§ MR. ONSLOWasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, considering the great national importance of the Resolution of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and agreed to by the House of Lords, namely—
That a Select Committee be appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the prevalence of habits of intemperance, and into the manner in 1043 which those habits have been affected by recent legislation and other causes,and to which Resolution Her Majesty's Government have given their assent, Whether it would not be advisable that any Committee appointed for this purpose should consist of Members of both Houses of the Legislature?
MR.ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, the Government were fully alive to the importance of the inquiry which had been undertaken by the House of Lords as to the prevalence of habits of intemperance, but their Lordships had not invited the House of Commons to join in the inquiry, and it rested with the House of Lords, and not with the Government, to consider the expediency of making it a joint inquiry. He had, he might add, sought to obtain information as to the practice on those occasions, and he found the subject in question was not one of a class which was ordinarily referred to joint Committees of the two Houses. Hitherto such Committees had been appointed in cases in which the united action of both Houses was required; as, for example, metropolitan railway schemes and Bills for the amalgamation of railway companies, but on questions of general policy it was the custom for each House to appoint its own Committee.