§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)said he did not propose to continue the discussion on the question of Macedonia, although he was glad to hear that through their envoy they were supplying a prescription for curing the disease which had been referred to. Perhaps that prescription would also be 1379 applied at home in some of the Government Departments at the same time. He wished to call attention to the speech recently delivered by the Prime Minister to the licensed victuallers as to the action of the magistrates. He was not going to discuss some questions which were raised in the course of that speech, because it would be clearly out of order to do so. Certain suggestions were made as to an alteration in the law, but that would also be out of order. He wished to refer to the purely administrative suggestions made by the Prime Minister, and he thought that would be in order. His comment upon that was, that he thought this was the first time that a gentleman of the Prime Minister's great position had passed severe condemnation upon the action of the judicial bench, whilst its decisions were sub judice. It must be recollected with regard to the majority of the decisions scoffed at, that they were subject to appeal at the Quarter Sessions, and therefore the Prime Minister was condemning them with regard to decisions which were under consideration by a Court of Appeal. The right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with only condemning the magistrates, but he appealed to the Court, which is to consider their decisions, to reverse them. He ventured to say there was no case on record where anyone in the position of Prime Minister had ever appealed to a Court, before it came to consider the cases, to arrive at certain decisions. It was a new and very dangerous precedent, and he very much regretted that the Prime Minister should have set it. It was true that the magistrates had been pretty active in their administration of the licensing laws, but either they were within or without the law. If they were acting outside the law, the Prime Minister knew perfectly well that there were two or three Courts to which licensed victuallers could appeal. They could appeal to the Quarter Sessions, and if the Quarter Sessions were similarly permeated with this rancorous feeling against them, there was an appeal to the Divisional Court, then the Court of Appeal, and finally the House of Lords. It must be assumed that they were acting within the law, and what did that mean? The Prime Minister, in answer to an ex parte application made to 1380 him by the parties personally aggrieved by the decisions in the lowest Court, actually expressed an opinion without knowing the law, without knowing the facts, without knowing anything at all about the circumstances, and knowing there was an appeal upon questions of law, expressed an opinion adverse to the decisions and appealed to the Court of Appeal to reverse them. That he would repeat was a perfectly unprecedented action, and one which the Prime Minister would realise was a gross indiscretion on his part, at any rate. If licensed victuallers were exceedingly poor, and could not take their action beyond the lower Court, there might be something to be said for the Prime Minister coming down and intervening to protect these poor miserable creatures, who had not the cash to brief a lawyer to go to the Court of Appeal, but any one who knew anything about it, knew that licensed victuallers had enough cash to brief lawyers in any action; in fact it was well known amongst lawyers that they preferred a brief from a licensed victualler to one from a teetotaler, because it was a much fatter one. The Prime Minister, he contended, ought to have left the law to take its ordinary course. The Prime Minister talked as if last year were the first time the magistrates had ever refused to grant renewals. The right hon. Gentleman said, "Here is a new departure."
§ MR. GALLOWAY (Manchester, S.W.)So it was.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid it was perfectly true that in some districts it was anew departure, but that was because the law was not put in operation in those districts. In Liverpool itself, in the course of twelve years—he did not think anybody would denounce the bench of magistrates in that city as Radical or teetotal, it was strongly Conservative, there might be some teetotalers, but they were in a considerable minority; at any rate the chairman was a strong Conservative—in the course of twelve years, from 1890 down to last year, they reduced the licences by 339. Where was the new departure there? Throughout the kingdom, the reduction in the course of nineteen years was 1,063. That 1381 was a considerable reduction, and proved that it was proceeding at a much more rapid rate in some places than in others. The reason was that where the reduction had been considerable public houses were much thicker. They were in the proportion of one to 150, or 200, or 300, of the population, and it was necessary that the reduction should proceed at a more rapid rate than in other districts. It simply showed that the magistrates in other districts, for one reason or another, had become alive to their powers, and began to exercise them, as they did from time to time. Magistrates discovered points in the law they were never aware of before, and we were constantly finding as to licensing, public health, or education that there was a sudden renewal of activity on the part of the bench of magistrates. In the case of the administration of the licensing law in particular districts, when they found the Prime Minister saying that it was a new departure, it showed that he did not grasp, not the local circumstances, but the general conditions of licensing administration throughout the country Even at the Courts last year most of the reductions were due not to judicial decisions by the magistrates, but to voluntary surrenders on the part of brewers themselves. Did the Prime Minister include these voluntary surrenders in his general condemnation?
He should like to put another point to the Prime Minister. It was a serious interference with the administration of law. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite might laugh, but this would constitute a precedent. The hon. Member for South West Manchester was exceedingly scornful at the notion that there should be any interference with the licensing laws. There would be difficulties in regard to the administration of other laws. Was the Prime Minister going to lay it down as a general principle that when the law pressed hard on individuals, it was not to be administered until there was an amendment of it which he considered would bring it up to his notion of justice? If that was really the principle on which the law was administered, let them have it all round. Don't let them have it only for licensed victuallers, let them have it for Nonconformists as well. If that was the general understanding, he 1382 had not a word more to say. Was it the principle the Prime Minister was laying down on behalf of the executive Government? The right hon. Gentleman said—
I do not say that the magistrates are wrong in their interpretation of the law. What I say is that they have administered the law in such a way that it has borne hardly on a considerable number of individuals.Then he talked vaguely about compensation. That was all right, but amend your law. But was that the principle? He was only asking for advice. Perhaps the Prime Minister would counsel him as he had counselled the magistrates. There was another law which he thought bore very harshly on considerable numbers of the community. He and his friends thought it ought to be amended. Was it the Prime Minister's advice that if the administration of the law was harsh, if carried out, therefore it was right that they should suspend the administration of that law until they got it reformed and redressed by Parliament? [MINISTERIAL cheers.] He was very glad to get assent from hon. Members opposite. It would be of the greatest possible value to them when they came to consider other questions. What he wanted to say was that he put the rights of conscience as high as the rights of property, and therefore the advice of the Prime Minister he thought would be applicable all round and to that extent it was exceedingly important. The right hon. Gentleman was once responsible for the Government of Ireland, and he remembered perfectly well how he treated speeches of that character, attacking the resident magistrates upon the action of the law in that country. Contempt of Court! There was no rusty machine in the whole arsenal of Dublin Castle that he did not bring into operation against those who ventured to criticise the action of the removable magistrates—not magistrates like those in this country with some sort of independence, but magistrates who were simply officials of the Government. But the right hon. Gentleman could not tolerate criticism upon the action of the law. Now, was it to be one law for the Prime Minister and another for Irish Members? Was it to be one law for Ireland and another for licensed victuallers in this country? The whole basis of administration was that there should be perfect equality, and that Irishmen should be treated exactly like Scotchmen or 1383 Englishmen. If that was so, the Prime Minister ought really to be eating bread and skilly at the present moment; and he ought to be serving his three months. Really that was the way in which he treated Irish Members, who perhaps in a more unreserved fashion attacked the administration of the law in Ireland and attacked it not whilst judicial decisions were sub judice, but after they were done with and when people saw that it was a question of putting their friends in prison for two, three, or four months with hard labour, so that every loyal man would necessarily feel considerably sore with the action of the magistrates on a great political issue. In this case, the action of the Prime Minister was purely for electioneering purposes. He did not suppose that the Prime Minister for a moment would deny that. At Rye the publicans said—"You are treating us very badly with your licensing act."
§ MR. GALLOWAYYou say that.
§ MR. LLOYD GEORGEsaid that was what the Rye publicans stated—"YTou are treating us very unfairly." At any rate, the publicans at Rye very considerably supported the Liberal candidate. He took that from the hon. Member for South West Manchester who knew more about publicans than he did himself. Then there was a deputation to the Prime Minister, and there was no doubt it was pointed out what would really happen to the Government. The Prime Minister said—"You have been treated scandalously by these magistrates, and I hope that the Quarter Sessions will reverse their extravagant decisions." That might be the case, but was it right to make an appeal to a Court of that kind without evidence—to make a general appeal to political passion and prejudice to decide on purely political considerations matters which were matters of evidence? What happened afterwards? The speech of the Prime Minister had given the word and it went round to Chertsey, "You are to vote for the Conservative candidate there." It was pure electioneering, and the administration of the law in the Courts of Justice in this country was to be reduced to pure electioneering. And this was from the 1384 party of law and order in this country. Sometimes the labour representatives were exceedingly sore about the decisions given in the High Courts. He was not going to criticise them one way or another. Supposing that a labour representative, where a case was on the way to the Court of Appeal or to the House of Lords, were to make a speech in which he denounced the inferior Court, and were to appeal to the higher Court to reverse the decision in the interest of public policy, the hon. Member knew what would happen. The labour representative—and very properly—would be imprisoned for contempt of court. Was there really one law for the labour man and another for the Prime Minister, because that was what it came to? Here were the magistrates, under very difficult conditions, administering a very important public duty. He had himself very often felt that the magistrates were leaning too much to one side or the other, but at any rate he had never heard public criticism of the action of the magistrates while a case was on the way to Quarter Sessions. They had a very important duty to perform, and had to have regard for the requirements of the neighbourhood. Lord Halsbury himself said that they should simply exercise their discretion with regard to what was necessary for the neighbourhood. If they thought that 200 licensed houses were too many, and that they contributed to drunkenness and disorder in the district it was their duty to reduce the number of licences if in their opinion that would contribute to the improvement of the neighbourhood. They had no right to check that duty or to consider the interests of anyone; the public interest should be first. Whether afterwards the Government should provide some compensation was a different matter. It was not, however, a matter which the magistrates were entitled to consider for a moment. Their business was to administer the law as a judicial bench. At any rate, it was not a question of compensation, it was purely a question as to whether the magistrates should be told that they ought not to perform their duties, although meantime convictions for 1385 drunkenness and disorder were to continue, in order to help the Government in a few by-elections.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe hon. Gentleman has raised something in the nature of a direct personal attack on myself, and that must be my excuse for trespassing again, and for asking the House to permit me to intervene once more in the debate this afternoon. The hon. Gentleman complained that I made a speech the other day to a deputation which came to me on the subject of the recent alteration of the policy pursued by a large number of licensing magistrates. The hon. Gentleman thinks that I have committed a grave dereliction of duty in breaking silence. He thinks I ought not to have said anything at all. I presume he thinks I ought not to have received the deputation.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI said that while the cases were sub judice no comments at all ought to be made.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThat is to say I ought to have maintained silence. Why, I could hardly speak without commenting. If I were to speak and to comment, I am sure the hon. Gentleman, ardent as he is in the case of the magistrates in this matter, would hardly suggest that I should express opinions which do not happen to be my own. The hon. Gentleman further said that this gross act of impropriety, as he has been pleased to describe it, could have no other motive than an electioneering motive. I do not think much is gained by attributing motives; and I do not know that hon. Gentlemen opposite have any special qualifications, either by natural or acquired insight, for knowing better than I do myself what were the motives which actuated me. I can tell them that the opinions I expressed to that deputation have always been my opinions; and I have never for one moment hesitated to give public expression to them. It is perfectly true that there was a certain novelty on the occasion on which I expressed them, because the magistrates had never before taken the particular course which they have seen fit to take 1386 lately—at any rate never to the same extent.
I have always maintained, if you take away licences on a great scale from persons who have never offended against the law, and whose conduct is perfectly orderly, that it should be accompanied by compensation. That has been a publicly announced part of the creed and belief of the great majority of those with whom I habitually act in politics. It is open to any one to say that when a Minister gives expression to opinions which are common to him and his Party, he is electioneering. I suppose, in the same way, the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down was making an electioneering speech. I understand that the views he expresses are those which commend themselves to the political organisation of which he is an ornament; but I do not accuse him of corrupt motives in what he has done. I do not think he is actuated by personal malevolence. I attribute no motive at all. Let him treat me with the same consideration; and let us argue this question as it ought to be argued, without the attribution, on one side or the other, of interested motives. What is the whole point and substance of the hon. Gentleman's charge? It is this—that I have interfered with a Court of law in the exercise of its legal functions; and that my conduct ought to be compared in its impropriety with the impropriety of one who in public, after a civil case has been decided by a Court of first instance on strictly legal grounds, denounces that Court, and says that it ought to have been actuated by a policy very different to that which did animate it—it may be not only doing some injury to the Court of first instance, but prejudicing the decision to which the Court of Appeal might come. That is to what my conduct has been likened. The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. There is no such parallel between the course I have pursued and the course of the imaginary critic of judicial proceedings which he has supposed. In the first place, the hon. Gentleman said that these magistrates do not sit as a Court. That has been laid down. [An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!]
§ MR. CALDWELL (Lanarkshire, Mid)The reason for that interruption is 1387 that in the Scottish Licensing Bill you now call it a Licensing Court.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI do not know whether it was the hon. Gentleman who made that loud and inarticulate interruption just now. I will not quarrel with the hon. Gentleman on the point, least of all on a point of law; nor should I have ventured on this ticklish ground had I not felt I had the authority of the House of Lords itself behind me, which I place, though in doubt, even in front of the hon. Gentleman himself. I observe that they laid down that licensing justices do not sit as a Court.
§ MR. CALDWELLHear, hear. I agree.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIf the hon. Gentleman and the House of Lords are at one, then I am on absolutely secure ground. I proceed then with a perfectly happy and equable mind to point out to the House that this really disposes of the whole contention of the hon. Gentleman. His whole point was that I was interfering with a Court. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lanark, the House of Lords, and I are agreed that they do not sit as a Court. In that case, where is the contention of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Burghs? He has found an enemy in his own house. Not only do the magistrates not sit as a Court, but I venture to ask the common sense of the House whether they can, in the exercise of their duties at Brewster Sessions, be said to be doing other than acting in an administrative capacity. They are acting administratively, and they may act administratively wisely or unwisely. A judge in a court of law is acting according to the law, or he is not acting according to the law, and he is judged according as he is carrying out the law laid down by Parliament or not. When you are dealing with persons who, though magistrates, are not sitting as a Court, and when you are criticising them in respect of their administrative action, you have to consider the wisdom or unwisdom of their action. There is, therefore, no parallel whatever between the criticism which I, with all respect, ventured to 1388 pass upon this new policy of the magistrates, and the sort of criticism which the hon. Gentleman says was passed by Irish Members, for instance, upon the judicial action of this or that Irish judge. Am I, because it so happens I am in office, to be the only person in the country who is to be required to keep silence on this subject? The hon. Gentleman never would have hesitated to make a speech in favour of the new policy of the magistrates. He would probably say: "Here at last are people carrying out their duties. Here are magistrates who for 300 years have not known what their powers were; whose predecessors have been asleep in regard to this question. They have at last woke up, and they now know what they can and ought to do." The hon. Gentleman would not have thought that an improper interference with justice, but it is just as improper an interference with a court of justice, if the words are applicable at all, as anything I said was in a different sense and from the opposite side.
I think the hon. Gentleman has been extremely unreasonable in this matter. I think, and have always thought, that any large interference with these licences ought to be accompanied by compensation. I have thought so not merely—I had almost said not principally—but certainly not merely on account of the injury done to the publican himself. I hold in the strongest way that you cannot expect any trade to be properly conducted if you so arrange your proceedings that no man of substance or character will embark in that trade. That I believe to be sound temperance doctrine; and the more it is looked at, not in the light of this or that shibboleth, but in the light of the practical question we have all got to consider as Members of this House, the more I am convinced that you will come to the opinion at which I have arrived; namely, that any change of policy such as that which has been referred to, and which, among other of its consequences, has made it impossible for any publican to insure his licence in an assurance office in order to provide against this summary and unexpected action of the justices, is really not merely not to the interests of 1389 the class whom you tax on the property you take away from them; whom you tax for public purposes and local purposes; whom you require to spend large sums in improving houses from which you can take away licences without compensation six months afterwards; but that a policy of that sort cannot be a sound policy. If you choose to say that no spirits shall be drunk in this country at all, you may try and carry it out; but as long as you have a trade, it is your first duty to see that the members of that trade shall be men of character and respectability and substance; and for that reason I greatly deplore the policy which the magistrates have thought fit to pursue; and I have not the smallest pricking or remorse of conscience for anything I have said in the matter.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)The right hon. Gentleman has ingeniously contrived to mix up two questions which have really little connection with each other. My hon. friend who brought forward this question distinctly said that he did not wish, and would not take any steps, to bring before the House the question of compensation or no compensation, or the rights or grievances or misfortunes of publicans. Let us deal with that on the proper occasion. We shall be quite willing to do so. If the right hon. Gentleman, meeting this deputation, had told them that he thought that the present condition of affairs was very unfortunate, that the magistrates were hampered in their action by the absence of any provision to meet the hardship put upon individuals, if he had said that the Government, when they had time from other things would attempt to legislate upon the subject, no one would have said a word about it. We might have differed from him entirely; or we might have agreed with him; but that is not the point. The point is this, that the right hon. Gentleman, instead of making any promises or merely expressing his personal opinion, or the opinion of the Government, proceeded to condemn the action of public officials acting in a judicial manner, which action was still subject to appeal; and that he, knowing 1390 nothing whatever, making no pretence to know anything, about the circumstances of the case, said that these public officials were wrong, that they had come to a wrong conclusion, and taken wrong action, and that he hoped their decision would be reversed. The right hon. Gentleman raises a little point whether it is a Court, or whether it is not a Court. He himself in his Scottish Licensing Bill of this year calls it a Court. It has always been known, I believe, as a licensing authority. That would not satisfy the Solicitor-General for Scotland, and the other Scottish advisers of the right hon. Gentleman. They must needs call this authority a Court. We have nothing to do with that although it is rather an awkward fact for the right hon. Gentleman to get over. But supposing it is not technically a Court, according to the ordinary language used with regard to a Court, here is Lord Halsbury's opinion:—
An extensive power is confided to justices in their capacity as justices, to be exercised judicially.The right hon. Gentleman constituted himself a sort of Court of Appeal. Did he exercise his power judicially? He did not know a single word of the evidence taken before these Courts. He did not know the rights and the wrongs of the case in any particular; and yet to please this deputation he said the justices were wrong and that he hoped their decision would be reversed. That is the offence we think the right hon. Gentleman has committed. Then he says "Any of you might have done the same thing"; he says my hon. friend might have spoken strongly either in defence of or in opposition to the action of the magistrates. Yes, but unfortunately the man in the street, like my hon. friend, is not quite the same thing as the Chief Executive Officer of the Government of this country—the head of the Government of which the Lord Chancellor is a Member, who is over the justices of the kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman when he gets among these friends of his and wishes to cultivate their favour, cannot divest himself of the responsibility attaching to him as Prime Minister of this country—chiefly responsible above all men for the maintenance of law and order. Certain duties are given to the magistrates. They are to exercise them judicially. What does that mean? They are to hear 1391 evidence, to inquire into the circumstances of the locality, and to make sure of all the facts of the case before they come to a decision. In all cases their decision has been subject to appeal, but by your legislation of last year you have actually facilitated that appeal. You have given them power in regard to costs by a clause in the Act of last year, and that, of course, facilitates appeals, and brings the procedure more into line with the ordinary judicial forms and procedure to which we are accustomed. But the right hon. Gentleman calmly comes forward to this deputation, and pronounces ex cathedra that the justices were wrong and that he hopes their decision will be reversed.He says we must not inquire into his motives. Well, no, we do not attribute any motives, but it was, I suppose, a strange and undesigned coincidence. It just happened that this deputation came forward at a time when there was a great ferment among the Members of what calls itself the Trade with regard to this matter and other matters, and the whole question of compensation, and there were a good many by elections going on, and the right hon. Gentleman made this speech. It is a case of those inexplicable circumstances, coincident in time, which we often meet with in private life. We have talked or thought of a man who had been out of our mind for years, and we go out in the street and the first person we meet is that man. But that is an undesigned coincidence, and we must accordingly relegate this incident also to that category. It was altogether an accidental and haphazard circumstance that this deputation went to the right hon. Gentleman just at this moment. If the right hon. Gentleman had covered the deputation with his sympathy and with promises, we should have had nothing to say against him. It would have been ordinary business, perfectly intelligible business. Instead of that he goes out of his way to use this strange language in regard to public judicial officers exercising their duties to the best of their conscience and ability, and in that I agree with my hon. friend that he took a course which was unworthy of the position he occupies.
§ SIR FREDERICK BANBURY (Camberwell, Peckham)said the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had stated that the licensing magistrates had to exercise their functions judicially, but what had really taken place in many cases was that an arrangement had been arrived at beforehand between the justices and the brewers under which it had been agreed that if the brewers took out a certain number nothing further would be said.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid it was not those brewers who complained.
§ SIR FREDERICK BANBURYsaid that had nothing to do with the matter. A judge might arrive at a wrong decision and satisfy one of the parties, and it was open to anyone to say whether he thought that decision had been arrived at in a proper manner. He was present at the deputation and heard what his right hon. friend said, and he certainly thought that what his right hon. friend referred to chiefly was the extraordinary way in which these decisions had been arrived at. They had not been arrived at on the merits of the cases.
MR. BRYN ROBERTS (Carnarvonshire, Eifion)said it was true that the magistrates did not decide cases interparty, but that they exercised judicial functions as administrators between the public on the one hand and the licensed victuallers on the other was not open to argument. The Prime Minister was, therefore, not entitled to bully or threaten or endeavour to terrify them. The right hon. Gentleman was the head of a Government of which the Lord Chancellor was a subordinate member. The Courts of Quarter Sessions which would review the decisions of the licensing magistrates were composed of I justices removable by the Lord Chancellor; therefore when the Prime Minister made the statement that the magistrates in Quarter Sessions would act in a certain way, it was impossible to suggest that that was merely the expression of a political opinion. It was a definite opinion on a distinct act of; administration performed by men subject indirectly to the influence of the Prime 1393 Minister. It might be that many magistrates had gone rather far in refusing the renewal of licences. But whether they were right or wrong, the matter had to come before the Court of Quarter Sessions, and the latter ought to be in a position to address themselves to it with unbiassed, unprejudiced, and independent minds. He contended that the action of the Prime Minister prevented the exercise of that independent judgment by the Court of Quarter Sessions. He was not sure that the right hon. Gentleman's statement would cause the Courts of Quarter Sessions to act as he wished, for there was nothing persons occupied judicially were more disposed to resent than any attempt to bully them as to the decisions they should give. It was to a great extent the fault of the Government that this difficulty had arisen. Everybody must recognise that there was a considerable amount of hardship in the present condition of things, and some change in the law was necessary. The necessity of reducing the licences in the public interest was apparent. Whether it should be done with or without compensation was a matter for the Government. The magistratees had stayed their hand for years, but the Government had not moved. Years ago, in Sharp v. Wakefield, the right of magistrates was established. They might have thought it reasonable that the Legislature should have the opportunity of making some provision with respect to the injustice that might arise from the wholesale refusal of licences, but the Government, though they had been in powor for several years, had done nothing. Were the magistrates permanently to neglect their duty because the Government did not take any steps? To visit upon the magistrates the condemnation due to the Government for leaving the question unsettled was unreasonable, and would tend to affect very injuriously the interests of justice—the interests of the publicans as well as the interests of the country at large—in the consideration of the cases that would come before the Quarter Sessions this week.
SIR FORTESCUE PLANNERY (Yorkshire, Shipley)said he could not allow the debate to terminate without a protest against the very strong language used by the right hon. Gentleman the 1394 Leader of the Opposition. There was not a man on the Conservative side of the House who did not believe that the speech of his light hon. friend was entirety justified. The allegation of the hon. Member for Carnarvon Burghs was that while the case was sub judice his right hon. friend expressed an opinion upon it. When any person in public made a statement about a case which was sub judice, he was undoubtedly doing Something which might prejudice the judicial decision in that case, but if that person made a statement as to the principle underlying a large number of cases, without referring to any particular case, he submitted that that could not prejudice the decision arrived at in any particular case. In the speech referred to, what the Prime Minister said was that the magistrates had initiated a new policy, which he hoped would be overturned, but as the right hon. Gentleman did not name any particular case which was sub judice, he did not transgress either the usual custom in such cases, or public taste, or interfere with the administration of justice. This question had aroused immense public interest, and it could not be too emphatically stated that under the new Licensing Act the magistrates had neither less nor more power than before. If magistrates were influenced in the direction of destroying licences and vested interests which they themselves had assisted to create, it was right that not only a Member of the House, but even an official in the highest public position, should pronounce his opinion on a great public question without reference to any particular case.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR (Liverpool, East Toxteth)did not propose to enter into the question of the propriety or impropriety of the observations of the Leader of the House but if it was open to the right hon. Gentleman to express his opinion on the actions of the magistrates, it was equally open to any Member of the House to do so. As to the Liverpool magistrates, they had considerable justification for the action they had taken in reducing the number of licences. There had been considerable demolitions of property of an insanitary character, but under the local Acts the public houses could not be touched. The municipality 1395 were powerless to deal with the question, and it had come before the magistrates for the exercise of their judicial discretion. He did not say that their policy was above criticism, but he could not allow anything like a sweeping condemnation of their action to pass without comment.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI have not attacked them.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid he acquitted the right hon. Gentleman of any such attack, but reference had been made to the Liverpool magistrates, and he thought it right to put the case clearly before the House. The demolition of property in Liverpool had brought about a condition of things——
§ MR. SPEAKERI cannot see how the hon. Member will be in order in discussing the action of the magistrates of Liverpool in reference to the exercise of powers under a certain Act of Parliament. The magistrates are not under the control of the Government in any way. Such a question cannot be discussed on a Motion for Adjournment. Moreover, the hon. Member cannot discuss the question without anticipating the debate on a Bill which is before the House.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid the magistrates had simply acted in their judicial capacity, and he was merely illustrating the difficulties with which they had to contend in the exercise of their discretion, owing to the rightful action of the municipality in clearing insanitary areas. In considering the question the House should remember that not merely in Liverpool but elsewhere, the magistrates had been brought face to face with serious social conditions which had prompted them to take the course they had adopted, without the least desire to act unjustly in regard to any rights of property. The old maxim, "Summum jus, summa injuria," might very well be applied in this case, and he hoped the example of Liverpool would be no inducement to licensing justices to act in any other than a judicial capacity with due respect to the rights of property. In all that the Liverpool justices had done they had been actuated by the desire to meet pressing social conditions of a character of which only those who lived in large and over-crowded municipalities had any cognisance.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Adjourned at three minutes before Five o'clock till Tuesday, 21st April.