HC Deb 09 June 1898 vol 58 cc1252-9

Order for Second Reading read.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. W. RIDLEY, Lancs.,) Blackpool

I hope the House will read this Bill a second time. It is an honest attempt to deal with what is admittedly a great evil. Since I introduced it I think opinion has been in favour of an extension rather than any modification of the provisions of the Bill. I hope too many efforts will not be made to extend the Bill in the direction of non-criminal drunkards, because I think we shall get into difficulties which will render it doubtful whether the Bill can be passed into law during the present Session. I may mention that I have been asked if I would be willing to extend the Bill to Ireland. All I can say is that if it be the general desire of Irish Members to extend the Bill to Ireland, I shall be prepared to put in the necessary provisions applying the Bill to Ireland. So far as I understand, the general consensus of opinion is that it would be desirable to give the authorities in Ireland the same opportunity of effecting the reform of habitual inebriates that it is proposed to give in England. I hope the House will agree to the second reading of the Bill, in which case I shall move to refer it to one of the Grand Committees.

SIR W. FOSTER (Derby, Ilkeston)

I have great pleasure in congratulating the right honourable Gentleman upon the introduction of this Bill. The question that it deals with is one that ought to be taken up by Government, and I think the Bill deals with it in the right spirit—that is to say, in a reformatory spirit—and that this Bill is an honest endeavour to do something to reform those persons whose condition is not a credit to our civilisation, and who are a great nuisance to our law. Everyone who is in the habit of attending our law courts knows that there are a large number of persons charged with offences who ought to be dealt with in a different spirit from that in which we deal with the really criminal classes, and who ought to be dealt with in the Christian and humane spirit which the provisions of this Bill enunciate. I look forward to this Bill doing a great deal, not in the way of punishing these unfortunate persons, but in the way of giving them a chance of becoming respectable members of society. That system has been carried out with very remarkable results in other countries. I came across only the other day some figures showing the results of similar legislation in one of our great Colonies—Canada. I found that of 10,000 cases of criminal inebriates dealt with in Canada no less than 34 per cent. of those, criminal inebriates had been reclaimed after a period of 10 years; that is to say, that 10 years after they had been under treatment they had not relapsed. If we can obtain only half that amount of success in this country, any Measure like this will be more than amply justified. In other institutions in our Colonies similar results have been obtained where the period of testing had not been so long. Of course, in all these cases where those criminal inebriates are committed for a period of detention the tendency to relapse is the difficulty that one has to contend with. If it can be overcome in anything like the same percentage of cases as has been found possible in the Colonies we shall have from this Bill very valuable and almost inestimable results. I hope the Bill will be found acceptable to the House, and I myself should be glad to see it extended in various directions. It is purely permissive in its character. I should have been glad to see it compulsory and extended also to non-criminal inebriates, but I quite recognise the difficulties the right honourable Gentleman has pointed out in the way of extending its provisions. I feel that the Bill is a humane attempt at the reformation of a large class of persons whose treatment under our present laws is certainly not to our credit.

SIR C. CAMERON

As the Member of this House who had charge of the introduction of the Inebriates Act in 1879 and 1880 I heartily congratulate the right honourable Gentleman on the tremendous advance in public opinion which has enabled him to introduce this Bill, and which has prompted statesmen on both sides of the House to endeavour to deal with this most important subject. The proposal to deal with habitual drunkards was first brought forward by Dr. Dalrymple, and on his death I was asked to take it up. The original Bill that I brought before the House proposed to divide into two classes the persons with whom it was proposed to deal—namely, those who were willing to come under restraint and those criminal inebriates for whom compulsory confinement of some kind was necessary. It also proposed to deal with the police-court class of drunkards, with whom the right honourable Gentleman now proposes to deal; but in those days there was such an immense amount of opposition to any legislation which would throw the smallest charge on the ratepayers that the portion of the Bill dealing with criminal drunkards had to be thrown overboard altogether. Now, the right honourable Gentleman proposes to enable the Treasury to subsidise certain retreats. Of course, a great deal depends on the methods to be adopted. I do not expect that on the first start everything will go off successfully, but I am certain that when you have public money invested in these retreats, when you have central and local authorities interested in them, a tremendous impulse will be given to the development of their usefulness, and before many years have passed they will be a very great success. As to the class of non-criminal inebriates who refuse voluntarily to go into retreats, I should like to have seen the right honourable Gentleman deal with them, but I quite understand the difficulties in his way. I know the position that was taken up in another place when that was attempted by the late Government, and I would certainly very much rather see this Bill passed as it is as a step in the right direction, even though it does deal with that class of cases. But the right honourable Gentleman must not lose sight of this fact. A Committee over which I had the honour to preside a few years ago found that there were, a number of unlicensed retreats in the country in which there were persons who were nominally reformatory patients, but who were not really reformatory patients, except that they preferred to undergo confinement rather than starvation. There was one point recommended by the Committee to which I referred, and it is an important point, and one in which I think the right honourable Gentleman might strengthen the Bill without in the least endangering it. At the present moment any man can set up a retreat for habitual drunkards, and there is no provision for the inspection of such retreats. As a matter of fact, there are a number of retreats throughout the country that are not inspected, and that are carried on with the greatest disregard for the liberties and the rights of the persons confined in them. The Committee over which I had the honour to preside recommended that these uncertified and uninspected retreats should be dealt with, and I really would press the right honourable Gentleman to look into the matter, and to see whether, without creating too great opposition, these retreats could not be brought within the scope of official inspection and of the safeguards proposed in this legislation. Still, I do not wish to do anything in the way of overloading the Bill. At a meeting of the Habitual Inebriates Committee of the British Medical Association—a Committee consisting of persons who take the greatest interest in all legislation on this subject—it was agreed that, although they would like to see the Bill go further than it does, even to the extent of dealing with non-criminal drunkards, yet they considered this Bill such a great step in the right direction that they would not take the responsibility of attempting to force that upon the Home Secretary. I have great pleasure in congratulating the right honourable Gentleman upon the introduction of the Bill. I trust it will pass the Second. Reading to-night, and that it will, before the Session closes, become the law of the land.

DR. FARQUHARSON

I join with my honourable Friends who have spoken in congratulating the Home Secretary upon his success in grasping this very thorny question, and introducing a Measure which I think has every prospect of success in dealing with a very difficult and dangerous class of people. There is no doubt that if we could shut up these people for some definite period a large proportion of them would be permanently cured. I think the only chance of doing any real good is to shut these people up for a considerable period. I investigated a great number of cures for drunkenness—the "gold cure" and others—and came to the conclusion that they were the merest quackery, and I am convinced that the only real cure that can be effected is by confinement and treatment extending over a considerable period. American experience shows that no permanent good can be done by a confinement of one year, and I am glad to see that the right honourable Gentleman proposes a period of two years. I think it would be very desirable at some future time if the Home Secretary would direct his attention to the possibility of including non-criminal classes among those to be dealt with under the Bill. No doubt it is quite right to keep such a proposal out of the Bill on this occasion, because the question is a very thorny and difficult one, but I hope the matter will continue to engage the attention of the right honourable Gentleman, and that at some future times it may be found possible to take some steps in this direction.

MR. M. HEALY (Cork)

I only rise as an Irish Member to say that I am wholly unable to understand what considerations could have influenced the Government in excluding Ireland from the operation of this Measure. I am not prepared to admit that we are any worse than any other part of the country in this matter; but, however that may be, I can see no ground whatever for excluding Ireland from the scope of the Bill. It appears to me that there are no special circumstances in Ireland which could have recommended such a course to the Government. Of course, I have no authority to speak for any other Irish Member but myself, but, so far as I am aware, I think there is a general feeling in Ireland that it would be a great misfortune if this Bill, which appears to me a most excellent Bill, excluded Ireland. I had intended, if I had the opportunity, of moving that the Bill should extend to Ireland. After what the right honourable Gentleman has said that will not be necessary, and I have only to thank the right honourable Gentleman for the assurance he has given, that either he will himself move the necessary Amendment, or, if such an Amendment is proposed, that he will accept it.

SIR W. LAWSON (Cumberland, Cockermouth)

I am glad to be able to add my voice to the chorus of congratulation to the right honourable Gentleman on the introduction of this Bill. I think it is quite time that we should do something to look after these unfortunate people. Hitherto we have done nothing but put them in prison. We have certainly a further duty than that towards them. The Government of this country license 150,000 houses at which these people can be supplied with the drink which makes them drunkards. Therefore it is quite right that when we have helped to make them drunk we should afterwards take care of them. I do not agree with my honourable Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire that the only way to do good to these people is to shut them up. I say, shut up the public-houses and prevent these people getting drunk, and in that way you will prevent them becoming habitual drunkards. Another suggestion I may make is this. This Bill, of course, if it becomes an Act will cost something to administer; all Bills do: why should not the expenses of this Bill be paid by those who make the drunkards? Why not levy a tax upon the sellers of the drink which does all the mischief? I hope, Sir, that the passing of this Measure will mark the beginning of better things. I am delighted to see an attempt made to cure this great evil, and I do hope that the time will come when the House and the Government will arrive at the conclusion that in matters of this kind prevention is better than cure.

SIR ELLIOTT LEES (Birkenhead)

May I remind the honourable Baronet that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to place a tax on those who sold the drink the honourable Baronet himself was one of the strongest opponents of that proposal?

SIR W. LAWSON

There was no proposal that the publicans should pay the tax.

SIR ELLIOTT LEES

The proposal was to reduce the public-houses by a tax. I do not want to argue the matter, but when the honourable Baronet gets up and suggests that a tax should be placed upon the publicans to meet the expenses of this Bill I cannot help reminding him that he was one of the great opponents of a proposal which would have had very much that result. Sir, I heartily join in. the chorus of congratulation to my right honourable Friend the Home Secretary for having brought forward a Measure of this description.

* MR. H. J. WILSON (Yorks, W.R. Holmfirth)

I agree with the honourable Baronet the Member for Cockermouth in what he has said, but the House is not prepared for such drastic measures as those he suggests. I should like to ask the Home Secretary whether he has considered the possibility of doing what is done in America and some other places, of putting a penalty on licensed persons who sell intoxicating liquor to those who may have been notified to them as habitual drunkards.

* MR. SPEAKER

I think the honourable Member is travelling beyond the scope of a Second Reading Debate in discussing the proposal to which he refers.

* MR. H. J. WILSON

I did not propose to enlarge on the matter. I simply wanted to ask the Home Secretary whether he has considered this point, and whether even now a clause could be introduced into the Bill.

Question put— That the Bill be now read a second time.

Agreed to.