EAST INDIA (ABKARI DEPARTMENT).

HC Deb 30 April 1889 vol 335 cc817-77

*MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire)

I rise for the purpose of calling attention to the motion which stands in my name, and of moving the following resolution— That, in the opinion of this House, the fiscal system of the Government of India leads to the establishment of spirit distilleries, liquor and opium shops in large numbers of places where till recently they never existed, in defiance of Native opinion and the protests of the inhabitants, and that such increased facilities for drinking produce a steadily increasing consumption, and spread misery and ruin among the industrial classes of India, calling for immediate action on the part of the Government of India with a view to their abatement. I make no apology for again calling the attention of the House to this most important question. It will he in the recollection of hon. Members that the question was raised last year in a somewhat confused form. It was raised upon a Motion dealing with another question, and the result was that the House was not able to pass a clear and distinct judgment upon it. I was told by some hon. Members that owing to that fact they were not able to vote for the motion last year, but I hope that they will be able to give their support to the Resolution which I am about to submit tonight. The question is now raised in a distinct form. We challenge the whole policy of the Indian Government in regard to the administration of the Excise laws; and it is now my duty to call attention to a Despatch issued in 1887, which forms the official justification of the Indian Government for the system which now prevails in that country. That Despatch is altogether incorrect and misleading. I believe that I shall be able to show that the figures on which it is founded are altogether fallacious, and it will be my duty to traverse the whole of the allegations contained in it. One would be disposed, upon reading the Despatch, to suppose that the Indian Government are a great temperance society, and that their main object has been to diminish as far as possible the evil of intoxication; that the revenue has been quite a secondary consideration, and that what was mainly thought of was the moral condition of the people. The Despatch, which is dated August 8th, 1887, says:— Your Lordship is aware that few subjects connected with Revenue Administration have of recent years obtained greater attention at the hands of the Government than questions relating to Excise Administration. In each of the three larger Governments, Bombay, Madras, and Bengal, the Excise system has, within the last six or seven years, been completely examined in its operation and in its effects. These examinations have been made under the instruction of the Local Governments, and in direct communication with us; and the principles on which they have been based, and which have been unanimously accepted by all the authorities concerned, have been these; that liquor should be taxed and consumption restricted, as far as it is possible to do so without imposing positive hardships upon the people and driving them to illicit manufacture. The facts now placed on record show that in this policy the Local Governments have been completely successful, and that the great increase of Excise Revenue in recent years, which the Congress take as evidence of the spread of drinking habits, really represents a much smaller consumption of liquor, and an infinitely better regulated consumption than the smaller revenue of former years. I believe that I shall be able entirely to shatter that statement to pieces. There has been an increase of revenue in recent years from £2,300,000 to £4,200,000, and the contention of the Indian Government is that that increase of revenue is obtained from increased duties and a decreased consumption. These are the things upon which we desire to join issue. The despatch says:— Drunkenness, in the English sense of the term, hardly exists in India. Writers, whose comparisons are based on Orient al experience, describe as drunkenness and as spread of misery and ruin a condition of things which, if it existed in England, would be regarded almost as a millennium of temperance. The average consumption in India is only a bottle or a bottle and a-half of spirits a year for every adult male, and in some provinces is even less than that. These two paragraphs will give the House some idea of the substance of this despatch. The statements contained in it are utterly unfounded and altogether opposed to universal public opinion in India. Three years ago I travelled there and met all classes and conditions of people, but I never met one who did not lament the rapid spread of the consumption of intoxicating liquors. The hon. Member for Barrow (Mr. Caine) was there last year, and will be able to confirm all that I say. Every opinion confirms the astonishing increase in the consumption of spirits within the last few years, and the statistics collected by the Government of India itself utterly confute the statements contained in the despatch of 1887. In proof of my allegation I will, first of all, cite the statement of the late Keshub Chunder-Sen, the great social reformer, who said— It is indeed harrowing and painful to contemplate the extent to which sensuality, profligacy, and brutal revels on the one hand, and irreligion, blasphemy, and practical atheism on the other, are making ravages among all classes of the native community in consequence of the spread of drunkenness, and undermining the religious and moral life of the nation …. In short, the use of intoxicating liquor has done more than anything else to degrade the physical, moral, and social condition of my countrymen, and has proved a stupendous obstacle in the path of reformation. Contrast that statement with the one made by the Government of India to the effect that drunkenness in a European sense does not exist in India. Let me now quote the opinion of an English gentleman, Mr. Hudson, secretary of the Behar Indigo Planters Association, in evidence which he gave before the Government of Bengal Commission in 1884. He said— The upshot of the inquiries I have made amongst the planters and of my personal observations during a residence of 20 years, is that drunkenness has greatly increased during the last few years. I attribute this principally to the fact that 20 years ago, and up to a few years past, it cost a man four annas to get drunk on spirit; now he can make himself dead drunk, thik nissa, as it has been expressed to me by a ' habitual,' for one anna. Also by the fact that, whereas it used to be most difficult to get spirits anywhere except at the distilleries, it can now be procured within reach of nearly every hamlet. One anna represents a penny. This extraordinary cheapening of liquor is one of the main causes of the increase of drunkenness, and is one of the consequences of the policy adopted by the Bengal Government. Out of a great number of letters I have received I will read a few extracts. The House knows that the tea industry is now one of the most important in India. The custom is to bring a large number of coolies from other parts of India, and get them to reside in the tea gardens. It is a kind of arrangement that needs great care in order to prevent it from degenerating into a species of servitude. We allow the coolies to be taken from their homes, and surely it is our duty to protect them, as far as possible, from all temptations. I will read to the House an extract from a letter which affords a good specimen of a large number of letters I have received containing complaints as to the condition of these coolies. This letter is from a plantation in which I have some interest myself, and I have therefore the means of knowing that the information it contains is reliable. The writer says:— I regret to state the sad fact that drunkenness among garden coolies has spread to an alarming degree since its promotion and encouragement by this outstill system. Any attempt to abolish, or even lessen, this growing evil will be hailed with pleasure. Since the introduction of this odious system in 1883, the consumption of country spirits has, I am certain, increased sevenfold (possibly more), and. it is increasing yearly, judging from the new stills that periodically spring up here and there all over the districts. The Local Government allow and cherish these stills contiguous to our gardens and bazaars. There are cases on record of proprietors and managers having laid. the matter before the Local Government, clearly demonstrating the injury the industry and the health of the coolies had and. were receiving at their hands from the propagation of such a system, but the said Local Government only lent a deaf ear. There are cases where managers have objected to allowing a still in the grants under their charge, but to no purpose—they were enforced. The manufacturing places are chosen and fixed by the Local Government. These outstills are put up to auction yearly, and. the right to manufacture and sell country spirits knocked down to the highest bidder. They are readily disposed of at high prices to eager competitors, bent on aggrandizement at the expense of our tea gardens and coolies' health, by making and selling them a venomous compound, at four annas per quart bottle-, and termed by the Local Government wholesome country spirit. Before these outstills were created, shops where spirits could be procured by coolies were few and far between, and the said spirits could not be purchased at less than one rupee per bottle. During these times the coolies-had little or no temptation to drink, and were, although earning less money, in a much better pecuniary state than at present. The roadside and bazaar outstill absorbs their surplus cash, aye, and more, because food and clothing are often curtailed to provide the grim firewater. Sunday is, of course, the great day for drinking, and driving by I have come across coolies lying literally dead drunk at intervals in the road, covered with mud from head to foot, and have had to have them rolled on one side to clear the way for my trap. One of my best men got leave one day, bought six bottles of country spirits at a shop about four miles away, and, on his way home, fell across the railway line, smashing his bottles, and lying insensible until, luckily, picked up by another coolie. It is needless to say that the drinking leads to rioting and wife beating; eases, however, seldom come before the notice of the Government. Were they to do so, coolies would be constantly absent from the gardens, so the planter, as a rule, settles these matters himself. I have collected an immense mass of materials which have accumulated in my hands during the last three years—papers and letters almost without end — and I could quote hundreds expressing views almost identical with these. Perhaps the House will expect me to describe the method by which the Government carry on their liquor policy in India. They farm it out to contractors. [Sir J. GORST: No.] The hon. Gentleman says "No," but I believe I shall be able to prove the truth of my assertion. The system is to farm it out to the men who will pay the largest annual sum for the privilege of supplying the liquor, and the traffic sub-divides itself into two minor heads, one of which is called the Central Distillery System. The distillery belongs to the Government. The contractor goes to the Central Distillery and takes, say, 100,000 gallons, engaging not to charge the public more than a certain price; but he may sell it as cheap as he likes. If he finds that he can only sell 80,000 gallons, he will offer the remaining 20,000 gallons dirt cheap—almost for nothing—rather than have it left on his hands. There is also the outstill system, which is still worse. The contractor receives power not only of selling by retail, but of manufacturing himself. He pays for the outstill a certain fixed sum, and he contracts with the Government to pay a lump sum for the use of the outstill. This outstill system was introduced in Bengal in 1876. Upon the introduction of the outstill system into Bengal in 1876, consumption of drink and revenue there from was nearly doubled in five years. An enormous stimulus was given to the manufacture and consumption of strong drink. So terrible were the effects, so loud was the outcry, that the Government were obliged to appoint a Commission of Inquiry into the working of the system. Now I must ask the House to listen to one or two quotations on this subject. First, I quote the evidence of Mr. C. S. Metcalfe, Additional Commissioner of Patna, a district which had suffered most from this out-still system.

SIR J. GORST

What is the date of this?

*MR. S. SMITH

Mr. Metcalfe's evidence was given before the Bengal Commission in 1883–4. He says:— I have been officially connected with this district since 1879 to 1884 as collector, and from 1874 to 1876 as officiating commissioner. My experience has been as a collector both of the 'sudder distillery' and the 'outstill systems.' The habit of drinking has extended to all classes. The quantity drunk is larger owing to the cheaper price at which it is now sold. Persons who previously were satisfied with a dram, are now able to afford a bottle or two. Among the labouring and artizan classes, drinking has increased to a deplorable extent. I have not noticed any cases among the school boys, but my experience is that domestic servants, day labourers, and women, drink to an extent I never noticed under the distillery system. Under the outstill system the habit of drinking is forcibly brought home by instances such as these. My coachman has tumbled off his box drunk. If I want a mochee to mend the harness I have to arrange that he shall be sober the night before A workman now drinks his bottle of spirits as regularly as he eats his food, and quarrels have become frequent from a man arriving at home having spent all his earnings in drink. I can. speak from personal observation that there are more drunkards in and about this city than I ever observed before. Complaints like these poured in upon the Indian Government, petitions were presented by natives and Europeans, and in 1883–4 a Commission of Inquiry was appointed. This Commission collected an immense amount of evidence, through the bulk of which I have gone with much patience. Twice I have gone carefully over the Report. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman opposite had done the same when he made the statement he did last year supporting the despatch of the Indian Government that there was a marked decrease in the consumption of strong drink, for this Commission came to the conclusion that in the great province of Bengal among 69,000,000 of people the consumption had increased in ten years by 135 per cent, or in other words, from an average of 1,600,000 gallons to 3,700,000. The despatch for the Government of India was dated 1887, and scarcely takes the slightest notice of the conclusions of the Bengal Commission, and simply glides over it, touching it so casually that an ordinary reader of the despatch would not know that such a Commission ever sat and arrived at such terrible conclusions. The despatch of 1887, and the Under-Secretary in his speech last year, laid great stress on the fact that less illicit drink was sold and more Government drink. That was the stress of the argument last year, and I suppose it will be repeated to-night. But let me call the attention of the House to the finding of the Bengal Commission. Here is what they say: No matter what view may be taken of the extent of illicit distillation and smuggling under the Control Distillery System, they cannot be held to account for any considerable proportion of this amount and may be excluded from the consideration of the question without the conclusion arrived at being seriously vitiated thereby. In other words, the Commissioners say that this gigantic increase as shown in the statistics of drink consumption is not to be accounted for by the transfer of the consumption from illicit to licit manufacture.

SIR J. GORST

In Bengal?

*MR. S. SMITH

Yes, in Bengal with its 69 million inhabitants.

SIR J. GORST

My interruption was intended to remind the hon. Member that my statement was founded on the statistics for the whole of India and was not confined to Bengal.

*MR. S. SMITH

Then I may take it that 69 millions of people are to be excepted from that general statement.

SIR J. GORST

I did not say so.

*MR. S. SMITH

I think I have proved there is this enormous increase of consumption in Bengal, and I shall leave to my hon. Friend behind me to produce statistics as to the rest of India. All the evidence I have been able to collect shows me that this illicit drinking is a mere bugbear, an excuse to salve the consciences of the British people, an easy way to throw dust in the eyes of inquirers. Now, the Bengal Commission reported in favour of a reversal of the outstill policy, and an attempt at reversal was made for a year or two; but as the revenue straightway fell off by 10 lakhs, the Government did not like it and they gradually reverted to the old system, 50 outstills at a time being licensed in spite of the vehement protest of the native population, and we have to-day the abominable outstill system going on in spite of the unanimous protests of natives and Europeans. The native Congress of India is an important educated and representative body of some 1,200 Members chosen from all parts of India, and this is a resolution they passed:— That having regard to the fact that a serious increase in the consumption of intoxicants has taken place under the systems of abalkari and excise now prevailing in India, the Government be respectfully urged to adopt some such improved system as shall tend to discourage insobriety. I have not, so far, alluded to the opinion of missionaries, the most disinterested Europeans in India, and some of whom have lived 20 or 30 years in India, and there are no more intelligent and honest observers to be found on matters touching the social welfare of India, From these I am almost overwhelmed with evidence. Last year I quoted the Rev. Thomas Evans on the terrible evils of the drink trade. A great conference of British missionaries held in Calcutta last December, condemned the outstill system in the most pronounced manner, and they proposed that the municipalities of India should he permitted to exercise local option on the question of the opening of the drink shops. There is municipal government in many of the large towns such as Calcutta, Bombay, and Delhi, and having this in view, the conference included this in their memorial:— That under all these circumstances and for all the reasons specified above, your Memorialists most respectfully but most urgently request that the outstill system, which has proved a curse to the country, may be abolished without delay; and that the privilege of ' local option' in regard to the opening of shops for the sale of liquor may at once be conceded to all rural communities under such arrangements for working it under existing law or under fresh legislation as to the Government may seem best. What is required is to bring Local Option to bear on the evil. It is well known that the municipalities would extirpate the system, root and branch. But the Government will not give them power to do anything of the kind, because they are afraid of the revenue. Let it be remembered that the native population look upon the liquor trade very differently from ourselves, they look upon drinking as a vice, there is no such thing as a class of moderate drinkers, though there may be a few educated natives who have adopted English habits. A native if he drinks at all drinks to get drunk, and he drives hard bargains with the publicans for the purpose. The Mahomedan and the Hindoo religions are utterly opposed to the use of strong drink. Even to-day the mass of Indians are abstainers. The consumption of drink is confined to a few comparatively, and so the average consumption per head of population appears very small. But whereas ten years ago there were perhaps 10,000,000 of drinkers in India, we have now turned them into 20,000,000, and at the rate we are going on we shall, in time, turn the 20,000,000 into 40,000,000 and the 40,000,000, into 80,000,000. The climate of India and the constitution of the people make liquor little else than poison to them. When taken to excess for a short time it kills them. Then the average income of the people of India is not more than 3d. per head per day for every adult male. That sum is barely sufficient to keep a family alive, and a penny a day spent in drink out of that sum reduces them to starvation. There is no Poor Law in India, but if we make the country a nest of drunkards, we must introduce a Poor Law to keep the people from starvation. The real objection that meets us is the revenue, the £5,000,000 raised from the sale of drink and other intoxicants blinds the eyes of Indian officials. It is a revenue easily raised. The man who sells most drink gets the contract, and the revenue is very easily raised. Every official in India is looked upon with favour more or less in proportion as he increases the revenue contracts. Indian finance is always in an impecunious state, and so it comes about that the best official is the man who collects most revenue, and the bad official is one who allows the revenue to fall off. It is quite natural that that should be so. Having got this vicious system, and having to raise money out of it, the Government of India must employ persons who will best collect the revenue. The officials are tied to the system, and we can place no more reliance upon their opinions than on the question of the Abolition of Slavery we could have followed the advice of West India planters as to the moral effects of the system. A wasteful system of finance has brought the Government of India to lean more and more on immoral sources of revenue, and so we go on poisoning the natives of India with drink as we have poisoned the Chinese with opium. But we should not lend ourselves to any such system. We should not consider merely what the exigencies of the Indian Government are. We should insist that the revenue of India should be raised by moral means, by means consistent with the true interests of India. It is a melancholy reflection that a so called Christian Government should outrage the moral sense of the heathens we govern. We have outraged the moral instincts of the natives of India by our conduct in this matter. No one who reads the native newspapers can doubt that, in the view of the natives, the use of liquor was immoral. My Resolution deals with opium as well as drink, for it is included in the Excise Laws, and its sale in India is licensed, though not on so large a scale as drink. We include it in our condemnation, for I know its effect is not less fatal than drink to the natives, and my hon. Friend (Mr. Caine) has visited an opium den in Lucknow, and to him we are indebted for the following description:— We enter with the rest, and find ourselves in a dirty courtyard, round which are ranged 15 small rooms. The stench is sickening, the swarms of flies intolerable, and there is something strange and weird about the faces of those who are coming in from the street. It dawns upon me that I am in yet another and different 'Government' Bazaar, and that, for the first time in my life, I am within the walls 'of an opium den.' At the entrance sits a comely Chinese woman, whose husband is busy showing the arriving customers into the least crowded of the side rooms. Before her is a table, covered with copper coins. She is veritably sitting at the receipt of custom.' About half these copper coins go the Government Treasury at Calcutta, the other half going to the Government tax collector, the opium farmer. I obtain permission to go over the whole premises, and enter the first of the small rooms. In the centre of the room, which has no window, and is very dark, is a small charcoal fire, whose glow casts a lurid light on the faces of nine human beings, men and women, lying in a circle like pigs in a sty. A young girl about 15 years of age has charge of each room, fans the fire, lights the opium pipe, and holds it in the mouth of the smoker who has last come rn, till his head falls heavily on the body of his predecessor. Two or three are in various stages of preliminary drunkenness. I have been in East End gin palaces on Saturday nights—I have seen men in various stages of delirium tremens, I have visited many idiot and lunatic asylums, but I have never seen such horrible destruction of God's image in the face of man, as I saw in the Government' opium dens of Lucknow. To my dying day I shall carry the recollection of the face of a handsome young woman of 18 or 19 years, sprawling on the senseless bodies of men, her fine brown eyes flattened and dulled with coming stupor, and her lips drawn back from her glittering white teeth. Another girl of the same age was sitting in a group of newly-arrived smokers, singing some lewd romance as they handed round the pipe. I went from room to room and counted 97 persons of both sexes in various stages of opium stupor. Green hands could get drunk for a penny or less, but by degrees more and more opium is needed, and the callous keeper of this hideous den showed us men whom 180 drops of thick opium, mixed with tobacco, hardly sufficed to intoxicate. I came out staggering and faint with the poison-laden atmosphere. I cannot pursue this painful subject further, I fear I have encroached too much on the time of the House. I hope I have not spoken too warmly, but the subject is one of enormous importance. I am advocating the cause of countless millions of our race. I am trying to stop ravages compared to which those of war and pestilence are but lesser evils. This House has long, far-reaching arms, and they can give deliverance to India. I ask the House to use its mighty influence to-night for the protection of myriads of our fellow-creatures. I ask the House, by passing this Resolution to-night, to send a thrill of joy through the vast population of India.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, in the opinion of this House, the fiscal system of the Government of India leads to the establishment of spirit distilleries, liquor and opium shops in large numbers of places where till recently they never existed, in defiance of Native opinion and the protests of the inhabit- ants, and that such increased facilities for drinking produce a steadily increasing consumption, and spread misery and ruin among the industrial classes of India, calling for immediate action on the part of the Government of India with a view to their abatement. —(Mr. Samuel Smith.)

*MR. CAINE (Barrow)

I need not follow my hon. Friend, in seconding his Motion, into a description of the terrible social evils of the present vicious system, which I can assure the House my hon. Friend has not exaggerated. The Resolution states that the fiscal system of the Government of India spreads misery and ruin among the industrial classes of India, and I found abundant evidence to sustain that allegation. But first let me deal with the Government argument in support of their policy, and meet them upon their own ground. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India (Sir J. Gorst) evidently wishes that the figures with regard to the whole of India should be quoted and not those relating to sections or districts.

SIR J. GORST

Not at all. I do not object to any figures being taken as long as it is made clear to the House what figures they are.

*MR. CAINE

Well, I will be quite clear as to the figures I take, and I will explain, for the sake of simplicity, that all my figures will be in pounds sterling, taking the usual reckoning of ten rupees to the £. I find that, according to the latest available statistics, those of 1887, the total revenue from intoxicating liquors all over India is steadily advancing. I may say that the gallonage of consumption is not given in the Government returns, at all events, until the last two or three years, and I found it very difficult, even in India, to get figures on the subject. I will first show how the revenue from intoxicating liquors and drugs is steadily advancing. The present system has been in existence for about fifty years. It was founded about 1838, and it reached complete perfection about 1878, when the total revenue from intoxicants was £2,458,000. In 1879, the revenue rose to £2,619,000, in 1880 to £2,838,000, in 1881 to £3,135,000, in 1882 to £3,427,000, in 1883 to £3,609,000, in 1884 to £3,837,000, in 1885 to £4,012,000, in 1886 to £4,152,000, and in 1887 to £4,375,000. The revenue has therefore virtually doubled itself in ten years. Now it is urged by the Government that this increase is the result, first of all, of increased taxation, and secondly of the transfer of the consumption from illicit to Government liquor. I would ask my hon. Friend the Under Secretary, whether he means to say that the bulk of the increase of £2,100,000 is a transfer from illicit to licit consumption? If so, it reflects very great disgrace on the management of the excise system in former years. With regard to the raising of taxation, that has been very trivial, and nothing at all like the 100 per cent it would have to be, in order to account for the increase. The revenue is derived, not only from spirits, but also from opium and other intoxicating drugs, and the imports show a steady increase, and one that has been much more rapid in recent years. The imports of spirits show an increase of 50 per cent in the last ten years. In 1885, the imports of spirits amounted to 858,000 gallons; in 1886, they amounted to 937,000 gallons, and in 1887 they rose to 1,063,000 gallons—or total increase of 23 per cent. in three years. There was also an increase of 60 per cent. in the imports of malt liquors in the three years, Furthermore, there is, all over India, a steadily increasing manufacture of beer, strong in alcohol, on which no duty is paid. All the increased consumption is native and not English. The English population is more sober and abstemious than in times past, and its consumption of liquor has 'certainly not increased. We have now 15,000 teetotallers in the Indian Army, and the evidence goes to show that a decreasing amount of liquor is consumed by our soldiers. Under these circumstances, the figures I have quoted are calculated to give alarm to every social reformer and every practical politician. I will quote from Paper 166, of June 25th, 1887, in order to show what are the opinions of authorities:— ''The principles on which the Excise system of India are based, and which have been unanimously accepted by all the authorities concerned have been these; That liquor should be taxed, and consumption restricted, as far as it has been possible to do so without imposing positive hardships upon the people, and driving them to illicit manufacture. In this policy the local Governments have been completely successful, and the great increase of Excise Revenue in recent years, which have been taken as evidence of the spread of drinking habits, really represents a much smaller consumption of liquor, and an infinitely better regulated consumption than the smaller revenue of former years. I at once admit that that is the principle on which the excise laws of India are supposed to be based and intended to be based, as is clearly shown by the following order issued to Revenue Officers in India on September 17th, 1838, when the foundations of the present system were laid:— It cannot be too strongly urged upon collectors that the object which Government has in view is to restrain and, if possible, to correct and diminish the total actual consumption of spiritous liquors, whether clandestine or licensed, being fully persuaded that any amount of revenue that may be lost by the efficiency of the system for this end will be repaid one hundredfold in the preservation and advancement of moral feelings and industrious habits among the people. I met many of the leading officials in India, and their great cry was, "Don't call our good intentions into question." Of the good intentions of the Government I have no doubt, but I say that those good intentions in the present case have only made the usual pavement. I contend deliberately that the Excise Laws of India, the best and worst of them, directly lead to an increase of drinking facilities, and, as a matter of course, to an increased consumption of liquor, with all its attendant evils. That the various Governments of India, in spite of themselves, are inevitably committed by those laws to a policy of expansion, instead of restriction, and that the sale of liquor and drugs is stimulated all over India, for the sake of the revenue it produces. I am fully aware of the seriousness of this charge. I have had it drummed into me during the three months I have been in India, but I stand by it. Last year, Mr. Westland, Finance Minister for India, used the following language in the Legislative Council:— I look hopefully to a considerable increase in the Excise Revenues, and believe that a great deal might be done in Northern India by the introduction of the methods which in Bombay and Madras, have so powerfully contributed to the increase of revenue under this head. In England it is the custom for Finance Ministers to congratulate Parliament upon a diminishing revenue from intoxicants; in India, however, the Finance Minister looks hopefully to a considerable increase in such revenue. I have been censured for saying that such a statement as this coming from such an authority, would certainly be interpreted by his subordinates into a hint to stimulate the sale of Exciseable articles. I repeat the statement, and will presently show how it is being acted upon. Let us, however, now examine for a moment into the operation of the methods in Bombay and Madras, which have made such a powerful impression on Mr. Westland and Sir David Barbour. In the Financial Statement for 1887–8, Mr. Westland uses clear enough language about the methods of the two Presidencies. He said:— As regards excise, it will be seen that it is in Madras and Bombay that the Revenue Administration has been most successful, as these two provinces, with a total population of 47,500,000 produce a Revenue nearly as large as that of Bengal with 69,000,000. The whole system of distillation has been brought more thoroughly under control, and stricter and more methodical preventive measures have enabled the Government to greatly enhance the rate of duty, for the question of the rate of duty which it is possible to levy, is simply the question of the prevention of illicit distillation. Sir David Barbour commenting on this paragraph in this year's financial statement says— Mr. Westland's expectations was that by the prevention of illicit dealings, it would be possible to raise a large Revenue, the increase of Revenue being accompanied, not by an increase of, but by a check on drinking. Well, I want to see how drinking is checked by this system. In Madras there was introduced in October, 1884, a new system which enables the authorities to raise a large Revenue by the prevention of illicit drinking. I admit that the change was a great improvement on the previous system, but it was bad at the best. In 1883–4 the consumption of arrack in the Presidency amounted to 1,204,000 gallons. In 1885, the year of transition it fell to 1,189,000 gallons. We should, however, expect to see a steadily diminishing consumption if the system were all that is claimed for it. In 1886 the consumption goes down a little farther—to 1,055,000 gallons; but in 1887 it rises again to 1,084,000, and in 1888 to 1,270,000, which is more than that of any previous year. We find, therefore, that although the system diminishes the consumption for a year or two the increase invariably comes afterwards. The people have learnt drinking habits, and the Government with a view of raising revenue, push in liquor shops whenever they think there is a ghost of a chance of a customer. Sir David Barbour is wisely silent with regard to Bombay. I will not be silent. While I was in Bombay I had a visit from Lallubhai Gordandas, general assistant in the Abkari Department. I had a long conversation with that gentleman. I made careful notes of it, and read them over to him with some care, and he admitted that they accurately represented what he said His statements were (I quote from my notes):— Throughout the Presidency there is no illicit distillation whatever for sale. There may be a little prevalent where there are many toddy or mowra trees, for private consumption only. We have got Mr. Pritchard's system well in hand, and illicit distillation is now reduced to a minimum. The system has now been in good working order for ten years, and what are the results? In 1882 the consumption. of ardent spirits in the Bombay Presidency was two millions of gallons, and in 1886 it had risen to 2,750,000 gallons, these being the latest available figures. There was thus a net increase of 40 per cent in four years, which means that it would double itself in 10 years. We are asked to believe that this increase is due to the change from illicit to licit consumption. I entirely fail to understand how such financial authorities as Mr. Westland and Sir David Barbour can commit themselves to statements, the bottom of which can be knocked out by a simple reference to their own Excise Reports. The Financial Report for this year has the audacity to suggest that their principles apply equally to intoxicating drugs as to liquors. It will be found that wherever the consumption of liquor increases, the appetite for drugs appears to be also whetted. I will take the pattern district of the Bombay Presidency, where the system is most perfect, and I will give the revenue from foreign liquor, from country spirits, and from drugs. I wish to show that it has steadily increased right through from the completion of Mr. Pritchard's system in 1877. During the five years ending 1877, the average revenue from. foreign liquors was £1,100; during the five years ending 1882 it was £2,700; in 1883 it was £3,500; in 1884, £3,600; in 1886, £8,300; in 1886, £8,400; in 1887, £9,300; and in 1888, £9,000. Now we take the spirit manufactured at the Government distilleries: During the five years ending 1877, country spirit produced an average revenue of £310,000; during the five years ending 1882 a revenue of £390,000; in 1883, £540,000; in 1884, £590,000; in 1885, £640,000; in 1886, £690,000; in 1887, £710,000; and in 1888, £750,000. And now with regard to drugs: We are told it is better for the people to consume what they call "wholesome" spirit than to take opium or other drugs, and that by stimulating the sale of spirits they diminish the consumption of drugs. Well, in the five years ending 1877 the revenue from drugs was £5,400, in the five years ending 1882 it was £5,100, in 1883 it was £8,100, in 1881 it was £9,400, in 1885 it was £10,400, in 1886 it was £10,800, in 1887 it was £11,000, and in 1888 it was £11,700. This is the way they secure a maximum revenue with a minimum of consumption. I say, without fear of contradiction, that the consumption has increased in precisely the same ratio as the revenue, not only in Bombay but all over India alike. This is inevitable so long as the existing system prevails. I admit that some methods in India are better than others; but all are bad, and all are based upon the same principles. My hon. Friend has very fairly described the systems in use. The Government control the manufacture, but they do not control the retail sale. They pretend to; but to all intents and purposes, when the liquor sale has been given to a farmer, he can do whatever he likes. I have had long interviews with liquor farmers. I have talked to one who pays as much as £140,000 a year for the monopoly of certain districts, and he told me he was obliged to take so many gallons a year and to pay duty on it. The Government do not allow him to sell above a certain price, but when he finds himself with liquor on his hands he disposes of it at any price he can get. The fact of the matter is that there are eight or nine different systems prevailing in India, and eight or nine sub-varieties. I am bound to say I did not see a single man in all India, excepting one, who understood it in all its details, or indeed half as well as I did myself. I contend that under this vicious farming system the bias of everyone concerned is in favour of the expansion of the trade and not of its contraction, and that whatever may have been the intentions of the inventors of the system all moral considerations are swamped in the efforts to obtain revenue. The Government is biassed in favour of the tax. It may be an unconscious bias, but the bias is there. It furnishes a steady and improving revenue, as I have shown, and it is cheap to collect. This is shown by the figures. The revenues from forests cost 55 per cent to collect; from opium, 25 per cent; from land, 15 per cent; from Customs, 7 per cent; from stamps, 4 per cent; and from Excise only 3 per cent. The bias is naturally in favour of such an admirable and cheap source of revenue as this, and especially as it doubles itself in ten years. As to the officers engaged in the administration, their promotion may not altogether depend upon the revenue obtained, but it does depend upon it to some extent. If you take the last report for Bengal you will find a paragraph commencing thus: "Officers deserving favourable notice for the management of the Excise Department of their various districts." Then follow 16 names of officers in every one of whose districts there has been au increase in the revenue, the average being £2,500 each. I do not blame them for trying to get on in their profession. There are gentlemen opposite who are at the head of their profession, and who would not have got there unless they had done their best to stimulate the revenue in every way. During the three months I spent in India this winter, I found endless instances of the praiseworthy watchfulness of collectors, and of the way in which they act upon the suggestions of the Finance Ministers, who are "looking hopefully to an increase in the Excise revenues." Let me give an instance: In the district of Backergunje, in Bengal, a religious fair is held every year. For some years past a liquor shop has been established there. The agent of one of the excellent and useful associations which are springing up all over India watching the actions of the Government, called upon the Zemindar who owned the land and urged him to refuse to supply land for the liquor shop any longer. He refused accordingly. But the collector, Mr. Clay, of Backergunje, dropped on the Zemindar at once, and wrote to him asking for an explanation. The Zemindar called and explained, and two more letters followed, both of which I will read. The first is addressed to Chunder Das, farmer of corn, spirit and drugs, Lakutia— In accordance with the order of the Collector passed to day you are directed to open your shop as usual at the aforesaid Mela. A copy of this order is sent to the proprietors of that Mela, so that they may present to the Collector any objection, if they have any, to the opening of the aforesaid shop at the Mela.—G. C. D OTT, Excise Deputy Collector. The same gentleman, Mr. Dutt, writes to Babu Behari Lal Roy and two other Zemindars— As a person named Parna Chunder Das' for a fee of 75 rupees got a licence for setting up a shop for the sale of wines, Ganga, and opium at your Lakutia Mela, and you did not allow him place to open his shop then, an order was issued on him to open his shop, and a copy of that order served on you that you may present to the Collector your objections, if you have any, to give him land for this purpose. Up to this day you have presented no objection and given him no land for his shop. You are ordered to show cause before the Collector within two days why that shop should not be set up at your Mela. What does this mean? These men are anxious to have their religious festival conducted decently and in order, and this Revenue official comes down upon them like a thousand of bricks because of the shop not being opened. Just suppose for one moment a similar case in England. In Liverpool there is an estate with 47,000 people living upon it. It belongs to the Earl of Sefton. There is not a single public-house upon that estate. But supposing anyone got the lease of a house there and had a licence transferred to it the Earl of Sefton would say, "You cannot do this. I have the right to stop you." And suppose the authorities wrote a letter to the Earl such as I have read to ibis House, there would be a pretty row! The bias of a liquor farmer is to sell the quantity of liquor he undertakes to sell, if he is to make any profit out of it. He is abundantly helped by the administration of the Abkar Department, which backs up the efforts of the farmer with all the energy of a working partner. Let me just show you how this works. I will give you a few instances. Take the Bombay Presidency. I read this in the last report, dated 1886–7— There were 102 spirit shops in the Ahmedabad district in the year 1884–5. Out of this number 19 shops were closed in the following year for want of custom. But during the year under report it was found necessary to re-open 11 of them. Another paragraph in the same report gives the explanation of this remarkable operation, During the three years for which the farms were sold, the farmer was not able to sell the full quantities of spirit removed by him from the distilleries under his minimum guarantee. So to enable him to do so, and keep up the Revenue, 11 shops had to be reopened. During these four years under review in these paragraphs the spirit issued from the Ahmedabad distillery to this farmer who required 11 shops to be re-opened, was as follows—48,000 gallons, 57,000 gallons, 63,000 gallons, 69,000 gallons. The maximum of revenue is undoubtedly secured, the minimum of consumption is secured by an increase from 48,000 to 69,000 gallons, an increase of 45 per cent. in four years. I had two hours' interview with the liquor farmer of Ahmedabad. I quote from my notes. He said— How on earth can we get the ideal of the Government, a maximum of Revenue with a minimum of consumption—we must sell the liquor to get the Revenue. Mr. Pritchard is always putting the screw on the farmer, and pushing up the Revenue. How can we do that unless we push the sale of drink? When Mr. Westland so pointedly referred to the North-West provinces as the district from which he looked for an increased revenue from Excise, he was hardly fair to his energetic subordinates in that district. He must have had before him at the time the Excise report for 1886, and read the following leading paragraph:— The revenue from Excise has continued to advance steadily, and the gross receipts for the year under report are the highest on record, showing an increase of 12 per cent on previous years. Why? Because the officials had been stimulating the sale of liquor to the uttermost.

The Report says in one paragraph:— The district Reports contain repeated assurances from all parts of the provinces that drinking is practically unknown. What a dreadful state of things from the Government point of view, but what a blessing it would be if we could have it in England, Wales, or Scotland. I suppose this is where Mr. Westland looks for an increased revenue. But the same Report abounds in paragraphs showing how an enlightened Indian Government endeavours at once to get rid of such a happy moral condition, and such an unhappy absence of revenue. On page 13 of this Report from the North West Provinces, par. 32, is the following:— Etawah.—The number of shops has increased from 53 to 67. There are five shops in the Municipality, which are reported to be sufficient. In the village tracts the number is still far below Government standard … Efforts are being made to bring the number of shops up to prescribed standard. Besides the 67 shops now opened, licences were granted for others, bnt they were withdrawn when it was found that no liquor was sold at these shops. I claim that this Report abundantly proves the contention of the Resolution. Etah is another district:— Etah.—There has been an increase of oue shop; there are now 63. At the last settlement efforts were again made to induce the liquor farmers to open new shops, but, as last year, to no purpose. No one would bid even a nominal price for them. The number of shops is much fewer than the number allowed by Government standard. I have no doubt the hon. Gentleman will give some explanation of these extreme statements in the Report from the North-West Provinces. This is the last available report; I bring it down to date so far as I am able, though the Government of India are exceedingly slow in getting off their papers. At page 5, Mr. Crook, the Revenue Officer of Etah, draws attention to the impossibility of the labouring class consuming liquor to any considerable extent, when it is sold, as at present, of inferior quality and at an almost prohibitive price. He wants to persuade the labouring classes to consume liquor to a considerable extent. Again, in the same report:— At Muttra, it is reported that many new licences had to be withdrawn, as no liquor was sold, and that new shops put up for auction were not bid for. At Muttra there were 39 liquor shops 25 years ago, now the number is 59. Yet my right hon. Friend says the larger number of shops have been established recently. "Recently" means a period of 25 years. Here are other paragraphs:— In Sitapur the reduction of 33 shops is reported to have resulted in a loss of more than 2,000 rupees in licence fees, and no further reduction is advisable at present …. In the Jhansi division the number of shops is largely in excess of the Government standard, and, although the Commission of Excise makes no remarks thereon, it appears from the district reports that at present it is inexpedient to make any considerable reduction in their number…… We are told that the high rise in consumption at Cawnpore is due to the opening of the new distillery. Who was it that opened that distillery? A Limited Liability Company or a private individual? Not at all. It was the Government. In consequence of the opening of the new distillery they raise the consumption. That is the way in which they got the minimum of consumption. I think it is the way in which they get the maximum of revenue. The last paragraph which I will quote is— At Benares the licence fees for the year were very high, and to make their business profitable the retail dealers lowered their prices, and thus largely increased the sale of liquor. That paragraph absolutely confirms the statement of my hon. Friend. I could go on ad nauseam, and could give similar instances from all the Provinces of India. These extracts show clearly that where there are no liquor shops and no desire for them, the Excise administration has forced them in, and that where there are avowedly too many they have refused to reduce them. We have had two Bengal Commissions. Read their reports, or study every or any Provincial Excise Report. They show that the liquor farmers are everywhere competing with each other for the possession of a lucrative monopoly; that the authorities encourage it with a view to increased revenue; that the farmers get up rings to defeat the undue pressure of the authorities; that they doctor the liquor; are the chief culprits in illicit distillation; that they cheat the revenue, lower their prices, and, by the help of the Government, double the consumption. The worst and rottenest Excise system in the civilized world is that of India; the worst and rottenest of the various systems of India is that of Bengal. We have heard from my hon. Friend some account of what has taken place in Bengal with regard to the outstill system. I do not refer to that to-night, because it is of no use flogging a dead horse. I have been informed that it is the intention of the Government to estimate for a somewhat less revenue this year, with a view to getting rid of the outstill system. I trust it is really the intention of the Government to get rid of that system. The effects of drunkenness on the Indian people are very serious. The nature of the liquor is such that it is prohibited to be sold to the British soldiers. Yet Indian women are allowed to buy it and to drink it with their husbands and children. At Benares three soldiers entered a liquor shop, and having pinned the owner of the shop against the wall by fixing their bayonets through his clothes, they drank the liquor. One fell to the floor of the shop and died, the other two were carried back to barracks. Why should such horrible stuff as this be sold to women and children freely, while prohibited to strong healthy soldiers? The amount of liquor drunk is small compared with the number of the population—my hon. Friend says he does not think it is more than 10 per cent — but it is a fact that drunkenness is increasing. That drunkenness is steadily increasing is a fact which is well affirmed by a large body of public opinion in India, the Government say. It may not be a very serious evil, but it is undoubtedly an increasing one. At one of the meetings at which I was present—a meeting said to have been the largest of its kind ever held in India—this fact was fully confirmed. It was, however, stated by one of the newspapers that the extent of the gathering was due to the desire of the natives to hear a Member of Parliament who was going "on the stump." I thought there might be something in that statement; but it so happened that my friend, Mr. Thomas Evans, a missionary who went alone to a number of meetings held in various towns in the Bombay Presidency, had even a larger amount of success than was achieved on the occasion I have just mentioned, and he found that everywhere public opinion was against the Government, while, taking it as a whole, the Indian Press is also against the Government. I may be asked, "What remedy do you propose?" In reply to that question I would say, in the first place you ought to get rid of the outstill system, and if you turn your attention to the steady increase of the revenue by the steady increase of taxation, you would find that you would not suffer from an increase in the duty on spirits. I see no reason why the import duty should not be raised to 10 rupees for proof spirit, which would enable you largely to increase the duties charged in Bombay; because Bombay town and island could pay without difficulty double the amount of duty now charged without the least hardship to anyone or the smallest risk of illicit distillation. I would also venture to suggest that some duty should be put on the heady beer sold in India. I was told, in answer to a question I put some time ago, that no duty is charged on the beer brewed by Messrs. Meakin & Co., and I must confess that I do not see why the Indian drink should be taxed while English beer is sold without duty. I may say that, in discussing this matter with Indian gentlemen, I found that they all entertained the views expressed by the mover of this Resolution. They think that the Indian people ought in some way to be consulted on the subject. I remember on one occasion I saw some 20 natives sitting in a circle outside a building, and I supposed it was a sort of village council. As I did not like to trespass on their deliberations I passed on; but, on coming back again some hours afterwards, I saw the same circle of natives in the same place, and I found that, instead of discussing local matters or British politics, they wore discussing six bottles of native spirits. I am quite sure that the collector of the district, when he opened the liquor shop, did not first consult the head man of the village. Can it be said that this is the sort of thing which ought to be encouraged in the administration of that portion of the Empire? Of course it is not for me to dictate to the Indian Civil Service how they can maintain their financial position with regard to the sale of intoxicating liquor; but I do say that while revenue considerations may be allowed to have their full weight, moral considerations ought not to be overlooked or set aside for one moment. India possesses about the finest Civil Service in the world, and it is just as capable as any authority that could be mentioned of carrying out a scheme dealing with this important question. As it is, however, instead of troubling themselves about the maximum of moral considerations they are troubling themselves about the maximum of revenue. The object the Government ought to keep ever in view is to restrain, correct, and diminish the consumption of intoxicating liquors and drugs, whether illicit or licensed, and fully persuade themselves that any amount of Revenue that may be lost by the efficiency of their system for this end, will be repaid a hundred-fold in the preservation and advancement of morality, industry and prosperity among the peoples of the Indian Empire.

*SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGEsaid (Kensington, N.)

I do not for one moment believe that the Excise policy of the Government of India, as a whole, is, or has ever been, intentionally or consciously directed to the mere gathering of Revenue, regardless of its effect on the moral well-being or social habits generally of the people of that country. I think, Sir, that every one who has been in any way associated with the work of that Government, as I have been, or who knows anything whatever of its character or traditions, will repudiate any notion of the kind with indignation and with perfect honesty and sincerity. Then too, Sir, in the course of the statements that have been put before the House this evening, there have been several propositions laid down which, in my opinion, will be held in India to be statements that are either inaccuracies or gross exaggerations. When the hon. Member for Flintshire spoke of the high officers of the Government of India being possibly ignorant of the working of the Abkari system, surely he forgot that these very officials, even the very highest of them, have themselves passed through the mill of the lower offices of State. For instance, my hon. Friend the Member for Evesham, who was himself Finance Minister of India, commenced life in that country, many years before, as an Assistant Magistrate, and rose through every stage of the official ladder. At many stages he himself had charge of the Abkari administration of the districts in which he resided. Well, Sir, the same, of course, holds true of very nearly all the other high members of the Government of India. They know the working of the Abkari system, and to charge them with ignorance, or even to make ignorance the excuse for their policy, is altogether inaccurate. Then again, I must say that I heard with very great regret the attack that was made by the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness on those Englishmen, Mr. Meakin and others, in the hills of India. who are, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others, serving the cause of Temperance in India, especially amongst our soldiers there, by putting within the reach of those soldiers light, wholesome, English beers, in the place of those horrible concoctions, such as country arrack, of which we have heard such eloquent accounts to-night from hon. Members opposite. And, Sir, the hon. Member for Barrow spoke of the chief of these gentlemen having been decorated because of his being a brewer. I can assure the House, from personal knowledge, that Mr. Whymper, the gentleman of whom he spoke, was decorated for, or, at any rate, might well have been decorated for, his eminent public services to the State and from no connection whatever with his occupation in life. He had served to my knowledge the cause of the Native States, and especially the cause of the Native State of Cashmere, in a way that did him the greatest credit, and I was exceedingly glad when I saw in the newspapers the statement to the effect that he had received from Her Majesty the distinction of the Companionship of the Order of the Indian Empire. That decoration was, in my opinion, highly deserved for his public services, and I greatly regret, therefore, that it should have been stated in this House that he received it merely because of his connection with the brewing industry. For this reason, and many similar ones, I find with regret that I am unable to agree with the Resolution that has been moved by the hon. Member for Flint-shire, though I sympathize very heartily with the spirit and motives of the Resolution. The excellent motives of the hon. Member for Flintshire, and the great services which he has rendered to the welfare and well-being of our fellow subjects in India, are, I am sure, appreciated by the House and by the country, and they certainly are appreciated in India. But, Sir, though I cannot go the full length with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Flintshire, there are two propositions that I would venture, as an old resident in India, to submit to the consideration of the House, and on which I would ask leave to make just one or two remarks as grounds for an appeal to Her Majesty's Government and to my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India to give us, as the result of this debate this evening, some tangible, clear assurance of their determination that temperance reforms, and not Revenue, shall be in the future the key-stone of their Excise policy in India. In the first place, Sir, I maintain it is idle to deny that our Government Abkari, or Excise policy, has at times, in practice at any rate, tended to encourage the spread of drunkenness amongst the people; and, in the second place, I am quite sure that all that is best and most reputable in Native opinion in India is virtually unanimous in demanding from us, and from the Government of India, some stringent measures of restriction. I said, Sir, it is idle to deny that our policy has at times, though contrary, I am certain, to the intentions of the Government, tended to the increase of drunkenness. Those who read the Indian papers will be aware that since the debate last year, in fact only within a very few months, the Government of India, and especially the Government of Bengal, has brought about a very considerable contraction of that very outstill system of which we have heard so much, and which has been so rightly and deservedly denounced by the hon. Member for Barrow. Last year the Under Secretary of State for India protested most eloquently, and I am sure most sincerely, that nothing could be further from the wishes or intentions of the Government of India than to sanction the continuance for a moment of any system that would in any way encourage drunkenness; and yet the very action of the Government of Bengal to which I have referred, shows that at the time my hon. Friend was protesting so eloquently, this system was in full force in many districts in the immediate neighbourhood of the seat of Government at Calcutta. In the second place, I have said that the whole of the Native public opinion is strongly in favour of most stringent restrictions on the sale of intoxicating drinks. I believe that that will be frankly and fully admitted by my hon. Friend and by the Government of India; it is at any rate fully well known to everyone who has ever resided in India, and has ever been brought much into contact with the people of the Empire. I believe that even the extreme measure of the total prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors would not only not meet with any resistance from the people of India, but would, in fact, be most popular in that country. That, in my opinion, is the cardinal feature of the situation in India; and it contrasts very strongly with the situation in this country. I ask those who think with me on the Temperance Question, those who earnestly desire to advance the cause of Temperance, and yet who shrink from any too violent interference with personal liberty, what would be our position if all our countrymen in England—not only the classes, but the masses of the people—were all in favour of total prohibition? If there were no such thing as a national beverage, if there were no reality in the cry of robbing a poor man of his beer, if there were no social customs to be destroyed by prohibition, and if in the national conscience the drinking of a dram of spirits or of a glass of beer were held to be a sin, I say I would unhesitatingly vote immediately for total prohibition. But that is the case and these are the circumstances in India. As far as Native opinion is concerned, I say emphatically that the Government have a free hand in the direction of restriction upon the sale of intoxicating liquors. They can do what they like; they can extend those restrictions to any extent they like, with the certainty of obtaining the approval of all classes of the Indians. Therefore the only two considerations that can affect the Government of India in their decision are, first, the fear of illicit distillation, and, secondly, the fear of the loss of revenue. As to illicit distillation, no doubt the facilities are exceptionally great in India, where every jungle yields the raw materials for producing spirits in abundance; and I am free to admit that if they had total prohibition or anything like it, it is possible that the pecuniary inducements to illicit distillation might be very considerable. On the other hand, the strength of public opinion, all the power of caste rules, in fact the whole organisation of Native society, would be on the side of the Excise officers in suppressing illicit distillation, and, therefore, I confess—having some little personal knowledge of the circumstances of the case—I do not think that any great weight need be assigned to the bugbear of illicit distillation. The other consideration that should weigh with the Government in deciding this question is, of course, the loss of Revenue; and I confess that I cannot brush that consideration aside so lightly as the Mover and Seconder of the resolution have done. I feel that we are dealing in this matter with other people's money. It is very easy for British Representatives to be virtuous and philanthropic at the cost of the Indian Exchequer, to which their own constituents do not contribute a penny. Still, on the other hand, the Indian taxpayers are willing that some loss should be incurred to the Revenue for the sake of their own good name and the morals of their people. I do not think it is for this House, with its necessarily limited and imperfect information, to force the Government of India hurriedly into reforms that are to be carried out at the cost of the Indian taxpayers; but I think the House may do this much, and do it in the cause of righteousness and of justice to the people of India—we may show that we sympathize with the Government of India whenever it does that which is right in itself and which is also agreeable to the people of India. In conclusion, I trust that Her Majesty's Government may see their way to accept the motion of the hon. Member for Flintshire, provided always that the hon. Member consents to such modifications in its terms as will make it absolutely clear that the House does not and will not impugn the motives of the Government of India.

*MR. WALTER M'LAREN (Cheshire, Crewe)

I have listened with great pleasure to the speech of the hon. Member, although at times he seemed to me to waiver between one set of views and another. At any rate, it is satisfactory to find that he cordially agrees with the spirit of this resolution, and that so far as he has any objections to it at all they relate to those terms of it which seem to him to cast doubt on the good intentions and faith of Indian officials. It is particularly encouraging to those who hold our views, that an hon. Gentleman of so much experience in India, should tell the douse he would vote for total, prohibition in a country where drinking was, according to the religious sentiments of the people, considered a sin. It is undoubtedly true that a great majority of the religious, moral, and respectable natives of India do hold the view, that drinking intoxicating liquors is sinful, although such a view is being rapidly undermined by the action of the Government. The hon. Member said we must remember that in this matter we are dealing with other people's money. But he must remember that the Indian Government, nearly all of whom are Englishmen, are in this matter dealing with other people's money also; they are not dealing with a country which governs itself. In India there is an English despotic Government who legislate for the people over whom they rule, and in levying this taxation and in forcing this trade upon the people they are dealing with other people's money and moral welfare. The system we protest against is one which in its very essence must work badly, it must inevitably tend to the increase of the drink traffic. The licensee undertakes to pay license duty upon a given amount of liquor whether he can sell it or not, and that gives him a far greater incentive to sell and push the sale than even the English licensing system gives the English publican. The Indian Government contend that their endeavour is to put down illicit stills, but the fact in many cases really is that when a holder of a license finds he has contracted to sell a greater quantity of spirits than he can find an ordinary demand for, he encourages other persons to open illicit stills, in order to enable him to go the Government and say, "Here is an illicit still: it is clear that there is a demand for liquor: give me permission to open a legitimate and legal shop in the village." The man who has opened the illicit shop gets a small sentence, for which he is no doubt recompensed by the owner of the license. The Government can never hope to decrease the consumption so long as they continue to increase the facilities for drinking. Besides, while the Government are forcing on this sale of strong intoxicating spirits they put a very high duty, which is almost prohibitive, upon cocoanut palm toddy, a native liquor which any man can distill, and which is said to be little stronger than ginger beer. And still they wish us to believe that they are actuated by a desire for temperance. We ask them to give proof of this by taking off the duty upon the juice of the palm and allowing the people to drink it if they desire it. If the Government will only allow the natives to drink this liquor it will prevent the necessity, if there is necessity, of the natives resorting to the use of the stronger spirituous liquors. I do not desire to throw the slighest doubt upon the good faith of the Under Secretary of State for India. He has already indicated that his desire is to increase temperance. I give him in the fullest and frankest way every credit for that desire, and I trust before his tenure of office expires he will have ample opportunity for putting his good will into practice. But we do not believe in the protestations of the Government of India; the whole facts go against them. I daresay some of the higher officials may be sincere but we do not believe those who have the every day working of the system in the provinces genuinely desire to decrease the system. Mr. Gregson in a pamphlet published last year gives a quotation from the official despatch from the Government of Bombay to the Secretary of State for India. The quotation was to the effect that the question for decision was whether they should sit quiet and allow the temperance movement in the Colaba district to continue and spread, and thereby forfeit a large amount of revenue, or were measures to be adopted which would bring the people to their senses. There are other quotations with which I will not trouble the House, tending to show that the Government through their minor officers are undoubtedly endeavouring to increase the consumption of intoxicating drink. The Government profess to have a standard for the number of drink shops in any given locality, but we find that in some districts where the number of drink shops fell below the standard attempts were made to increase it, while in districts where the number was larger than the standard fixed no attempt whatever was made to decrease it. The protestations of some of the Indian officials as to their desire for temperance are therefore neither more nor less than shams. The system we are attacking was developed in 1877. It was one of the unhappy parts of the policy pursued in India at that time. It was, I presume, felt necessary at that time to increase the revenue with a view to providing increased military expenditure, and for paying for the scientific frontier policy which distinguished that period. ["Oh oh."] At any rate the revenue has greatly increased. Within the last ten years the consumption of intoxicating liquor has about doubled. When the Government are, by all their subordinate officials, doing what they can to increase this revenue, and consequently to increase the facilities for drinking, it is useless for them to tell us they are actuated solely by the moral welfare of the people. It is my belief that in this matter the Government have not had the welfare of the people at heart, but have simply had the welfare of the revenue at heart. Their motive has been the same as it was in respect to the opium trade. They have ruined multitudes of people both in India and China by their opium traffic, and yet they are beginning to find their endeavour to keep up the opium revenue is failing because Chinese are now growing their own opium. I only wish some similar falling off in the revenue from the drink traffic could be anticipated. I am persuaded that if you would only allow the native population of India to manage their own concerns, if you would only give anything approaching local option in this matter you would very soon arrive at a proper solution of the drink question. Our responsibility in India is very great and serious. We conquered the country by means which. Englishmen are not too fond of recalling—means which Englishmen would be very sorry to see repeated to-day. [Sir J. GORST: "Oh, oh!"] Although the Under Secretary for India cries "oh," there are few Members in the House of Commons who would like to see a repetition of those means—at any rate I should be very sorry to see it. The fact that we have conquered India by such. means casts upon us serious responsibility for the welfare of the Indian people. The responsibility would be less if we allowed them to govern themselves, because we should then share with them responsibility for their own laws. At present we have that responsibility entirely upon our own shoulders. The Indian people are willing to accept our rule, but they do, demand in this matter, as in every other matter, that they should have control over their own destinies subject to the veto of the Secretary of State; and I contend that if the Government were wise enough to submit the matter to any well considered measure of local option they would find that native opinion in India is opposed to the system by which the drinking of intoxicating liquor is rapidly increasing in the Indian empire.

*SIR. J. GORST

This resolution requires the House to condemn the fiscal policy of the Government of India, with reference to the liquer question, and if the policy of the Government of India, with reference to the liquor question, were anything like that which has been described by the hon. Member who has just sat down, and which was also described by the mover and seconder of the motion, the liquor policy of the Indian Government would indeed most richly deserve the strongest condemnation of the House. I go further and say that if I believed that the men by whom the Indian Government is administered, were such wicked men, as the hon. Member opposite suggests they are, I would not remain a day longer in the position of Under Secretary for India, and I should say that the sooner the British officials cleared out of that country, the better it would be for India. I do not intend to compete with the hon. Member for Crewe in the high moral platitudes in which he has indulged, but I put it to him whether he considers it fair to men who among difficulties and dangers, are administering the affairs of this great country in a distant land, to withhold from them that charity which is accorded in this country to the meanest criminal, and to believe them capable of the horrible wickedness which the hon. Member has attributed to them? I thought it was the duty of a Christian man to extend charity to the action of his fellow-creatures, and to try to believe that they were animated by virtuous motives, and I turn gladly from the harsh, un charitable accusations of the hon. Member to the more kindly spirit in which this question has been approached by the mover and seconder of the Motion, who, although they think the officials are misguided and wrong, at all events have the charity to credit them with the common instincts of humanity. May I call the attention of the House for one moment to what is the fiscal policy of the Government of India, with reference to intoxicating drinks? I am not going to quote an old despatch, but it is language recently held by the Secretary of State for India. On March 14 of this year, the Secretary of State, in answer to certain memorials forwarded to the Secretary of State by native associations in Calcutta concerning the outstill system in Bengal, sent a despatch in which he said:— In connection with this subject I desire to remind your Excellency that in my despatch of the 19th of April. 1888, (No. 25, revenue), I laid down the principles (1) that any extension of the habit of drinking among Indian populations is to be discouraged; (2) that the tax on spirits and liquors should be as high as may be possible without giving rise to illicit methods of making and selling liquor; and (3) that subject to these considerations a maximum revenue should be raised from a minimum consumption of intoxicating liquors. In other words, to quote from the report of a Committee appointed by the Government of Madras in the year 1884, It should always be borne in mind that the taxation of the sale of intoxicating liquors is imposed primarily in order to restrain the consumption of such liquors, and not for the purpose of making money out of their sale. I am confident that your Excellency's Government will adhere strictly to these principles in any measures which you may think fit to adopt, and that you will do all that lies in your power to insure that they shall be observed by all who are engaged in the work of the Excise Department. I appeal to all hon. Members, except the hon. Member who spoke last, to say whether it is possible to lay down the principles which should govern our Excise administration in India in more clear, more distinct, and more appropriate language than that? I do not appeal to the lion. Member because no doubt he might reply that the Indian officials were actuated by the vilest possible motives.

*MR. M'LAREN

The hon. Gentleman knows very well that at the outset of my speech I gave him every possible credit for good intentions in this matter, and the hon. Gentleman ought not to make such a charge against me.

*SIR J. GORST

I decline to accept the adulation of the hon. Member or to be praised at the expense of the Secretary of State and of the honourable men who administer the Government of India. To except me from the common condemnation is an insult, and I decline any reservation on my behalf. I share the fate of the Secretary of State.

*MR. M'LAREN

This is really too bad. I never made any charge against the Secretary of State. I do complain of the unfairness of the charge made against me.

*SIR JOHN GORST

At any rate the hon. Member charged those who administer the Government of India in distinct terms, and in such terms as to make every hon. Member who has himself taken part in the Government of India, or who has friends taking part in that Government, most indignant at the unworthy insinuations of the hon. Member. I apologize for being led to use such warm language, but I am here as the representative of men thousands of miles away who cannot speak for themselves. What can a Government do in this matter? It can only lay down sound principles and exercise the utmost vigilance in its power to see that they are carried into effect. How are those principles carried out in the administration? All hon. Members who have spoken, with the exception of the hon. Member for Barrow who has just returned from there, have talked as if this excise system is the administration of the Government of India. It is nothing of the kind; it is the administration of the various provincial Governments of India, for the administration of the excise law is a matter which in India is given over entirely to the Governments of the different provinces. They have a variety of systems, varying according to the population and nature of the country, and various other local circumstances; and it would be absolutely impossible to devise one uniform hard-and-fast system of excise administration to suit the various conflicting circumstances of the different provinces. Yet you are asked to condemn the existing systems as a whole. I could understand the House of Commons being asked to come to the conclusion that the excise system in Assam or in Bengal is bad, but to include in one sweeping condemnation the whole of the various provincial Governments without discrimination, and to argue that because there are defects in one province therefore the system in another province, however differently situated, is bad, seems to me very like the case of a man who because he finds an enormous amount of drunkenness in one European country, say for instance Belgium, denounces therefore the Kingdom of Italy for not properly exercising its excise administration. Just to show what a difficult subject this is, and how hard it is to apply the a priori theories of the hon. Member for Flint-shire, let me call attention to one single circumstance. There is one province in India which has not been mentioned in this debate—Lower Burmah—and it is remarkable in this particular. The revenue per head of the population raised from the consumption of spirits and opium there is enormously in excess of that raised in any other province of India. It is double the revenue raised in Assam, more than ten times that of Bengal, and enormously greater than the revenue raised in Bombay. Yet in that part of India which, according to the a priori theories of the hon. Member for Flintshire, should be in the worse excise condition, there are fewer shops open for the consumption of Indian and imported spirits than in any other province of India, with the exception of Assam.

MR. W. S. CAINE

Do you mean per head?

*SIR J. GORST

No.

MR. W. S. CAINE

You must take into account the fact that the population is smaller.

*SIR J. GORST

Yes, but the proportion of spirit shops in Burma to the population is about the same, for instance, as that of the Panjab, where there are 1,939 shops open for the sale of spirits, while in Lower Burmah there are only 445, yet the Excise Revenue per head in Burmah is 11 times as high as in the Panjab. In Assam there are 1,067 shops licensed for the sale of opium; in Lower Burmah there are only 16. I refer to these facts just to show how difficult it is to apply the a priori theories of hon. Members to the remarkable and varying circumstances of the different provinces of India. The hon. Member for Barrow has alleged that the system laid down by the Secretary of State, good as it is in theory, is so badly carried out in practice that there is an enormous increase in the consumption of liquor—as, for example, in the province of Bombay. But we have always looked on Bombay as having, perhaps on the whole, the best excise system. The reason why the quantity of liquor is shown to have increased in the returns referred to is because those returns show only the liquor consumed in those districts of Bombay in which the central distillery system is in force, and which now constitute 11–12ths of the whole area of the province. But as district after district was brought under the central distillery system, the consumption of those districts was brought into the annual total, and the consumption in Bombay appears to have grown, whereas it is only the central distillery system which has been extended over the whole of the province of Bombay.

MR. W. S. CAINE

But if you take the financial returns and calculate the amount of duty paid you will find a perfectly steady increase in the consumption even including those districts.

*SIR J. GORST

Luckily I have an illustration which I think will satisfy even the hon. Member for Barrow, for we have the most accurate returns for many years past of the consumption of drink in the city and island of Bombay. Now if there is one part of India where we might expect the drink traffic to grow it would be in the city and island of Bombay, because there we have a thriving well-to-do population in contact with Europeans, within easy access of those imported spirits to which reference has been made, and having ample employment in factories and other industrial establishments, and where they got far higher wages than in the country districts generally. Therefore we should not have been surprised if, with the great increase of population, there had been some increase in the consumption of intoxicating drinks. But what are the figures? Now, in the year 1872–73 there were consumed in the city and island of Bombay 907,000 gallons of liquor which paid Excise Duty, and from which was raised a revenue of Rx. 72,000; in 1886–87 the consumption was only 621,000 gallons, a reduction of about one-third, while the revenue was Rx. 201,000. And I ought to add that in 1872–73 the liquor was proof, whereas in the latter period it was 25 per cent below proof, so that not only was there a less quantity of a liquor consumed, but this liquor was of less intoxicating character, and yet the revenue was nearly trebled.

MR. W. S. CAINE

Yes; because here the highest duty in India is imposed; is it not?

*SIR J. GORST

Now the hon. Member refers to the alteration made in the rates of duty. In the city of Bombay the duty has been gradually raised from one rupee a gallon of proof spirit to 2¾ rupees per gallon of spirit 25 per cent below proof, and in the districts of the Presidency it ranges from I rupee to 3 rupees per gallon. I cannot tell the hon. Member what the duty was in Madras, but at present the Still Head Duty and the License Fee together average 3 1–8 rupees in urban tracts and 2 15–16 rupees in rural tracts on the quantity of excise liquor passed into consumption, and in Madras, as in Bombay, the rates have been and are being steadily raised. I appeal confidently to these illustrations, as showing, in the first place, that the consumption has decreased, with an enormous increase to the revenue, and that the system in Bombay, carrying out as it does the general principles laid down by the Secretary of State, has not been the utter failnre in the direction of temperance which the hon. Member would induce the House to believe it has. I do not know that I could advantageously attempt to deal with the whole excise system in the various provinces of India. I can only tell the House that generally the Government of India 'has, in the most unqualified manner, assented to the doctrine laid down by the Secretary of State, and the various provincial Governments have accepted that policy and have directed their officials to carry it out in practice. Hon. Members have quoted particular instances of abuse as primâ facie evidence in support of their case that the officials have not carried out these general principles. But, Sir, is it astonishing, when you come to consider the enormous extent of territory, and the enormous number of liquor shops and distilleries, that you here and there find abuses, and discover instances in which the general principle is not carried into effect? Are the liquor laws in this country universally so admirably administered that you cannot find places where extensive drunkenness prevails, or where the officials have neglected the duties imposed on them? I do entreat the House not to be led astray by isolated instances into one universal and sweeping condemnation of this system as a whole. The hon. Member for Flintshire has quoted observations made years ago by Mr. Hudson on the out-still system of Bengal. Really it is hardly fair to the House to quote evidence given five years ago in Bengal as if it applies to the general fiscal policy of the Government of India. Just as Bombay is the most advanced province, so, I suppose, many people would take Bengal as one of the least advanced; and there has been for the last three or four years an attempt made by the Government of Bengal to reform its fiscal system by substituting the central distillery system for the out-still system, which the hon. Member for Barrow admits having been informed by the Lieutenant Governor of the Province, is doomed. I do not for one moment say that there is not room for other great and radical reforms in many of the provinces of India; but I ask the House to consider that these reforms are actually now in progress, the attention of all the Governments of India has been thoroughly directed to this matter, and I appeal to the House to give these men credit for honesty of intention and intelligence and cleverness in adapting the orders of the Secretary of State to the circumstances of the particular provinces. Well, Sir, the hon. Member for Flint-shire spoke about the liquor traffic in the province of Assam. Now, that is not a province in which there is a great amount of consumption. The amount of duty per head is 6¾ annas, or about 6d. per head of the population. Does not the hon. Member for Cumberland wish that the contributions of the English taxpayer were reduced to anything like 6d. per head? Whereas in this "drunken" India that we are said to be contaminating, the amount per head paid by the population for intoxicating liquors is little over 3d.; in this highly favoured England I believe the rate is 16s. per head. Certainly the hon. Member said that a large section of the population of India do not drink at all, but even if you fix the percentage of the drinking population at 10 per cent of the whole, even then the comparison of 3d. per head, there is very favourable to the 16s. per head in this country. It struck me while hon. Mem- bers opposite were speaking, that they might with advantage look nearer home, and apply themselves to the task of putting down drunkenness in this country, rather than seek to interfere with the administration of the Government of India. I think that the general observations which I have made will show that it is better for the House of Commons to take a wide and general view of a question of this kind rather than be led astray by a few of those sensational incidents which hon. Members who travel in India can so easily gather, and which, if they are accepted as general specimens of the way in which the excise system in India is carried out, do not enlighten, but are utterly misleading. The difficulty in a great measure arises from the extraordinary ease with which ardent spirits can be distilled in India. The innocent juice drawn from the palm tree becomes in three or four hours, without any action on the part of man, as strong as the strongest beer. To take one instance, whereas in Bombay a spirit was manufactured 25deg. below proof, at a cost of 8 annas per gallon, the price was raised to 3r. 2a. a gallon, or 600 per cent, by the taxation which hon. Members opposite so strongly condemn. The hon. Member for Flintshire has complained of the Government cheapening liquor, hut, instead of cheapening it, they have raised the price sixfold. What other policy could the Government pursue beyond making by taxation the price of liquor as high as possible, and limiting, as they do limit, the number of places where it is sold, so that the temptation to indulgence should be limited as far as possible, limited to. such shops as will satisfy the wants of the population, and check smuggling, and illicit distillation? The hon. Member for Barrow says, though it is not the opinion of those officials best qualified to judge, and who are in responsible positions in administration of the country, that the effect of allowing local option would be the prohibition of the sale of liquor. But it may be observed that in no native State is total prohibition enforced, and it is self-evident that if the population are debarred from obtaining liquor from licensed houses and legitimate sources, they are sure to obtain it from native States, over which we have no control. I think it is rather a remarkable answer to the sug- gestion that the natives of India, if left to themselves, would adopt measures of total prohibition, that there is not, so far as I am aware, a single native State where total prohibition is effected, or indeed attempted to be carried out.

MR. CAINE

The Gaikwar of Baroda would do so to-morrow if he were permitted. He told me so.

*SIR J. GORST

The hon. Member says the Gaikwar of Baroda told him so; and knowing that the hon. Member was visiting India and what his tenets are on this question, I have no doubt the Gaikwar of Baroda told him so out of politeness. But I do not know whether the Gaikwar is also willing to stop the growth of poppies. Did he tell the hon. Member he would do that and that he derived a considerable revenue from the cultivation? I think the hon. Member, while he held an extraordinary influence over the Gaikwar of Baroda should have used it to put a stop to this most pernicious opium traffic from which the Gaikwar derives a large profit. But I must apologise, for I am detaining the House too long. In conclusion, let me summarize the objections the Government have to this Resolution. In the first place the Resolution speaks of the multiplication of distilleries. Now outside the district in which outstills are still licensed—and I ask the House to remember this is a decreasing area, and outstills are suppressed as soon as they can be replaced by central distilleries—outside this small area not more than a twelfth of the area of Bombay—and perhaps one-sixth of the area of British India—outside this area, the number of distilleries is much smaller than it was 25 years ago. Spirit is now made in licensed distilleries, and pays an excise duty according to its strength. Formerly contractors had as many stills as they liked. Gallon for gallon, spirit now pays a higher duty, and a larger revenue is obtained than under the old system. There is also a great reduction in the number of shops, and instructions have been given by the different Governments to reduce the number as far as possible. Officers are instructed not to allow shops to be opened merely to increase the Revenue. This is the very order that hon. Members opposite say ought to be given, and this order has been given.

MR. CAINE

And is disobeyed everywhere.

*SIR GORST

The hon. Member says the order is disobeyed everywhere, but I do not think his experience has been sufficient to justify him in making such a sweeping assertion. The Government will take care that these orders are not disobeyed, and the Secretary of State will carefully consider any instance of such disobedience that is brought to his notice. The hon. Member for Flintshire might have done ma the justice of telling the House, with regard to the very Assam tea gardens to which he has referred, that, in consequence of the hon. 'Member having shown me the letters referred to, a despatch was sent to India ordering an investigation. Sufficient time has not elapsed for an answer to be received. But in justice I think the hon. Member might have mentioned that I acted immediately on the allegations coming to my notice. I cannot admit that the increase of Revenue is in itself an evil. I have shown in the instance of Bombay how an increase in the Revenue is compatible with a decrease of drunkenness. I do not find evidences of that increase of drunkenness which hon. Members say cannot be denied. I suppose the hon. Member for Cocker-mouth would bear me out in saying that an increase of drunkenness would be shown in an increase in the number of persons in prison. Now, what are the facts? In 1870 there were 87,248 prisoners in English gaols in India. In 1878, which was a year of famine and naturally of increased crime, there were 126,111 as a daily average. In 1882 the number had sunk to 84,324, and in 1886, the last year for which I can obtain statistics, they had further gone down to 76,676. This is in spite of an increase of 10 per cent in the population, and this last number was swelled by about 2,000 of quasi-political prisoners from Burmah. Does this look like an increase in drunkenness and the demoralization of the people? Nor do I find evidence in the impoverishment of the people; but on the contrary the poverty in the country is less, the condition of the population is improving, and the wealth of India is increasing. I do not find the facts which the hon. Member describes as having resulted from an increased consumption of drink are supported by reliable evidence, but he makes his statement on the testimony of certain irresponsible persons whose statements he chooses to accept without verification. I have extended my remarks longer than I intended; may I in conclusion quote one witness whose evidence some will accept as being entitled to considerable weight. In 1888 the Provincial Government of Bengal, anxious to improve the Excise system which they were well aware was defective and unsatisfactory, deputed a most eminent Civil servant, Mr. Buckland, to visit the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay, for the purpose of inspecting and reporting upon the results of the Excise system. This was an experienced witness, well acquainted with the defects of the Bengal system, who had been sent to report on the systems prevailing elsewhere. Mr. Buck-land reported to his own Government that the Bombay system was far more efficient than that of Bengal. He said that the local officers of Bombay had been repeatedly ordered "to restrain and, if possible, diminish the total actual consumption of spiritous liquors." He added— The whole action of the Bombay Government in their excise administration in recent years has been in the direction of (1) raising the price of licit liquor; (2) checking the consumption of illicit liquor; (3) restriction of manufacture to certain centres; and(4)diminishing the number of liquor shops. It has been possible to carry out the first effectively by the constant raising of the stillhead duty, and by increasing the tree-tapping tax in toddy-producing districts. The distillation and smuggling of illicit liquor has been met by increasing considerably the strength of the Abkari inspecting and preventive establishments and enlisting the sympathies of the contractors on the side of the Government, as well as by leasing from native States, from which formerly liquor was supplied into British territory, the control of their Abkari arrangements. As far as possible the manufacture of spirit has been restricted and permitted under departmental supervision at a few central places, generally at the Sudder station of each district. The figures also show that the number of shops for the sale of country spirits and stills has been considerably reduced since the constitution of the Abkari Department, and a new shop is now only opened after careful inquiry to meet a local demand or prevent the use of illicit liquor. In constantly raising the stillhead duty, the Local Government have designedly followed the principle laid down by the Government of India after the passing of the Tariff Act of 1875. Such, is the testimony of a Bengal officer to the efficiency of the system in Bombay, and it is testimony to which I think the House will attach considerable importance. I do not for a moment say that the Excise system in any of the Provinces of India is not capable of still further amelioration. I do not say that any of the Provincial Governments should rest content with the improvements made; let them institute any other reforms that the ingenuity of man can suggest; but I do ask the House to reject with scorn the insinuations of the hon. Member for Cheshire and to reject this Resolution, which, instead of recognizing the liberal efforts the Government of India have made to carry out reforms, would visit these attempts with undeserved, unmerited censure.

SIR W. LAWSON (Cumberland, Cockermouth)

I think that whatever may be the result of the division, which I hope we may have by-and-bye, my hon. Friends the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution may be congratulated on the result that everybody, including the hon. Gentleman himself, have, so far as I can understand, denounced this outstill system. I do not understand why the Under-Secretary for India should be so much opposed to this Resolution, because, as the hon. Gentleman went on with his speech, he seemed to agree very much with the policy of my hon. Friend, which was to reduce the temptations to drink among the people of India. If that is so, what better course could be taken than to pass this Resolution to do what the Government say is right and proper to do? To-night we have not any Irishmen present, and I do not know that we could employ our time better than by discussing a question which affects 200 millions of our fellow-subjects in India. In the course of his speech the hon. Gentleman asked why, when we had so many horrible things to look to in England, we should turn our attention to India. The reason is because the state of things is so horrible in England that we should take care not to allow it to be extended to India. As was once said by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian the duty of the Government should be to make it easy for the people to do right and difficult for them to do wrong. But we are re- versing that system. In England the question of temperance has been discussed, I might almost say, ad nauseam, and every effort has been made by its advocates to remove the degradation and stigma of intemperance. But, nevertheless, in spite of every attempt, every sort of system. every sort of provision, the demon of intemperance holds the field. As Baron Dowse said not long since, the measure of the degradation of a district is to be found in the facilities for drink which it affords. All our efforts to advance the cause of civilization will fail so long as the Government put temptation in the way of the people of England or India. The Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day manages to get a revenue of many millions by promoting the consumption of drink among the people; he arranges the temptations that he may get the revenue. When the time comes for adding up the balance sheet the right hon. Gentleman rejoices greatly over the large sum he has got, and then, as Mr. Disraeli said, "With a face arranged for the occasion," he makes a few perfunctory remarks as to the regret he feels at the immorality of people indulging in the temptations placed before them. This is what takes place here. The money is raised at the expense of the degradation and ruin of the nation. The hon. Member for Barrow said that the worst system in the world was the system of excise in India. But in England we are doing the same thing. It is worse in India in this way, because the educated public opinion of India is against it. Here educated public opinion is not against it; the condemnation comes from the lower orders. Every drinking shop in this country is licensed not by the working people, but by the gentry, and the guilt lies as much at their door as at the door of those who take the drink. The tempter is as guilty as the tempted. The Prime Minister said, "I will speak no evil of public-houses," and, of course, he did not. The question raised by my hon. Friend's Motion to-night is, are we to bring about the same state of things in India as we have in England—are we to make it a drunken country? I forget who it was that said that if we came away from India the epitaph of our rule there would be— "England found India sober and left it drunk." The Under Secretary says that the state of things is not so bad as we think, and that the amount spent in drink is only equal to sixpence per head of the population; but it is bad enough, and the alarming feature is that year by year it is growing worse, and no evidence has been adduced against that of my hon. Friend's, that the increase in the consumption of drink is going on all over India as a whole. Why do I say it is, if possible, worse to go on in this manner in India than we do in England? First of all, because we are forcing a new custom upon the people. It is not the custom of India to drink beer and such things. Next, it is absolutely against their religion. The hon. Member for Marylebone, who was recently over in India, told me that there was a regiment of soldiers quartered there, two-thirds of whom were teetotallers, and the greatest order prevailed amongst them. A native of India, talking to the hon. Member about this regiment, asked of what religion they were. "They are Christians," was the answer. "Impossible," said the Hindoo, "they behave so well." Well, Sir, everybody would behave well, I believe, if you could only keep drink from them. Not only, I say, are we flying in the face of the customs of the natives of India and of their religion, but as the hon. Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith) pointed out, we are forcing these drink shops upon a population perhaps the poorest in the world, and who will suffer even more if led into drinking habits than our own people do at home. It seems to me very surprising that this House should hesitate at all as to the necessity of passing this Resolution, because what did we do just a year ago? Last year we passed a Resolution, which I have carried about in my pocket ever since, because it is about the best thing that has been done in this Parliament. It gives hope for the future, and encourages every friend of temperance throughout the kingdom. The resolution, which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, was supported in an eloquent speech by the sugar-bounty man, the right hon. Member for Liverpool (Baron de Worms) and not a single speech was made against it. The resolution was— That this House having regard to the disastrous physical and moral effects of the liquor traffic among uncivilized races, as well as the injury it inflicts upon legitimate commerce, will cordially support the Imperial and Colonial Governments in their endeavours to suppress the traffic in spirituous liquors with natives in native territories. ["Hear, hear."] I am delighted to hear that the House still supports that Resolution. But I want to know why natives should be protected above everybody else. I have asked at public meetings whether we are not all natives of some place or other; and I cannot see why this House should be kind and charitable to Zulus, Hottentots and savages, and not extend its kindness to the people of this country, and in this case to the people of India. If any one speaks on the Ministerial Bench again to-day, I hope he will tell us what has been done with regard to this resolution. It is all very well to pass resolutions, but I should like to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Sir J. Fergusson) what has been done to carry them out. Has he written any despatch or formulated any Statute to carry out the Resolution we unanimously passed with such delight a year ago? But whether he has done anything or not, here we have an opportunty to-night of re-enforcing that Resolution and doing something which will give still greater encouragement to people out of doors. Though a Resolution in itself is not much, it is a promise of good, and will encourage all those who are working to benefit the people. All we want is to stop the practice of forcing this temptation on the people of India. I was delighted to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir R. Lethbridge). That hon. Member played the part of Baalam, and blessed us all round; and I trust his speech will give as much satisfaction to the people of India as it did to hon. Members on this side of the House. With regard to the views of the natives of India themselves, I remember, in the time of the late Mr. Fawcett, on a Committee inquiring into questions affecting India, getting from a witness a statement to the effect that the natives were dead against the drink shops, and would get rid of them altogether if they had the power to do so. I sincerely trust the House will pass this Resolution. It is no light matter. Did not the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the House of Lords a short time ago, declare that the drink traffic is about as injurious as slavery itself? Well, I hope the House will pass this Resolution by a good majority, because it will strengthen the hands of the Government in dealing with the liquor question in India, promote temperance, and show that this country does not look upon the people of India merely as machines to produce revenue.

SIR R. TEMPLE (Worcester, Evesham)

Once more I lay my tribute of flowers of speech on the benign altars of my old antagonists, the hon. Mover and the hon. Seconder of this Resolution. It appears that once more the ancient soil of India has been trodden for several weeks by the classic feet of the hon. Member for Barrow (Mr. Caine). I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Flintshire has recently renewed his acquaintance with India, but the hon. Member has been there; and those two Members may say, with reference to their visits to India, "Veni, vidi, vici—I went to India and observed her wrongs and her evils and shortcomings, and lo! I have triumphed over them all by my eloquent tongue and glowing pen." Both these hon. Members, as the House will recollect, have flung very freely a charge of bias across to the occupants of these benches. I beg the House to be kind enough to recollect how forcibly they made out their case that all of us who have had the honour of serving our Queen and country in our Eastern Empire are biassed on this question and all other cognate questions. But if this charge of bias may be made in this manner, it can be rebuked in the same way. I venture to say that this particular imputation, mild as it is, will recoil on the heads of both these hon. Members. I desire to speak with the greatest respect and regard of the hon. Member for Flintshire, who is as true a humanitarian as exists inside or outside of this House; but I appeal to the recollection of the House, as to whether it is not a fact that the hon. Gentleman paints in the darkest and gloomiest colours every case which he presents for our consideration. I venture to say, therefore, that his statements are highly overcharged and exaggerated, and that in this case he has filled up the goblet to overflowing, and has poured out the vials of his indignation over the heads of the Indian officials, just as he did on a former occasion over the heads of the educational authorities in the principal towns of England. We may imagine, if the hon. Member who seconded the Resolution were to paint in the colours which he has used to-night the social condition in reference to intemperance in the metropolitan area, what a case he would make of it. The House can, therefore, judge what sort of case he is making out for India, and if they will not accept the hon. Member's statement without some sort of mental reservation regarding England, neither will they accept it regarding India. I should like to say a word regarding the Government of India. Both these hon. Members read out a despatch from the Viceroy in Council, and they seemed to imply that that despatch was written in ignorance—in ignorance almost verging on insincerity. I would ask the House whether the great machine set up by Parliament and this very Legislature that I have now the honour of addressing, and presided over by one of the greatest statesmen and most eminent noblemen of the day, deserves to be described in these terms. I would ask the House whether it believes that those responsible for the administration of Her Majesty's Government in India, with all its mighty interests, would have written a despatch which could be justly described by the words used by those hon. Members. If the servants of the Crown are to blame in this matter, I am one of them. I am as much answerable as anybody, because it has been my lot to govern more than half of the great Dependency at different times. The various populations under my Government have numbered at least a hundred and five millions, and I declare on my honour before you, Sir, and this House, that throughout my career I have acted on those principles which were set forth by the Viceroy in his Despatch, and by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, as quoted by the Under-Secretary this evening. One of the hon. Members opposite was good enough to say that we who have risen to the top of the ladder, or to the uppermost branches of the tree, have risen solely by increasing and augmenting the revenue. I am quite unaware that I owe my rise in life to anything of the kind. If I were to attribute it to any particular cause I should attribute it rather to services on the frontier, to pushing on the railways, to saving life from famine, and to the management of difficult diplomatic missions, and also no doubt to the management of finances, although not to matters connected with fiscal administration. The hon. Member may say that I may have attempted to repress drinking by means of taxation, but that my endeavours were not supported by my subordinates. I ask the House whether I look the sort of man (laughter); I repeat do I look the sort of man likely to give orders and not see them carried out? There are some hon. Members present who have served under me, and there are many others more or less cognizant of my career, and I would ask them to tell the House whether my orders could be safely disobeyed. I am no better than those who have gone before me, or than my brother officers who are administering India. I am only a specimen of the class to which I belong. The House must remember that India is a country abounding with materials for the manufacture of liquor. Liquor can be distilled from every kind of grain, and has been so distilled for thousands of years. The bark of its trees, the sap of its leaves, and the flowers of its shrubs, supply India with materials for the distillation of liquor; and therefore I imagine that the amount of illicit manufacture which would go on unless repressive processes were applied would be enormous. I am sorry to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir R. Lethbridge), for whose opinion I have the greatest respect, say that illicit manufacture is a bogey. I say it is a reality, and I ask the House of Commons whether it is likely that a population who has understood the art of brewing from time immemorial, and who has a passion for strong drink, would leave untouched and unused all those materials of which I have spoken. Hon. Members opposite, and some even on this side of the House have spoken of local option and total prohibition, and have recommended that powers to deal with those questions should be made over to the new municipalities, or perhaps even to those native congresses which have recently assembled. Local option may be of some use in this country, where the majority cannot tyrannize over the minority. Un- doubtedly, the majority of the people of India are in favour of total abstinence, but a certain minority is of the other way of thinking and practising. If local option were allowed, the majority would undoubtedly stop the liquor shops, and, mark this, what would be the consequence? The majority having no means of stopping illicit practices, any amount of unlicensed distillation would go on. If we had total prohibition, who is to enforce it? I confess that not even I, myself, with all my administrative power, would undertake such a task as to stop every still that might be set up from one end of India to the other. Every grove of palm trees, every cottage, every field, every outlying jungle, would teem with stills and shops under no check. What police would be required for such a purpose, and what odious inquisition, and what manifold evils and corruption would arise from that inquisition ! Even if we did succeed in enforcing total abstinence and total prohibition in British India, we could not do so in the native States. The argument that native opinion is against drink is refuted by the fact that every native State has its drink establishments. There was more smuggling of opium from the Gaikwar's territory than any other place under my control in Bombay. Had native opinion been against that system, the native Government which preceded us would have abolished it. Was there not drinking, and was there not an excess of taxation of every kind and sort found by us when we conquered India, and are not those systems as old as the history of India itself? My hon. Friend, the Member for Cumberland, has said that drinking is opposed to the religion of the people of India. Now, luckily, I have fortified myself with what I conceive to be the very best Native opinion to be obtained on that matter. I refer to Rajêndra Lala Mitra, who is, I believe, one of the most learned and accomplished Hindus of this generation. He is profoundly versed in all the ancient religious beliefs of his country, and is a master not only of the Indian classics, but also of our Western tongue. In his elaborate work on the Indo-Aryans he has a chapter on "The Spirituous Drinks of Ancient India;" and he writes without bias either way—without any theory to sustain or to overthrow—and merely with the intent to portray Hindu manners by citations from authoritative writings. After some discussion, he goes on to say— Elders, anchorites, sages, and learned men, forming. the bulk of the priestly class, doubt- less abstained from them (spirituous drinks), as they do now; so did a good number of thousand respectable householders; but they constituted only a fraction of the sum total of the community. And Sanscrit literature, both ancient and mediaeval, leaves no room for doubt as to wine having been very extensively used in this country at all times and by all classes. A quotation from classical poetry runs thus— How will you, dear one, of wine-reddened eye, who have quaffed delightful liquor, drink the mist-befouled water which I offer with my tears? In one of the Sacred Books, a goddess, girding herself to prepare for combat with a demon, says, "Roar, roar, ye fool, for a moment only, till I finish my drinking." After adverting to the authority of the Tantra Books in modern Hinduism, our author cites several passages, from which I select one, thus: Siva, the god, says— O sweet-speaking goddess, the salvation of Brahmins depends on drinking wine. I impart to you a truth, oh mountain born, when I say that the Brahmin who attends to drinking forthwith becomes a god. True knowledge can never be acquired, goddess dear, without drinking wine. Therefore should Brahmins always drink. And again— Whoever after being initiated in the salvation-giving spell, fails to drink wine is a fallen man in this iron age. Lastly, our author after describing the supposed effects of the Soma beer upon the Celestials, adds that — The effect of this liquor upon the gods could only have been assumed from the knowledge of what it was upon the worshippers. I have only culled just a few of these flowers out of many in order to show the House what a fallacy it is to suppose that the use of liquor is abhorent to native sentiment or native religion. Now, as regards the system of which the hon. Member (Mr. Caine) complains. He spoke of it as instituted in 1830. It is as old as the Indian history. Does he suppose that the word Abkar is Anglo-Indian? Not at all. It is good old Persian, and is as old as the word "Mogul" itself. One system after another of distillation has been done away with. We adopted the central distillation system, and the hon. ' Member has denounced that. Then we go to the outstill system, and he denounced that. He attacks them in detail. He reminds me of the gim boy, for whom the strokes of punishment were either too high or too low, until he was not struck at all. No system whatever would suit the hon. Gentleman, so that we would have the people using liquor unchecked from one end of the country to the other. But this distillery system has this great advantage. It brings the manufacturer and the retailer of spirits under absolute supervision. We know exactly what liquor is or is not made, and how much has been consumed. We can carefully regulate and calculate the quantities according to the demand of the various localities; we are able to ascertain that so much liquor is required, and so much and no more is issued and sold to the people. On the whole, that is the very best system you could have, if you are to have any system at all, and not to leave the people unchecked. I admit, of course, in this, as in all other respects, there are dangers, because you may have a farmer who tells you he wants the liquor, and he may push the sale. Still, if you are to have a system at all, it is hardly possible to devise a better one than that, provided always it can be carried out in a judicious and prudent manner. Then we come to the question of outstills. I found that, during the time I was at Bengal, the central distillery system was in operation, but in those days it was being discovered that in certain outlying parts of the country the liquor was got from the central distillery, and so we had to regulate the consumption and bring it under control. I am shocked to bear that my successor has adopted the outstill system for many of the most densely populated parts. I have read some reports of what happened, and, though I must say they are greatly exaggerated, nevertheless more harm than good has been done by that attempt. A great source of error in exaggeration are misleading terms. It was complained to the Government that men are becoming drunkards who were once sober. It turns out that they misunderstood the English "drunk" and the English "sober." By "drunk" they meant that a man took a moderate amount of liquor, and by sober "they meant a man who never touched liquor at all. So the House will readily see that there was great exaggeration. I am not at all prepared to defend the outstill system. My impression is that it should be restricted as it was in my time, and in the time of my hon. predecessor, and that it should gradually be withdrawn. I hope I understand the Under Secretary correctly that it is being or has been withdrawn, though the withdrawal is rather late. It is doubtless true that in some cases where they substitute a cheap and diluted liquor for pure liquor the impression is raised that more liquor is being drunk than was the case before; but if the duty is increased the only effect will be that you will get, I will not say a maximum of revenue with a maximum of consumption, but a larger revenue without an increase of consumption. With regard to the question of increase of outstills, I admit that I am not prepared to defend that system in Bengal. In my own time, and in the time of my predecessors, in the Government of Bengal it was considerably restricted, and my impression is that it ought now to be entirely withdrawn. I have no figures with me in regard to the alleged increased consumption of drink in Bombay, but I do happen to have brought with me some figures with regard to the state of things in Madras; and I will just quote some facts from the appendix to the able Report of Mr. John Buckland. What does that gentleman show? He shows that in the year 1882–83 there were 1,200,000 gallons of under-proof spirit consumed in that Presidency. while in the year 1887–88, the consumption had risen to 1,350,000 gallons, or an increase of 150,000 gallons, which is, after all, only a very small increase during a period of six years, especially when we consider the freedom from famine that has prevailed during that period, and the marked increase that has taken place in the population, the result really being that the consumption has been kept down although the revenue has been rising. Some remarks have been made about the Bombay system, and it has been stated that the consumption has increased in seven years from two to two and three-quarter millions. I think that this is a remarkably infinitesimal increase when we have regard to the enormous growth of the population and the increase of wealth especially among the working classes. After all, from the figures quoted by the Under Secretary of State for India, the increased consumption only amounts to about 600,000 gallons among a population of 650,000, which is less than 8 pints per bead per annum, and an almost homœopathic increase per diem. With regard to what has been said about Assam, I would remark that that is one of those places in which, as there is a tendency to drink among the class of labourers on the tea plantations, it is desirable that great care should be taken. But with regard to the allegation that drunkenness is increasing in India, I for one entirely disbelieve it. It is some years since I left that country, but from my knowledge of the people up to that time I venture emphatically to deny the charge, and I speak from a knowledge that I do not think can be easily controverted. Moreover, I firmly believe that the people of India still continue to deserve, as they have done for ages, the character of being upon the whole, a sober and temperate people. I hope before the debate closes we shall hear the evidence which can be furnished by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Bristol (Colonel Hill) who has travelled from one end of India to the other, and who can tell the House what he saw and heard during his investigations. Not only do I feel certain that drunkenness is not on the increase in India, but I challenge hon. Gentlemen opposite to furnish a single fact drawn from the authentic statistics of the country or from private information that can be sustained by examination and inquiry which will confirm the theory or allegation that drunkenness is increasing in that portion of the British Empire. Remember that in England any grocer who can get a licence may sell spirituous drink, and in recent years there has been legislation which has fostered private brewing by exempting these small brewers from taxation. The result is that even in my own country there are many thousands of these private brewers. 'What would be the result if you adopted a like policy in India? I maintain that we have been far more careful of the moral interests of our people in India than we have been of the people in our own country. The mover and the seconder of the Motion have depicted the evils in the most exaggerated manner and through the dark green spectacles of the teetotal cause. As far as I can remember, the mover of the Motion made no suggestion either in the direction of total prohibition or local option, but the hon. Member for Barrow suggested that the taxation of European spirits imported into India should be raised. That is a mild proposal which I should not object to, and we may as well make that suggestion an acceptable present to the Under Secretary. Further, the hon. Member also recommends the doing away with the outstill system in Bengal. But nowhere except in Bengal does the outstill system exist to any appreciable extent. It has been condemned by the Government of India, and it is in course of being abolished.

MR. W. S. CAINE

It still exists in Bombay.

SIR R. TEMPLE

Only in very remote parts of the province, and it is being done away with. Remember, this is not the first time it has been condemned in this House. It is, after all, only the old, old story. Thus the hon. Members who have spoken have in reality thrown no fresh light on this subject. I do agree, however, that some inquiry should be made as to the opium dens mentioned by the hon. Member for Barrow. Either the evidence of the hon. Member should be taken, or a report of his speech should be sent to the Government of India in order that inquiry should be made as to whether a stop could not be put to these places. I deny, however, that the Indian Government have anything to do with those dens beyond taxing them. And finally I come to the question of prohibition. I do not think that is possible, and I do not believe that the missionaries advocate it. I admit that these missionaries' reports deserve careful attention; and when I lived in India I was always ready to investigate thoroughly any matters which they brought before me, because I know how well informed they are. I do deprecate most strongly the over strong language of the resolution. What possible good can come from flinging such charges at the head of a high authority like the Viceroy? If this House wishes to evince a high sense of public policy and national morality, let it strengthen the hands of the Government of India by declaring its approval of the despatches of the Viceroy and of the Secretary of State, which accurately lay down the fiscal and moral principles involved in the case. Let it content itself with affirming those noble and judicious principles so well set forth, and thus strengthen the hands of the Government of India in the performance of a very difficult task. We would not then lay ourselves open to misconstruction and misconception, and I believe we would far better perform our duty to England and to her mighty Empire in the East by agreeing to a judicious modification of my hon. Friend's resolution.

SIR W. HARCOURT (Derby)

I have listened with great interest and instruction to the speech of the hon. Member, who always speaks with such authority on matters relating to Indian administration, but I have failed to gather from the speech of the hon. Gentleman or that of the Under Secretary any argument against the Resolution. I do not understand either of those hon. Gentlemen to deny that there is great room for improvement in the fiscal system in India with reference to the liquor traffic. Now this is a subject common to both sides of the House, and the question is whether it is well or whether it is not that the House of Commons should pronounce an opinion in that direction which may both strengthen the hands of the Government at home and stimulate the action of the Government of India. That I conceive to be the position we are in to-day. The last speaker has told us that if there were Local Option in India the liquor shops would be shut up. What does that mean except that the great majority of the people of India are against that traffic? In that respect they seem to be superior to their own gods and goddesses, and to the teaching of the Brahmins which the hon. Baronet has expounded with such learning to the House. The great majority of the people of India now appear not only to be abstainers themselves, but wish the system of abstinence to be general. The responsibility of England in this matter is therefore very great. We are the absolute governors of India, and the people of India have no representative institution in which this question can be fought out between the majority and the minority. The hon. Member for Evesham has said that if we did not have this traffic we should have illicit distillation; but I imagine that where the sentiment of the great mass of the population is adverse to the traffic you would have the greatest security against illicit distillation-Remember that illicit distillation generally exists where the sympathy of the people is with the drink, and not where it is against it. I should like to know how you stop it now. The Under Secretary for India tells us we have a tax of 600 per cent on liquor. Now that is a great temptation to distillation, and, if people want to drink, illicit distillation must be expected to exist with such a tax as that. The methods by which you prevent it now may be used to prevent it under a different system. The hon. Member for Evesham has, I think, done injustice to his own administrative ability when he declares that to stop illicit distillation is an impossibility. He has said that drinking might be introduced into Assam. Now that is a practical illustration of what is being done under the English Government. We have conferred great blessings upon India. No doubt we have given her a just administration to which she was not accustomed. Still we are in danger of bringing to her also evils and vices which are unfortunately the effects of our civilization. Therefore, we are especially bound to be very careful in this matter. The Under Secretary has endeavoured rather to minimize the matter than to argue against this Resolution. He has said that the amount of the expenditure per head of the whole population averages only 3d.

SIR J. GORST

That is the amount of the duty paid.

SIR W. HARCOURT

The fallacy of that argument has already been pointed out, because, although only a small part of the population drinks, you spread the amount over the whole population. We are, however, dealing with an extremely poor people, who live on a handful of rice, and whose clothing is a single rag; and 3d. per head to them is probably more than 3s. to an English labourer. You must be careful lest you introduce and encourage a system which creates habits of drinking that do not now exist among them. I have listened to what has fallen from the Under Secretary and the hon. Member for Evesham, and I am not satisfied that there is not more drinking in India now than there was previous to English rule there. I was a little surprised that the Under Secretary was only able to give us the figures as to the Island of Bombay. With all their knowledge and authority, the Government in a debate of this character ought to have laid before the House figures showing whether drinking is actually greater or less than it was, and we had a right to expect a statement of that nature from the Government.

SIR J. GORST

The right hon. Gentleman's Government did not collect the statistics which would be requisite for a comparison.

SIR W. HARCOURT

What is the use of a miserable tu quoque like that? The present Government have been three years in office, and this question has been debated in the House before.

SIR J. GORST

The Government have statistics for the last two years, but not the figures of earlier years to compare with them.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I am sorry that the Under Secretary should have endeavoured to bring the debate to a miserable retort of this kind. I had myself been trying to argue the question in a different tone. I had said nothing against the Government, but I was speaking of the responsibilities of England towards India. I desired to introduce nothing in the way of Party recrimination. I asked, and again I ask, is drinking increasing among the native populations of India or is it not? We have no information on that point, which lies at the root of the whole subject. What are we asked by this Resolution to do? The hon. Member who has just sat down says there is advantage in the present fiscal system, and that the Government can regulate the amount of liquor imported. That is a curious statement, but I want to know on what basis the Government of India act in determining how much liquor shall be drunk. Does the hon. Member for Evesham with all his experience say that the matter is satisfactory as it stands at present? He admitted that it is not satisfactory in Bengal. The Resolution is in no way an attack upon the Indian Government, but simply a warning to them to be extremely careful on the subject of the liquor traffic. The object of the Resolution is to induce the Government of Bombay to move faster in effecting those reforms which the hon. Member for Evesham admits to be necessary. Therefore having listened to this debate I regard the Resolution not as an attack on the Government but rather as a declaration on the part of the House of Commons that nothing should be done by the Government of India which would in any way tend to increase habits of intemperance among the native population. Regarding it in that sense, and convinced of the necessity for such a Resolution more by the speeches of the hon. and gallant Member for Evesham and of the Under Secretary than by those of the Mover and Seconder, I shall give my vote in favour of it.

*THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir JAS. FERGUSSON,) Manchester, N.E.

I hope the House will allow me, in the few moments left to us, to reply to the somewhat extraordinary speech to which we have just listened. I should be the first to recognize the good intentions and philanthropic efforts of the hon. Mover and Seconder of the Resolution, but their assertions have been met by most remarkable disproof on the part of the Under Secretary for India. My hon. Friend has shown that in a most remarkable degree a check has been put upon the consumption of liquor by the control of Government, and that the system, which has led in some districts to an increased consumption, has been altered. He has shown that in the best districts of India there have been such measures taken as have resulted in an increase of the revenue simultaneously with a great reduction in the consumption of spirits, notably in Bombay. I may also tell the right hon. Gentleman that the same result, though in a less remarkable degree, has taken place in Calcutta. I have only the return for two successive years, 1886–87 and 1887–88. The consumption in the first year was 200,000 gallons, and the revenue 669,000 rupees; and in the second year the consumption had fallen to 180,000 gallons, while the revenue had gone up to 748,000 rupees. It has been shown that the Government of Bengal are amending the system of outstills—the system which alone would justify the remarks of the hon. Member for Flint-shire. The District Revenue Officers have jealously objected to an increase of the drink shops, and there is an earnest desire on their part to raise the moral and material condition of the people in every particular. In face of these facts, ought the House to pass the vote of censure on the Government of India which is contained in the resolution? The hon. Member for Flintshire would not further a good cause by ignoring all the good intentions and effects exhibited in recent years. I think the House will see it would do a great injustice by passing the resolution, and, instead of thus condemning the Government, would it not be worthier to give it encouragement and support in the performance of its difficult and responsible duties?

The House divided: —Ayes, 113; Noes, 103.—(Division List, No. 89). Resolved, That, in the opinion of this House, the fiscal system of the Government of India leads to the establishment of spirit distilleries, liquor and opium shops in large numbers of places where till recently they never existed, in defiance of Native opinion and the protests of the inhabitants, and that such increased facilities for drinking produce a steadily increasing consumption, and spread misery and ruin among the industrial classes of India, calling for immediate action on the part of the Government of India with a view to their abatement.