MR. PRAEDsaid, that, as on the second reading of the Bill, various allusions had been made to the subject of Working Men's Clubs, he wished to assure the. House that there was a wide 1678 distinction between genuine Working Men's Clubs and those started merely to evade the Act of 1872, and to encourage drinking. He hoped the licensing authorities would take every possible step to protect the licensed victualler from the unfair competition of the illicit trading carried on in such places. He was informed that in most of the real Working Men's Clubs, the average amount of intoxicating liquor consumed was a pint or a pint and a-half per head per week; while even in the largest clubs used by artizans earning high wages, not more than 4d. per head per day was spent in intoxicating drinks. These men were elected by ballot, and had a great deal of self-respect, so that no misconduct was at any time to be apprehended. These clubs had all the advantages of a club system, without the disadvantages that might be expected. The fact was that the great question of education had taken effect in all parts of the country, and especially in the agricultural districts. There was a large increase in wages and diminished hours for work; so that, if the working classes had not these clubs as places of resort, they would inevitably go to the public-houses. In his opinion, these clubs did more good than any Licensing Bill that could be brought forward.
§ MR. DODSONsaid, that both the House and the Government must be anxious to get rid of this Bill; but, at the same time, all were anxious that it should be disposed of in a proper manner. Then, let them see the position in which they were placed. They had now eight pages of Amendments on the Paper, and up to Saturday morning last they had five pages. For his own part, he did not recollect in his experience of the House eight pages of Amendments being set down on the bringing up of a Report of a Bill of less than 12 pages. There were Amendments of great importance among them, both as regarded quality and quantity. There were some directed to the hours of closing, so that it seemed as if they had to fight the battle of hours over again. Then, not only the question of the magistrates' discretion as to hours was again to be raised, but the Amendments involved a magisterial discretion as to seasons, and another as to areas. It was proposed to give the Justices power to add, if they thought proper, a collection of houses 1679 adjoining a town to the town itself, so as to make the hours for closing the same within the area thus formed. But, more than that, there was an Amendment giving a definition to what were called "populous places," which he, for one, did not understand, and which would, he believed, cause great difficulty to the House itself. In this manner they were to have a discussion on the hours, seasons, and areas over again, although they were discussed in Committee for days and nights together. He contended that such a proceeding was unprecedented, and that it was most inconvenient that all these vexed questions were to be discussed, with the Speaker in the Chair. Then, there was the uniformity of hours as to beer-houses and public-houses, and if the definition of "populous places" were adopted, it would be a question whether the magistrates would have power to do away with uniformity, and whether beer-houses might close at one hour and public-houses at another. He did not wish to detain the House on this subject at any greater length; but he was anxious to see the Bill disposed of in a proper manner. Seeing the number of Amendments on the Paper and their importance, he asked the House and the Government if it were a convenient course to enter into a discussion on all these subjects with Mr. Speaker in the Chair; and whether it would not be better to go into Committee again on the Bill, and discuss those Amendments with all the freedom that was allowed at that stage of the proceedings. He entertained a very strong opinion that the most proper, the most convenient, and, in the long run, the most expeditious course would be that which he now suggested.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he believed the advice given by his right hon. Friend was very kindly meant, and as kindly given; but he regretted to say it could not be complied with. It was quite true there were eight pages of Amendments; but his right hon. Friend had not taken the trouble to read them, because if he had he would have found that a vast number of them—eight or nine, perhaps—applied to the same question, and a couple of pages were in the same condition. There was another reason why they should not go into Committee. Nine-tenths of those proposed Amendments had been already 1680 fully discussed and disposed of in Committee, and if they went into Committee to-morrow it would be repeating the same arguments and giving the same votes, so that it would not be sound or wise to adopt the course recommended by his right, hon. Friend. He (Mr. Cross) could not help thinking that the fact of Mr. Speaker being in the Chair would materially help to shorten debate, and perhaps to make their decisions wiser. He was not going into the merits of any particular Amendment; but when they were proposed he would state the views of the Government upon them. However, after the long discussions they had already had on the Bill, and the nights spent in considering its various details, he hoped the House would now go on with it in its present stage.
§ MR. BRISTOWEsaid, he was sorry to learn the decision at which the right hon. Gentleman had arrived. The Amendments which the Government had now put on the Paper completely altered the main features of the Bill as first introduced. They were told that positive hours would be inserted in the Bill. He contended that they were going back to the Act of 1872, and re-enacting something like it, only in an infinitely worse form. In that Bill 11 was laid down as the definite hour of closing for all parts of the Kingdom except the metropolis, and it was left to the discretion of the magistrates to decide what hours would be the most suitable for their several localities. But what hours were they to have now? A normal hour of 10 in the country instead of 11, and in addition to that the local magistrates were to have the new responsibility of deciding what was a populous place. He hoped they would be able to see their way through that mysterious proposition; but it seemed to him that they would be placed in an infinitely worse position than before. He had heard incidentally that the Trade complained very much of the magisterial discretion which the Bill allowed; as well they might, since they would have greater ground of complaint than before with the increased number of questions which were to be left to the discretion of the magistrates. The population of places was constantly changing, and a decision on the subject which would be right one year would be all wrong the 1681 next. It came to this—that the propositions of the Government now for the first time on the Paper completely altered the character of the Bill, not only as submitted to the House originally, but as it had passed through Committee. He was confining himself in these remarks to the Government propositions before them that night, and he said he was at a loss to understand how it was possible to arrive at a proper and sound conclusion by discussing these propositions in a full House and not in Committee. They involved many matters of detail which ought to be discussed in Committee. The Government propositions altered the Bill completely from top to bottom as regarded the hours of closing. After the various changes that had been made in the Bill, the new proposals of the Government showed that they were themselves not satisfied with the conclusions at which they had arrived when the Bill was in Committee. He wished to suggest whether it would not be better to leave the hours as they were settled by the Act of 1872, and let the present Bill go forth as an Act for the amendment of the adulteration and the police clauses, thus getting rid of the new closing hours, as the public were not dissatisfied with the present hours, so far as they were concerned.
§ MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he hoped the House would allow him to make a few remarks on the Bill as it now stood, and on the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in reference to the proposals which he had made. At first the right hon. Gentleman appeared in the position of a man who was going to reform what had taken place in 1872. Instead of that, however, the right hon. Gentleman, influenced by persons outside who made themselves very busy on this question, had proposed alterations in the Bill as first introduced, and more particularly as regarded the hours of opening and closing. After he had proposed his Bill to the House there came to the House a deluge of Petitions directed against various portions of the measure; but anybody who knew how those Petitions were got up, and the principle on which they were founded, and the gentlemen who furthered them, must be prepared for an avalanche. There was an idea entertained by some people in reference to intoxicating drinks which 1682 seemed to him to be utterly opposed to the use which was intended to be made by man of the bounties of Providence. For our use, God had given up barley and the grape, and man's ingenuity had discovered the art of making from the one beer and from the other wine, both of which, used with proper discretion, were beneficent gifts to mankind. But the people to whom he referred would not allow them to look upon beer and wine in that light. They fancied that they were curses, and that the gift of them was a mistake on the part of Providence—and, being more learned and wise in their generation than the great God of the Universe, were determined, if they could to suppress altogether the advantages to be derived from those two great beneficent gifts of nature. The Petitions to which he had referred were brought in under that absurd feeling. They were very absurd and unworthy of attention; but they had, apparently, a great effect, a great influence, on the mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. As he had said before, he believed that those things, if properly used, were for the benefit of mankind, and the right hon. Gentleman should look on those Petitions which asserted the contrary from a rational point of view—from the point of view of rational people. Their arguments ought not to receive effect from the mere force of numbers; as was well known, a small body of men gathered together to blow the trumpet might make a much greater noise than the whole of the listless majority, who in fact made no noise at all; the majority did not care about the questions that were thus raised; but there were other persons that did—a small portion of the community—and it was to that portion of the community—that he desired to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. He was speaking now as the Representative of a large body of working men. The town he had the honour to represent (Sheffield) was composed of about 250,000 persons, a large body of whom were mechanics—honest, hardworking, rational men. Those men, who were bound by their position to work hard for their living, had, many of them, to work into the small hours of the morning, and when they had finished their work they required something for their sustenance. When he (Mr. Roebuck) returned home 1683 from that House, say at 1 or 2 o'clock, his servant prepared for him the refreshment he needed before going to bed. The working men to whom he referred were not in that position. They had no servants. They had a wife and children to look after them; but they had no means of getting in their own houses what they required for their refreshment after their work. They could get it at the nearest public-house; but if that public-house were shut up they were excluded at once from the rational and proper means of sustenance which they required after the hard work they had been doing. He was not now speaking in any sense fanatical, or in any sense sensational; but was asking the right hon. Gentleman to look upon the matter from a rational point of view. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether those men—and there were a large number of them—were to have the means of that sustenance which they required after their hard night-work? He asked him whether it was wise, whether it was proper, whether it was part of their public duty as a Legislature to shut those men out from the enjoyment of that refreshment and of that sustenance which they needed after their work? That was one thing, and he would really press it on the right hon. Gentleman's attention. And now he wished the right hon. Gentleman to explain why he made a distinction between London and the large towns of the country. What was the difference between London and Sheffield? He wished him to explain that. In London he had extended the hours to meet the convenience of persons returning from the country into the town; but people in the country towns, when they returned from excursions into the country, required refreshments just as people in London required them. Why, then, did the right hon. Gentleman make that distinction between London and Liverpool, between London and Glasgow? He owned he could see no difference himself to warrant the distinction, as in all those places the habits of the people, and their wants, were the same. These laws were made for the West End. Hon. Members when they left the House could go home. They did not want the public-houses, and did not go into them. But the working man was not in that position. He did want the 1684 public-house, and that want was as much felt in the country as it was in London. He did not want further to occupy the time of the House; but would conclude with saying he was not speaking either in the interest of the licensed victuallers or in that of the brewers, but in the interest of the working classes, who had wants which required to be met, whereas the regulations as proposed would take away from them the opportunities of doing so, and place them under greater restrictions than before.
§ Bill, as amended, considered,
MR. ASSHETON CROSSmoved the insertion of the following new clause:—
(Commencement of Act.)This Act shall come into operation as to the provisions relating to hours of closing (not being provisions relating to the grant of early closing licenses), and as to the provision repealing section twenty-four of the principal Act, on the tenth of October, eighteen hundred and seventy-four, and not before, and as to the remainder, immediately on the passing of this Act.The object of the clause was, he said, to provide that the Bill should not, at all events in certain places, come into operation until the time when the new licences were taken out.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he was afraid the right hon. Gentleman did not attach sufficient importance to the clause he had just moved as a provision relating to the hours of closing, apart from the early closing licences; and he told the House that the object was to make the Act, so far as places of population under 2,500 were concerned, not to come into operation until subsequently to the holding of the Brewster Sessions. But whence, he would ask, the necessity for this postponement? He had thought the whole object of the Bill was to remove the regulation of the hours of closing from the consideration of the magistrates; and yet here was a clause which proposed that in certain places the Act should not come into force until they had the opportunity. It was no doubt the corollary of the other new clauses proposed by the Home Secretary, which the House had not yet considered and sanctioned. The truth was, that the Forms of the House were valuable when the assumptions on which they were founded were adhered to. When it was proposed on the Report to bring up new 1685 clauses, it was always on the assumption that the House had while in Committee settled not only the principle, but also the form of the Bill; but when not only the principle of the Bill, but also its form, had been changed between the Committee and the Report, then to bring up a new clause like this was not only inconsistent, but illogical. The Home Secretary was now asking them to pass a clause to the effect that in a vast number of places throughout the country the hours of closing should be changed by the magistrates sitting in Brewster Sessions. It was a clause which he regarded as the funeral epitaph upon the vital principle of the Bill. They had had some difficulty to ascertain what the vital principle of the Bill really was. Now it was one thing, now it was another. He recollected that the Home Secretary had told them with solemn emphasis that there was one point the Government would never yield, and that was in respect to the question of magisterial discretion in respect to fixing the hours. But what had happened since the Bill left Committee? They had it proposed, and it was perfectly consistent with this Amendment, that as related to two-thirds of the public-houses in the country, the hours at which they were to be opened and closed were to be at the discretion of the magistrates. He had looked through the Returns, and he found that the number of public-houses and beer-houses in the large towns other than London was 35,000, and that the number in the rural districts was 70,000; and with regard to these latter, it was now proposed that it should be left to the discretion of the magistrates to settle at what hours they should be open. That was, they were to leave it to the discretion of the magistrates to determine what localities they were which, on account of the number and density of their population, required different accommodation. However, to come more directly to the case of the rural districts. The House, when in Committee, had fixed the hour of closing in all places where the population was under 2,500; but no sooner was the Bill out of Committee than the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues turned round and said that it was the magistrates at Brewster Sessions who were to decide during what hours 70,000 public-houses and beer-houses 1686 were to be kept open. It was true they were not to determine it in the same way as before; but practically it amounted to the same thing. They would have to determine whether a place was a populous place or not. Now, the Home Secretary had told them it would be an act of cowardice on the part of the House to refrain from determining the question of hours; but he would ask, how was the House to determine that question, if they were now going to refer it to the magistrates? Why, the decision would depend not only on the number and density of the population, but also, he would venture to say, on the number and density of the bench. They would find different benches taking different views of the matter. He could imagine a bench of such magistrates as the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) deciding that the City of London was not a populous place; and, again, they might have a bench of such justices as his hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) deciding that Dartmoor was a populous place. They, therefore, came back again to the old question of magisterial discretion, and revived the whole doctrine of elasticity. Well, it was the principle of elasticity, when it was sat upon and restrained, to return to what it was before, and having been unduly compressed by Her Majesty's Government it had in this instance rebounded into its place. But how were the magistrates to determine what were populous places? He did not know why the Home Secretary had changed the word, or whether he was to supply the magistrates with dictionaries to consult as to the meaning of the word. He could only refer him to one passage in the Poets where the word was used. It was in Milton—
As one who long in populous places pent Went forth.He would ask him if that was the definition of the word he was going to adopt. The alteration to which he had just referred was not the only thing which the Government had done between the Committee and the present stage of the Bill. When it was introduced to the House there was another vital question involved in it—namely, the question of exemptions. The Home Secretary had told them that he had 1687 decided on giving half-an-hour additional time to the houses in London, because exemptions could no longer he tolerated; but here he had proposed an Amendment which gave unlimited discretion to the magistrates—not to the licensing magistrates, but to any two Justices sitting in Petty Sessions. These two Justices were to decide when, where, and to whom these exemptions were to be granted, and thus the second vital principle of the Bill was slain. That being so, they were asked to postpone the operation of the Bill until after the next Brewster Sessions, that the whole country might be thrown into confusion while the magistrates considered what were and what were not populous places, and what were the exemptions that were to be granted. If the discretion of the magistrates was allowed to go thus far, why should it not be carried farther? It came to this—that the farther they went the more they became convinced that it would have been much better if they had not gone any way at all. Every page of the Bill showed them that if they had left the matter alone the better it would have been for themselves and for the public, and he ventured to think the friends of the Government were somewhat of the same opinion. If there was yet time to make an Amendment in the Preamble and Title of the Bill, they might very properly alter them, so that, instead of saying, "Whereas it is expedient to amend the Licensing Act, 1872," they should call the measure "a Bill for the purpose of introducing greater and more inextricable confusion into the Licensing Act of 1872." They had to deal with an Amendment which restored the discretionary power of the magistrates as to the hours of opening and closing public-houses. The main object was, it was generally supposed, to fix uniform hours by the Legislature, and now they were asked by this clause to give the magistrates power to exercise their own discretion as to the hours at which houses should close. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Cawley) had an Amendment on the Paper as to the hour at which the houses in the rural districts should be allowed to be open, and he was entirely of the opinion of his hon. Friend, that if they gave the magistrates the discretion of fixing the hours of closing, there was no reason whatever 1688 why they should not have the same discretion with respect to the hours of opening. It was true that the Home Secretary had proposed that the Bill should not come into operation until next October, and gave as a reason that it would leave some 70,000 or 100,000 houses time to adapt themselves to the new requirements, but that was no answer to the main objection that the Bill in fact restored the magisterial discretion which it was understood was to be abolished.
MR. ASSHETON CROSScongratulated his hon. and learned Friend on the opportunity he had found of making a speech, but did not think he had contributed much to the progress of the Bill. In moving the clause, he had said it would be necessary to postpone, for the convenience of the public, the operation of the clauses with regard to the closing of public-houses—closing, of course, including opening—till the next Brewster Sessions. In the first place, the whole of the licences, or at all events, most of them, would then be renewed; and, in the next place, it was not desirable to introduce a sudden change at a time of the year when many of the people affected would be away for their holidays. But as the hon. and learned Gentleman had made some remarks on the original object and scope of the Bill, and especially of this clause, he felt that it was but right for him to state generally what in this respect the scope of the Bill was. He felt—the Government felt, the House felt, and he believed the country generally felt—that the hours of closing public-houses and beer-houses should be the same all over the country, taking local circumstances into consideration. He and the Government found that although the circumstances in London and in the larger towns were much the same, the moment they came to the country they found an altered state of things—public-houses were closed at 11 o'clock, beerhouses at 10 o'clock. When it was decided that both classes of houses should close at the same time, they were compelled to take the public-houses down to the level of the beer-houses, or raise the latter to the level of the public-houses. It was also understood throughout the country that they were to draw a broad line of distinction between what was practically town and what was practically 1689 country—between towns, whether small or large, and the rural districts; so that towns should have one set of hours and rural districts another. They could not he bound by a hard-and-fast line in these respects, and the Bill therefore proposed that with populations under 2,500 the hour of closing should be 10, and above that 11 o'clock. The only question which then remained to be considered was, how could they in an Act of Parliament define the real difference between town and country? This was by no means an easy thing to do. It was what many Governments before the present one had attempted, and what the Local Government Board had tried hard to do when it came to define the difference between an urban and a rural sanitary authority. By taking municipal boroughs and those districts which were under Improvement Acts, they would eliminate a large number of places which were practically towns. In the Local Government and Sanitary Acts such places were referred to under the general term of "urban sanitary authorities," which was the term used in the present Bill. But that term included not only boroughs and the districts under Improvement Acts, but all places where there were local Boards. At the same time, the fact of there being a local Board could not be taken as any test of the density of the population or of the character of the town. There were often special reasons for having a local Board, and in many cases the object was simply to escape the operation of the unpopular Highway District Act. When the population of those places came to be examined, it was frequently found that they did not really possess the character of towns. So many places had, indeed, applied to come under the operation of the Local Government Acts that the Local Government Board had found it necessary to make an order to the effect that in future, except for certain special reasons, an application would not be acceded to unless there was a population of 3,000. Under these circumstances, the House would see that there was an absolute necessity for fixing upon some other way of defining what was town and what country, than by simply declaring that any borough or place under an Improvement Act, or having a local Board, should be deemed a town. In many cases the population 1690 was extending beyond the limits fixed by the Improvement Act, or defined under the Local Government Acts, and it was necessary that there should be some authority to decide to what extent the houses beyond those limits should be taken into account in determining whether, for practical purposes, the place should be regarded as a town. Some years ago there was a case decided in the Court of Exchequer in which the question was as to the precise point at which a certain railway entered a certain town. On one side it was said, that it was when they entered the borough, and on the other side that it was when they came within the continuous line of houses which was outside the borough. The Court hold that the word town did not mean a borough, as defined by law, but an actual town as defined by the facts—that was, a place where there was a considerable line of houses or streets close together. This was what he meant in this case. It would, however, never do to leave it until a man was brought up for conviction to decide whether the place was town or country; and, therefore, it must be decided beforehand, and he proposed that the boundaries of places should be decided by people living in the neighbourhood. It would not be within the discretion of the justices to decide whether the public-houses in their district should be kept open until 10 or 11, they would merely have to say what part of their district was sufficiently populous to be properly termed town, and what part ought to be termed country. There must be some local authorities, he cared not whether they were Licensing Justices, or Quarter Sessions, or Commissioners of Police, who must determine for practical purposes this question, and he was satisfied that in determining it on their consciences no justices would for an instant allow their judgment to be swayed by the opinions they might hold as to whether public-houses should be opened early or late. The hon. and learned Member for Oxford had found great fault with him for having introduced the term "populous place" into the Bill, which he characterized as being a weak expression and one which he had never heard of before. He (Mr. Cross) was afraid that his hon. and learned Friend, who was a great reader not simply of English law but of the law of other countries, had not 1691 paid that attention to this particular Amendment which it deserved at his hands. If he had studied this particular subject of licensing in the various Bills which were now before the House, he would find a Bill upon the Table to which he (Mr. Cross) would like to refer him for a moment. In the Bill introduced by the hon. Baronet the Member for Fifeshire (Sir Robert Anstruther), relating to the sale of spirituous liquors in Scotland, which was certainly an analogous subject, one of the suspensory clauses stated that there should not be more than a certain number of public-houses in proportion to the population, and he found the 3rd clause commenced in this way—that "in any town or populous place in which the number of licensed houses should at any time exceed the proportion of one such house to 700 of the population," such and such things should happen. He found that the term "populous place" was perfectly well known in Scotch law, that it was understood by every Scotch lawyer, and it was to be found in many Scotch Acts. In the Police Act, in particular, they did not talk of towns but of populous places, and for the simple reason that they were speaking of places which had no defined boundary. That was a precisely analogous question to the one which they were discussing. There were provisions in that Act by which, although a populous place had no local boundary, the sheriff, if called upon to do so, would define what constituted a populous place, and would draw a distinction between town and country; and in the Bill now before the House a precisely similar power was given to the licensing justices or other authorities. But what he wanted to impress upon the House was, that the sole discretion which was placed upon the magistrates or whoever it was who had to define these places, was this—that they should say what in their district came under the denomination of a town, and in all those places which came under that denomination quite irrespective of all other places, the hour should be 11, and in the country 10. No Bill could state more explicitly what was intended with regard to the hours. In London, the hour of closing was to be 12.30, in towns 11, and in country places 10; and that was quite independent of the magistrates. There was only one more 1692 provision in this Bill which he wished to place before the Committee, and that was this—when they had to deal with the area around London they would find the inhabitants were so numerous and the places so closely connected with one another that there would be a great deal of difficulty in distinguishing them, and, after consultation with the police, the Government had agreed to propose that for all practical purposes the Metropolitan Police districts should be considered town, and that the hour of closing should be 11.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that it did not appear to him to be unreasonable to ask that the operation of what might be called the opening and closing part of the Bill should be put off for a few weeks. But in passing these clauses, his right hon. Friend would allow him to say that he, for his part, did not feel that they were in any way accepting his statement with regard to the other clauses, and still less with regard to his definition of what were "populous places." It appeared to him (Mr. Forster) that the discretion to be given to the magistrates to decide on this point was one which they would find it very difficult to exercise. In some districts it might be debated for days as to whether they might be called populous places or not. He thought they might now proceed with the other clauses; but he could not sit down without congratulating his hon. Friend the Member for Fifeshire (Sir Robert Anstruther) that he had made such an impression on the Government that they were willing to borrow his Amendment.
§ Clause added.
§ Clause 2 (Hours of closing premises licensed for sale of intoxicating liquors).
§ MR. CAWLEYmoved to add the following clause—
(Power to alter opening' hours on week days.)In any town or parish beyond the Metropolitan district, the licensing Justices may, by order made in the manner prescribed by the principal Act, direct that the time at which such premises within any town or parish shall be opened on the mornings of all days, except Sunday, Christmas Day, and Good Friday, shall he other than the hour hereinbefore prescribed; but no such order shall prescribe a time for opening earlier than five o'clock nor later than seven o'clock in the morning of such days.The hon. Gentleman, in rising to propose this clause, said, he did not intend to detain the House at any length in giving his reasons for doing so. In the 1693 course of the debate in Committee on the Bill the other evening, he threw out a hint that this was the only mode of getting over the difficulties which had arisen in consequence of the attempt to do away with the discretion of the magistrates as to the hours of opening and closing. There was the fact that certain large boroughs in this country had altered the hours for opening, some of them having altered the hour to 7 and others to 5, and the House could not adopt the proposal for having fixed hours of opening without condemning the justices of those places in which the hours had been changed. If they were to say, after only two years' experience, that those who had made the change were not to continue those hours, they were in fact condemning them for having acted upon the judgment which the House had said two years ago they were to act upon. He could not but feel that they were not justified in passing such a condemnation. Far from having any evidence that the alteration in the hours of opening was working badly in the large towns in which a change had been made, he might say that in Liverpool, Hull, and Birkenhead, it was working in a manner far from unsatisfactory; in fact, it was said to be looked upon as a boon and a satisfaction to all parties. The House, therefore, ought to hesitate before insisting upon those towns going back to the hours named in the Bill. It was quite true that the number of boroughs in which the hours had been changed was comparatively small; but he would ask the House to bear in mind that in a tentative measure like this, the majority of the magistrates had acted upon the plan of taking the hours named in the Act of 1872, intending to try an experiment extending over a number of years, and to be guided by it. It was most unfair to draw the deduction from the fact that in a number of towns no change had been made, that therefore it was not desirable to continue the option to the magistrates. In Manchester and his own borough (Salford) the magistrates looked upon it entirely as an experiment, and he held in his hand a telegram just received from one of the justices for the borough of Manchester, stating that the magistrates there were so much impressed with the advantage of having this option, that if it were left to them till the next Brewster Sessions, 1694 they would fix the hour of opening in the morning at 7 o'clock. He would say just a word on the question of discretion. He confessed that he could not view the argument used by his right hon. Friend as being conclusive as to the difference between the discretion which this clause proposed should be retained, and that which he himself had adopted, because if the House voted for that Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman proposed, what was it the justices had got to deal with? There was nothing in the Amendment as proposed to show that the place was to be in the nature of a town. The words "populous place" meant "any area which by reason of the number and density of its population," the licensing justices might by-order determine to be a populous place. That, after all, only meant any area densely populated, so that if there were a number of houses closely packed together, that was a populous place to which the Justices should apply the provisions of the Amendment. With regard to the argument that the magistrates would only have to find the fact as to whether there was a sufficient populace or not, he confessed that, to his mind, the argument failed altogether. The magistrates were to declare this for a particular purpose, and for a particular purpose only, and the justices were quite as likely to be swayed by their prepossessions to close at 10 or 11 as in the case of fixing the hours of opening. On those grounds, he ventured to submit the clause to the House, and the House must remember that the question of the hour of opening in the morning differed materially from that of the hour of closing in the evening. With regard to the morning hours, they had only to consider the wants of those who were employed in labour; but when they came to the closing at night, after the men had done their work, they introduced very different considerations. He did not wish to touch the question of evening hours at all, or to interfere with the existing hour of 11 where it was deemed necessary to apply it; and he only alluded to it for the purpose of supporting his own views, that the discretion to be given by this clause was no greater than the discretion contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. He did not wish to throw any obstacle in the way of the Bill; but 1695 he wished the Bill to be in a form which would give reasonable satisfaction. No measure could be passed which would not cause some inconvenience; but his proposal was to obviate it as much as possible by leaving the discretion as to the opening hours for a longer time, so as to afford a fair opportunity for testing the question. He therefore begged to move the clause of which he had given Notice.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the hon. Member had anticipated his clause, and as he entirely concurred in the course taken by him, he should support the Amendment, hoping that the Home Secretary would concede to a supporter what he would deny to an opponent. The House must see how absurd it was to lay down any hard-and-fast line which could be applicable to the whole country. No inconvenience had resulted from the hour of 7. He sincerely hoped that under this Bill the House would extend to the magistrates the same discretion as they had enjoyed under the Act of 1872.
§ COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he hoped that the House would not agree to the clause of the hon. Member for Salford. Until that day they had had no absolute principles laid down with respect to the Bill. Now, however, they had got some definite principles which the Home Secretary meant to stand by, and he, for one, intended to support the right hon. Gentleman. The principle was that as the hours were concerned the magistrates were to have no discretion. Some little difficulty might arise on the question of populous places; but he thought the Licensing Committees would have no difficulty in dealing with the matter. It would be most invidious to give magistrates the power to fix hours in certain towns, and he trusted the House would never consent to it.
§ MR. WYKEHAM MARTINsaid, the Home Secretary should have solved the difficulty of definition by scheduling certain towns in the Act. If seven o'clock was insisted on people would suffer great hardships, especially the 1696 bargemen and others who went down the Thames at an early hour.
§ SIR CHARLES RUSSELLopposed the Motion of the hon. Member for Salford. He considered it would be a far less evil to fix the hour at six o'clock than to allow a discretionary power to magistrates, because it was sometimes exercised in a very peculiar manner. He happened to be connected with the Zoological Gardens, where the magistrates had seen fit to forbid the sale of liquor or provisions on Sundays, to the great inconvenience of visitors to the Gardens. The hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) would be sorry to hear, that in consequence of the ruling of the magistrates, the monkeys had for two Sundays been deprived of their nuts and the bears of their buns. No improvement had taken place in the health of the bears, and enforced idleness had been attended with mischievous consequences to the monkeys. Remembering this case, he was glad to see that the Government were to limit the discretionary power of magistrates.
§ SIR HENRY JAMESpointed out that to be consistent the House ought to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Salford. The Government gave the magistrates greater discretionary power than did the hon. Gentleman's motion. Under the Government proposal magistrates would have it in their power to say what was and what was not a populous place; and it might gratify the hon. Member for Westminster (Sir Charles Russell) to know that the justices would have it in their discretion to declare whether the Zoological Gardens came under the definition of a populous place. If the House opposed the hon. Member they would be bound to oppose the Government. ["No, no!"] Well, of course, hon. Members need not be consistent unless they liked.
§ MR. GOLDNEYconsidered that the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) had nothing whatever to do with the question they were discussing. All that the House was considering was the hour at which public-houses should be opened in certain districts. He approved of not leaving the justices any discretion as to the time of opening. He hoped the Home Secretary would not depart from the clause as it now stood.
§ LORD ESLINGTONsaid, he hoped the Home Secretary would be induced to look with favour on that proposition. It was because he desired by-and-by to vote with the Government that he was disposed now to support the hon. Member for Salford. It had been asked by hon. Members on the Opposition benches if this discretion was to be allowed magistrates as to the hours of opening, why should they not have the same discretion with respect to the hours of closing? Well, the reason was very simple. The two positions were totally different. The regulation of the hours of opening in the morning should be made with reference to the convenience of the people; but the hour of closing at night was a question of morality and public order. ["No, no!"] He thought it was, and that such was the view which the House had taken of it; but in the morning no such question arose. People went then to public-houses for refreshment, and not for the purpose of drinking. With regard to the matter of discretion, the Government was going to give—at least they intended so proposing—the magistrates the discretionary power of determining what were populous places. If it was right for licensing authorities to be entrusted with power of that description, surely they might be trusted with fixing the hours of opening. The later hour of opening in the morning had worked so well in his district that magistrates acting in adjoining places were struck with the good effects of the arrangement, and were themselves prepared to adopt the late hour opening rule. He hoped he should not hear any objection raised to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Cawley) on the ground that it was inconsistent with the principle of the Bill.
§ MR. FRESHFIELDsaid, he thought it might be taken that the discussion that had occurred on the measure in its progress had established the proposition that no fixed hour for the opening and closing of public-houses could meet the reasonable requirements of all places throughout the country. The exception made by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, whose measure this was, in favour of the metropolis, in whose interest he had extended the hours of closing till 12.30, as well as the distinction made between places 1698 of more and of less than 2,500 inhabitants, went far to establish this principle. Then, if that were so, the question upon the hours of opening and closing was this—Whether it was not possible, more approximately and more closely to meet the requirements and the reasonable convenience of places throughout the country, by adopting a course other than fixing one hard-and-fast line, which could not meet the varying interests, habits, and convenience of various places. He would assume—and did assume—that the right hon. Gentleman meant by this Bill to do all that was possible to advance the interests of all who were affected by its provisions. But in that view he would ask him whether he did not know that there were many places, not certainly so large, so populous, or so important as the metropolis, but still large and important, which required the application of a principle analagous to that applied by the Bill to London? He spoke, of course, especially on behalf of the borough he had the honour to represent (Dover). It would be admitted that Dover was one of the most important places in the country. The habits of Dover were both early and late. It had a large maritime population as well as persons engaged in trade. The fishermen sailed early in the morning, and returned from night occupation very early in the morning. Many persons had to go to work at very early hours. So, at night—for it was impossible to separate the question of opening from that of closing—the Continental boats sailed a few minutes before 11; many persons were in attendance on them; many had to spend the whole night on and near the pier. At present the hour fixed by the local authorities for opening in the morning was 5. This was not a moment too early for the persons particularly affected by it; to them the hour of 7 was a comparatively advanced period of the day, and they required refreshment at the earliest hour after a night spent at sea, or on the eve of embarking. So, the Continental boats sailing a few minutes before 11 at night, those attending on them could not return into the town before that hour. Wasitreasonable that they should reach the public-house to find its doors just closed? At present the hours fixed for closing by the local authorities was 11.30 Why did the right 1699 hon. Gentleman propose to take off half-an-hour from the time so fixed? Had the right hon. Gentleman, he would venture to ask, more and better information as to the habits and requirements of the inhabitants than their own magistrates; but if not, why give London an extra half-hour, and take away half-an-hour from Dover? Of course to those who thought drinking meant drunkenness, those who confused the abuse with the use of alcoholic beverages, his arguments would not be approved; but he viewed the question as the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) did, who considered a reasonable amount of alcoholic drink as a refreshment necessary in many cases to life and health, and not to be confounded with drunkenness. He would not detain the House longer than was consistent with their patience. He knew the question had been largely argued, so he must conclude by expressing a hope that the Secretary of State would adopt the Amendment, and that hon. Members would support him in a division if necessary.
§ MR. TORRsaid, they had the experience of two years since the passing of the Intoxicating Liquor Licensing Bill, and the opening hours fixed under its provisions by the magistrates of Liverpool, and other districts had been found to work remarkably well. The hours of opening and closing were left to the licensing magistrates, for the House felt that there were certain requirements to be met in one district which might not exist in another, and it set its face against drawing a hard-and-fast line. The experience of the last two years showed that in certain large towns, opening at 7 o'clock, as fixed by the local magistracy, had given great satisfaction and worked well. As the Representative of Liverpool he had received memorials and letters from no less than 240 firms employing a large number of hands, and without a single exception they bore testimony to the fact that the hour of opening at 7 o'clock had conferred immense advantage, which was shared alike by the employers and the families of the employed. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it was wise or prudent in him to set up his judgment against the wishes and experience of 1700 these large employers? He might as well mention that these great firms represented 40,000 men. The working population of Liverpool numbered 100,000, and of these 40,000 were in favour of the Amendment. He submitted that the opinions of these men could not be discarded, especially when it was borne in mind that the great firms by which they were employed had £9,000,000 or £10,000,000 of capital engaged in varous manufactures. The hour of opening was an entirely different thing from that of closing, the one being for the convenience in a great measure of the working classes and the other for the preservation of peace and good order.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, there was a difficulty in knowing exactly what they were going to vote for—whether for the clause or the Amendment. The supporters of the Amendment were in a great measure the cause of that confusion, for in opposing the clause they differed more from each other than they did from the Government. On one side hon. Gentlemen got up and said houses should be open at 5 o'clock, because the workpeople wanted something to drink; while on the other side it was contended that the hour of opening ought to be 7, because if it were 6 the men would get something to drink before they started work. His noble Friend the Member for Northumberland (Lord Eslington) said that people went for refreshment in the morning and not for drinking; other hon. Members, on the other hand, maintained that workpeople did go for drinking, and not practically for refreshment. Now, in his opinion, what the Bill proposed to do was, practically, the view taken of the question by the whole country. He believed that working men going into public-houses at 5 o'clock in the morning did not do so to obtain refreshment, except in certain districts of the country where they went out early to fish, and ample provision had been made in the Bill to enable them to obtain any refreshment they might require. That was provided for in the Bill of 1872, and the provisions then made were extended in the present Bill.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he hoped the House would vote upon the merits of the clause and not with reference to any ideal consistency in a Bill, which, 1701 as an amending Bill, need not have any vital principle. The conclusion the House ought to come to was the adoption of the best arrangement for opening public-houses throughout the country to suit the public convenience. What the House had to do was to meet and provide for the actual wants of the country. Different parts of the country were differently situated; and if there was anything proved in Committee it was that in many towns opening at 7 o'clock had been attended with great advantage, and that the House would incur great responsibility if it interfered with the discretion which had been so beneficially exercised. On the other hand, a case had been made out for opening at 5 o'clock in some country districts; and the House might very well allow those who knew the circumstances of a district to have the opportunity of making such arrangements as they knew would meet its requirements.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 207; Noes 241: Majority 34.
§ Clause 4 (Power to vary on Sunday afternoon hours of closing premises for sale of intoxicating liquors.)
§ SIR GEORGE BOWYERmoved to add the following clause:—
(Extension of time for keeping open in certain cases.)In all places where this Act requires that on days other than Saturdays and Sundays premises licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors shall he closed at eleven o'clock, and to which a large number of persons resort at particular periods or seasons of the year, it shall be lawful for the local authority of the licensing district to grant, if they think fit, an extension of time for keeping open such premises on such days as aforesaid during any such period in the year, not exceeding months, provided that no such extension of time shall be to any hour later than midnight. It shall be lawful for the magistrates in petty sessions of such place where such extension of time as aforesaid shall have been granted, to declare such grant to be forfeited in any case in which the licensed person is convicted of any offence against this Act, or the principal Act, or any of the Acts recited or mentioned in that Act.The hon. Baronet said, that the clause, of which he had given Notice, was intended to meet the requirements of places where closing at 10 o'clock would be felt as a great grievance. The Act of 1872 gave power for occasional extension of the hours of keeping open, 1702 and gave it to an hour which really was unlimited. If no such power existed there could never be a county ball, or a race ball, and the Caledonian and other balls at Willis's Rooms would be at an end. Magistrates, therefore, had unlimited power of extending the open hours on special occasions, and that was the principle on which he relied. Many places, such as Ramsgate, Margate, and Brighton, had what was called a "season," when they were visited by large numbers of persons, and at those times closing at 11 was felt to be a great inconvenience and a great grievance. Its effect on the amusements of those places was such that it actually gave rise to the question, whether there should be any amusements there at all. For this happened. There were Assembly Rooms and other places of a respectable character at those seaside towns where respectable people went with members of their families, and which many small shopkeepers frequented as soon as they could get free from their places of business. The effect of early closing was simply to destroy those places of amusement. That had been the case at Margate, where, the magistrates not having sufficient power to authorize the Hall-by-the-Sea—a very respectable and popular place of entertainment kept by Messrs. Spiers and Pond—being kept open later than 11, it had to be given up altogether, and the place had come to an end. The same thing had happened at many places. Eleven o'clock closing was a great grievance, and the law was laid down in the hardest and most stringent form, because it did not merely prohibit the serving of liquors and refreshments after 11 o'clock, but closed the houses altogether at that hour. He knew of one town where the Mayor, Aldermen, and Town Council were turned into the street at 11 o'clock because it was illegal to keep the house in which they were assembled open beyond that hour. He thought that during the season an additional hour might be very well granted in those towns to which large numbers of persons resorted for health and recreation.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
1703MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, it was quite impossible for him to consent to the insertion of this clause in the Bill. He believed that if the public-houses at all watering-places were to be thrown open until 12 o'clock, it would have a most injurious effect upon them, and tend very much to drive people away from them. The ordinary occasional licence would do all that was required in regard to them.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ Clause 6 (Remission of duty in case of six-day and early-closing licence.)
§ SIR SYDNEY WATERLOW (for Mr. MORGAN LLOYD)moved to add the following clause:—
(Sale of liquors on Sundays to lodgers by holders of six day licences.)A person who takes out a licence containing conditions rendering such licence a six days' licence, may, notwithstanding such conditions, sell any intoxicating liquors on Sunday to persons lodging in his house.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSwas of opinion that the proposed words removed all doubt which might otherwise exist.
§ Clause added.
§ Clause 26 (Transfer or renewal of licences forfeited without disqualification).
§ Mr. GREGORYmoved to leave out the Clause, and insert the following:—
(Temporary continuance of licences forfeited without disqualification of premises.)Where on conviction any licence is forfeited without the disqualification of premises, then, if an application is made by or on behalf of any owner of such premises, the convicting justices may, if they think fit, and on payment by such owner of a fee of two shillings and sixpence to their clerk, endorse the licence with an authority to such owner or any person named by him other than the person convicted, to carry on the same business on the same premises until the next special sessions for licensing purposes, or the next general annual licensing meeting, whichever shall first occur, and a licensing officer may, notwithstanding anything in section sixty-three of the principal Act contained, endorse the Excise licence with a similar authority.If the endorsement of the convicting justices authorise the carrying on of the business until special sessions, then the justices at such special sessions may at their discretion grant a licence in respect of such premises to some person other than the person convicted in like manner and on the same conditions as they might if the person convicted had been rendered incapable of keeping an inn, and the person applying for such grant was his assignee.At the general annual licensing meeting following such conviction an application may be 1704 made for a renewal of the licence, and such renewal may be granted or refused in pursuance of the enactments relating thereto.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that as the 26th clause was liable to much doubt, he had no objection to accept the clause.
§ Clause added.
§ MR. PEASEmoved the following clause which he had postponed at the request of the Home Secretary until the present stage of the Bill:—
(Repeal of part of 23 Vic. c. 27, s. 3.)So much of the third section of the Act of the twenty-third of Victoria, chapter twenty-seven, as authorises the grant of a retail wine licence to a person keeping a shop for the sale of goods or commodities other than foreign wine, and so much of the Wine and Beerhouse Act, 1869, and of any other Act as relates to the granting of certificates for such licences, shall be repealed; but any such licences or certificates in force at the passing of this Act shall continue in force, and may be renewed from time to time in all respects as if this Act had not passed.He said his attention had been first called to this matter when he was getting up evidence on the coal question. He had been met on every side with statements of the great and beneficial changes which had taken place in the condition of the miners, but he was told, in many places, that the operation of the grocers' licensing system was opposed to all domestic comfort and sobriety, and he was of opinion that the inquiries which had been instituted by his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State would lead the House to the same conclusion. Certainly the Act under which those licences were first granted had not accomplished the object for which it was passed, which was—in the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone), the author of the measure—to encourage the sale of wine, and to discourage the sale of spirits. They were obtained with the greatest possible ease, and the few conditions on which they were granted were readily complied with. The chief constable of Halifax said the result of the legalizing of the sale of spirits by grocers was, so far as his experience went, most injurious; that it had led the females of thousands of families to indulge in tippling who would otherwise have remained sober women; that private drinking was on the increase among the working classes, and that it was his opinion drink ought 1705 not to go over the counter of the grocer. Another chief constable reported that the system had created a great deal of intemperance, and drunkenness was decidedly on the increase. The gaol chaplains made similar reports. One of of them stated that it was driving respectable married women in shoals to intemperance. In Bath, intoxication was becoming the habit of the females of the working classes. In Bradford there was every facility for private drinking. They had a similar report from Darlington and Deal. In Gateshead the "females were much tempted," and private drinking was on the increase; as was also the case in Kendal, Liverpool, Sheffield, Middlesborough, and Newbury. From. Newport, in the Isle of Wight, the report was to the same effect; and, in fact, it was impossible to go over the Returns to the questions asked by the Home Secretary under this head without seeing that the licences of this description had led to a large and most undesirable increase of drinking among the women of the middle and the lower middle classes, and their consequent moral degradation. Many of the grocers who held these licences had their premises close to public-houses, and it seemed to him that they were doing great injustice to the proprietors of these houses, which were instituted not only for drinking, but for victualling purposes. Grocers did not pretend to do anything of that kind, but simply to retail articles which had to be carried away for consumption elsewhere. But though tea, sugar, and other articles sold by grocers might in themselves appear harmless, it was upon record that the privilege of selling by retail wines, spirits, and beer, had had a demoralizing and deplorable tendency. He thought, therefore, that when they were called upon to legislate for public-houses in the interests of public order and morality, they ought to legislate also with respect to grocers' licences. That they had led to most mischievous results there could be no doubt. He did not propose by his new clause to withdraw the licences from those who now possessed them, but simply to prevent the issue of such licences in future, and he thought that such an enactment as he proposed would be for the benefit of the community at large, and that it would also increase the respectability of the public-houses 1706 who would have returned to them a class of customers respectable in themselves, but who would be amenable to the general conditions of the publican's licence. There was no doubt, he believed, that the 30 per cent which the grocers could clear by the sale of wine, spirits, and beer, made them neglect their proper duties—the sale of tea, coffee, sugar, spices, and so forth. There was also as little doubt that the more attractive trade to them was a source of public mischief, and he hoped the Home Secretary would accept the new clause which he begged leave to move.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTopposed the Motion. He hoped the House and the Government would not adopt the clause. It was rather novel to hear his hon. Friend advocating the rights and liberties of the publicans. Though the clause was apparently proposed in the interests of the public, its real object was to shut up the grocers for the purpose of benefiting the publicans and the beershop keepers. His hon. Friend had read all the Reports from the Mayors and local authorities which he could find in the Returns laid upon the Table in reply to the question put from the Home Secretary; whether the issue of grocers' licences had led to an increase of drinking? But what was the result? Out of 147 official replies to that question, only 17 at the utmost were in the affirmative, and 108 were distinctly in the negative. That ought to be conclusive so far as practical results were concerned; in fact, the grocers were the wine merchants of the middle and the lower middle classes of the community. A rich man could go to his wine merchant and order a stock of the best wines he desired to be laid down in his cellars; but the middle class man, within his means and his needs, could at the time he ordered his currants, his raisins, his coffee, his tea, and his sugar, get what he required in wines and spirits at the same time. The hon. Member did not say that if they went to the public-houses they would be served better or cheaper. But what his hon. Friend did propose 1707 was to prohibit in future the issue of all grocers' licences. He would not agree with the question whether such a course was either just or expedient. He would simply call the attention of his hon. Friend and of the House to the fact that such an enactment would create anew a vast and a grievous monopoly—a monopoly which would be worth thousands of pounds to those who now held these grocers' licences. It would, in effect, say that there should be no new Fortnum and Mason established, no matter what the requirements of the public might be in the future; and he could not believe the House would consent to the establishment of such a monopoly either in the past or for the future. His hon. Friend, however, while proposing to limit the number of licences, had not mentioned that a grocer's licence for the sale of wines, spirits, beer, and sweet British wines, cost £29 13s. 3½d., while the licence to the public-house was only £17 15s. That was an argument which had little weight in itself; but inferentially it testified to the respectability of those who held those licences. It seemed to him unfair to suppose that because a man took a bottle of spirits home with him he was going to drink it all at once himself; on the contrary, he would be more likely to drink it in moderation, and to share it with his family; and therefore the invective against a man buying a bottle of spirits and taking it home with him was an unjust reflection upon his character. He hoped the Government would not accept this Amendment, nor the principle suggested by his hon. Friend, of stereotyping the existing monopoly.
MR. STAVELEY HILLquoted from the Returns made by different boroughs in reply to questions addressed to them by the Home Secretary, the great majority of the answers to which showed that spirit drinking had not increased to any extent through the facilities afforded to grocers with regard to the sale of spirits, consequently they could not press the Government to withdraw the grocers' licences altogether when there was such a body of testimony in their favour. As the answers to another question in the same Returns, however, urged strongly that the grocers should be placed under the same supervision as other dealers in intoxicating liquors, he hoped the hon. Member for Durham 1708 would not press his Amendment, having in view the Amendment which followed, and which he (Mr. Staveley Hill) was about to move on behalf of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Norwich (Mr. Huddleston).
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he hoped the hon. Member would not press this Amendment, because if it were carried it would practically shut out the grocers' licences altogether, not only for the sale of spirits but also of wines, which was quite another question, and create a gigantic monopoly. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down had a different clause which would come before the Committee, the purport of which was not to prevent grocers from selling spirits, but to place the grocer who sold spirits and liqueurs on the same footing practically as the publican. That was a question which might be well worth the attention of the House.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. PEASEnext moved the following Clause:—
So much of section eight of the Wine and Beerhouse Act, 1869, as provides that applications for certificates under that Act shall not he refused, except upon one or more of the grounds therein specified, shall he repealed; but this repeal shall not affect the renewal from time to time of any such certificate in force at the passing of this Act.The hon. Member said, this applied to the sale of liquor to be consumed off the premises, giving the magistrate power to refuse a certificate if the applicant failed to produce satisfactory evidence of good character. At present magistrates had practically no jurisdiction whatever, and by this Amendment it was proposed to give them discretionary power in the granting of licences for the consumption of beer off the premises.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
§ MR. RATHBONEasked the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary to pause before he accepted any Amendment which would add to the enormous power of the licensed victuallers' monopoly anything like a monopoly on the part of the grocers.
§ MR. GREENEsaid, that if there was any safeguard in this matter it was that there should be a check upon this monopoly; and the granting of outdoor licences for home consumption was intended to have that object. If they were to do away with this power, which was so safely guarded by the clauses of the Act of 1869, they would be handing over the public to a great monopoly.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. STAVELEY HILLthen moved the following Clause:—
(Licences for liqueurs and spirits granted after the passing of the Act where acquired by s. 68 of the principal Act to be granted, &c, as public house licences.)Section sixty-nine of the principal Act is hereby repealed.A licence for the sale of liqueurs or spirits by retail not to be consumed on the premises as required by section sixty-eight of the principal Act, shall be granted, renewed, transferred, and removed, in the same manner and on the same conditions in all respects as a licence for the sale of intoxicating liquors in pursuance of "The Intoxicating Liquors Licensing Act 1872," and any Act amending the same: Provided that no qualification of annual value shall be required.Nothing in this section shall apply to any licence for the sale of liqueurs or spirits granted before the passing of this Act under the provisions of section sixty-nine of the principal Act, so long as such licence is renewed, whether it continues to be held by the same person or is transferred to any other person.There could be no doubt whatever that a great deal of harm was done among women by a practice of private tippling arising from the facilities which existed for getting spirits at the grocers'. Spirits were purchased there and entered in the book as groceries. The effect of his Amendment would be to place grocers who sold spirits under the same magisterial supervision as public-houses, and to enact that there should be no abuse, as at present of their licences. He did not think that it would be running any danger to place such a power in the hands of the magistrates. They would exercise that power wisely and impartially, and the cause of temperance would be greatly promoted. So far as his experience went the claims of the grocers had always been fully considered.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
1710§ MR. MELLYsaid, he thought that the 113 Mayors who answered in the negative the question from the Home Office, as to whether there would be any objection to put grocers on the same footing as publicans, hardly knew the momentous nature of their answers. It was all very well to talk about magisterial supervision; but the House must see that restriction of the grocers' licences would mean the creation of another monopoly in the persons of the grocers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer might take a piece of advice and double the grocers' licences if he pleased; but he must give the licence to everybody who applied for it. Remember if one grocers' licence was refused, every one of the 4,600 existing licences became at once a property to be renewed, transferred, and sold, a new vested interest, a new monopoly. Had not the House had enough in 1872 and 1874 of the gigantic vested interest of licensed victuallers and of beer-houses? That monopoly had grown up till no ministry could deal with it. Let them beware of the creation of a new one. Again, that Bill was a police Bill. They were dealing with law and order, public decency in the streets, restricting the hours of drink on the premises. They had wisely fixed that licensed grocers must close at the same hours as public-houses, but he hoped the House would not be led away by this clause from the real object of the Bill, which was not to restrict drinking, but to restrict the hours of drinking. This restriction could not apply to the grocers, who were, or ought to be, in the position of the wine merchants. Hon. Members said a great deal about the amount of drinking by women at home out of bottles bought in grocers' shops. They might as well complain that some women went wrong because they spent too much on dress—and shut up drapers' shops. The two complaints would parallel each other. If the country was to have sumptuary laws for one thing, they would be asked to pass sumptuary laws for others. The clause was sprung upon the House on the report of a police Bill. It involved a totally new and vicious principle never yet adopted by the Legislature. He could order six dozen of champagne to be sent to his house. The working man had an equal right to buy and take home a bottle of spirits.
§ MR. LOWEsaid, he hoped the Home Secretary would well consider before giving his assent to the clause before the House. The principle involved in it was not only one of great importance, but of the greatest danger. Why was it that licences were required for the publicans? It was not because the publicans sold spirituous liquors, but because they sold them to be consumed on the premises, and because this consumption involved the danger of disturbance and the necessity for police regulations. But was there any parallel between the public-house and the grocer's shop where spirituous liquors were sold in order to be immediately taken away? To apply the same rule to both was to apply it to cases essentially different. Look at the injustice which the House was asked to commit. It was proposed to put the grocers under the power of the magistrates, who were, if they thought fit, to withdraw their licences, and yet at the same time to leave the wine merchants free. Why should the grocers be treated in this invidious manner, and made liable to this species of proscription? The House was asked to create a monopoly in a new kind of property, and to violate every principle upon which the Government had acted for the last 30 years. The grocers' licences were really Revenue licences, and what was now proposed was to convert them into police licences. They were simply the means of collecting the tax on spirits. He trusted that the Home Secretary would not seriously think of adopting this new clause without consulting the Chancellor of the Exchequer; because the effect of limiting this trade would be greatly to limit the Revenue. If this clause were passed, why should the House not extend the principle to other than the grocers' trade in spirits? Why should it not also restrict the sale of other articles which were supposed to do harm? Many people smoked more tobacco than was good for them, and why not, therefore, give the magistrates power to limit the number of tobacconists' shops in every town? Restrictions of this kind would only create a monopoly, and send up the value of the articles dealt in to a monopoly price.
MR. MILLSsaid, that he did not agree with the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Molly) that the passing of this 1712 clause would be unjust. He had extremely little faith in the utility of any legislation to check intemperance; but it seemed to him that the step proposed was a step in the right direction. It was unfair to put forward in this case the case of grocers and the poor man against the wine merchant and the rich man. It was a notorious fact that these grocers' shops which existed for the sale of spirits in small quantities, did lead to intemperance, and that they were in no sense analogous to the establishments of wine merchants. He contended that they might very fairly put grocers upon the same footing as publicans as far as magisterial supervision was concerned. That would be no injustice to the grocer, and it would be simple justice to the publican. He confessed he saw no difference whatever between the one trade and the other.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, the difference was this. Legislation dealt on a totally different principle with persons who sold liquors for consumption on the premises, and those who sold liquors for consumption off the premises. If the publican were a mere seller of liquor to be taken away, there would as between himself and the grocer be no distinction whatever. But the difference did exist. What the House had to consider was what was fair between both parties. The hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Melly) was quite right in saying that this Bill was not a Bill to restrict drinking. Why, therefore, meddle with the grocers, who were in no danger of causing disturbance about hours or anything else. A large question like this should have been dealt with in the Bill as originally framed, and certainly should not have been brought forward for the first time at this stage of the measure. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department would not assent to it.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSadmitted that the question had been brought before the House and the country somewhat suddenly, and he really doubted whether the matter was fully understood by those persons who were affected by it. Besides, as the question was a monetary one, his right hon. Friend near him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and the Treasury ought surely to have time to consider it. He might also add that the entire question would probably 1713 be raised before long on a Royal Commission to be issued in reference to Scotland, and some valuable information might be expected. Under these circumstances, the discussion could be most conveniently postponed until some future time.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. AGG-GARDNERmoved the following clause:—
(Remission of duty to holders of licences outside metropolitan district.)The holder of a licence for any premises situate elsewhere than in the metropolitan district shall pay six-sevenths of the duty for which he would be liable were such premises situate within the said district.The hon. Gentleman contended that the publican in the country who opened later and closed earlier than the publican in the metropolis, ought not to pay the same amount of duty as the licensed victualler in the latter, as he would not have the same business advantages as those in the metropolis. He referred to the anomaly in the Bill by which a licensed victualler outside the four-mile radius of the metropolis was obliged to close at 11 o'clock, while his neighbour at the opposite side of the way could be open until 12.30, yet the former would have to pay the same amount of duty as the latter.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
MR. ASSHETON CROSSobserved, that the amount paid for Excise duties was regulated by the amount of rating, and houses outside the town being, as a rule, of less value than those in it, they did, in fact, pay a less duty than the former. He could not support the clause.
MR. SCOTTsaid, he was of opinion that the principle embodied in the clause was an excessively fair one. He hoped that Her Majesty's Government would make a few concessions to their own side of the House. So far, all the concessions had been made to the hon. Members for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) and Stoke (Mr. Melly). He thought the publicans in the metropolis would have such an advantage over those in the country, that the latter should receive some compensating 1714 reduction in the amount they paid for their licences.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSobserved, that probably at some future time the whole of this question might be taken into consideration by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. PEASEmoved the following new clause:—
(Power to close and to refuse to sell liquor.)A licensed person shall not he bound to keep the licensed premises open, nor to admit or allow persons to remain therein, nor to sell liquor to any person, but may lawfully close and keep closed the same, and refuse to sell liquor therein, whether closed or unclosed, during the last hour during which the same may be lawfully open, or any part of such hour.He advocated this proposal on the ground that while the police would be sure to know the precise time at which the premises should be closed, licensed victuallers in all cases might not, and in order to escape the danger of penalties might desire to close an hour or half an hour earlier. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would accept the clause.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
§ SIR JOHN KENNAWAYsaid, that the proposed clause had direct reference to the market-days in the country towns, on which days publicans wished to keep open the full hours, while all the rest of the week they would like to avail themselves of the early closing provisions of the Act. He hoped the Home Secretary would concede the full hour, or, at any rate, the half-hour.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had provided in various clauses that those persons who wished to close at an hour earlier than that fixed by the Act might do so. The permission was only coupled with the condition that they must state on their licence that they were willing to do so, and must paint it up over their doors. The publican really took the licence for the benefit of the community, and it appeared to him that one of the great anxieties of hon. Members was that in all the market towns the houses might be kept open until 1715 11 o'clock. This proposal was a perfect novelty in legislation, and be thought it would be better to leave the matter alone.
§ MR. GRANTHAMsaid, he had an impression that under the Common Law of the land there was nothing to compel a publican to keep open his house, and that he was at liberty to exercise his own discretion on the point, although, no doubt, a licensed victualler, as an innkeeper, was so compelled. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) would give his opinion on the subject.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTexpressed surprise that the hon. and learned Member should appeal to him, when the Law Officers of the Crown were employed for that particular purpose. He thought the Home Secretary was not exactly aware of the difficulty in this case. There was one market-day in the week when the publicans wished to keep open late, because they got custom, and the hardship they complained of was this—that because they wanted to keep open late that one day in the week they were compelled so to keep open late for six days.
§ MR. MONKpointed out that the proposed clause enabled a publican to "refuse to sell liquor therein, whether closed or unclosed." That was a new principle altogether in legislation, which he hoped the House would not sanction. A traveller might call and find the house open, and yet the publican might refuse to sell liquor to him.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ MR. GOLDNEYmoved the following clause:—
(Saving as to Section 9 of the principal Act.)Section nine of the principal Act shall not prohibit an internal communication between any licensed premises and any theatre duly authorized as such by letters patent of Her Majesty, or by licence of the Lord Chamberlain or of justices.At present, he said, in consequence of an unintentional definition of "licensed premises" in the 1872 Act, no internal communication was allowed, and persons wanting refreshment had to go out into the street and pass by an external entrance into that part of the premises where refreshments could be obtained.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
1716MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had no objection to the removal of the prohibition in theatres authorized by Letters Patent, or by licence of the Lord Chamberlain.
§ MR. GOLDNEYconsented to strike out the words "or of justices" at the end of the clause.
§ Clause read a second time, amended, and added.
§ MR. FORSYTHsaid, he desired to propose a clause with the view of enabling licensed victuallers to entertain their private friends as guests after the hours of closing without being liable to penalty. The words of his clause, in its amended form, were these:—
(Persons not to be liable for supplying liquor to private friends without charge.)No person keeping a house licensed under this or the principal Act shall be liable to any penalty for supplying intoxicating liquors, after the hours of closing, to provide friends bonâ fide entertained by him at his own expense, provided that such person shall have previously obtained the leave of a justice or the superintendent of police for that purpose in writing.The present practice was to give notice to the superintendent of police, and leave was invariably granted; but doubts existed whether this permission was legal, for by the Act of 1872 there was no power to dispense with the obligation on a publican not to allow liquor to be consumed on his premises after certain hours. The present Bill did not repeal section 25 of the old Act. His only object was to place beyond doubt the right of the publican to entertain a bonâ fide guest at an evening party after 12 o'clock, on obtaining leave for so doing from a justice of the peace or the superintendent of police. He believed the Government had no objection to his proposal.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ MR. MELLYconsidered the proposition fair and proper, and would support the principle, but he suggested the introduction of the words after "previously obtained," "on such occasion." The licensed victualler had a right, without interference, to entertain his friends. The bench where he had the honour of a seat had always granted these permissions. If the law was not clear on the point, let it be made so as by this clause.
§ MR. WYKEHAM MARTINreminded the House that in some villages it would be hard to find, when the publican wanted him, either a justice of the peace or the superintendent of police. The last line and a half of the clause had better be omitted, leaving the publican at liberty to entertain bonâ fide guests.
§ MR. ALDERMAN COTTONwarmly supported the clause, maintaining that it was most unjust to deprive publicans of the privilege of entertaining their friends whenever they pleased.
§ SIR SEYMOUR FITZGERALDregarded the proposed clause as placing the publican in a worse position than he was in before. Its effect would be simply this. A publican might entertain his bonâ fide private friends and guests; but in order to do so he must obtain permission from a magistrate or superintendent of police. That was about the most insulting proposal he had ever heard. He could not believe that the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth) moved such a clause because of his own private opinion; but he rather supposed the restriction was put upon him by the Home Secretary. The more graceful course would be to remove the restriction altogether, leaving the publicans to entertain their private friends whenever they pleased.
§ MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENsaid, he thought there was great force in the objection. It was rather hard on the licensed victualler that he should be obliged to obtain leave of the justices before he could entertain his private friends. Moreover, such cases might frequently arise on a sudden, and it would not be possible for him to obtain the leave of a justice. He moved that the last words of the clause should be omitted.
§ MR. GREGORY, who had formerly proposed a similar clause, had, on a reconsideration of the matter in consultation with others, arrived at the conclusion that such a clause was not necessary. The case of a licensed victualler entertaining bonâ fide private guests did not come within the prohibitions contemplated by the Act. He did not see why, as the Bill now stood, an innkeeper should not be at liberty, like any other of Her Majesty's subjects, to entertain his private friends, and he did not think it necessary that the clause should be in the Bill at all.
§ MR. MUNTZsaid, he thought they were treating licensed victuallers as if they were some dangerous criminals. They were not allowed to do this or that or see their own private friends unless by a special licence. The clause was not asked for by them. He thought, with the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down, that it was not wanted in the Bill. It was an insult to everybody, and he hoped the Home Secretary would not consent to it.
§ SIR CHARLES RUSSELLwas also of opinion that the clause ought to be omitted. There was no doubt that entertaining private friends might lead to abuse; but the licensed victuallers were a highly respectable body, and would not have recourse to any sham or trick. He suggested, however, that the words of the Act should be so plain that everyone would understand them. He objected to a licensed victualler being brought up on every occasion before a magistrate in order to get his decision as to whether the publican had or had not been entertaining his friends.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he thought the suggestion thrown out, that when licensed victuallers wished to entertain their private friends they should go to the police for permission, was like treating them as ticket-of-leave men. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Horsham (Sir Seymour Fitzgerald) that nothing more insulting could be said of a respectable body of men. He agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gregory) that there was no use in leaving the clause in the Bill at all, for it was not wanted. If a man received his friends to entertain them it was not keeping his house open for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and no penalty was attached to it. It was quite clear the clause was not requisite, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would strike it out.
MR. STAVELEY HILLsaid, he thought the clause was entirely unnecessary. He had himself an Amendment on the Paper which would meet all the difficulties. He proposed to add to Clause 8 the words, "in contravention of this Act," and thus all objections would be set at rest.
§ MR. WATKIN WILLIAMSsaid, he believed the law was quite clear on the subject, but it was not so clear that 1719 magistrates in the country districts would be of the same opinion. Licensed victuallers, like everybody else, ought to be at liberty to entertain their friends, and for his own part he should vote for the rejection of the last two offensive lines in the clause.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSwas of opinion they had discussed the question long enough. From representations made to him, he had some doubts whether the magistrates would think it was the law for licensed victuallers to entertain their own friends, and he should therefore omit the last two lines of the clause.
§ MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENmoved the omission of the Proviso.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Clause read the second time, amended and added.
§ MR. ALFRED MARTENmoved to insert the following clause:—
(Saving of existing hours in certain places.)The respective hours in force at the time of the passing of this Act for opening and closing public houses in any place, beyond the metropolitan district, shall be the respective hours for opening and closing licensed premises in such place instead of the respective hours which but for this section would be appointed by this Act in that behalf.He said, that the object of the clause was that in those places that were beyond the Metropolitan district, and in which different hours from those appointed by the Act of 1872 were in force, those different hours should continue to be the hours for opening and closing licensed premises. According to the Return furnished, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Melly), (Return No. 382 of the Session of 1873) there were about 890 licensing districts in England and Wales; and in about 200 of these districts the justices had under the powers of the Act of 1872 made alterations in the hours. It appeared that in 65 districts the hour of opening in the morning was altered so as to be earlier, being 5 or 5.30 A.M. instead of 6 A.M. fixed by the Act of 1872; and that in 55 districts, the opening hour was made later, being 7 or 7.30 A.M. On the other hand, with regard to closing, there were 75 districts where the closing hours were altered from 11 o'clock P.M. appointed by the Act of 1872, to 10 or 10.30 P.M., and 13 districts where the hours of closing were extended to 11.30 P.M. or 12 P.M. Of these 13 districts the hour 1720 was 11.30 in 8 districts, and 12 P.M. in 5 districts, including Cambridge. He observed that the shorter hours were generally in the North or in Wales, while the longer hours were generally in eastern or southern districts. In Norfolk there were 9 districts in which the opening hour was 5 A.M., and 22 boroughs, including Cambridge, had adopted the same hour of 5 A.M. for opening in the morning. Five boroughs, including Liverpool, had adopted the later hour of 7 A.M. These variations showed that different hours were required in different places. Liverpool seemed to be satisfied with the late hour of opening, and he was willing that Liverpool and other places which had adopted that hour should retain it. But he claimed for Cambridge and the other places which had adopted the hour of 5 or 5.30 A.M. for opening, and 11.30 or 12 P.M. for closing, the same consideration. In a case of this description, symmetry was not to be anticipated. The principle to be carried into effect should be the principle of accommodating the reasonable wants of the public. The licensing justices by their action in the several cases in which they had deviated from the hours fixed by the Act of 1872 had shown their opinion of the needs of the public in their several districts. The House might well adopt the justices' conclusion. It was the object of the clause under consideration to give permanent effect to what had been done by the licensing justices. This course would avoid the inconvenience of leaving the matter of hours in the hands of the licensing justices, which was so strongly objected to, and would practically satisfy everybody interested in this vexed question of hours. Without repeating what he (Mr. Marten) had said on a former occasion in the House, as to the inconvenience to the public of the 11 o'clock closing hour at Cambridge, he would venture to lay before the House the facts as to the proposed change in Cambridge of the opening hour from 5 A.M. to 6 A.M. At Cambridge there were three classes of persons for whom the hour of opening at 5 A.M. was requisite. In the first place, there was the large class composed of labourers and artizans, such as might be found in every considerable town. Their work at Cambridge began at 6 A.M., and they often had to go long distances to their work. 1721 They needed licensed houses to be open at 5 A.M., in order that they might obtain their day's supply of beer on their way to their work. They did not drink it then, but they carried it with them for consumption during the hours of the day. If 6 A.M. were adopted as the opening hour, those workmen must either go without their beer, or have it flat and stale from being purchased on the previous day, or one of their number, where they worked several together, must lose an hour, or perhaps more, waiting for the beer in the morning, and must bring it with him after his companions. The next class, a large one, who would be injuriously affected by the late opening at 6 A.M., was the class of agricultural labourers and coprolite diggers. They began work very early in the morning in the summer, and they at all times of the year required their daily supply of beer before 6 A.M. Often they worked at a considerable distance from any licensed house. The remaining class, to which he referred, was that of the railway servants, who, as the House was aware, were an important portion of the population of Cambridge. The night shift of railway servants came off their work and the day men came on between 5 A.M. and 6 A.M. They came off hot, hungry, and thirsty, having been engaged in work, which was very hard and very hot, and very fatiguing. Those men naturally looked for refreshment at that time. On the other hand, the day men coming on before 6 A.M., were sent away in gangs for plate laying, permanent way repairing, or were otherwise employed in the business of the railway, often at a distance of from two to three or even six miles from a public-house. Those men reasonably enough desired to obtain their beer for the day, so that they might take it with their store of food, when they started in the morning. Now, why should not the fair and reasonable wants of those several classes he had mentioned of working men be accommodated? Why should not the houses continue to be open as heretofore at 5 A.M. for their use? No one suggested that drunkenness would be increased by the early morning hour. The men of each class he had referred to, as a class, were as sober as any class that could be named. In fact, Cambridge was an exceptionally sober place. That was shown by the Police Returns, and was, 1722 indeed, admitted by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Now, that was the case, although the hours at Cambridge were from 5 A.M. to 12 P.M., the justices having extended the hours to the longest allowed by the Act of 1872. He (Mr. Marten) ventured to press the clause upon the Government and the House, as affording a safe and practicable mode of satisfying the various local necessities as proved and recognized by the established course of action of the justices in their several districts.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he could not agree with the hon. Member's Motion. He thought the question had been already settled, and for that reason hoped he might be excused from saying more on the subject.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he was much surprised that a Motion of this kind should be brought forward by the hon. Member for Cambridge, whose support they never had had on divisions which afforded the opportunity of doing that which he professed to have in view. The Government now could not accept his proposition. The person who had destroyed the prospects of his own clause was the hon. Member for Cambridge.
§ MR. FRESHFIELDsaid, he thought that a hard-and-fast line was not the way of treating this question in the way best adapted to the interests of the country. The interests of various localities ought to be considered, and he very much regretted to see them ignored.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ MR. PEASEmoved to insert after "retail," in Clause 2, page 1, line 15, "whether for consumption on or off the premises." The hon. Gentleman said, he moved the Amendment with a view of having a satisfactory definition of closing. The question was raised early in the discussion of these Bills whether public-houses were allowed to remain open after closing hours for the sale of articles other than intoxicating liquors. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cross) had expressed an opinion one way, and 1723 the question was decided in the negative by an Inspector of Police in the Lobby, who was referred to for the purpose of ascertaining how the law stood in the view of the police. On that somewhat unsatisfactory state of the law the Inspectors and constables throughout the country had acted for many years past. It was right that that view should be thoroughly maintained, or otherwise the duties of the police, already very heavy and difficult, would be greatly increased and complicated. That being so, it was plain that the houses which had been the subject of a portion of the discussion that evening—the grocers' and all others which competed with the licensed victuallers' business—should be placed upon the same footing. If they could not trust the publicans to sell spirits after hours, neither could they be sure that the grocer would not push his bottle of spirits under the counter at the hour of closing, and have them ready for customers after that hour. In all these laws they legislated for the wrong-doer, though the great majority of the licensed victuallers and grocers were respectable men, who would not do anything but what was right in respect to sales after the closing hour. They had no right, moreover, to allow a temptation to stand in the way of any set of men which they might find irresistible. He only wanted to define clearly what he believed had been the law for a very long time.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 15, after the word "retail," to insert the words "whether for consumption on or off the premises."—(Mr. Pease.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he thought his hon. Friend was under a misapprehension in moving this Amendment. He had always understood the declarations of the late Home Secretary to mean that grocers were under the same restrictions as regarded the sale of intoxicating liquors as the publicans and the beersellers. If it was thought necessary, however, that the law should be more clearly defined, he was quite willing that it should be. There was no obligation to close the house except for the sale of intoxicating liquors. This 1724 was the language of Clause 7, "except for the consumption of such liquors." Now, the previous Amendment did not make that clear. Within the last few weeks a police magistrate decided that a public-house should at a certain time be closed for all purposes. Now, if that was not the law, let them have it made clear what the law was. Let it be clearly stated that the public-house was to be closed for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and for that purpose alone.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he did not think that the insertion of any-additional words for that purpose was necessary. There could be no doubt as to the law. When the early-closing Act was passed the houses were closed absolutely for all purposes whatever from 1 o'clock till 4 in the morning. But when the Act of 1872 was passed it was found that a great difficulty and inconvenience would arise to many persons if the houses were closed at 1 o'clock, and therefore the words "for any purpose whatever" were left out. Now, it must not be supposed that if they were found in a private house after 1 o'clock they were there for the purpose of violating the law; but if a policeman found persons at the bar of a public-house where intoxicating liquors were sold, there would be a presumption that they were there for the purpose of drinking them, although there was nothing but bread and cheese before them; but the magistrates would be competent to form an opinion as to the objects for which the parties were there. If the words proposed were inserted he thought it would create a difficulty in the interpretation of the Act. The magistrates might attach more importance to them than they really possessed. The words of the Act of 1872 on this point were copied into this Bill, and as no case of hardship had been brought before him, he saw no reason to make any alteration.
§ MR. WYKEHAM MARTINsaid, he and a solicitor were expelled from a public-house, where they were discussing a matter of law and not consuming intoxicating liquors, because the landlord interpreted the Act as meaning that they were not to be there for any purpose whatever. If the magistrates who acted in that town had been appealed to, they would almost to a certainty have decided against them. He hoped the Home Secretary would take care that the mag- 1725 istrates understood what the law really was.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he could not concur in the view of the Home Secretary that the existing law was clear. It was important to make the prohibitory clause correspondent with the penal clause. He therefore moved to insert after the word "closed" the words "for the purpose of the sale, exposure for sale, and consumption of such liquors." This Amendment would enable a man to keep open his house for the sale of a cup of tea and other refreshments, and he hoped that the Home Secretary would accept it.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 15, after the word "closed," to insert the words "for the purpose of the sale, exposure for sale, and consumption of such liquors."—(Sir W. Vernon Harcourt.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, if the Amendment was not adopted the clause would give rise to misapprehension.
§ COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he thought it absolutely necessary that words should be inserted to make the matter clear and definite.
§ MR. BULWERsaid, he was in favour of having as few restrictions as possible placed on public-houses, but if houses were not to be closed for all purposes a door would be opened for the evasion of the law. At the same time he had no doubt that the insertion of the words would give rise to evasion. But then the House ought to be prepared for that. If the law were as the Home Secretary had stated and these words were unnecessary, then the eyes of the public would be very much opened; but if they were necessary, then he would have them inserted.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he thought the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Bulwer) had furnished the best possible argument against the introduction of the words when he said it would lead to evasion.
COLONEL JERVISsaid, that as a proof that the hotel-keepers throughout the 1726 country did not consider the law was as it was represented by the Home Secretary, he would mention that if a gentleman went on business to a country town and put up his horse and trap at an inn, he would have to walk home a distance of perhaps eight or ten miles, unless he got his horse and trap out before 11 o'clock at night.
§ MR. CAWLEYalso supported the Amendment, but suggested it should be verbally amended.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had no hesitation in saying that the law was as he had stated it to be. If there was a misconception of it, the publican had the advantage of it, as it furnished him with a licence to clear his house of the customers. If the words were put in they would lead to a great deal of evil, unless other words were also introduced limiting their application.
§ Question put and negatived.
§ MR. JAMESmoved to strike out the saving clause to Clause 2, and to enact that, as regards Sunday, the afternoon hours of closing shall be from 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock in the metropolis, in the large towns and populous places from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock, and in rural districts from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 1 line 18, after the word "and," to insert the words "on Sunday afternoon from three until six o'clock, and."—(Mr. James.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he hoped the House would look to broad principles, and not discuss details. He had given the House a pledge that the Government would reconsider this question and propose what they considered reasonable, and in fulfilment of that pledge he had put an Amendment on the Paper, which he should be prepared to move at the proper time, which was to omit 7 o'clock and insert 6 o'clock He believed that would meet the general concurrence of opinion on the question, and therefore he hoped the House would not be led astray in making narrow distinctions between town and country. He, therefore, could not consent to the Amendment, for if the opening at 6 o'clock was required in London it was just as much required in the provinces.
§ Question put and negatived.
1727§ MR. MUNTZmoved an Amendment, the object of which was to make the closing time in London on week-days 12.15 instead of 12.30. His object was to limit the time at which public houses should be kept open, instead of 12.30 to 12.15, but then to give in London and the rest of the country a reasonable time, not exceeding 15 minutes, for the customers of the publican to consume the liquor they had ordered. This was not a trifling matter, and he believed that if his Amendment were carried, small though it might seem at first sight, it would be found a great convenience, not only to the licensed victuallers, but to the police. He always tried in dealing with these questions to put himself in the position of those who would be affected by those regulations. Take the position of the customers who came in for refreshments before the closing hour, and who ordered something hot to drink. If it was served to them as the licensed victualler would be obliged to do, was the customer to be allowed no time to drink what he had ordered? If not, he might refuse to pay for it, and many quarrels might arise in consequence. When they considered that there were in England and Wales 70,000 public-houses, and that at the lowest estimate three customers might each night be placed in this position they would have 250,000 of persons subject to this inconvenience. Slight as the remedy might appear to be the Amendment he proposed would, he believed, be effectual in its operation.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 21, to leave out the word "half," and insert the words "a quarter of,"—(Mr. Muntz,)—instead thereof.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he hoped the House would stand by the hour of 12.30 in London, as it had already been settled by a large majority when they were in Committee. The point raised by the hon. Gentleman was no novel suggestion. It came under his own notice when he first began to deal with the question. He asked the Chief Commissioner of Police in London his opinion of the suggestion, and at first he thought it was rather a good plan; but he afterwards consulted with his superintendents, who had practical experience of its working 1728 in the case of the excepted houses, and then he entirely changed his opinion, stating that all his Inspectors were against that particular provision of the Bill. If the extra quarter of an hour were allowed it would be possible for one customer in a party, of say half a dozen who were drinking beer, to order at the end of the quarter of an hour something hot, and demand time to drink it. It would be a snare and a trap to the licensed victuallers; it would be an increased source of labour to the police; it would encourage evasions of the general rule, and he hoped the House would not agree to the Amendment.
§ COLONEL EGERTON LEIGHsaid, he had some experience in these matters, and he had never found in the country that people required very much time to dispose of their liquor. The rule seemed to be that the faster you drank the sooner you got drunk.
§ Question, "That the word 'half' stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSmoved, in Clause 2, page 1, line 23, after "and" to insert "in the metropolitan district or." The object of this Amendment was simple. The fact was that there were districts in which the clause, as originally drawn, would have necessitated the closing of public-houses at 10 o'clock while others in their immediate proximity were open until 11 o'clock. The object of the Amendment was to place all such houses in the same position as to hours of closing.
§ Amendment agreed to.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSmoved to amend the clause by substituting the words "populous place in the nature of a town" for the words "parish which contains 2,500 inhabitants or more" in that part of the clause which fixes the hours at which public-houses shall be opened and closed. The right hon. Gentleman said his proposal was intended to prevent the anomaly of adjoining parishes, in which the character of the houses and of the inhabitants might be precisely similar, having different hours of closing, simply because one parish being smaller in area than the other had less than 2,500 inhabitants. It would be for the authorities to take the area of the different localities and 1729 to decide from the density of the population whether they were to be denominated "populous places."
§ Amendment proposed, in page 1, to leave out from the word "parish," in line 24, to the word "more," in line 25, both inclusive, and insert the words "in a populous place as defined by this Act,"—(Mr. Secretary Cross,)—instead thereof.
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill"
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREwas of opinion that under this provision it would be open to the justices to define any little village as a "populous place." He did not think this was the intention of the right hon. Gentleman, and suggested as governing either towns or populous places, that he should omit all reference to 2,500 inhabitants.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSexplained that the magistrates would have to decide whether small masses of houses partook practically of the character of a town, and would have nothing to do with the number of inhabitants, whether 2,500 or otherwise.
§ MR. BRISTOWEsaid, the magistrates would have more to determine than they ever had before. They would have to determine what was a populous place and what was not. But if the justices determined that a place was not a populous place, it would have to remain under that definition for years. How were the justices to determine what was a populous place? He confessed he failed to see that this was a question for the discretion of the justices. It came round to this—that the Amendment, if adopted, would alter the hour of closing in a populous place. For his part, he saw the greatest difficulty in determining whether such places as the Amendment referred to were to be considered populous places or not.
VISCOUNT GALWAYsaid, he was interested in boroughs, and believing that the hour of closing in towns was acceptable as 11, and rural parishes at 10, he did not see that the justices could have any very onerous duties cast upon them in determining what were "populous places" and what were not. On one side of the river in the locality where he 1730 resided the publican must close his house at 11, and on the other side of the river, not 100 yards across, there were two houses, and the publicans were obliged to close at 10 o'colck. There was a bridge over the river, and when the houses on the one side closed at 10, persons who wished to drink crossed the bridge and went to the house that kept open till 11, and not only farmers availed themselves of the chance but clergymen crossed the bridge and indulged in drink in the 11 o'clock house. He hoped the justices would exorcise their discretion and define a place with two public-houses as coming under the same area.
§ SIR HENRY JAMESmade a direct appeal to the good judgment of the right hon. Gentleman to consider the effect of the proposition he was now making, and to say whether it was worthy as a practical resolution to place upon the Statute Book. If it were not, he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would yield, for this was not a party question. What, technically and formally, was the proposition before the Committee? It was proposed to strike out the words "which contains 2,500 inhabitants or more," and insert the words "populous place," leaving the term "populous place" undefined. They almost all understood what a town was; and knowing what a town was, his right hon. Friend took the trouble to define a town, and he defined it as being a place of not less than 2,500 inhabitants. But as none of them knew what "a populous place" was, the right hon. Gentleman would not define that. Might he ask his right hon. Friend if he had yet found one statute in which that term was used where the number of inhabitants had not been defined? He thought he would have to admit that he could not. He had an Act before him—the 13 & 14 Vic, c. 33—the Scotch Police Regulations Act—in which a populous place was defined as a place having 3,000 inhabitants; in another Act he had been informed that it was defined as a place of 1,400 inhabitants; and in another where it was as low as 700 inhabitants. The right hon. Gentleman had told them, if they might judge of his thoughts by his words, that it was a place "in the nature of a town;" and he defined what was a town, but he would not define that which was in the 1731 nature of a town. He had also told thorn that the Justices would have to determine the area, and to say whether it was a populous place or not. But what was an area? What was a place? A county might be an area, or a place within the discretion of the justices, who would he left to determine whether an area, say 20 miles long and 20 miles broad, was a place or not; and then they would have to decide whether a part of that area, which was not defined, was or was not a populous place. He (Sir Henry James) did not know whether he was in Order in referring to the Amendment proposed in relation to the words "populous place" as hereafter defined; but when they came to that he thought the right hon. Gentleman would find himself in a position which he would never be able to overcome. But taking it as it stood, a populous place as hereafter defined, they had a right to look at that definition, and they would find that any place which, in the opinion of the justices, had been called a populous place, would always be so considered, although the population might have largely diminished. Now, was this a vital principle of the Bill? His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot), who had for the first time in relation to this measure aided the Government with something like animation, had said that the justices were to have no discretion; that they were refused discretion when they were limited to the express hours of opening and closing; but now, although the Government would not give the justices any discretion, with regard to the hours of opening or closing, they were going by this indirect means to give them the power of exercising, not an absolute discretion, according to the wishes of a particular neighbourhood, but an arbitrary power, enabling them to judge what was a populous place without telling them what should be the area, or what was the number of inhabitants they were to consider as coming within the meaning of that term. It had been laid down that 2,500 inhabitants constituted a town, but they were not told how many inhabitants made a populous place. Some magistrates might construe it as meaning 100 or 200 people, and diversities of opinion might occur in regard to places not more than half a mile apart. In some areas the justices 1732 might allow all public-houses to be opened according to their will, whilst in others just the opposite might be decided upon. If the right hon. Gentleman regarded this as a vital principle, that vital principle should be sure and certain, and Parliament should bear the responsibility of it. They ought not to delegate this vital principle to those whoso discretion in other respects had been taken from them. He therefore hoped his right hon. Friend would not persist in that which was without practical effect, and which would be casting upon the justices a responsibility which they ought not properly to bear.
§ MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, the Amendment before the House was one of the most important which could be proposed with regard to this Bill. Before hon. Gentlemen opposite condemned the course of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, they should consider the difficulty in which he was placed. This was an exceedingly difficult matter to define, and he had himself endeavoured to assist the Home Secretary in defining it, but he could not say that his attempts were satisfactory to himself. He had thought they might arrange this matter by defining one class as existing in urban and another in rural sanitary districts. But urban districts were small both in area and population, while certain rural districts were very large. One difficulty that had been pointed out was this—that there might be two contiguous parishes with inhabitants of precisely similar occupation and habits of life; but one parish might have 2,500 inhabitants and the other be under it. Now, the House would not wish that the hours in one case should differ from those in the other. What he understood the feeling to be was that the hours should be regulated according to the habits of life of the various populations. What he wanted to know was whether the House could suggest any better means; because if they could not they must, as sensible and practical men, take the only course open to them. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Henry James) who had spoken with so much force had criticized powerfully the suggestion of Her Majesty's Government, but he did not suggest any other course. It was easy enough to criticize when they were in Opposition; but it was not so easy when they were in office to carry 1733 out what would be clear and satisfactory. The hon. and learned Gentleman must give the Government credit for having tried to do their best, and although the solution might not be perfectly satisfactory, if there was no better to suggest, let them accept that. There was one good reason why they should adopt the suggestion of the Government, and that was that they were not laying down a hard-and-fast line of population, and saying that above it there should be one hour and below it another; but they were trying to lay down that the hour should be regulated according to the nature of the population for whom they were legislating, and he thought the term "populous place" would enable them to do that better than by any other means.
§ MR. WYKEHAM MARTINsaid, he thought the omission of these words would be a great improvement to the Bill. The hon. Member for West Kent (Mr. J. G. Talbot) had just pointed out that there might be two contiguous parishes with populations exactly alike in occupation and habits, and yet that the hours in one of them might be different from the other. He took his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary the other night to parishes within his own experience in the county in which he had acted for many years as a magistrate, where the populations were of exactly similar character, but happened to be divided like the squares of a chessboard. There would be no sort of uniformity in the hours of closing in these different parishes, and there would be this curious result—that the railway hotel, which was a large place, would be closed an hour earlier than some of the public-houses in the same neighbourhood. There was one parish where the justices had unanimously decided upon closing the houses at 10, and under the provisions of this Bill they would be compelled to keep open to 11. Words which would have caused greater heartburn and greater difficulty to the magistrates could not possibly be found than those which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to strike out of the Bill. He should be willing to support him in striking out those words, and when they came to deal later on with what was a populous place, he hoped they would consider it temperately, and he was sure that in that case Her Majesty's Government 1734 would in all fairness give their views every consideration.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that having heard the various statements made with reference to the Amendment before the House, he formed the opinion that hon. Members on both sides of the House were inclined to come to the conclusion that, so far as the discretionary power of the magistrates was concerned, it would have been better to have left the Act of 1872, which had worked well, to go on so working. The difficulty in which they were put by the Amendment was one that would return year by year whenever the magistrates had to decide this question. The magistrates would have to decide what a "populous place" was. It was said to mean "any area which by reason of the number and density of its population the Licensing Justices may determine to be a populous place." That was only a great number of words to say that the justices were to determine a populous place to be that which they thought a populous place. Every place was a populous place. How in the world were they to determine that matter? All they would be able to do was to say that that was a populous place which they thought to be such. Should the words be inserted in the Bill, the question of what was a populous place would not be decided with respect to the particular needs and conditions of the locality, but would be settled in a vague, loose, and indeterminate manner.
§ SIR JOHN KARSLAKEmaintained that the magistrates would be perfectly competent to determine what was a populous place—namely, any area which by reason of the number and density of its population the Licensing Justices might by order determine to be a populous place. He could not see any difficulty whatever in giving practical effect to that definition. The phrase "populous place" was, in his opinion, much better than the term "parish," and he believed it could be substituted with advantage. The House would not be throwing too much responsibility on the magistrates by making this Amendment.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTwished to know why it had not been discovered before that the word "parish" ought to be struck out of the clause. What was proposed to be done would not meet the difficulty. They might have two sets of justices, one determining that an ad- 1735 joining parish was a populous place, and another that an adjoining parish, in precisely the same state of circumstances, was not a populous place, thereby establishing different hours of closing. The right hon. Gentleman said that "populous places" was the entire of a town; but they thought it necessary in the Bill to define what a town was. The hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last said "a town was what a half-dozen people may think it to be." If that definition were correct they should insert in the definition clause the words "or what a Bench of magistrates may consider it to be." Their definition was a town of not less than 2,500 inhabitants. The hon. Member for West Kent (Mr. J. G. Talbot) made an appeal to the House, and asked what they were to do. Well, his answer was, let the Question alone. Why meddle with the country districts at all? Why force on them a Bill which they did not want? It might be necessary in the metropolis or large towns; but in the country districts it was neither wished for nor wanted.
§ COLONEL BARTTELOTadmitted that there was a difficulty in dealing with the question, and the only way to get out of it was to accept the Amendment of his right hon. Friend. In the country districts public-houses closed at 11 o'clock, and beer-houses at 10. Under this Act, both would be closed at 10 o'clock, unless in a town containing 2,500 inhabitants. In the southern counties there were many towns from 700 to 1,500 where these houses should be kept open until 11 o'clock, and where it, would be unreasonable to shut them at 10. That was the reason the word "parish" was omitted from the Bill, and "populous places" substituted; for many parishes, perfectly rural, had more than 2,500 inhabitants, and yet had no "populous place." He ventured, therefore, to hope that his right hon. Friend would stand by his Amendment.
§ MR. MELLYsaid, I entirely agree with my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Barttelot) that there are small towns on the southern coast where the houses ought to close at 11 o'clock and others at 10. The truth is, you are about to give the magistrates in the country a discretion to fix the hours for opening and closing as they shall think fit. This word of "populous places" is a veil for giving a new and enlarged dis- 1736 cretion. What a political Nemesis! How quaintly history repeats itself! In the House of Lords, on this very point, Lord Salisbury suggested the leaving this identical discretion to the rural justices. On a hot Saturday in July, 1872, when we were in the very difficulty we are in to-night, the Under Home Secretary (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) proposed the celebrated discretionary clause. To-night, after all your pledges, you re-affirm it. You say to 600 licensing benches in the country, having 43,000 spirit, and 25,000 beer-houses under their control "fix which place is a populous, and which a non-populous place, in the first 11 P.M. is the statutory hour for all houses, in the other 10 P.M." Never did Lord Aberdare give them such power; he enabled the rural justices to close public-houses at 10 or 11 P.M.; this enabled them to open 25,000 beer-houses from 10 to 11 P.M., an hour at which they have never been opened. There may be no other course now open to the House; but how completely does this proposal exonerate the authors of the Act of 1872 from blame? Why disturb this discretion? It has been shown how discreetly it has been exercised. All consistency has disappeared. The House has to-night refused by a majority of 34 to allow the town justices to decide between 5 and 7 A.M., for the opening hours; but now the Home Secretary, under the transparent pretence of "populous place," gives 600 county benches power to close 68,000 houses at 10 or 11 P.M., as seems best suited to the wants of the inhabitants. This Amendment justifies the Ministry of 1872. They found themselves in the difficulty you are in to-night, they solved it by giving all the justices the discretionary power. You meet the same difficulty, and as regards the county justices you propose the same solution.
§ MR. PERCY WYNDHAMsaid, that in the northern districts, where there were long lines of miners' cottages stretching for great distances between towns, it would be very difficult for the justices to determine what were "populous places," and, indeed, the difficulty would be greater than that which they had under the old system.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he hoped that the House had discussed this question long enough, and that they would now go to a division. 1737 There seemed to be no faith in the discretion of the magistrates; but he believed that they would exercise their discretion quite as well as the Sheriffs in Scotland, against whom they heard no complaint of what they did in this matter. The word "parish" did not meet the wants of the country, but "populous places" would do so. He hoped the House would adopt the Amendment.
§ SIR HARCOURT JOHNSTONEmoved the adjournment of the debate. In his opinion, nothing would be more unsatisfactory nor more unfair to the magistrates than that they should be left in their present indefinite position. It would be a great hardship to them. If the Government were anxious to establish a line, let them take the ratio of pauperism to population. He never could understand how it was that London, in which that ratio was largest, should be the most favoured as regarded hours, and that the favour should decrease, as if by a scale, to small country places where the ratio was smallest. The Petitions sent up to the House on the subject of the Bill ought to convince the Government that the people did not want the extension of hours, and it was plain that the ratepayers were not interested in asking for it. He begged to move the adjournment of the debate, with the view of having this matter fully and deliberately considered.
§ Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Sir Harcourt Johnstone.)
§ The House divided:—Ayes 129; Noes 276: Majority 147.
§ Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. DODSONsaid, that the Amendments of the Home Secretary, taken in conjunction with the definition clause, amounted merely to restoring magisterial discretion as to hours, with a very clumsy machinery. With regard to the definition of a populous place, he would suggest that the word "parish" should be omitted, and that after the word "town" should be inserted "or place as hereinafter defined," and that the definition of town and place should be considered before the definition clause was reached on a future evening, for it was obvious that it could not be reached that night.
§ MR. GREGORYsaid, the Amendment gave a wide discretion to the magistrates, and he trusted Her Majesty's Government would allow time for the careful consideration of it.
MAJOR E. H. PAGETsaid, strong grounds had been shown why the Amendment should receive the favour of the House. It would undoubtedly be necessary to define "populous places." Populous places now meant an aggregation of continuous houses containing not less than 1,500 inhabitants, and it should be left to the magistrates to determine that matter.
MR. GATHORNE HARDTsaid, the House appeared to be agreed as to the omission of the word "parish," and he would suggest that that word should at once be struck out, and that the words proposed by his right hon. Friend might be then proceeded with.
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, he thought they were introducing a new element to allow the magistrates to decide as to the extent of the area. This was a new principle, and one which ought to be discussed before they proceeded further with the Bill. It was his desire that they should have on this question not merely the opinion of the House, but also the opinion of the country, and therefore he should now move the adjournment of the House.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Dillwyn.)
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he hoped the hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea would not press his Motion. It did not lie with Members sitting on the Opposition Benches to object to the Government proposing to omit any word out of their own Bill, but it was quite a different thing when they proposed to substitute another word or phrase for that which they omitted. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had told them that the House had had time to consider this Amendment; but he could hardly think that was the case, for unless he took a very lively interest in the measure, it would be impossible he could know what would be the effect of the proposed change. Indeed, listening to the discussion which had taken place, he should say that even those who supported the Government found it difficult to ascertain what was 1739 the meaning of the phrase "populous places." He thought with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chester (Mr. Dodson) that they should not be asked to commit themselves to this definition at that period of the evening, and that in consenting to the withdrawal of the word "parish" they should have time to consider what ought to be substituted for it.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked what course the Government intended to take if the House yielded upon this point or agreed to leave out this word "parish"?
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he thought the House had got into a very unnecessary difficulty. The proposal was to leave out the word "parish," in which they were agreed; and then the Government proposed to insert "in a populous place as defined by this Act." When they came to the definition clause they would have to define what a populous place was.
§ MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENsaw in their present dilemma a prospect that the House would come back to the reconsideration of the question of hours.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 116; Noes 248: Majority 132.
§ Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
MR. GOLDSMIDmoved that the debate be now adjourned. There was such a difference of opinion upon the Amendment that at that late hour, when it was impossible to discuss the question fully, it was only fair that further opportunity should be given for hon. Members to consider what course ought to be pursued. Moreover, the hour fixed by the Bill for closing in London had arrived.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Goldsmid.)
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, that of course hon. Gentlemen opposite must be taken to mean that they did not oppose the further progress of the measure for any party purposes; but he did think that after the very decisive result of the division which had just taken 1740 place they ought, at all events, to be allowed to proceed further. What he proposed on the part of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Cross) was that they should agree to the omission of the word "parishes," and leave the question of "populous places" for future discussion. The matter would not in this way be prejudged and the question still be left open.
MR. GOLDSMIDsaid that the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman was a fair one, and he was prepared to agree to it.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.
§ Question proposed, "That the words 'in a populous place, as defined by this Act,' be there inserted."
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTobjected to proceeding further until they knew exactly how they stood with respect to the definition. He had taken counsel with several Members on the subject, and they all agreed that it was absolutely necessary it should be defined what were "populous places" as distinguished from parishes. As to the lateness of the hour he saw many hon. Members opposite who in the last Parliament had sat until 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning to oppose the ballot, and he did not therefore think that any imputation of party feeling should come from that side of the House. If the House agreed to the proposal to leave out the word "parish," it would, in fact, commit them to the other portion of the Amendment.
VISCOUNT GALWAYsaid, he was surprised at the course proposed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochester (Mr. Goldsmid). With regard to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt), who was known as "Historicus," it was very evident that he would have an article in The Times on the question to-morrow morning.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he thought the right hon. Gentleman's proposal a very fair one. The right hon. Gentleman said the word "parish" was very objectionable, and in that case he (Mr. Forster) thought they had better assent to its being struck out; but it was quite another thing when they heard it proposed 1741 to strike out the words "two thousand five hundred inhabitants."
MR. ASSHETON CROSSexplained that by leaving the word "parish" out there was no objection to defer the consideration of the words "two thousand five hundred inhabitants."
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREconsidered that there should be an understanding about the matter.
An Hon. MEMBERsaid the difference was this—that hon. Members on the Opposition benches wished to insert the words "other places," and Members on the Ministerial side of the House, thought it desirable to insert "populous places."
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHhoped hon. Gentlemen opposite would consent to the Amendment.
§ MR. MORGAN LLOYDsaid, in the Bill as amended the words "two thousand five hundred inhabitants" were inserted in the Interpretation Clause As he understood the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, it was that he was prepared to treat "populous places as places containing a certain number of inhabitants
MR. ASSHETON CROSSPerhaps the hon. Gentleman was not in the House when I submitted the Amendment. I stated that 2,500 inhabitants would apply to the Interpretation Clause throughout the towns.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Debate adjourned till Thursday.