom, that he implored the House not to sanction such an inquisitorial system as would allow the police to come into honest mens' houses, whether they sold wine or not, simply because they were obliged to take out an eating-house licence. In the neighbourhood of Southampton there were many beautiful spots to which picnic parties resorted in the summer months, and any one who allowed the use of a room wherein they might consume their own refreshments would have to take out a licence and be subjected to the supervision of the police. The evil, however, was not in the licence, but in what followed the granting of the licence. It was a monstrous provision that the police should have the power to enter houses under these licences at their own discretion, and he implored the House not to sanction the placing of this inquisitorial power, in so unguarded a manner, in such hands. Clause 12 of the Bill gave must extraordinary powers to magistrates. Notice of every application was to be sent to 1767 the clerk of the magistrates, and if within thirty days an objection was sent from the magistrates to the Excise Office that the house was disorderly, or was not a bonâ fide eating-house the licence was not to be granted. There certainly was no preceded of such extraordinary powers being given to the magistrates without any inquiry. It was in reality worse than the French system. Then, again, there was no definition in the Bill of a bonâ fide eating-house. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had entered into a philosophical disquisition of the connection between eating and drinking; but his argument proved too much. It proved that a man ought to have liberty to drink beer with his victuals if he liked it better than wine. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: So he may.] That certainly was not the effect of the Bill. Foreign wine was all that was provided for. There was a clause against adulteration in the Bill; but it only struck at the small retailer; the wholesale importing adulterator was left entirely untouched. He (Mr. D. Seymour) protested against the foreign element which characterized that measure from first to last. He opposed it on fiscal grounds, and he opposed it still more on social and moral grounds. When the Beer Bill was passed the cry was "Cheap ale for the million." Now the cry was "cheap wine for the million;" but there was not a magistrate throughout the country, not a single person who had to do with the administration of justice, who did not feel that the Beer Bill was an utter failure, and that its evil effects were every day growing worse. He hoped, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be warned by the experience of that Bill not to persevere with a measure which would have the effect of offering cheaper temptations and cheaper inducements to crime.
§ MR. KER SEYMERsaid, he was not surprised at the opposition offered to this Bill. He had not been very favourably impressed with the financial scheme as a whole; but when the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to this part, he remarked to the hon. Member who sat next to him, "That's the best part of the Budget, and will be the hardest to carry." The right hon. Gentleman had to deal with two most important and well-organized bodies, differing in everything but opposition to this Bill—the licensed victuallers and the teetotallers. The opposition of the first, he 1768 was afraid, would be most formidable; for a moral opposition was rarely so powerful as a selfish opposition. The teetotallers, however, who conscientiously believed that every man who drank a glass of light wine was an incipient drunkard, and that every fermented liquor was poisonous, and that its sale ought to be prohibited like the sale of arsenic, were not fair judges of such a proposal as this. They were banded together, as the title of their association stated, for "the total suppression of the liquor traffic," and they were, of course, opposed to a proposal for extending that traffic. The proposal had been quite a God-send to the United Kingdom Total Abstinence Alliance. For some years they had had their paraphernalia of agitation so well understood and so well paid in this country, their processions, their meetings, their testimonials, their cheap publications, and so on; but as yet they had never got into Parliament. On this occasion, however, they were represented by the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Crook), and they boasted to have presented 1,200 petitions against this Bill, all of which, it would be seen, concluded with a prayer for the establishment of what was called the Permissive Maine Law, which meant that in any town or village where there happened to be a majority of water-drinkers, nobody should be allowed to drink a glass of beer. Such an enactment as that would never do for England; and the people who entertained such views were not fair judges of this proposal. There were also many other persons—ably represented there by the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Hardy)—who, not holding extreme views, and not wishing to "rob the poor man of his beer," yet looked with alarm on this proposition. But he would ask them, had any man, with a couple of shillings in his pocket, the slightest difficulty, under the present system, in getting drunk on spirits? However well intended, the present restrictive system did not operate as a check on drunkenness. Having, therefore, made a sacrifice to introduce French wines, was it not reasonable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should endeavour to give their consumption a fair chance? The great body of the labouring classes would doubtless still drink their beer, the favourite beverage of Englishmen; but those who wished for wine should be allowed to have it. The question which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had really had to ask himself was, "Should the only path 1769 to wine be through the ginshop?" In this city of anomalies no anomaly struck the intelligent foreigner half so forcibly as to find that in numerous refreshment houses where barons of beef, fish, and poultry were displayed in the windows, he could obtain nothing to drink with his dinner but water. The Chancellor of the Exchequer wished, therefore, to bring eating and drinking together; and nothing could be more conducive to temperance. True, he did not allow persons to drink beer as well as wine; but in this he had made a concession to the licensed victuallers, who now turned round and reproached him for it. As far, however, as the proposal went, it proceeded in the right direction, though he (Mr. K. Seymer) confessed that he was for a system of free licences to sell all spirituous liquors. The points reserved by the Bill for the discretion of the magistrates were the right points; although the measure required to be made a little more stringent. It avoided granting to magistrates the objectionable power of deciding on what were the wants of particular districts—a power which many magistrates would far rather not be called upon to exercise. They were, however, to have authority to inquire into the character of the house as well as into that of the persons frequenting it. But it would be desirable that their power of inquiry should also extend to the character of the occupant of the house. By the Bill the justices were to have a veto on the granting of the licence from the Excise, but no mode of appeal was provided to some superior authority. This omission might, however, be corrected in Committee. Many magistrates would shrink from being entrusted with a power, a mistake in their exercise of which was not open to some remedy. The proposed provisions for punishing contraventions of the rules were mainly taken from the Beer Bill, and were sufficiently stringent; but the greatest safeguard in this respect would consist in the power of the magistrates to refuse the renewal of the licence. The great evil of the Beer Bill was that the justices had no control of that kind. The signatures of householders were perfectly valueless as a guarantee for the character of the keeper of the house, many respectable persons signing their names to applications for licences from mere good-nature, or as a matter of course. As far, then, as legislation could secure the good conduct of these houses the Chancellor of the Exchequer had provided for it. The recommen- 1770 dations of the Select Committee had been carried out as regarded putting these refreshment houses under the authority of the police. It was well known that in many of these places spirits were illegally sold, and great tippling went on in them. In his own neighbourhood the officers of Inland Revenue had not shown themselves as active as they ought to have been in detecting persons who sold spirits without a licence, thereby injuring the fair trader. In this matter the licensed victuallers had a just ground of complaint; but, in their strange infatuation, they had wholly omitted it from their catalogue of grievances. At present wine licences had not a fair chance, as the foundation of the present licensing system was beer. The magistrates granted a certificate for an alehouse. Then the alehouse keeper went to the Excise and got a beer licence. Having obtained that, he might afterwards obtain a spirit licence also; but he could not get the spirit licence without first having a beer licence. Now, it was notorious that many of the public-houses in this country had fallen into the bauds of the brewers, although they had no return showing to what extent that had taken place. When, however, by some great catastrophe the veil was withdrawn, the public got a peep behind the scenes, and saw how the brewers were mixed up with the licensing system. In the case of Calvert's bankruptcy, it was found that out of £750,000 invested in the business the sum of £468,000 was not invested in the proper business of brewing, but in public-house property,—that was to say, either in buying up public-houses, or in lending money to publicans, over whom they thereby obtained the greatest influence. The publican derived a very small profit from the sale of beer, and looked to the sale of spirits for his compensation. That could hardly be called a system promotive of temperance. No connection like that between the brewer and the publican existed between the wholesale grocer and the retail grocer, by which the latter was compelled to take all his tea and sugar from the former. If such a connection were really to be established, the retail grocer would not be able to serve his customers so well, and he would soon find a rival shop opening, and taking away all his trade. The licensing system, however, deprived the public of this wholesome check of competition in regard to liquor. If a great brewer bought up fifty public-houses in a particular locality, he knew that the magistrates would not license fifty more, 1771 and he therefore felt himself quite safe. He was sure of his investment, and knew that the houses would remain to take his beer to any extent. The brewers, doubtless, sent out perfectly good beer to the publicans, but the latter were tempted, by the low price at which they had to retail it, "to pump," as it was said, "the New River into it." That fact had been established before the Select Committee. To give it a fictitious strength they sometimes, but not to any very great extent, added noxious drugs to the liquor. The Beer Bill had not been very successful, but in his opinion the beer-seller never had a fair chance. Having to compete with the licensed victualler, who made his great profit on spirits, he had to resort to all sorts of shifts for a living. The first thing which such a person did was to make an effort to rise in the world by becoming a licensed victualler. But though nothing could be said against his character, though there was no ground for complaint in the manner in which he had conducted his shop, or in the accommodation which he afforded to the public, his application was almost invariably refused at the instigation of counsel on behalf of the licensed victuallers, on the ground that there were already sufficient houses in the neighbourhood. No arguments, therefore, ought to be drawn from the case of the beershop-keeper in illustration of the probable result of an extension of the licensing system. Now, a beer-shop-keeper who, under this Bill, kept an eating-house might take out a refreshment licence, and having obtained that, he would be entitled to a wine licence. The measure, however, did not provide for the hours his house might be kept open. For the sale of beer the hours were fixed—but what was the hour he would be allowed to keep open for the sale of wine?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERWe propose to assimilate the hours precisely to those of the beershops.
§ MR. KER SEYMERsaid this was the very point he was anxious to come to, but he would even go further, and say that in large towns, containing a population exceeding 50,000, beershop-keepers who had obtained wine licences should be allowed to sell beer equally with wine as late as 12 o'clock at night; because if the two things were kept separate, and the shop was allowed to remain open for the sale of wine but not for that of beer, the temptation to sell the prohibited article would be so strong that the rule would certainly be 1772 infringed, and the House had no right to place men in such a position. He now came to the case of the real and powerful opponents of the Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, he believed, had done the wisest thing in his power in laying on the table the memorial of the licensed victuallers, which could not be too widely circulated. He (Mr. K. Seymer) had given notice of a proposition in relation to this subject, which, however, he should not propose in a Committee of Ways and Means, but should reserve for some future occasion, when he should submit it as a distinct question to the consideration of the House. The memorial to which he referred commenced by stating that it was proposed to give to every person applying for a licence the power of selling wine for consumption on the premises. This was not true; a licence would by no means be granted unless the applicant had complied with certain requisites. The house for which licence was sought must be bonâ fide rated at £20; it must not have been of a disorderly character, or frequented by disorderly persons. Then the petition of the body complained that their business was perpetually threatened with change. He was their truest friend when he told them openly that they would always be threatened with change until they consented to carry on their business on the same principle as every other was conducted—that of free competition. The licensed victuallers had received fair warning by the Report of the Select Committee, and they ought to have looked the matter in the face and have adopted that principle, subject only to such regulations as were inseparable from the nature of their business. They now complained that they were the victims of irksome restrictions. He was not aware of any to which they were subject which did not arise from their peculiar calling; if there were any of an unjust or vexatious nature, by all means let them be abolished, but let not these rules be made the pretext for continuing a monopoly which on no reasonable grounds could ever be tolerated. They also alleged that restrictions as to hours were imposed on them which did not exist with regard to any other class. This likewise was a misrepresentation. The beershop-keepers were confined to certain hours, while the licensed victuallers, save on Saturday and Sunday, were not restrained within any limits. On his way home from the House of Commons, which kept very bad hours, he constantly 1773 saw ginshops full of drunken men and women, at a time when the beerhouses were by law closed, and when those establishments which it was proposed by the present measure to create would likewise be closed for the night. Another of the liabilities which the victuallers, according to their own statement, incurred was the burden of collecting the greater portion of the vast revenue derived from beer, spirits, and. wine. The money, doubtless, was drawn from the public, but he had been under the impression that it was the Excise Commissioners who collected the revenue; and if they once admitted the principle of exceptional legislation in favour of those who dealt in articles paying revenue indirectly to the Crown, they would have grocers and others coming forward to claim exclusive privileges. Another of these arguments was that the victuallers were the victims of a system of morality which had forced protection upon them, though they had not sought it. They might not have sought protection, but he must say they had taken very kindly to it, and they had carried out the principle to the utmost of their power. Last week thirty applicants for licences in Finsbury were refused, and in no case was there any objection to the character of the applicants. On Saturday nineteen others were refused in Wands worth alone, to all of whom the same remark might apply, and in every case the licensed victuallers had been legally represented. They tried to frighten the House by an enormous claim for compensation—something approaching the sum of £50,000,000. Having already drawn that sum from the country, they now sought to establish a claim for a like sum, which would amount to £100,000,000 in all. That was a strong proposition which the Chancellor of the Exchequer would do well to look to. But they seemed to forget that there was such a thing as the good-will of a business, whether it was free or restricted; and those gentlemen did not state how much of the £50,000,000 was to be given for the good-will and how much for the monopoly. In support of their demand they referred to the compensation granted to lawyers and proctors. For his part he was of opinion that the compensation granted in the latter case was far too large, and the country certainly was not prepared to repeat the step which it had been induced to take. But in the one case there was some reason why Parliament should act liberally, for it had de- 1774 stroyed the occupation of an entire class; in the other, unless the Maine Liquor Law were carried, the business of the publicans could never be done away with. They tried to persuade them that hotels would become infamous; and all those stories with which in childhood they were familiar, about beds sinking down into charnel-houses and travellers being attacked by banditti were revived; but it was too much to expect that men in the 19th century would believe that these things would come to pass because persons with refreshment licences were allowed to sell a glass of wine. Some ill-natured people said that there was no need for innkeepers to be in league with robbers; that they already did all the robbery themselves by their exorbitant charges. But, without going so far as that, he must say it was absurd to talk as if in England, in the middle of the 19th century, the same scenes happen as in Terracina and other parts of Italy, where every man looked like a brigand, and probably was one. Then they said that they were the only persons who paid for licences to carry on their trade. This, again, was a great mistake. The wholesale wine and spirit merchant paid twenty guineas a year to carry on his trade at the same time that he was subjected to unrestricted competition. Then they turned round, having already persuaded the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give up his intentions with regard to the beer licences, and they said this was not free trade. But it would not do for them to attempt to mystify the public with questions of free trade in this way. This was not a question of free trade at all. The question of free trade was only involved in this matter as far as the restriction of the number of persons engaging in it was concerned, and no one could doubt that the numbers were restricted. But then they were told that this was a proposition for the extension of drinking. Now, were the publicans really opposed to the extension of drinking? Of course not: drinking was that by which they all made their living. It was not drinking in itself that was objected to, but the places where the drinking took place. Drinking in a wineshop was frightful, drinking in a beer-shop abominable; but drinking in a ginshop was all that was moral and proper. Then they tried to catch a few Conservative votes by the statement that the wineshops would be frequented by Radical politicians. He had no doubt that wherever Englishmen met 1775 they would talk politics; but were they never talked in public-houses? Was not the phrase "a pot-house politician" proverbial? Conservative as he was, and not over favourable to the ministerial mode of extending the franchise, he was not at all alarmed that these wineshops would be turned into political clubs. Then they were told that this measure would sap the morality of our female population. Women, they were told, were ashamed now to appear at the bar of a public-house. But if these public-houses were the temples of virtue their occupiers described them to be he could not understand why women should be ashamed to be seen there; but here he must protest against the gross libel that had been thrown on the women of the middle classes, that they would go to these houses for the sake of tippling. Every one would recollect the abominable insinuation made by the daily organ of the publicans, that a respectable man going into one of these houses after this Bill was passed to eat a bun might find his wife lying dead drank in the back parlour, and his daughter still more disgracefully employed in the attic. That was a gross libel on the middle classes, which was only worthy of the quarter in which it appeared. Then the publicans said that the sums they paid for their licensed houses were guarantees for good conduct. Now, that sounded very well in theory, but in practice it was all moonshine. From the Returns which he had moved for on a former occasion, it appeared that no house ever was, in fact, shut up, however badly conducted it might be. When matters became very bad, the occupier transferred his licence to another, of course receiving what he gave for it. The new man went on for a time, till he was complained of, and then the house was transferred again, but the house was never shut up, and it was carried on on the same principle, and that was what they called a safeguard for the public morals. Now this was the case for the publicans as stated by themselves. He had endeavoured to show that the teetotallers were not fair judges upon this question, that those who were anxious to promote temperance were needlessly alarmed at this measure, and that the opposition of the licensed victuallers to it was purely a selfish opposition. He, therefore, hoped that Parliament would sanction the Bill of his right hon. Friend.
§ MR. HARDYsaid, the course he had formerly taken on the licensing question must be his apology for now addressing the 1776 House. He did not impute to the Chancellor of the Exchequer any intention wilfully to corrupt the morals of the country, or any other object than that of increasing the revenue of the country, which he no doubt believed could be effected without injuring the public morals. The course taken by the hon. Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Ker Seymer) was one which it was always easy to take, but it did not go to the real question at issue. It might or it might not be true that the brewers possessed a great number of public-houses; it might or it might not be true that the licensed victuallers were pursuing only their own selfish ends; it might or it might not be true that the United Kingdom Alliance was utterly mistaken in its course. But these were all beside the real question, which was whether or not it was necessary or advisable to increase the facilities for the sale of intoxicating liquors in this country, and whether the course taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was calculated to increase the revenue without injuring the morals or disturbing the social order of the country. With respect to the brewers and the licensed victuallers and the United Kingdom Alliance, he stood clear of them all. There were no brewers with whom he was intimately acquainted, or in whose prosperity he was at all interested any more than as every man must take an interest in the prosperity of an enterprising class of men in the country. He might, however, say that he did not believe in the cry that was raised against the brewers. It was admitted on all hands that they sent out good and pure articles, and if they were mixed and adulterated afterwards, the brewers were not to blame. He ventured to say, with respect to the brewers, that if perfect free trade were established to-morrow, still, with their capital and the number of houses they possessed, they would be able to hold their own, and would always be found at the head of the trade. With respect to the vested interests of the licensed victuallers, it was perfectly true that they were placed in a system which they found established long before they entered the trade, and under which all their interests had grown up. But he was far from imagining that their interests would suffer to the extent of £50,000,000, as by some was alleged, or, indeed, that they would be injuriously affected at all for the present. What might follow afterwards was another question. He was not 1777 called upon, nor, indeed, was he prepared to defend in its entirety the present system of licensing. He admitted that there were many points in which it might be improved. But, in his opinion, it was just and right that those who had charge of social order in the country—the justices of the peace—should, as far as possible, have full control over places where numbers of people assembled, and where by the consumption of intoxicating liquors they were led into the commission of offences, and it was desirable that the magistrates should have the initiative as to pronouncing upon the fitness of the persons by whom, and the places where such liquors might be publicly consumed; but he was not altogether satisfied with the appeal, which at present existed in the manner of licences. In most parts of the country it had become a mere matter of form, because the Quarter Sessions seldom or never interfered with the decision of the Petty Sessions. In such cases it would be better that there should be no appeal, and that the responsibility should rest with the magistrates who really decided the case. In other instances, however, benches of magistrates at Quarter Sessions acted upon the principle of allowing free trade, and granted licences without any reference to the decision of the justices below. That was an equally objectionable course; and rather than have this he would abolish the power of appeal altogether; but he thought it was not impossible that in the course of these discussions something might be struck out which would satisfy the public, and at the same time check the undue increase of drinking houses and their establishment in unfit situations. Before proceeding further, he must say one word with respect to the United Kingdom Alliance, whose representative had moved the rejection of this Bill. For his own part he had not intended to object to the second reading, though now the question was raised he would vote with the hon. Member; but as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had expressed his willingness to make alterations in Committee, he had intended to move certain Amendments there if the Bill should reach that stage. He felt justified in voting against a Bill which he disapproved with the hon. Member who represented the United Kingdom Alliance, although he could not agree in the principle of that body in making practically no distinction between the use and abuse of strong liquor. He could not 1778 agree with the Alliance in proscribing or prohibiting, even by a permissive Bill, the sale and use of liquors, merely because their abuse was dangerous, and he did not recognize the right even of a majority to interfere with the rights of others. Suppose the majority in any place were of opinion that the practice of allopathy was injurious to the health of the community, were they to prevent the minority from resorting to that mode of cure, and insist upon putting down all practice in the place except that of homœopathy or hydropathy. If he was to have a divorce he would rather it should be at his own suing than at the instance of other parties and without his own consent. So much then for the two parties opposing, and untruly said to be the only opponents of the measure. He came, now, to the primary object of the Bill in the eyes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was revenue. He was disposed to agree with the hon. Member for Southampton, that the revenue would not be materially increased by this Bill; that the Bill would be a failure so far as it referred to the introduction of French light wines into this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, anticipated a considerable increase of revenue. In arguing the question he was bound to assume that the Estimate would be realized, and that there would be a large consumption of the stimulants to be imported. The present consumption of intoxicating liquors in this country, including all kinds, was put down at 684,000,000 gallons; and as the Chancellor of the Exchequer told them the other night that the further introduction of wine would make little difference in the consumption of spirits and malt liquors, they must add to the present consumption of spirits and malt liquors an unlimited number of gallons of light wines. But comparing the number of the population with the quantity of liquors already consumed, he could not think that any increase in these "nervous stimulants" as the Secretary to the Treasury called them, could be made with advantage. It was said that free trade in drink should be encouraged, not only with reference to the Revenue, but in order to get rid of the existing restrictive system, to introduce competition, and to put down adulteration. Those who said so seemed to suppose that nothing of the kind had ever been tried before. Why, up to 1496, there was perfect freedom of trade with respect to ale, and the first power given to Justices was something like the negative 1779 power which the Chancellor of the Exchequer now proposed to place in their hands. They had the right "to reject common selling of ale." It proved a complete failure, and in the reign of James I.—that happy period, to which we had been referred, when French wines were largely consumed in this country—further restrictive measures were adopted in order to put a stop to the "odious and loathsome sin of drunkenness, the source of every crime," which then prevailed. Those measures, however, were ineffectual and Defoe said that drunkenness at the Restoration; began its reign, and for forty years continued without diminution. Yet, in the reign of Charles II., the people of England followed the French habit of drinking light wines. At one time claret was largely consumed in Scotland. A jug of it, as Lord Cockburn states, was sold for 6d. in the streets of Leith; but they would see from the Memorials of Lord Cockburn's Life and Times, that people got drunk on that which was now put forward as a certain means of stopping intoxication, and it is very questionable whether in Scotland it was not always qualified by a dram of usquebaugh. In the reign of George II. there was a great deal of legislation with respect to gin, which was then a comparatively new liquor, the introduction of which was fraught with the most pernicious results. One Act after another was passed with the view of stopping its sale, but in vain. It was at that period that a statute was passed prohibiting it to be carried about in burrows and sold in the streets, and confining the sale to dwelling-houses. It is recorded that at that time signs were publicly set up "drunk for 1d., dead drunk for 2d., clean straw for nothing," An enormous duty was put on gin, as well as a large licensing fee in the hope of checking the sale, but the distillers then took wine licences, and gin was sold under various names—such as spiced cordial, "Sangree," &c., and the consumption increased until the evils became intolerable. For two years licences were altogether refused in the City of London. Then came in the licensing system, properly so called, which lasted up to the passing of the Beer Act, introduced for the purpose of removing restrictions on the sale of beer. The Beer Act was recommended on the ground that if beer was sold freely it would "increase the comforts of the people—it would give them a more wholesome beverage"—it would improve the morals of the work- 1780 ing classes by drawing them away from the temptations to be met with in common public-houses, and introduce them to houses of a better order. Those were the promises held out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that time. He asked had one of them been fulfilled? Had it not been found that the establishment of beerhouses had been one of the greatest curses of the country? Had they added to the comforts of the poor? Had they improved the morals of the peasantry? Some years ago, when he had charge of a Beer Bill, a brewer who largely supplied beershops, told him in a letter "that the whole system was rotten, and atrociously demoralizing, and that, though in the trade, he would willingly see the Beer Bill entirely repealed, although a very heavy sum had been laid out by his concern in that trade." He added "I trust you will not falter or yield up your Bill to any party." In a Committee which sat some time ago the system of beershops was most fully considered, and it was shown that they had failed altogether—that, so far from checking, they increased drunkenness; and that the multiplication of such places was in itself an evil of the first magnitude. The hon. Member for Dorset was a Member of that Committee, and he signed its Report, and yet he was now calling on the House to increase the number of these drinking places under a new name. For what was the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Why it was to perpetuate the evil and to increase it by giving wine licences to beershops. The right hon. Gentleman did not touch upon this subject in his address to the House in introducing the measure, but an hon. Friend had discovered the blot. The clause in the statute, which prohibited beershops from selling wines of every description, was repealed by the fifth section of the proposed Bill; and if, therefore, a beershop should become an eating-house, from that moment the keeper would be enabled to go to the Excise and, subject to the conditions mentioned in the Bill, to take out a wine in addition to his beer licence. Thus by simply registering the houses as eating-houses, and taking out a refreshment licence they would be enabled to take out a wine licence, and sell wines to any extent. It was put forward strongly by the Committee to which he referred, that the increase of the houses for the sale of intoxicating liquors was an evil of the first magnitude "not only by increasing the temptations to excess which are thus presented at every 1781 step, but by driving houses, even those under the direct control of the magistrates, and others originally respectable, to practices which are degrading to their own character and most injurious to morality and order." It was clear, therefore, that excessive competition led to improper practices in order to make public-houses and beershops attractive and alluring to the peasantry and the poorer classes, and the appetite so grew by what it fed on that the creation of the beershop system had proved nothing more or less than the creation of a system to encourage drunkenness. But it was still said that the chief thing wanted was competition. At present, in spite of monopoly, so attractive was this trade, so growing the habit which it supplied, that there were about 121,336 of these houses. In 1856 their proportion to the whole population was 1 to 176, to the males of all ages as 1 to 87. In 1841 they were to the males over 20 years of age as 1 to 42; to males and females as 1 to 88. But in 1856 they had so increased that they were to the males over 20 years of age as 1 to 38; to males and females as 1 to 80. He thought he had good ground for asking the House to pause before they increased the number of houses which supplied these nervous stimulants to the people. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the magistrates had an impossible duty to perform, the Legislature making them judges of the quantity of liquor to be consumed. That argument was unworthy of the ingenuity and logical mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On what principle could it be said, if the number of houses for the supply of drink was as 1 house to 80 persons, that there was any difficulty in procuring any quantity of liquor? If it was meant to be said that by diminishing the number of drinking-houses the quantity of liquor consumed would probably be diminished, he would agree to the proposition, for he thought that the multiplication of these houses was an evil, and in itself a temptation to the drunken man. He appealed to the experience of lion. Gentlemen whether when cases of assault, or other criminal cases arising from drunkenness, came before them—whether it was not the fact that the men had not got drunk at one house, but had, after staggering out of one at a comparatively early period of the evening, met on their way home with fifty other temptations, by giving way to which they had been rendered in the end hopelessly drunk and so became 1782 easy victims to plunderers on the look out for such prey, and he could mention a case which lately came before him where, after two men had been drinking together at different places all the evening, the landlord at the last sold one of them a bottle of gin, by drinking which in the street he got nearly dead drunk and while in that condition was robbed by his companion. Whenever it was found in respect to any of these houses that there was such a disobedience of the law, the licences ought to be swept away, without regard to the proprietor, or what were called "vested interests." It then became a question of public order, and public order ought to be supported. The hon. Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. K. Seymer) stated that he had observed drinking houses open at every hour of the day and night, and after that statement could any man contend that either in this great metropolis, or in any town in the country, there was not an ample supply of public-houses? The hon. Member was fond of free trade, but would he carry out his principles so far as to allow every tenant on his property to have a licence? There was not a proprietor of land who did not stipulate that beershops and public-houses should not be opened on his property without his consent; and therefore let them not legislate in that House on false pretences, but, with the honest feeling which actuated them in their own private capacity, when checking drunkenness in their villages, check it in like manner throughout the country. But this system of free trade was to cause the sale of pure wine and wine only, and this was said in the face of the Report of the Committee of 1854, from which it appeared, on the evidence of Sir R. Mayne, that the free vintners who had the free sale of wine in this city, instead of selling wine only sold spirits under the cover of wine. If the present Bill should pass into law, what security would there be that the same thing would not be done in the beershops? And, indeed, if allowed to sell wine, why on principle should those shops not be allowed to sell spirits under the system of free trade? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said a man ought to drink where he ate. But if he preferred brandy or gin with his meals, why was he not to have it as well as wine? The Bill was founded on a principle that went further than the Bill itself; it put in the thin end of the wedge, which the hon. Member for Dorsetshire was anxious to drive home, and opened the door for free 1783 trade in articles to which the principle to free trade ought never to be applied. It was said that eating and drinking, now separated, would be combined under the operation of the present Bill; but it struck him that in the class for which these places were intended more was drunk after dinner than at dinner. ["No!"] At least that used to be the case. He wished to know for whom these eating-houses were intended. He found that in 40 towns in Scotland every 149 persons supported a dram shop, while it took 981 to keep a baker, 1,061 a butcher, and 2,281 a bookseller. In Newcastle it was stated that there were 21 eating-houses to 55 spirit merchants, 425 public-houses and 76 beershops. How could they be sure, when people went to an eating-house, that they went there to eat? In fact the licensed victuallers, as their name shows, were established as eating-houses. Many now are so, with the exception of those abominable ginshops of which no one can speak in terms of too great detestation. There were many provocatives to drink, and those who liked it never wanted an excuse. As Dr. Aldrich said:—
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,Or lest you should be by and by,Or any other reason why.In fact any person wanting drink would find it, and it was not expedient to over multiply his facilities, for the supply created more demand. But for whom were these eating-houses intended? Not for those who had families. No one wished to entice them there. Then they must be for the unmarried men, or, at all events, men away from their homes. They would go to the eating-houses only during the short dinner hours. Having, however, found drink in these houses they would repeat their visits. Not that they would go altogether for the drink; men went to such places for company. The appetite for eating was soon satisfied; the appetite for drink was increased by gratification. Licensed victuallers found comparatively little profit in supplying food; their profit came from drink, and it was, consequently, for drinking and not for eating, that they made their main provision. So it would be in the winehouses. The sale of that which brought most profit would be pressed. Then, to come to the question, did free trade apply to this subject? It was admitted that with respect to the houses licensed under the Bill, stringent regulations would be required, and that the police must 1784 have free access to them. Were these things consistent with free trade? Was the object of the Report of the Committee, over which the President of the Poor Law Board presided, free trade? Free trade favoured the development of trade, but the purpose of all these regulations was the restriction of trade. The object of that Committee was to get rid of a great number of the public-houses. As the right hon. Chairman of that Committee had said in a letter to Mr. Caudelat, "it was hoped by the changes they proposed that the character of the public-houses generally would be raised and their number limited." But, the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night referred to the case of Liverpool and Manchester as illustrating his doctrine. A relative of the right hon. Gentleman, a magistrate of Liverpool, took it into his head that free trade was a good thing in the matter of public-house licences; by a majority of one the magistrates carried a Resolution to that effect. What was the consequence? In every instance applicants got licences, and soon there were 1,520 public-houses in Liverpool. At the same time Manchester, with as large a population, had only 450. According to the doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman, the effect of this should have been to bring things to their natural level and to check drunkenness. But the fact was that every one of these houses was reduced to an insane competition. Mr. Robertson Gladstone stated in his evidence that the parties who kept them were going through the Bankruptcy Court, and yet crowds were pressing into the trade. The effect of this state of things was thus indicated:—From the returns furnished to the Committee it was proved that the average number of committals for drunkenness in eight of the largest towns in England under the operation of the licensing system was 1 in 393; while Liverpool, the theatre of the experiment of the system recommended by the Committee for universal adoption, was 1 in 20, or about 20 times the amount of drunkenness that exists in the towns regulated by the present licensing system. In free trade Scotland the average per town was 1 in 40, or, in round numbers, 10 times the amount of the towns in England. In free trade Ireland, 1 in 34, or 11 times the amount of the English towns.This might not be a strictly accurate statement, for he found that in Liverpool they took up more readily for drunkenness; while in other places they took up only those who were both drunk and disorderly; but, at all events, the numbers were very remarkable, and showed what had been 1785 the effect of free trade in licensing public-houses in Liverpool, and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to the number of public-houses in Liverpool which were the resort of thieves, he should remember that it was under a system of free licensing that they existed. In Manchester the magistrates put on the rein, keeping the public-houses very much on the same level as they had been for many years before. It was not for him to say whether they had not carried restriction too far; but their restrictive system could not be fairly tried, for they were check-mated by the Beer Acts, and in spite of them, in consequence of the Excise licences, 1,400 or 1,500 beer-shops sprang up in that city. Beer, however, was not so deleterious as spirits; and in Manchester, as he had shown, drunkenness was far less prevalent than in Liverpool. Again, some years ago there was free trade in public-houses in Dublin. And what happened there? In the year 1841 there were taken before the magistrates 23,443 persons. Out of these, 23,014 were more or less affected by drink. Free trade in drink, then, it was clear, produced drunkenness. Was there, then, any call for this Bill on the part of the public? He ventured to say that the national feeling was strong against it, meetings had been held in the West Riding of Yorkshire against it, and many magistrates and others from that part of the country had been in communication with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this subject, and he believed some of their Amendments had been embodied in the Bill. But the right hon. Gentleman said he was about to remedy all the evils of the system by imposing new restrictions. And now he came to the important question, could they pass this Bill without injuring social order and public morality? By the stringent veto which he gave to the magistrates the right hon. Gentleman thought to provide an irrefragable guard against these houses becoming instruments of immorality. What was the check which the magistrates had under this Bill? They might, in the first place, say that a house was not an eating-house, and then the Excise would not grant a licence. Then it was important that they should know what an eating-house was. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said there would be no difficulty in the magistrate's ascertaining what was a bonâ fide eating-house. But he said, also, there was an immense difficulty in a magistrate ascertaining the requirements of the neigh- 1786 bourhood. And he gave them a question which was very much more difficult to solve. A confectioner, he said, should be entitled to a wine licence. Well, what was a confectioner? Many persons in the House and out of the House said it would be perfectly innocent for a person to get a glass of light French wine with his biscuit. And if this could be confined to a high class of confectioners, he (Mr. Hardy) should have no objection. But as to light French wine with a biscuit, whoever asked for it? There could be no better test than in the precincts of the House. There were Members of Parliament constantly going to the counters in the lobby. But did they ask for a glass of claret with their biscuit? Had there ever been there a demand for that kind of wine. But to go further. The high-class confectioner might have his sherry on the counter. But would the low-class confectioner? Suppose a man painted confectioner over his door, and sold buns and sponge-cakes, was he a confectioner? If such men were to be entitled to a licence, every immoral house in the metropolis would only have to stick up a few cannisters full of biscuits into their windows to enable them to get a licence for the sale of wine. Then with regard to the eating-house, the definition given of an eating-house by the Bill was most remarkable. It was any house where animal food was sold, or other food, with which fermented liquors were usually drunk. He was sorry to say that he knew of no food with which it was not usual to drink these liquors. It was throwing a duty too difficult and delicate upon magistrates to determine what were eating-houses under such a definition. What justice of the peace, if he were called upon to say whether a man who had pork pies for sale, which certainly contained animal food, or mutton pies, biscuits, gingerbread, cakes of all kinds, kept an eating-house or not—could safely tell the Excise that such a place was not an eating-house. No man could perform such a duty conscientiously; for it would be impossible for him to arrive at a just judgment. Then again the proposal would open the door to every sort of house to get these licences How, in that case, were beershops to be checked? They perhaps could not represent them as disorderly houses; there might be no means of fixing upon them that opprobrium. A beetshop-keeper might have had a disorderly house; but he might shift his residence to a few doors off, and that house could not be called disorderly. 1787 The right hon. Gentleman had provided no check in respect of the character of a man. He refused to put the character of the applicant in question, or the fitness of the particular premises, so that houses might be provided with back entrances and other contrivances to prevent the inspection of the police. He refused to take notice of the question of locality of the houses, so that they might be opened in out-of-the-way places and be frequented by people who wished to keep out of the Way of the police. The Bill therefore did not provide any sufficient check as to the nature of the house itself, or as to who was a confectioner. There was no effectual check upon disorderly houses, and anybody might get a licence if he so wished. Then the Bill gave no power to the magistrates where the locality or the premises were unsuitable, or where the character of the occupant was bad. But even supposing the Bill did all that was pretended and professed, did it do them in a way which Englishmen would stand? What was the mode? Was it in harmony with the other legislation of the country? They proposed to put into the hands of the magistrates a secret and irresponsible power, which would render them odious in the eyes of all Englishmen, because they were to exercise their veto in secrecy. But was it only the magistrates who received this power? From whom would they receive their information? What enormous power did this Bill practically place in the hands of the police? They were the persons who informed the magistrates of all that was going on in the neighbourhood. They would say to the magistrates—this is a man of bad character; the house he is about to open is not a real eating-house; he affects to sell provisions, but it is really a house of another description;" and thus a house might be condemned as disorderly before it was opened. The licence would be refused in secret, and the man would be unheard. These questions at present came before the magistrates at Special Sessions, where they were watched by the reporters of the public press. Thus a check was placed upon the magistrates, and he ventured to say, that if the Government were to put forth a little of their pressure upon the magistrates, and make the licensing system a reality and not a sham, they would find the magistrates ready to put down the disreputable houses, and would have decent and respectable places of entertainment throughout the country. He knew that at 1788 every Special Sessions the police came forward with the list of places, and said whether they had or had not heard a report against any of those places during the year. And this was a most important check. But the plan proposed by this Bill was to give a secret arbitrary power, for the exercise of which the magistrates would not be responsible to any man. Thus, in the case of an honest magistrate, they were putting a burden upon him such as no gentleman in England ought to bear. At present magistrates acted freely and honestly, because they acted openly. But by this Bill they led them into temptation—and so odious would the system become in a twelvemonth, or even less time, that it would break down the whole of the guards provided by this Bill, throw every thing into confusion, and sweep away the licensing system, without the Legislature having duly considered what they were to substitute in its place. In the early part of the Session he (Mr. Hardy) had asked for the Report of the Commission on the Forbes Mackenzie Act. A Commission had been sent into Scotland to inquire into the operation of that Act. It was an Act restricting the sale of wine and spirits, and the houses which supplied wine and spirits. The preamble of that Act contrasted in a most remarkable manner with the provisions of the present Bill. It recited that great evils had arisen from certificates granted, and enacted that, for the sale of nine and spirits in Scotland, no confectioner or dealer in provisions or eatables of any kind shall receive a licence to sell wine or spirits to be consumed on the premises. A Commission, as he had said, was appointed to inquire into the operation of the Act; and, whilst waiting for the Report, the Legislature of this country was called upon to pass an Act for England and Wales upon totally different principles. That Commission was composed of several eminent and enlightened men, and Sir G. Clerk's name was sufficient to guarantee an impartial and disinterested inquiry. Was it not important that the House should know what the Report of these Commissioners said? He hoped he was not detaining the House; but this was a subject on which he felt a deep interest, and he hoped the House would pardon him. Then it was said that this Bill by promoting free trade would prevent adulteration. But only a few days since the hon. Member for Birmingham introduced a Bill to stop the adulteration of articles of food and drink. 1789 But the House well knew that the statutes relating to publicans and beer-sellers contained restrictions of the most severe character against the adulteration of beer and spirits, yet the attempt to put down adulteration had entirely failed. The hon. Member for Stafford had informed the House that bread was often made of plaster of Paris, and that cayenne was nothing but brickdust; so that a man after eating this adulterated bread, and then endeavouring to rectify his digestive organs by the stimulant of cayenne pepper, ran a chance of having his internal economy entirely walled up. In all these articles free trade prevailed. Under the most perfect system of free trade, therefore, adulteration still prevailed; and did the right hon. Gentleman seriously hope to put a stop to it by this new piece of legislation, and with that object did he really mean to give these licences at random? The permission to sell wine in single bottles was a matter of minor importance. Yet there was a great deal in what had been said by the hon. Member for Southampton. One of the chief evils that had been put down in Scotland was the presenting servants who came to make purchases for their masters and mistresses at shops with wine or spirits over the counter, and therefore grocers had been prohibited from selling or giving spirits or wine to be consumed on the premises. Was there no danger of this system extending itself, and was it so certain that tradesmen would not change the Christmas boxes given to servants from money lo wine, and so introduce disorder into houses where it had never existed before? He thought that subject was worthy of considerable attention. He had already treated of some of the social features of the measure; but there was another question which he would wish to put. Was it likely that this Bill would succeed as a matter of revenue? He confessed he thought not. By this time it was pretty well seen which way the taste of the mass of the people was extending. It was not to be supposed that a supply of milder stimulants would stop the sale of stronger liquors. The case might be compared to that of the newspapers which were vigorously written, but might in politics or other respects be objectionable. People asked one another, why do you not take in a good respectable family paper? The light wines might represent the Family Journal. They were what would be considered harmless, and to those who had 1790 been in the habit of drinking stronger liquors insipid. And as the "family papers" disappeared from circulation before the more spirited and racy journals, so people would not for French wines abandon the more exciting stimulants for which they had a greater affection. The right hon. Gentleman said that in countries where light wines were consumed drunkenness did not prevail. Upon this point he (Mr. Hardy) had not been able to obtain distinct information, but Fennimore Cooper, the American novelist, declared that in Paris he saw more drunken people by going into the right quarters than ever he saw in London. There were no fewer than 360,000 of these wineshops in France, and it was ascertained also that out of 1,100 homicides 400 were committed in these places. With respect to Sweden, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given some information which he was glad to hear. Some time ago he had occasion to comment upon the case of Sweden, and he should be delighted to hear that she had rescued herself from the reproach to which she then seemed open. In Sweden there had been an unlimited right to distil, enjoyed by every peasant; and in Alison's History it was stated that under that system, notwithstanding the thinness of the population, there were 150,000 distilleries, the consequence being a degree of immorality in some of the towns unparalleled in any European capital. It was stated by Dr. Wald of Konigsberg that, in the conscription of 1852 for a district of Western Prussia (in the very neighbourhood of the German wine country) out of 174 young men examined for the army only four were declared admissible by the surgeons, the remaining 170 being physically incapacitated by dram-drinking. In the face of such facts as these he could not accept for Gospel the general assertion that wine drinking countries were free from the evils which in this country arose from drunkenness. He was happy to observe here a gradual decrease in the consumption of strong liquors, which was due partly to the efforts of temperance societies, to the improved education and increased facilities for information and amusement possessed by the masses, and, more than all, to the better houses which had been, and which he trusted were being built, in various parts of the country for the labouring classes. This want was at the root of many evils, for if men had comfortable homes, they would not seek in the well-lighted, warm, and sanded rooms of beer 1791 houses enjoyments which they did not find under their own roofs. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, anticipated a considerable revenue from the operation of the present Bill; but was such an increase desirable, was it not, he would ask, the fact that a steady decrease in the consumption of spirituous liquors had taken place of late years in proportion as the consumption of tea, coffee, and cocoa became more widely spread? Was the House prepared to put a stop to such a state of things? Did hon. Members seek to supply the place of the articles which he had just mentioned by the introduction of wine? If so, did they expect that the light wines of France were to form the staple products of consumption? Was it the fact that the taste for such wines would be found to exist, except among the higher classes? He was told that a large quantity of wine was imported into France from Spain, which admitted of being mixed with alcohol to a great extent to suit the English market, so that if it were introduced into this country we should only have spirit-drinking in another shape, and upon what principle could they stop short of actual spirits when this act was once in operation? The right hon. Gentleman had told us that the year 1860 was to be a memorable year. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) was to make it memorable for a political revolution, and the right hon. Gentleman for a fiscal revolution. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to add a Social Revolution. And the right hon. Gentleman enthroned on his grand measures of 1860, and resting there upon his fame says, like Jack Cade on London Stone, "I charge and command, that the conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of our reign." He (Mr. Hardy) believed that it would not be claret, but the old established liquors of the country, which would find their way through the conduits which the right hon. Gentleman was opening. He warned the Chancellor of the Exchequer against attempting to raise a revenue which it was desirable should fail him in the end. The more the people improved, the more he would lose; the more the people ceased to drink, the more loss there would be to the revenue—never more wanted than at the present moment. He warned him, therefore, to build his reputation on something better than establishing houses for increased intoxication, as he believed would be the effect of the Bill, which would produce increased competition amongst those 1792 who already could not live fairly out of this trade, but only by low and debasing incitements to bring men to drink in their houses. He said that if the right hon. Gentlemen added a new class to the 121,000 houses which already existed, he would be doing his best, against his own intention, against the will of his constituents, and against the will of the moral part of the community—and against, he trusted, the sound sense of that House—to demoralize the people of this country.
§ MR. AYRTON moved the adjournment of the debate.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, it was with regret that he acceded to the adjournment, but as there were many Gentlemen who wished to speak, who had not spoken, he could not resist the Motion.
§ Debate adjourned till Thursday, the 19th April.
§ House adjourned at a quarter-after Twelve o'clock.