§ As amended, further considered.
§ MR. PATRICK WHITE (Meath, N.)in moving to omit Clause 3, said he would like to remind the Government of what they appeared to forget, that one of the Commandments said, 894 "Thou shalt not steal." By that Commandment it was forbidden to take what belonged to another, and in his opinion the third section of this Bill was an absolute violation of that Commandment. To rob a licensee of the licence for which he had paid in hard cash, to deprive investors in brewery companies of the money they had inverted, was an offence against the elementary principles of justice, and all the more odious when it was done in the name, and for the ostensible reason that it was for the well being, of the State and to promote the cause of temperance. The underlying principle of this clause—and this clause was the essence of the Bill—was that the Government of the day might take private property without compensating the individuals from whom they took it, and the doctrine was so pernicious in itself, and it might have such far-reaching effects upon the industrial community at large and upon industrial enterprise, that the Bill would do grave damage to the credit and to the honour of this country. The Government of the day could not lay predatory hands upon any great industry without inflicting a hardship upon all the allied trades, and sending a shudder throughout every industrial centre of the country. If they introduced this vicious principle into legislation, where and when did they propose to draw the line? If they attacked licensed property to-day, with the same show of justice they might attack every other vested interest in the country to-morrow. Exactly the same doctrine would serve their purpose. There was no class of property that was not subject to some duty to the State, and licensed property as well as every other investment owed a duty to the State, and the different relations which they bore to the State was only a difference of degree. An honourable understanding had prevailed in this country for the past century that a trader seeking renewal of his licence would obtain it provided he was of good conduct. That understanding had been respected up to the present, but the Government now ignored it, and that could not be done without seriously injuring the credit and the honour of the State. The second part of the Bill dealt with the cause of temperance. It was proposed to abolish 895 something like 30,000 licences; that might or might not promote the cause of temperance; but if the consumption of alcohol diminished in the same ratio that the licences diminished, all he could say was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have a very uneasy time of it. Let them assume for the sake of argument that this was a great temperance, measure, that it was going to be a monumental measure of temperance reform, for which the Government took credit. If the abolition of public-houses brought that about, who were entitled to take credit for it? Not the State. It was the surviving two-thirds of the licensees who during the next fourteen years would have to pay for the extinction of the 30,000 licences. They were the people who were entitled to the credit, and they ought to be entitled to the gratitude of the nation if they brought about a great measure of sobriety in the English people. But what did they propose to do with these gentlemen? At the end of the reduction period, they were to wipe out their property as if it were nothing. They did not take them into consideration; they allowed them to live in agony for fourteen years and then they would sweep away their property without a farthing of compensation. In his opinion, that was as monstrous an act of injustice as ever any House of Commons had attempted to perpetrate. He would now come to the specific question. Was the taking away of licences without compensation just and equitable? In order to consider that question they must go back a long way. According to some hon. Gentlemen opposite they dealt with this transaction as if it were a matter of yesterday. That was not so. They must have regard to the fact that these licences had been in existence for a great number of years. They could not ignore the fact that licences had changed hands for large sums of money, and with the sanction and authority of the State. They must not forget that people were induced to put their money into this investment, and that even solicitors would advise their clients, and trustees were permitted, to put money into breweries and brewery concerns. They had made it a security and had given the sanction of Parliament for it to be 896 dealt with as a continuing security. Could the House now, with any show of justice, say: "No, you have no security; it is not a continuing security, but only from year to year"? That was a proposal based on extreme injustice. If it was in his power to place this case before a jury of impartial men, of men sworn to do justice between man and man, of men unbiassed by political prejudices, unmoved by all political hatreds and political conflicts which had existed in the past over this question, he believed that any such jury would agree with him that this proposal was not just to the holders of licences. He would challenge right hon. Gentlemen opposite and their followers to find a jury of honest men in the country who would say they were acting rightly in this matter. He would go further and say that if they took twelve jurists from any country in the world and put the question to them: "Is this legislation which we are now proposing in keeping with the spirit of the legislation which this country has passed, and with the practice and custom which this country has observed in dealing with licences for the past half century?" they would say: "You have introduced a new and foreign clement into your policy." Hon. Gentlemen opposite based their case on the celebrated decision of Sharpe v. Wakefield. He had recently gone over that decision, which was simply a decision that in a particular case where sufficient reasons were given the magistrate could not be compelled to grant a renewal of the licence. But one law after another had stated that the magistrates were bound to act in their judicial capacity, that they could not act arbitrarily or from mere caprice, and that so long as there was no valid objection to the renewal of a licence the magistrates were bound to renew it. Anyone who proposed to object to the renewal had to give notice of objection, and that notice had to be served on the licence-holder. Did not that imply that the magistrates meant to renew it, unless there was a valid objection to it, as a matter of duty? He considered that the right hon. Gentlemen who occupied the Treasury Bench had taken up an extraordinary attitude on this question. He read the remarks in that morning's paper of the Chief Secretary 897 for Ireland, who spoke at Bristol on Saturday, where he laid down an extraordinary doctrine. Referring to the gentlemen who occupied another place, he said that if they came on this occasion and stood between the people and their passionate desire for sobriety and temperance, their blood would be upon their own heads. That was an extraordinary statement from a responsible Minister. It said in effect that the Government for the time being was above the Constitution. It might proceed with reckless and extravagant legislation, and if anyone, even the Constitution, attempted to block the way, then let their blood be upon their own heads. That was what it meant. He would have asked the right hon. Gentleman if he had been in his place whether the Government of the day, which was the mere outcome of one general election, had the power to cancel arrangements entered into by the State during the past fifty years. Was it not bound by what the State had done? Could it use the right arm of the State and place it at the disposal of one section, of its own party, to wreak vengeance on its opponents? Let them put sophistry on one side and ask themselves was this a real measure of temperance reform. Was that the real object aimed at? Every impartially-minded man would agree that it was not. What was really aimed at was to bring revenue to the Exchequer. Would that do as much good as the Chancellor of the Exchequer contemplated? He might inflict suffering and hardship on individuals, and while bringing money into the Exchequer which ought to be circulating in other directions he would be bringing about a new form of poverty and distress among people who, perhaps, never experienced it before, and he would not be adding a fraction to the national wealth of the country. It would remain the same, and the money taken from those who were entitled to it would be spread over a large multitude. It was said that in the next fourteen years the owners of licensed houses would recompense themselves. He did not think even hon. Gentlemen opposite would say that that was reasonable. In the first place, for the next fourteen years they imposed a new burden on them, 898 the burden of the compensation fund, which the Government themselves could not measure, and to which the licensees would have to contribute out of their hard-earned savings, and at the end of that time their licence was to be taken from them. They would be doing away not only with the licence but the goodwill which was sometimes as important as what was called the monopoly value. If they attempted to do that, they would strike a blow at one of the greatest incentives to industry, energy, and perseverance. He would ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to look at this not through jaundiced political eyes, but fairly as between man to man. He would ask them to imagine that they themselves had their money invested in licensed property. Ought they not to do as they would like to be done by? Was it just and fair that investments made under the sanction of Parliament for so long a period were now by one stroke of the Government pen to be wiped away for ever? It was unjust, and it must reflect upon the credit, the honour, and the dignity of this country. The authority of Mr. Gladstone had been claimed by gentlemen on both sides of the House, but Mr. Gladstone would never have dreamed of doing what the Government were now proposing. The small investors for the time being forgot to which party they belonged, and they were all united in looking to another place for a remedy for the wrong proposed in the Bill. No one regretted that more than he did, for he believed the action of the Government was going to give a long lease to the gentlemen on that side. He regretted that for his own country, but from the Government's action he believed it was inevitable. The Prime Minister at a former stage of the clause said that what they had to ask themselves was, was it wise, politic, or just that the time-limit should be attached to licences. His reply to that was that in his opinion it was unwise, impolitic, and unjust. He begged to move.
§ * MR. G. D. FABER (York)said he found himself in a position of great difficulty on Friday last, and the Government found themselves in a position of great absurdity. To-day their difficulty 899 and the Government's absurdity were immeasurably increased, because Clause 3 as it would be amended, was absolutely different from the clause as they had been accustomed to know it in Committee. Clause 3 dealt with four topics—local option, monopoly value, the time-limit, and grocers' licences. In all these respects the clause was altered—in some respects fundamentally—as contrasted with the original position. Local option, as applied to Clause 2 for the purpose of new licences, had never been discussed at length—the principle had been, but not the machinery. The machinery had been incorporated for many purposes with Clause 3 which dealt with on-licences at the end of the reduction period. While local option was under discussion at an earlier period, there was room for doubt as to whether, when the end of the reduction period came, local option would ipso facto apply, as set up by Clause 2, to all old on-licenses, or whether it would require fresh legislation. Under the clause as amended to-day there was no longer any room for doubt upon the subject. The local option provisions under Clause 3 as they now saw it affected every on-licence in the country at the end of the reduction period. Nothing more need be done by Parliament. That was the first vital alteration. Hitherto there had been, and rightly, great doubt as to the meaning monopoly value. Now the Government defined it in Clause 24, which they would not reach until Thursday afternoon, yet they had to deal with the matter in this clause. That was new position No. 2. New position No. 3 was that the time-limit was extended, with all the restrictions that the extension involved, from fourteen to twenty-one years. Fourthly, and by no means least, they came to the extraordinary new position that the Government had taken up in the matter of grocers' licences. In fact the jack-in-the-box of Clause 3 had been the grocers' licences. He would trace the history of the Government action in regard to grocers' licences. Those licenses first came up for discussion on Clause 1. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University had moved on that clause to include the grocers' licences in the reduction period. It came to the vote, and Members 900 on that side of the House for the greater part voted for it, not because they had the smallest feeling or prejudice against the grocer or his licences, but because they had a right to demand that the Government, when they brought in what they called an all-round thorough-going temperance measure should not include on-licences and leave out off-licences. They could not shut one door and leave the other open. The great cohorts of the Government, of course, gained the day, and off-licences were not included. But between the closing days of July and the early days of October a change for the time being seemed to come over the scene and the spirit of their dream, and one fine day the First Commissioner of Works put down upon the Amendment Paper words which brought off-licences as well as on-licences within the purview of Clause 3. It was on the Paper one day and discussed the next. The Leader of the Opposition pointed out that under the clause as it then stood, local option would apply on the termination of the reduction period, not only to on-licences, but to off. The first Commissioner got up much fluttered and discomposed and said it had not been their intention to bring grocers' licences under the local option clause and if that was the effect they would put the matter right on Report. That raised a very interesting psychological question. He wondered what made the right hon. Gentleman so hurriedly alter his mind when he found that local option included off-licences as well as on. The right hon. Gentleman ran away from his own Amendment and the Government were running away to-day. Was it one of the many powers that seemed to stand behind the throne and pull the strings that made the right hon. Gentleman, after a sudden access of virtue under the influence of which he included off-licences, hurriedly withdraw them? At any rate, the position was vitally altered to-day. They were in this further difficulty, that Clause 5, into which a long new Amendment dealing with grocers' licences was inserted, came on for discussion, not now under this compartment of the guillotine but in the next compartment. There he found himself in a difficulty as he did not know how far he would be in order in discussing the 901 subject of grocers' licences now. They had been placed in an impossible position and had got in to a perfect slough of despond. The subject they were now dealing with contained some of the most vital topics of the whole measure, and yet they were obliged to piece together the Amendments to see how the matter stood. They had to look into Clause 2 which dealt with local option in order to see how far it extended to Clause 3, they had also to discover how far part of Clause 5 which dealt with grocers' licences would dovetail in with the proposal now under discussion. This was one of the most impossible measures ever introduced into Parliament, and yet on one of the closing days of the debate they were confronted with an entirely new position. He had done his best to apply himself to this new aspect of the case, and he had no hesitation in saying that the position created was an intolerable one. The way monopoly value and the time-limit were applied in this measure constituted an entirely new doctrine. A certain reduction period he could conceivably understand, although he was against it, but a reduction period plus the recovery of monopoly value by the State at the end of a time-limit outraged his common-sense and violated his sense of justice. Where did the Government find any warrant for this double-headed proposition? Did they find it in any of the judgments in the Law Courts or in any of the speeches of great statesmen? Did they find it in the practice adopted by the Executive when taxing licensed property for death duties and taxation generally? They found no warranty for that proposition anywhere, not even in the Minority Report of the Licensing Commission. There was nothing in that Report warranting this great act of spoliation and depredation. There was not a word in Sharpe v. Wakefield that afforded a scintilla of authority for this change in the law. No new law was laid down in that case, but simply a new interpretation of the law, and the Act of 1904 was necessitated because justices did not conform to but violated the decision in Sharpe v. Wakefield. Many benches of magistrates thought they could after that decision take away licences merely if they thought they were superfluous, but that decision did not 902 lay down anything of the kind. Sharpe v. Wakefield laid down that a discretion must be judicially exercised in every case, and there was no warranty whatever for any such doctrine as that which was laid down in this Bill, under which 30,000 licences were to be compulsorily extinguished in fourteen, years. What was a licence? A licence was a restricted privilege granted by the State renewed every year as a matter of form, and by the practice of centuries had been renewed every year except in cases of misconduct or proved superfluity. What did the Government propose to take by this new doctrine of recovery of monopoly value? They were going to take over everything that the money, the industry and ability of perhaps generations of traders had superimposed upon that bare permission to trade granted by the State. That permission was originally a mere skeleton which the holder of the licence had clothed with flesh and blood and made into a living business. The Government Were now proposing to take power to recover, not only that bare permission, but also the whole superstructure which had been reared upon it. Such a course was not warranted by anything which had been done in the past. What had been the practice of the State in the past in exacting toll on licensed property upon the death of the owner? Had the State attempted to split up the value of licensed property, dividing the bricks and mortar and ground from the monopoly value of the business? The State had never adopted that attitude. When the owner of licensed property died, the State always taxed the whole of the property upon its market value as the property of the owner, just in the same way as the business of a tailor, a butcher, or a baker was treated. The State had exacted millions out of the estimated market value of licensed property. Under the Death Duties Act of 1893, the value ordered to be taken was the market value, and it was monstrous to turn round now and declare that licences belonged to the State, and that the State was merely going to resume its own. The State could not play fast and loose like that with property if it wished to set an example of probity to the nation. In 1880, Mr. Gladstone said that if they were going to suppress licences they must pay for them. In 903 1890, after Sharpe v. Wakefield, Mr. Gladstone further stated that the licence-holder must be taken to be aware of the law as it stood, but not if the position was fundamentally altered. What was the new position? They were proposing to take away 30,000 or 40,000 licences in fourteen years under a cast - iron system of reduction, and the trade was being compelled to provide itself with a beggarly compensation. The State would not pay one farthing towards it, and yet at the end of the time-limit the State was proposing to appropriate, the monopoly value. A new position from top to bottom had been created, and he did not see how anyone who still had any respect for the rights of property could take any such course as that which was suggested in this Bill. He begged to second the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 3, line 15, to leave out Clause 3."—(Mr. Patrick White.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out to the word 'and,' in page 3, line 18, stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. BARNARD (Kidderminster)said the hon. Member for York had expressed his general indignation at, the proposals of the Government, but he had expected him to give the House the benefit of the great knowledge he possessed regarding the business portion of the Bill. For his own part, he wished to draw attention to the great difference between Clauses 2 and 3. Clause 2 dealt with new licences, and he did not think it mattered much whether local option applied to them or not. Under Clause 3 the idea was that, local option should apply to what had hitherto been known as on-licences. Great inconvenience arose on a previous stage of the Bill because they were unable to discuss how this would work out. On Clause 2 it was decided by an Amendment which the Government accepted that parishes were to be the areas for voting. When they came to the question of on-licences, they found that there were 800 parishes in the country containing a population of fifty each. He knew one parish where there was a population of only seven. He asked whether the Government intended 904 to leave the position as it now stood with reference to the voting for local option in tiny areas, or whether these areas would be grouped in some form or other as was done under the Local Government Act of 1894. He wished to put his next point in the form of a query to the Government. It had been said on many platforms, and also in the House, that the intention of the concession made by the Prime Minister when he extended the time-limit by giving a seven years free run beyond the fourteen years period was that something in the nature of priority should be given to the tenants. Would it not be well to put in the clause some words which would give to the sitting tenant, subject to good conduct and other favourable conditions, the first claim to consideration at the end of the period? He went a little bit further. He reminded the House that the Prime Minister in introducing the Bill stated that he would be prepared to consider reasonable Amendments, and since then another Cabinet Minister had said the same thing. He asked both Gentlemen, and also the House, to contemplate what would be the effect of the proposals as they had them now. Originally it was proposed that the time-limit should be fourteen years, and now there was to be in addition a seven years free run. [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] He did not know what the proper expression was. It was seven years grace without charging the monopoly value. He thought the seven years would be calculated as an expectancy for the purposes of compensation, but he now found that the Government took the arbitrary figure of three years. He had never heard how they brought about that calculation, or why they had chosen the period of three years. He admitted that the concession of seven years without charging the monopoly value was a very great concession, but unfortunately it was deliberately clogged by subsection (2) (a) of the clause which said—
The foregoing provisions of this Act as to local option shall take effect as if a majority of two-thirds of the votes given were required for the carrying of a Resolution instead of a bare majority.Temperance reformers had said regretfully that the present state of public 905 opinion would not make the two-thirds majority effective, and he was equally certain from a totally different standpoint that the probabilities were that the two-thirds majority would not be secured. If, therefore, all sides were agreed that it was not likely to be got, why on earth could not the provision be dropped? The effect of the provision being in the Bill was most disorganising. It absolutely got rid of the security implied by the grant of the seven years extra run. By the clogging of that concession with the local option provision they absolutely took away the financial advantage from the point of view of insurers. He was against the time-limit altogether. He was certain that the evil effects produced by the Bill would be much more serious than had been generally stated in the House. He could state from his own knowledge that there were a great many small men engaged in the trade who had received notice to pay money which they were indebted. He would not debate the question whether the Bill was or was not likely to be thrown out in another place, but he wanted the House to remember that the financial effect up to the present had been to derange and upset altogether the monetary arrangements of a vast number of people in the trade. The Solicitor-General the other night, in a tone of pride, drew attention to the value of brewery shares. He ventured to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman whether he had looked into the value of some of the guarantee society shares which had guaranteed brewery debentures. If he would turn his attention to that class of reading, he would be able to tell the House whether it coincided with the statement he had made as to the value of brewery shares. He hoped the Government would give the House some information on the two points he had raised.
§ MR. HAZLETON (Galway, N.)said the mover of the Amendment quoted from a speech made by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and charged him with attempting to set the Government above the Constitution. That would be a very great evil if it could be done. What did this Amendment propose? To his mind it proposed to put the licensed trade 906 above the Constitution, and that would be a very much greater evil. If the Constitution was to be over-ruled at all, he should prefer that it should be done by a responsible Government rather than by an irresponsible trade which had never considered anything but its own selfish interests. What was the position with regard to this matter? Temperance reformers had never for one moment been in doubt with regard to the tenure of licences by licence-holders, and, what was more, the law on the subject had never been in doubt. All that the Government proposed to do now was to put in force the law that ought to have been enforced years ago. The champions of the licensed trade occupied a somewhat curious position in this matter. For years they had denounced every practical temperance proposal that had been brought forward. They had talked time and again about confiscation and the insecurity of their position for the last half-century or more. What had the House heard to-day? They had heard of the security which the licensed trade had occupied during the last half-century as an argument for not disturbing it now. That only proved that the longer a reform was delayed the more difficult it was to carry it out. He, therefore, contented himself with expressing the hope that this reform would not be any longer delayed, and that the clause would be retained in the Bill.
§ * MR. C. B. HARMSWORTH (Worcestershire, Droitwich)expressed the hope that the Government, while retaining Clause 3, would modify it in one or two particulars. Those who were not absolutely prejudiced in regard to this question were practically agreed that the time-limit was a desirable thing. He had listened with accustomed amazement to the speech of the hon. Member for York. That hon. Member seemed to adopt an attitude more common in the country than in the House; namely, that the property of the licence, whatever it was, approximated to that of freehold property. Surely that had been disproved in the House over and over again. It had been denied in set terms by the Leader of the Opposition and was not held in the House by anyone whose 907 opinion was really worthy of consideration.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)It is held by the Lord Chancellor.
§ * MR. C. B. HARMSWORTHI was not aware of that. I am speaking of the Members of this House.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe Lord Chancellor said that the Act of 1904 conferred the freehold.
§ * MR. C. B. HARMSWORTHI am not qualified to argue that with the right hon. Gentleman. May I point out one or two considerations which appeal to my mind. If the licence approximates to the value of the freehold, I should like to know why the right hon. Gentleman made the trade pay their own compensation.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIf the hon. Member appeals to me I will not apologise for interrupting him. I have always denied, both before and after the Act of 1904 was passed, that there was a freehold tenure in licences, but the present occupants of the Treasury Bench and the highest legal authority in the Government, namely, the Lord Chancellor held, contrary to my opinion, that the Act of 1904 did confer a right of freehold, and that therefore they now possess it by Act of Parliament.
§ * MR. C. B. HARMSWORTHsaid that he found himself in a greater difficulty. He would be sorry, indeed, to pit his judgment against the high opinion quoted by the right hon. Gentleman, but he thought to commonsense men these considerations did appeal; and he would ask if the licence was freehold why should it be taken away for misconduct? He had never heard of freehold property being taken away even for misconduct. Surely there was another consideration, one more apposite than any of the two previous considerations—and that was that the State might multiply the number of licences indefinitely, and thus deprive them of any monopoly value whatsoever. The State might do it, and the present Government might do it, but out of consideration 908 for the morals of the people no Government had ever contemplated doing it. In spite of what had been said by high authorities, he believed that a time-limit was feasible, just and necessary. The only further considerations which appealed to him were as to what conditions should prevail during the operation of the time-limit and what was to happen at the end of the time-limit. He should like to join with his hon. friend the Member for Kidderminster in an appeal to the Government, who had made so considerable a concession over and above the fourteen years provisionally arranged—to remove the operation of local option during the subsequent seven years. The seven years additional close season, as it might be called, was given by way of a great concession; and it was very highly appreciated in many quarters of the House. But he could not help thinking that the greater part of its virtue was taken away if local option were allowed to operate during that period. His own opinion was that the licence-holder was entitled to certainty and confidence during those very drastic operations. Nothing could be more harassing to a man engaged in any business or trade than not to know what was to happen in his business. Under the proposals of the Bill he had found nothing had been more objected to by the representatives of the trade than the uncertainty that attached to certain parts of them. The Government might make one other concession which he did not think world impair the value of their Bill. The concession he asked was that those who were licence-holders at the end of the time-limit should be given a preference when the new licences were granted. He believed that the Bill as amended would make enormously in the direction of temperance. Speaking for himself, he would not like to be responsible for any share in rejecting so valuable a measure.
§ * MR. GRETTON (Rutland)said that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had made what was in some respects a remarkable speech. It was a compound of fulsome praise of the Government and of a complaint against the provisions of the Bill. He understood 909 that the hon. Member's main contention why this clause ought to stand in the Bill was that it was not confiscation, properly speaking; that licences were not, in his opinion, freehold property; and that therefore they might be taken away and not regarded as property at all. He noticed that, as this controversy proceeded, there had been a great tendency on the part of other hon. Members to take a very similar point of view. They proceeded on the assumption that no property was real property unless it could be classed as freehold property. But those who had any knowledge of the different forms of property were aware that that was absurd. There were copyhold property, annuities, and many other kinds of property which were of undoubted value, which were all marketable, and in which the individual owner had an inalienable right. On the other hand, in relation to licensed property there were certain covenants which had to be fulfilled. He did not think that any responsible lawyer or responsible business man would say that, because a licence was not a freehold property, it was not real property and ought not to be treated as such. Of course, as in the case of all other kinds of property, the State had some rights over it. The State had always retained a right to tax property for the benefit of the community, and it had exercised that right very fully in the case of the levy of death duties and probate duty on licensed property. It was, therefore, rather late in the day for hon. Members to say that a licence was not real property. It was real property, and as such had existed for a great number of years. The hon. Member had argued that the value which attached to the licence might be very easily destroyed by an unlimited grant of new licences. Of course that was true. Many hon. Members knew that the State did by the Licensing Act of 1830 take that very course. Down to 1872 there was a very free issue of licences of that kind, but the result was that there was practically no monopoly value in a licence. The monopoly value was, however, recreated by the action of the State itself, and it was too late in the day for hon. Members opposite to claim that individuals had no right of property in the licence. The 910 State itself had taxed this property and had taken no action whatever to secure for itself the monopoly value during all these years. But the Government was now going to take away far more than the monopoly value. They were going to take the business goodwill and the personal goodwill in the business. The hon. Member had made an appeal that the licence-holder should have some preference at the end of the time-limit when the licences to be issued under this Bill were to be issued as new licences. Nobody seemed to notice the very curious inconsistency between this suggestion that there was a personal goodwill and a business goodwill attaching to a licence which should be considered at the end of the reduction period, and the fact that this business goodwill and personal goodwill were to receive no compensation whatever. The two lines of policy were absolutely inconsistent, and could not be reconciled. The Government had made what they called concessions. They said that there should be an extension for seven years at the end of the reduction period of fourteen years which they estimated would be worth three years additional compensation in the Case of licences to fall in at the end of fourteen years. He did not know on what basis they put that figure of three years. He spoke with a full sense of responsibility, and after consultation with those interested in the question. The concession, so-called, was no concession whatever. It did not meet the difficulties and necessities of the case, and there was no man in a responsible position in the licensing trade who would for one moment accept it. Let hon. Members consider the conditions to which licences would be subject during this seven years. The licences would, during that time, be subject to all the risks of the local veto and to all the onerous and restrictive conditions in the clauses of the Bill under which magistrates could issue licences. They would be subject to further optional reductions if the justices chose to take that course with the assent of the Licensing Commission. The only condition which would lapse during the seven years would be a further charge on the monopoly value. It was obvious to anyone who considered the conditions of the 911 seven years that it was no concession whatever. Many figures and estimates had been produced to the House, the outcome of the work of experts and competent authorities, but he would not trouble to repeat them; they were within the recollection of hon. Members who had taken part in the discussion, and they were not to be so lightly swept aside as of no value as the Under-Secretary seemed to think. The Government had at last committed themselves to a definite statement as to a reduction period of fourteen years and a further seven years. It was now possible to estimate the value of the reduction, the value of the seven years, and the result to the businesses which would be affected. The figures of those businesses which were in the possession of hon. Members remained unshaken or unaffected by what the Government had done by the Amendment they proposed to introduce. It had been shown over and over again that the majority of the brewery companies of the country would be absolutely ruined by the reduction period and the confiscation of licences at the end of it, and in nearly all cases the individual licence-holder would suffer ruin. The compensation if these licences were reduced during the fourteen years time-limit would not amount to half the value, and in the majority of cases it would be less than one-quarter. The value of the property was to be taken away. This was said to be a great temperance reform, based on the principle of reduction, but in his opinion, and he thought in that of experienced men, no such great reform could be expected. If it was to be based on such a principle of confiscation, in his opinion, that reform would be purchased too dearly, by the ruin of a vast number of individuals, who had been conducting a difficult and intricate trade under regulations which the State had laid down and strongly enforced. He believed it would be purchased too dearly by throwing out of employment a vast number of people, not only directly employed by the trade, but employed in innumerable other trades, which supplied materials and other wants of the licensing trade in many directions. He believed that if this reduction was to take place, it could 912 only take place under very different conditions from those embodied in the clause they were now considering. If the State desired in fourteen years to reduce the licences by one-third, or some similar proportion, it would have to forego the confiscation of the remaining licensed property at the end of that time. Nobody objected to the State taking the property in the public interest if it took means to see that that property was properly paid for. The Government had carefully avoided in this clause and in other clauses of the Bill taking that course, and he and other hon. Members on that side continued strenuously to oppose Clause 3, because they believed it was robbery, confiscation, and spoliation, and would not achieve the temperance reform which the Government expected from it.
§ MR. CHARLES ROBERTS (Lincoln), who was indistinctly heard in the Press Gallery, was understood to say that the debate had travelled over very familiar ground, and he hardly thought it was worth while to go into the argument as to whether a licence was a freehold or whether it had been recognised by the law as a continuing interest. But there were a few points in regard to this clause on which he should like to say a few words. Mr. Gladstone's opinion had been quoted. It was possible to quote words of Mr. Gladstone that reduction of licences if it pretended to the honour of a remedy would be an imposture. But he had already quoted the real explanation, namely, that Mr. Gladstone believed reduction of licences would fail unless the monopoly value of licences was also dealt with. Mr. Gladstone called these monopoly values the most deadly enemies with which temperance reformers had to grapple, and they were grappling with these interests on that occasion. They had found out how pernicious and obstructive they were to temperance reform. Hon. Members could not quote Mr. Gladstone against Clause 3, because in his view Clause 1 would not be a real reform unless it was combined with Clause 3. They were asked where did the Government get this idea of the time-limit? They got the first part of Clause 3 from the forty-four Unionist Members who 913 voted with Sir William Houldsworth in favour of it, and the second part of Cause 3 from the Licensing Commission, and also from the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Peel, who voted for it in the House of Lords. If it was "wise and right" in the opinion of the Archbishop of Canterbury it was wise enough for a man of his political opinions. He would like to take up the interruption which was made by the Leader of the Opposition a moment before, when he said that the present Lord-Chancellor had stated in this House in 1904 that the Act of that year gave freehold tenure and that the Government were, therefore, bound by that argument which was put forward against the Bill of that year. But when that argument was put forward the right hon. Gentleman himself dismissed it and said it was a "gross fallacy," and he did more, he gave assurances that the Act of 1904, if passed into law should not obstruct in any way the progress of temperance reform. The present Leader of the Opposition then said—
I believe that the anxiety about the time-limit is due to a fear lest we are shutting the door on any kind of temperance reform in the future other than the present Bill. There is nothing I know in this Bill which is going to stand in the way of any future reform.Lord Lansdowne said it much more strongly in another place. He said—It is wholly incorrect to say that there is anything whatever in the Bill to close the door against any larger scheme of reform, should it be hereafter the desire of the legislature that such a scheme should be passed. My noble friend Lord Grey, who may be regarded as knowing something of the scheme with which he is so honourably identified, told your Lordships that there is nothing in the Bill to prevent the adoption of his scheme, and what he said is equally true of any wider, more extensive, and far-reaching measure that may hereafter be devised.These assurances were expressly taken note of by those who were Leaders of the Opposition then, and who were now Members of the Government. They accepted those assurances that the Bill did not create any new continuing interest, but merely recognised the continuing interest which had grown up before, and he thought it was largely due to those pledges that the Bill managed to get through at all. In the face of that, was it not fair to contend that the terms embodied in the Bill were fair? Indeed, was 914 not twenty-one years an extravagant price? How much more would they have even if it was freehold—and it was something less than freehold. Their view was that here the State had created a monopoly value or suffered it to grow up in the hands of individuals, retaining all the time the right to terminate it at annual intervals, and they claimed, therefore, that if the State gave twenty-one years during which the licence-holder could recoup, out of the high profits of the monopoly, the value of that monopoly, it was an ample term. He thought it was too long, and he guarded himself against being supposed to admit that twenty-one years was necessary, but the Government had granted it. Under this clause they had twenty-one years time-limit, subject to certain risks during the last seven years, but they had also a new definition of monopoly value, and although it was not in order to discuss it that definition was to be looked at and taken into account in considering the financial effect of this scheme. What did that new definition really do? It did two things. In the first place, it excluded the goodwill of the tenant. He was himself impressed by the view put forward by the hon. Member for Kingston, that if they had accepted the definition of monopoly value to be found in the Act of 1904, they might have taken away the goodwill of the tenant and the capitalised value of the retail profits of the trade, because if they looked at that definition it seemed to cover all the elements of value which could be held to be included in the licence. But the new definition was more guarded. The hon. Member was extremely indignant with the Government for proposing to take away all that the tenant put into his business, but what they were going to take away was the value which had passed into rental value, because the monopoly value was measured by the difference in rental value under Schedule A between the premises licensed and unlicensed. Therefore, this definition would not take a way the tenant's personal goodwill unless the owner had himself taken it in the form of rent. Therefore, the Government could not get it unless the brewer owner had confiscated the goodwill of the tenant to its full value. He believed further that this definition 915 of the monopoly value would allow the State to get hold of the value created by the monopoly but would leave to the brewer the normal profits which he would get if there were free trade in drink. What it came to was that in 1930 they were going to levy a high licence duty on brewers and licences. They could do that to-day. They could do it next year. Yet the Government had been accused of looking at the matter from the financial side. If they had done so, they would not have proceeded upon these lines of a time-limit. If they were thinking of getting only addition to the revenue another road was still open to them. As regarded the twenty-one years' time-limit, subject to the risk in the last seven years, the hon. Member who spoke last said the figures of trade experts still stood unaffected by the extension, but undoubtedly the seven years should make material difference in the figures. The figures of the prominent firm of Orgill, Marks, and Barley should be received with caution; they were not correct in some items of calculation, facts and elements. They had doubled the amount of money which was required to write down the value of licences in twenty-one years. Instead of taking it as a 5 per cent. sinking fund they had taken it as a 10 per cent. fund. Why, he did not understand, but if such games were played with figures, anything could be proved. On the basis of a twenty-one years standard, he had made an elaborate allowance for the amount of the capital value which it was required to write off. He believed that a very large amount, if not the whole, could be written off, and yet on the figures the owners could get 8 per cent. on their capital. As to the risk of magisterial 916 discretion and local option, he contended it was an insurable risk. The amount saved from the cessation the compensation levy would amply allow for the insurance of licences. He did not say that local option was not a risk, but it was an insurable one. £60,000,000 of licensed property was now actually insured. It had often been denied. It had been denied for debating purposes, but nevertheless all this property was insured against the risk of the loss of the licence; against misconduct mainly. But he knew from his own experience that there was insurance against the risk of non-renewal, and if the Licences' Insurance Corporation Guarantee Fund, Ltd., would hand over their business to Lloyd's, he was certain that the members of Lloyd's would in 1923 be very glad to insure these licences against restrictive conditions of magisterial discretion and local option. What was this risk? Would the risk, after 30,000 licences had been extinguished, be greater than in the year 1901, after the Royal Commission had reported that there must be a great and immediate reduction?
§ MR. YOUNGERBut on payment of compensation.
§ MR. CHARLES ROBERTSsaid that even subject to compensation there was the risk of a great change in the licensing law. The premium quoted then was 4s. for £100, and if the risk was that in 1901, he believed it would not be greater in 1923. If so, it would be three times covered by the amount of the compensation levy; that sum would avail to pay the risk three times over of local option and magisterial decisions. He trusted therefore that what was called a close-time for seven years after 1923 would not be given. He believed 917 all the facts went to prove that the greater the security of tenure given to the licensed trade the worse the conduct of the trade would be. He asked with all respect the right hon. Gentleman opposite to consider that point of view. The right hon. Gentleman had said he had always regarded the licensed trade as exactly the same as other trades, and if security of tenure was desirable in other trades it was desirable in this. He had passed the Act of 1904 to give security of tenure. Let him consider what happened in the period of free trade in drink between 1830 and 1870. It was clear during the whole of that period there had been a steady deterioration in the conduct of these houses. He felt that during the seven additional years which were given the conduct of the trade would steadily deteriorate. The trade required control, otherwise they might as well give free trade at once. One other point on which he wished to touch was as to the position of local option in the whole working out of this scheme. He did not wish to go into the question of local option on its merits. He was a firm and convinced believer in that system. The more he studied it the more he was convinced that, while reduction might be of great value and utility, the real remedy here as in our Colonies, the United States, Norway or Sweden, was to clear areas of public-houses wherever they could get public opinion behind them. ["Prohibition."] Prohibition, yes; and he would like hon. Members to make a reel mental effort and to distinguish between prohibition as it was established in Maine fifty-four years ago by one Act of the State, and permissive local option in small areas where they might get a partition of territory between licences and no licences. There was a very great difference between the two systems, and they were not proposing state prohibition to-day, but if he were challenged about Maine, he would point out that after thirty or forty years experience of prohibition the men who lived in the State of Maine, and knew the facts, were 918 in favour of the system, and in all except thirteen local government areas of the State, they had voted in support of it when a referendum on the question had been taken.
§ EARL WINTERTON (Sussex, Horsham)Does the hon. Gentleman, speaking as a temperance reformer, say that prohibition has been a success?
§ MR. CHARLES ROBERTSsaid that in the view of Maine itself—it was a democratic State—it was a success, and there was not a single State, Canadian province, or American state around Maine which had not adopted the plan of local option recommended in this Bill. In Massachusetts, where the urban conditions were similar to those in England, and where there was density of population equal to that of England, the system, in his judgment, was an unqualified success. He did not wish to argue the point further, but he believed that under this system in a no-licence area they would get rid of two-thirds of the drunkenness, and if they could diminish the evil to that extent they would be doing all that was hoped for by the Licensing Commission. Quite apart from its merits, he held that local option ought to be regarded as an integral part of the Bill. They were told that they must have a time-limit, and that it would not be fair to establish local option at once, but if they proposed it at the end of a time-limit they were then told that they could not bind future Parliaments. Bat there must be some date at which it was possible that a scheme should be enacted. He thought the evidence went to prove that where local option was proposed a time-limit was always demanded. A time - limit of five to eight years was demanded in New South Wales, and if anybody said it was impossible to legislate ten years in advance, he would refer to the Victorian Licensing Act of 1906, where they carried local option to come into force 919 ten years afterwards. If they waited until 1923, of course the trade would demand another ten years. What they wanted was local option now, and not merely on its merits; he would also put it on a wider, ground than that. Everybody must have felt that the expectation of the renewal of licences which had grown up within the last few years was a thing which they would have been glad to avoid. They had had a system of annual licences in which the State kept control over the licences, but the expectation of the renewal had grown up. It was not for want of a perfectly clear statement of law as in the Act of 1828, when the law said that the licence should be granted for one whole year and no longer; and in 1869 again it said exactly the same thing. But in spite of that, the expectation of renewal had grown up, and now they had, as the result of the Act of 1904, the doctrine established that as soon as the liquor trade expected anything though, it had no legal right to it, the State must pay cash down. They found a further illustration in this very Bill. When the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition introduced his new system as to new licences they were told that they were to have no compensation. In spite of that, however, the expectation had already grown up, and they had provided in this very Bill that if a new licence granted since 1904 was suppressed during the currency of the reduction period, they would have to pay compensation for a portion of the monopoly value. Therefore, there was real danger of a revival of the expectation. Why was it that they had not this doctrine of expectation in the Colonies and United States? Ought they not to take some additional precautions against this doctrine of expectation which grew up insidiously and impalpably, and against which the State really ought to guard? Directly the people themselves had the power to say they would not have licences in their midst, then the expectation of renewal, which might grow up under the apathy of the justices, and owing to the tendency to go along in the old rut, must cease. He thought the Government were wise and logical in making local option an integral and ssential part of the Bill.
§ EARL WINTERTONsaid he had not intended to take part in the debate, but he could not allow the extraordinary statements of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down to go unchallenged. Might he say at the outset that no one recognised more strongly than he that the hon. Gentleman had always been a most whole-hearted adherent of the cause, but he thought the very strength of his belief and sincerity had led him away, and made him take a view of things which was not warranted by the facts. It was impossible for him, without trespassing too long on the time of the House, to go into all the arguments that the hon. Gentleman had used, but he would like to refer to one or two of them. The hon. Member had alluded, for instance, to prohibition in the State of Maine, and he had said, very rightly, that it was impossible for anyone to judge of the effects of the principle in that instance. The only comment he would make on that was that the quotations which they on that side of the House had made as to the effects of prohibition in the State of Maine were taken, not from any publication of their own, but from a book written by one of the hon. Member's colleagues, and, in other respects, a supporter of the Bill. Could anyone point to any documentary evidence bearing out the contention that prohibition had been a success? All the evidence available was to the effect that it had been a dismal failure all over the world. They could read the official documents of the War Office of the United States, Foreign Office Reports, Consular Reports sent home by our representatives in the States, and he did not believe there was a single word to be found which would support the idea that prohibition had been a success. It was impossible to understand fully what the position was in the State of Maine, but it was true that the greatest supporters of prohibition had been those interested in the sale of drink, because it was so much easier to sell drink in a prohibition area without licences than when the licences were in vogue. That was a well-known fact. He deprecated very strongly the veiled attack made by the hon. Gentleman upon the veracity of a certain firm of auditors, a well-known firm which had been constantly mentioned in the course of the debate. 921 The hon. Gentleman made a veiled, but nevertheless determined, attack upon their figures.
§ MR. CHARLES ROBERTSOn their figures, yes, but not on their veracity. Hon. Members had swallowed the figures wholesale. But on investigation he was sure they would find that the figures must be discounted very largely.
§ EARL WINTERTONsaid that if the figures the firm took were said not to be true, that was an attack on their veracity. The business of the firm was to vouch for the veracity of their figures at any rate. It hon. Members made an attack on their figures they were making the most serious attack which could be made on their business reputation. This question had been debated ad nauseam, and he thought they had shown, to the satisfaction of the public at any rate, that the financial proposals under this clause would be unjust, and that it was impossible to look at them in any other way. The hon. Member had referred to Mr. Gladstone's statement that monopoly value was a great bar in the way of temperance reform. No one denied that he said that, but Mr. Gladstone did not deny the existence of the monopoly value, and that was really the whole point. Mr. Gladstone admitted the existence of monopoly value, and he saw that the difficulty was to deal with it justly. But what had the Government done? According to the hon. Gentleman, they had improved upon the policy of their late leader, because they had found a way out of the difficulty, and they had found it by temporarily forgetting the meaning of the words mcum and tuum, by doing a thing that Mr. Gladstone never proposed and probably never would have done under any circumstances. They had taken a thing practically without making payment for it. That was the whole point of the Opposition's argument against the clause, and that was why they could not accept it as anything but unjust and unfair. The hon. Member for Droitwich, had illustrated in his speech the very imperfect knowledge that hon. Gentlemen opposite had of the terms and of the effect 922 of their own Bill, and incidentally the dilemma which both he and his Government were in over this matter. He began by attacking the hon. Member for York for having said that the licence was a freehold. His hon. friend denied having said so, but the hon. Member for Droitwich went on to say that the Leader of the Opposition had never laid down any such statement exactly, but the hon. Gentleman's own Government had said so, and that was the difficulty in which the Government had put themselves by their attitude or this Bill and by the wild statements which they made in 1904 and since. They accused the Opposition of having made a licence into a freehold; they had said it again and again, and he believed the Prime Minister himself had said so. The hon. Member for Droitwich showed in his speech that he was quite unaware that his own party had taken up that line. It only illustrated the muddle and the dilemma in which the Government and their supporters found themselves. The hon. Member said that nothing was more harassing than to have to conduct one's trade under feelings of uncertainty. He was delighted to think that the hon. Gentleman, a supporter of the Bill, had himself supplied the principal argument against it, and it would enable some of his friends below the gangway who had been somewhat slow to see the real point of the Bill to get a true insight into the clause, for that was why the Opposition considered the clause, however amended, to be essentially unjust and unfair. It was because they said that no trade could be legitimately conducted with the menacing shadow over its head that they were so opposed to the clause. The hon. Gentleman incidentally remarked, a propos of the question of freehold, that if a licence was a freehold it could not be taken away for misconduct. He did not know whether that was very relevant to the discussion, but as a matter of fact there were instances practically of a freehold being taken away for misconduct. In the case of insanitary property the local authority could order its demolition. He maintained that the hon. Gentleman had himself supplied the reason why this clause could not be accepted, and he appealed with confidence to the justice 923 of hon. Members opposite to support the Amendment to omit the clause.
§ MR. MACLEAN (Bath)who was indistinctly heard, said the position they took up was that any money compensation paid in respect of licences should not come from the State but from the trade itself, and that was quite distinct from the question whether licences as they now stood were anything approaching the nature of a freehold. It was most important to recollect that the principle was clearly established by the Leader of the Opposition in the Act of 1904, and he supported the principle underlying the clause on account not so much of the arguments addressed from that side of the House as of those from the right hon. Gentleman himself, who expressly on more than one occasion stated that he saw no objection to the principle of a time-limit dealing with the reduction of licences. That was a most important position for him to have taken up, and, indeed, the only logical and straightforward position that he could take up, and such a position, of course, that the whole House would expect him to take up. The principle of the time-limit was conceded by the right hon. Gentleman and by all who had gone into this matter from the point of view of the relation of the State to its own property. They heard a great deal about interference with property, but it was most important to ask whose property. They were dealing with the property of the State, and the Leader of the Opposition himself had said the principle of the time-limit was one which could be fairly applied in dealing with this class of investments. The sole question with which the House was concerned was this: Were the propositions of the Government, in relation to the time-limit, just and equitable, or were they not? It had been suggested that fourteen years was too short. To meet that the Government had extended it to twenty-one, and at the end of that time the State would resume its own property. He had been disposed to ask hon. Gentlemen opposite this question. Suppose the Government decided that the time-limit, instead of twenty-one years should be fifty? Surely they would have been able to accept that? It was simply a question of argument 924 between both sides, not as between freehold and otherwise, but how long the time-limit should be. The position immediately appeared to be clear if they said that a certain number of years might be fair and another was unfair. One clear point came out from all this discussion, that the people of the country were absolutely determined to get back into their own hands the licences which belonged to the State. They were determined to get their own property back into their own control. They were also determined that no State money should go by way of compensation in respect of these licences. The House was shut in by the whole process of legislation, especially during the past four or five years, and the only way out of the difficulty was the time-limit, and the compensation to be paid in respect of it must come from the trade itself; they were, therefore, face to face with the position, whether the time-limit was a reasonable or an unreasonable one. A good deal of the discussion that had taken place was beside the point in arguing whether a licence was a freehold or not. Surely the whole point of criticism was this. Was the twenty-one years suggested by the Government reasonable or was it not? He should prefer to see that other seven years quite unclogged by any condition other than that of the justices' discretion. As they had had to make concessions, it would be better to make a clear outright concession as to the other seven years so that the licensed trade might know where they were.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI confess I had hoped that before this hour was reached the Government would have given some explanation of the general policy embodied in this clause. Let it be observed, we have never had either an explanation or a justification of this clause as it now stands, because, as was pointed out by my hon. friend the Member for York, the clause is an entirely different one from that which was explained on the First Reading, defended on the Second Reading, and brought before the House on the Committee stage. It is a new clause, which in its new shape has never 925 been explained or justified by the Government. I shall come to one or two points on which I think we require further elucidation before I sit down, but on the general aspect of the question I am sure the whole House will agree with me, and I am surprised that the Government should allow two hours and a quarter to elapse without giving any explanation of their new proposal. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and the hon. Gentleman who preceded him have done me the honour to quote, or rather to paraphrase, the opinions which I expressed in 1904. The opinions which I expressed then are precisely the opinions which I have expressed whenever this subject has come up for discussion since. I have never wavered, and have never seen any reason to alter them. They are perfectly clear, and perfectly consistent with the Parliamentary course which I have taken upon this Bill. I have never professed that the Act of 1904 gave a freehold tenure; I have never contended that before 1904 there was a freehold tenure; and my quarrel with the Government has never been that they are taking away a freehold tenure without compensation. My complaint is that they are taking away property without compensation, and I presume there is no hon. Gentleman in this House who needs to be told that there is property which does not amount to freehold but which requires compensation. We sometimes hear hon. Gentlemen talk as if they had forgotten this very elementary and obvious truth; but when reminded of it I presume that even the least impartial among them, if there are any who deserve that criticism, will admit that property of less than full freehold tenure is and ought to be as sacred in the opinion of this House, and has, indeed, received as full and serious consideration from this House in the past as property of the full freehold value. That has been my consistent opinion. What has been the consistent opinion of the occupants of the Treasury bench, or have they any consistent opinion? Their opinion, as far as I remember it, was that, before 1904, no man had properly in a licence at all, that a licence was the property of the State, that any value which it had was given by the State and might be taken away by the State 926 or by the magistrates, or, if Parliament so directed, by a majority of the ratepayers at anytime without compensation when the licence came up for consideration at the end of the year. That was their view up to 1904. That is not their view now, I understand, because that is not the way in which they are proposing to treat licences. What change has taken place since 1904? We were attacked day after day and continuously because we had given a freehold tenure to the owners of licences. If that freehold tenure was given in 1904 it was given by the supreme legislative authority of the State; and if it were given, rightly or wrongly—wrongly, if you please; I will not argue that point at the moment—if we did give a freehold tenure, as you said we did in 1904, as your Lord Chancellor said we did, as the lawyers then arguing from this side of the House said we did, by what vestige of right do you now come forward and take it away at the end of fourteen years? We have held a perfectly clear consistent view of this matter throughout. It is you who have changed, and in the very act of changing you have proved yourselves not only inconsistent in your views of property, but utterly unscrupulous in your method of dealing with it. I was amazed to hear the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down describe everything in the nature of what he called monopoly value as being, for that reason alone, the property of the State and not of the individual. I do not know how far he is going to press that view. I have no doubt he supported the Government three nights ago when they gave £23,500,000 for the docks of London avowedly not because the docks had a statutory right, but because they came to Parliament for authority and had spent a lot of money, and, whatever might be their actual commercial value at the moment, they had something which might properly be described as monopoly value which the State was proposing to acquire. I think other legislation might be quoted in which property has been dealt with in that way. You cannot deal in this airy fashion with something which you choose to say is monopoly value. Property which a man up to the present moment thinks he is the owner of, which he has bought and thinks he 927 may be able to sell, and, whether he may be able to sell it or not, is certainly taxable, you cannot regard as anybody's property but his. By whatever process it was created, whether by law or by custom, so long as it be property, so long can there be no right to deal with it in the extraordinary loose fashion in which hon. Gentlemen opposite are prepared to deal with the property of the licence-owner. Holding, as they did, that it was made into a freehold four years ago, it cannot now be taken away at the end of fourteen years without compensation. Any hon. Gentleman who thinks over the pledges given and the character of the criticisms indulged in by members of the present Government four years ago, and the general course which this House has always followed in dealing with property, cannot but believe that the owners of licences are to be most abominably treated by the procedure proposed in this Bill. I would just add, in order to safeguard myself, one further comment upon the arguments that were used in 1904. I think it was said that the Government of the day had no right to pass the Bill of that year; they might, indeed, have been in a temporary majority in the House of Commons, and in the House of Lords—
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThey had the advantage, at all events, of being in a majority in both Houses; but although they had a majority of support in this House, it was said that they had not the moral approbation of the people behind them, and therefore their action was without validity. That argument was pressed again and again. I should hardly think it worth notice if it had not been pressed by very high authorities; but I mention it lest some hon. Gentleman following me in this debate may say that this freehold tenure, as the present Lord Chancellor defined it, was conferred by the Act of 1904 in a manner so grossly immoral that the legal action of Parliament carried with it no moral obligation on that Parliament's successors. I do not know whether anybody is bold enough to repeat that argument, which was then extremely familiar and popular. 928 I rather think they will not repeat it, because, after all, the argument only amounts to this, that if a majority appeals to the nation on a particular question before it, the electors would give a different verdict to that which a majority of the House of Commons was prepared to give. That is what the argument must mean, and that being so I do not think any hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House is likely to appeal to it on the present occasion. I am sure that even the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Lincoln does not so far blind him to the obvious facts of contemporary politics as to induce him to suppose that if he could appeal to the opinion of that part of the United Kingdom to which this Bill applies he would not find an overwhelming majority of the electors against him. I think I may leave both the legal argument of those who thought the Act of 1904 gave a freehold tenure and the ethico-political argument which said the Parliament of 1904 had no authority to pass the Act with the brief comments which I have passed upon them. I now should like to ask exactly what the Government think they gain or what temperance reform is going to gain by these additional seven years which they are giving as a boon to licence-holders, and how they justify their dealings with off-licences. As regards the first question, I should like to recall to the House the speech made a few minutes ago by the hon. Member for Lincoln. I have always been surprised that we have had held before us in so many speeches the happy moment when the nation will come again to its own and be able to deal unfettered and unhampered with all the problems of temperance. That period was coming at the end of fourteen years. It is now coming at the end of twenty-one years. I have always wished to know how those who think the millennium is then coming propose to use the freedom which is to be given by this Bill. I cannot be enthusiastic about a scheme of the nature of which I have not the smallest idea. Why should I believe that in the next fourteen years some panacea for our alcoholic excess is going to be discovered when none has been discovered in the past? Why should we legislate at the cost of enormous 929 public controversy, much bitterness of spirit, and, as I think, gross injustice, in order that at some future time a reform of which we have not had given us even the most shadowy outline is going to be brought into being? I admit that, as far as the hon. Member for Lincoln is concerned, that criticism does not apply to him. He has a perfectly clear idea of it. It is going to be produced by two methods. When we reach perfection we shall have total prohibition. In the intermediate stage which is to lead up to total prohibition we are going to keep the licence-holder in a position of the greatest uncertainty as to the terms upon which and the period during which he is to be allowed to carry on his trade. We are told by the hon. Member that, next to prohibition, control is the real remedy, and by control he means insecurity, or, at all events, one side of the method by which the hon. Member wants control, as he himself will admit, is absolute insecurity for the man carrying on the trade of a licensee. I think that I do not misrepresent the hon. Member for Lincoln when I say so.
§ MR. CHARLES ROBERTSThat is exactly the system which the right hon. Gentleman devised for new licences in Clause 4 of the Act of 1904.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. He is under a great mistake. I believe that under the new system it is in their power to give a seven years term—security for seven years. What the hon. Gentleman wants is that a licence-holder should never know from year to year what is to happen. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] That is what he wants. The hon. Member for Lincoln is here and he can contradict me if I misrepresent him.
§ MR. CHARLES ROBERTSAs the right hon. Gentleman appeals to me, all I have to say is that I am quite content with the application of his system as devised under Clause 4 of the Act of 1904, subject to local option.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURSubject to local option. I think now the hon. Gentleman who interrupted will feel that his interruption is uncalled for. That is exactly 930 what the hon. Member for Lincoln wants. Under the provisions of the Act of 1904 a new licence was to be carried on with the securities which are essential to every kind of business, I do not care what it is. We were not so stupid as to provide that a man who was going to carry on business was to carry it on under conditions which made his whole trade and business in life absolutely insecure. Therefore, the hon. Member for Lincoln is not content with the provisions of the Act of 1904, but wishes them subject to local option, in other words that the community may by a two-thirds majority step in and take away from the licance holder the whole security under which he carries on his business. Therefore, that is temperance reform according to the hon. Member for Lincoln and those who think with him. They think that that is the condition of things we are to aim at until the time comes when we can have total prohibition. I am bound to say that with such an idea as that it surely was not worth while stirring up turmoil throughout the whole country and making vast classes believe that they are the subjects of the grossest injustice. How on earth are you going to improve the morals of the people in that way? The hon. Member said that every zealous temperance reformer throughout the world believes in total prohibition. [An HON. MEMBER: "Local option."] Well, local option which involves prohibition. That is the thing which he and other temperance reformers believes in. I am sure the temperance reformers are a most zealous body of men, and I am sure they are prepared to make immense sacrifices, partly at their own expense and partly at that of others to carry out the objects which they most sincerely desire to see accomplished, but I think we must have some better ground for our belief than this—some more authoritative dictum than the mere statement of a particular class of reformers. We are justified in asking what grounds they have for anticipating all those admirable results for their particular nostrum. We have had this Bill now before us many days, we have had discussions upon the principles which lie at the root of it, but never yet has one speaker got up and given us an argued ground for thinking either that insecurity in the preliminary stage or prohibition in the final stage is 931 going to do anything whatever to increase temperance in the community. The hon. Members stated that those who went to the State of Maine for a short time thought that prohibition was a bad thing, and that those who stayed there a long time thought it was a good thing. The people who think it is a bad thing are legion. He is the only one I have ever heard say that it is a good thing.
§ MR. C. DUNCAN (Barrow-in-Furness)A vote has been taken in several districts and has resulted in favour of prohibition.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI never said that people would not vote for prohibition. I said they would not be more temperate after they had voted for it. I think it is extremely likely that as the result of these local option clauses you will have districts in the country which will vote for total prohibition. Are they going to be the most temperate districts? [MINISTERIAL cries of "Yes."]
§ * MR. LEIF JONES (Westmoreland, Appleby)I made a very long speech on the subject with which the right hon. Gentleman is dealing, and I did endeavour to justify the claim we confidently make that drinking and drunkenness are diminished in prohibition countries.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI regret that I was not in the House when the hon. Member made his speech. I am sure it was a very excellent speech and full of rich matter. Let us grant that most of us on both sides of the House approach this question through a mist of prejudice, but if you go outside those people who think it enough to have good intentions without showing how these good intentions are going to bear practical fruit, if you ask the opinion of those who simply look at the thing coldly and scientifically, and with an eye to discovering exactly the connection of cause and effect, so far as that difficult web can be disentangled in the social fabric, you will certainly not find unanimity for the contention of the hon. Gentleman. I do not think you will find a preponderance of opinion in favour of the hon. Gentleman. I greatly doubt whether you will find one man who takes the views of the hon. Member for Appleby and of the hon. Member for Lincoln. They, of course, 932 are sincere. Let them go to the scientific observer and ask what he thinks of total prohibition in the United States or elsewhere, and I am perfectly convinced that they will come to the conclusion that the idea of preventing countries like England, Scotland, and Ireland from consuming alcohol is simply grotesque. I think public opinion is moving in that direction. I am a believer in the growth of temperance, but I am not a believer in the theory that you can ever hasten that growth by prohibiting alcohol altogether, or that the principle of local option is one that can be carried out at all. I appeal to those who think it can be carried out, and I ask hon. Members opposite how they can give utterances to the eulogies of this Bill which I hear from their lips day after day when I see in the very clause itself that the Government are determined not to give local option or any control whatever over the amount of alcoholic liquor to be sold by the possessors of off-licences. They will acquit me of wishing to make any personal attack, when I question the sincerity of the arguments which they are ever giving us for preventing the holders of on-licences from selling. No sacrifice is too great, no popularity which is not worth breaking as long as you are dealing with on-licences. When you come to off-licences a totally different theory comes into play. Is the alcohol sold by a grocer, consumed with no control, taken round in carts with the utmost convenience to every house over large areas, brought into the cottage to be within the reach of the wives, daughters and children of every householder in the country—is that to go on absolutely unchecked by the people who come before us and say that prohibition, and prohibition alone, is the final solution of this question? Are we seriously to be approached by hon. Gentlemen opposite and told that they are supporters of some great moral propaganda when on the face of their Bill there is this gross and scandalous inconsistency? I quite agree as to the difficulty of applying local option to off-licences, but I certainly thought for a moment that the Government had felt the gravity and difficulty of their position, and the impossibility of maintaining this amazing distinction between the brewer and the on-license holder on the one side, and the spirit seller and the off-licence holder on the other. I thought they recognised that the position could 933 not be maintained when the First Commission of Works came down and proposed the Amendment embodied in the Bill we are discussing, but I discovered that he meant something quite different. He repudiated almost with horror that the Government were going to carry out this control with regard to off-licences. Therefore, I am again brought face to face with the two hon. Gentleman who interrupted me and who come before us, telling us that all temperance reformers throughout the world are in favour of prohibition, and believe in prohibition and restriction alone. I find them voting with enthusiasm for a clause which leaves the greatest of all evils absolutely untouched—drinking at home, drinking under circumstances where there is no control, and where, at all events, it is the source of some of the evils in connection with the intemperance among the women of the land which, I hope untruly, is said to be an increasing scourge in the community.
§ * MR. LEIF JONESAlthough I shall vote for the clause without off-licences in it, I should vote much more willingly for it if it included off-licences. It is no fault of mine that they have been excluded.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURReally I cannot accept the apology of the hon. Gentleman for the course he has taken on this occasion. He goes about saying that this is a great temperance reform, but I say that it is absurd to call it a temperance reform if you hold that the proper method is restriction first and prohibition afterwards, while in regard to the places where it should have its best and most salutary effect the Bill does not operate. I do not know that I have any other question to ask the Government; but I hope that they will state their general position with regard to property in licences, and that they will reconcile their statements about the Act of 1904 with the legislation they are now proposing. The second question which I ask is how they reconcile their belief in the policy of restriction and prohibition with the unrestricted scope which they are now giving to off-licences under this clause, and the position in which they have left the clubs in the latter part of the Bill. Many of the arguments I have used with regard to off-licences might be 934 used with regard to clubs, but I should be content now if they give a complete answer with regard to off-licences. Until they first answer the question of property, remembering what they themselves said, and what their highest legal authorities said three years ago, and how they reconcile their treatment of the off-licences with their treatment of the on-licences, I think, for the first time, some genuine justification should be given to the House of the extraordinary measure now before it.
§ * THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL, Cleveland)The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by saying that no Member of the Government had risen to explain the purpose and meaning of this clause. This clause was discussed in Committee for no less than two days and a half, and all the Amendments now on the Paper in the name of the Government are the outcome of those discussions, and the results of pledges then given. There is nothing that is novel for the Government to explain. And if I may very respectfully say so, the right hon. Gentleman in his interesting speech has given us nothing that is novel to reply to. He did, however, make use of one argument that is new, an argument, indeed, of a very extraordinary character. He says that, although he himself holds the opinion, and has always held it, that licences are not freehold property, and although the Act of 1904, in his opinion, did not make them freehold property, yet that we, because we said in the discussions in 1904 that to accept that Bill would be practically to constitute them a freehold tenure, we forsooth are bound to regard them with all the respect due to a legally constituted freehold property. If we are bound by those discussions to anything at all, we are bound to repeal the essential principle of that Bill. The right hon. Gentleman says we may advance the argument that that Act is based on no sound basis, because it was passed without a mandate from the people, and without the sanction of the electorate; and he asserted very emphatically and confidently that if the present Bill were put to the judgment of any body of persons affected by it you would find an overwhelming majority condemning its principles. I have had the figures of the bye-elections 935 in England and Wales, excluding Scotland, very carefully examined since this Bill was introduced, and it would perhaps surprise the right hon. Gentleman to learn that there has been a majority of voters who have declared their opinion in support of this measure and that only a minority voted against it. The right hon. Gentleman forgets that all the Socialist and Labour candidates who have come before the country in recent bye-elections have been without a single exception supporters of the principle of the Bill. [An HON. MEMBER on the OPPOSITION benches: "A very valuable precedent."] And although it may be the case that owing to split candidatures some seats have been lost, the contention of the right hon. Gentleman that a very considerable majority would have been found voting against the Bill has been absolutely falsified by the facts. The main question which has been raised by the right hon. Gentleman and by other speakers turns on the question of the nature of the possession of the licence; what degree of ownership attaches to the person who holds a licence. The right hon. Gentleman admits that it is not equivalent to a freehold property, and that very fact falsifies the whole basis of the argument on which much of the opposition to this Bill rests—the argument which rests on the assumption that this Bill can be taken as a precedent for dealing with any other kind of property—that what you are doing to-day with regard to licences you may do to-morrow with regard to railways, land, or any other form of property. The right hon. Gentleman has admitted that this form of property stands on a completely different footing from any other form of property. [OPPOSITION cries of "No, no."]
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI thought I emphasised the fact that a vast amount of property in this country is other than freehold. Similarly you have no more right to deal with this than with other kinds of property without giving compensation.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELWhat other kinds of property are there that rest on a basis of an annual licence from the State, which can be recalled by the public authority? The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that although 936 a licence was not in the nature of a freehold property, it is nevertheless property of a kind that is taxed, and which a man can buy and which a man can sell, and which consequently belongs to him. Surely, holding that doctrine, the corollary to be drawn from it and which has been drawn to-day by the hon. Member for York, is that if you want to suppress these licences as honest men you must pay for them. [OPPOSITION cheers.] Hon. Members opposite share that view. How then can they support or even acquiesce in the continuance of the Act of 1904 passed by the action of a Conservative Government holding that doctrine of property? Under it year by year hundreds of licences throughout the country are being suppressed.
§ MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS (Sheffield, Ecclesall)They are paying the market value.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELThey are not paying a sixpence. The money is drawn from the pockets of the owners of the "property" to compensate them for the loss of the licence. Would the right hon. Gentleman or any of his supporters venture to say that they could for a moment in this House propose a similar action with regard to railways, land, or any other property; that they could tax the owners to form a special fund to compensate them for that which was taken away? That argument has been stated again and again by the Prime Minister and it has never been answered, because it is unanswerable. All that remains is the proof, conclusively given I admit today again and again, that there was an expectation of a renewal of the licence. That has never been denied. Speeches have been made showing that these men have received year by year their licences by a renewal which was little more than formal, and that they bought and sold these houses—all which goes to show that there had been an expectation of renewal, not a legal right. Licences were taken away by hundreds in 1903 and in previous years by the justices without a single sixpence of compensation being paid from any quarter. It was because the justices took away these licences by the hundred and for no other reason than that they were not wanted, without compensation, that 937 the licence-holders went to the right hon. Gentleman and asked him to pass the Act of 1904 in order that they might have a measure of security which they did not then enjoy. They have proved that there was an expectation of renewal. Of course, there was an expectation of renewal, and it is because of that that we allow this long time limit. If there were no expectation of renewal all those licences the reduction of these 30,000 licences could be effected to-day, and the monopoly value of the rest could be taken to-morrow. It is because of this modified and very limited form of possession that we allow this long period to elapse before we resume the monopoly value which we consider to be the just right of the State. Assuming, then, that there is nothing more than an expectation, that there is no freehold property in the licence, do hon. Gentlemen opposite declare that that expectation can never be terminated by a time-limit? If they assert that it can never be so terminated, then they reckon this form of property on a very different basis from that on which they admit it rests, and they establish it on the same footing as forms of freehold property. I would like to quote to the House a few words from a speech of the Leader of the Opposition in Committee stage, which stated very clearly his view of the possibility of a time-limit, and brings into clear relief and sharp contradiction the views which he held on this matter, and those held by the great majority of Members who sit behind him. The Prime Minister quoted the speech of the right hon. Gentleman on the First Reading in which he had assorted that a licence is not in the nature of a freehold property; and in reply to that the right hon. Gentleman used these words:—
Anybody who listened to the quotation the right hon. Gentleman read a few minutes ago will see that was my opinion on the First Reading of the Bill. It was my opinion then. It has been the same in the interval, and it remains my opinion now. We have to deal with a genuine form of property which is less than a freehold tenure. I am not here concerned to deny that if yon are dealing with a form of property which is less than a freehold tenure you may imagine a term of years, after which you may say to these people, 'Your rights, which are less than freehold, are now exhausted.' I do not deny that. What I deny is that you have the smallest right to compel these people to pay compensation during a period of years to those whose licences are withdrawn, and then at 938 the end of the term of years, after they had been paying this compensation steadily and patiently, allow their property to be taken away.Now let the House mark to what a narrow issue the controversy is contracted. The right hon. Gentleman agrees that a time-limit without a compensation levy may perhaps be right; he does not deny that such a time-limit unaccompanied with a compensation levy may be justifiable, but he says that a time-limit accompanied by a compensation levy must be wrong. That is the right hon. Gentleman's position clearly and definitely stated on the Committee stage. I think we have a right to assume that that is his position now. But why, if the time-limit may be right itself, should it necessarily be wrong to accompany it for some portion of the time or the whole time by a compensation levy? "We come here to the question of the comparative burden on the trader, and the question resolves itself into the length of the time-limit, and whether it shall be accompanied by a compensation levy, and, if so, during what period of the time-limit shall it be imposed. The right hon. Gentleman admits that a lime-limit of, say, fourteen years—though I do not tie him to that—may be right, but that a time-limit such as the Government proposes, twenty-one years, of which seven are to be free from compensation levy, must clearly be wrong. I am quite unable to follow that course of argument. I cannot see upon what kind of principle the right hon. Gentleman can argue for the rejection of the clause as a whole, and why he should not come to the House and say, extend to sufficient length the limit and the levy to a sufficiently few number of years, and there is no objection to the time-limit.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURYou do not extend it—I do not want to interrupt or to go into details—the right hon. Gentleman does not give what he pretends he is giving; it is not seven years fixity of tenure.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELThen let the right hon. Gentleman say, if he will—it is matter, no doubt, for discussion—if the sever years are extended to fourteen years with exemption from levy, 939 will he then withdraw his opposition to this clause.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUROf course not.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELHe says of course not.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUROf course not, [Laughter.] This is a matter of argument, and, I presume to be treated seriously. My opinion is perfectly clear, and I have explainer it. You can imagine a time-limit—I do not say what limit—in which dealing with what is less than freehold tenure—I do not deny you might give a perfectly clear, untouched tenure for an explicit length of time, and that might be regarded as adequate compensation, but the idea that seven years is a sufficient period is unreasonable.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELWhat, then, becomes of all the arguments used by hon. Gentlemen on the other side to show it is "monstrous robbery" to put any term upon the existence of a licence, to fix any period, however brief or however long, at the end of which the monopoly value shall be taken? What becomes of the Ten Commandments argument?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI never said that. [Cries of "Who said it?"]
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELEvery one of the hon. Gentlemen behind the right hon. Gentleman, almost every opponent of the Bill who has spoken against it on public platforms, has declared it is "monstrous robbery" to take away from men who have bought their licences out of their own pockets, who have been taxed upon their value for the death duties and the income-tax—to take away the licences at the end of a period, however long, without paying the full market value of those licences. The right hon. Gentleman does not hold that view, he holds that if the time-limit is sufficiently long and sufficiently free from burdens on the trade then it will not be a matter of injustice. The period of years must be a question of opinion, of difference perhaps according 940 to the standpoint from which the subject is approached. The Government believe the seven years proposed in the Minority Report of the Peel Commission is unduly rigorous, that fourteen years will be just, and that twenty-one years will be generous; and especially as it is now made clear that monopoly value is narrowly defined and does not include the publican's goodwill, and only includes what Members opposite have contended is small—the difference between Schedule A on the premises licensed and Schedule A on the premises not licensed. It is necessary for the State at the end of the time-limit to resume the monopoly value, and, as the hon. Member for Lincoln has shown, it is necessary that the expectation should not grow up again. It is necessary for that reason, alone, apart from financial reasons, to secure that the State shall resume this monopoly value. The right hon. Gentleman put a question as to off-licences. It is a question that was argued in Committee, and I was able then to quote the words of the late Solicitor-General stating the view of himself and his colleagues, that off-licences are on a completely different footing from on-licences. I adhere to that opinion, they are very different, different in their nature, different in the degree of temptation they offer, and they cannot be regarded as being on the same footing. That is the view of the Government. It was not intended, at any stage, as the First Commissioner of Works has said, to do more than at the end of the time-limit to take the monopoly value. That question will arise on Clause 5, and in order that it may be fully discussed the Government in the closure Resolution have placed Clause 5 first in the compartment that will be reached in forty minutes from now, and for that reason I will leave further discussion for the present. Two or three small points have been raised by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Kidderminster has dealt with the grouping of small parishes, and asked why, in regard to local option under this clause and also in regard to Clause 2, small parishes have not been grouped.
§ MR. BARNARDsaid he did not object to Clause 2; he asked about Clause 3.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELThe question of small parishes arises under this clause, which applies the machinery of Clause 2. It has been carefully considered by the Government, and, on the whole, we think the better course will be not to attempt a system of grouping. The parishes often do not adjoin. The creating for local option of artificial areas made up of parishes from different parts of the county will not be practicable. If the small parish were attached to a larger parish adjoining the effect of the voting would not perhaps be in accordance with public opinion in the small parish.
§ MR. BARNARDThen you adhere to the parish?
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELYes; we adhere to the parish. The hon. Member referred to a parish with only seven inhabitants; he did not say how many public-houses there are in that parish, perhaps not one, and certainly there will not be an application for a new licence there.
§ MR. BARNARDsaid in such a parish with local option one or two persons might have the power to prevent the issue of a licence or to get rid of one.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELI do not think there is any question upon which it will be more fitting for even the smallest local governing area to express its opinion. If they are not consumers I do not see why they should be compelled to have a public-house in their midst. A further question has been raised by the hon. Member for Worcestershire of the postponement of the operation of local option to the end of twenty-one years. The Government are not disposed to adopt that course; it will be to defer means of reform, to which we attach considerable importance, and there ca mot be any objection to it from the thd right hon. Gentlemen opposite who says he cannot conceive a majority of two-thirds will ever be obtained to put the provision into force. Then the hon. Gentleman argued that preference should be given to existing licence-holders, but I think they can well trust their interests to the sense of fairness of the justices of the place, and there can be but little 942 doubt that where a licence is continued, under ordinary circumstances and in the absence of special reason to the contrary, it will be continued to the persons who now hold the public-house.
The issue raised by the clause is clear, whether the just right of the State is to prevail over private interests not founded on law and which cannot be proved to be founded on justice. In this, as in other matters, there are fewer than there should be to support the public interest. Even among Members of Parliament, even among those who have had charge of national concerns and whose primary duty it should be to safeguard the interests of the State, private interests have many eager adherents, but it is the privilege of the Government to stand for the principle that the State has the right to resume the value it has itself created.
§ MR. F. E. SMITH (Liverpool, Walton)said the right hon. Gentleman concluded with a peroration which began, so far as he could recollect, somewhat in this way: "The question for this House is whether the just right of the State is to prevail," but when he was at school that would be known as an instance of the practice of question begging, the whole point they were there to discuss being whether or not the particular proposals which were engaging the attention of the House were just and right. He proposed once again to deal with that question, and to comment upon the amusing travesty of the opinions of his right hon. friend, which the right hon. Gentleman was never tired of presenting to this House. His right hon. friend said that he could conceive a period of years which might be so extended in character that if during that period the compensation levy were not to be made it might be unobjectionable. There was not a Member of the Opposition who did not assent to the view of his right hon. friend. If a sufficient period of years was given there could be no grievance. He knew not what the period of years might be. If a man who wished to put his licence on the market could say he was secured for forty years, and on an actual calculation that was equivalent to the market value, he held then there was nothing 943 to be said against. But by so much as it fell short of the market value it was confiscation pure and simple.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELDoes the hon. Member mean that even if no money was paid at the end of the period a licence might be taken away?
§ MR. F. E. SMITHsaid that if the licensee to-day had a licence and he was secure in the possession of it for a period, he had the market value. What it was he did not know. He had conducted many cases, but it was entirely a question for the actuaries as to the number of years. There was no difference of opinion between hon. Members on the abstract question of the time-limit. They were all in favour of a time-limit if it meant market value. What the Opposition objected to was this clumsy device. In dealing with compensation cases and the value of the ante-1869 licences and other licences, a clear distinction had always been recognised by expert valuers who had given evidence, by arbitrators, and by the Judges. When the Law Officers of the then Government were arguing the question of market value before Mr. Justice Kennedy, not only was it said that market value should be paid, but their own witnesses said so. But the Prime Minister had since alluded to the "fundamental vice of the judgment," though he did not say that the learned Judge had made a mistake. It was now said that the law which the learned Judge interpreted correctly was one which the Government did not admit. They thought it ought not to be the law. If to-day a licence was required by the London County Council for a municipal purpose, say, in the Strand, and they were going to suppress it, market value was paid; but if the House of Commons took away that same licence for a national purpose, they were not to allow the trade to compensate themselves for that market value. That was an inconsistency which both the House and the country had been very carefully regarding and the time was coming when an explanation would have to be given. The Under-Secretary for the Home Department had dealt with the distinction between off-licences and on-licences, so far as those proposals 944 were concerned, by saying that the Solicitor-General had covered the point in a previous speech. It had, however, hardly required so acute an observer as the Solicitor-General to place the great and obvious distinction before the House. Nobody had yet said what the difference was from the point of view of testing the adequacy and honesty of the Government's proposals. Nobody had been bold enough to get up in the House and say there was the slightest distinction between the sale of beer and the sale of spirits, so far as the mischievous consequences of undue facilities was concerned. If there was no difference between those facilities, why was not the Government giving the advantage of its reforming proposals to the off-licences. Statistics had been quoted, and much had been said as to the feeling in the country as shown by the bye-elections. He hoped that before very long the Government would be given an opportunity of testing the opinion of the country, not at bye-elections, but at a general election. If that opportunity was afforded—and there were many who hoped and believed that it would be afforded at an early date—the Government would be provided with statistics more general in their origin, and of more value than any they had put forward.
§ * MR. SIMON (Essex, Walthamstow)said that from the speech just made by the hon. and learned Member opposite he should judge that many of those who sat with the hon. Member must feel very glad that he was not in the House at the time of the passing of the 1904 Act. He had laid down a proposition which proved, if it proved anything, that the authors of the Act of 1904 had perpetrated a monstrous injustice in that measure. The view of the hon. Member was that the licence owner who had his house taken away in the public interest must always, so long as justice was justice, be compensated at its full market value by the community. He understood that the view of hon. Members opposite was that the Act of 1904 did not confer on the licence-holder any rights which he was not already entitled to; that that Act was not a favour to promote the interests of the licence holder, but was to do him full justice and to secure 945 him in the position he was entitled to hold. The Act provided that if a licence was to be taken away, by the discretion of the magistrates and for no fault of the holder, he was to be compensated. But he would point out that the right given was that the licence holder was to be compensated, not at the expense of the community, but at the expense of his fellow-sufferers, who in their turn were to have their licences extinguished, but from whom, in the meantime, the compensation was collected. He thought, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman opposite and the late Government were cordially to be congratulated on the absence of the hon. and learned Member in the last Parliament for he could not possibly have supported their Act of 1904. There were two distinct questions connected with the time limit. Ought they, or ought they not, to admit the justice of a time-limit in principle, and ought they to agree that the particular time-limit proposed was a fair one which could be justified? He could not help thinking the hon. and learned Member opposite had confused the two parts of this inquiry. The Leader of the Opposition said it might be all right to suppress in a given number of years a licence, because it was not wanted, if there was no compensation levy, but it became all wrong if there was a compensation levy to pay as well. Did hon. Gentlemen opposite think that this Bill would be improved by a trifling change which some of them would not be unwilling to see? Let them stop compensation from that moment, and let them leave the lime-limit where it was. He did not imagine that that would satisfy hon. Gentlemen opposite. If he followed what had been advanced in the later stages of the debate, it was contended that it was adding insult to injury that they should both collect and distribute the compensation levy on the one hand, and suppress licences in a given number of years on the other. If there were two wrongs, both pressing hardly on this persecuted class, then let them get rid of one of them. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite knew very well that the whole scheme of compensation set up by the late Government was a scheme which was intended to inure to the advantage of publicans and brewers. But they must accept, at any 946 rate in some degree, that what was done, was done, and it might well be, the Act of 1904 once having been passed, oven though passed in defiance of public opinion, that the situation was not the same, and that the slate was not quite so clean as it was before the right hon. Gentleman opposite began to write on it: "Compensation to brewers." While that was so, they were entitled, not in any private interest, but in the national interest, to say that they could amend the existing law by the wise provisions of this Bill and could see that a time-limit was put upon a conflict which, after all, was a conflict between private interests and public interests. There was no part of the Bill which more clearly commended itself to those who were followers, and proud to call themselves followers, of the Government. There was no part of the Bill, he believed, which more clearly represented the opinions of independent people throughout the country. There was no part of the Bill which more clearly showed that the real conflict was between the claim of a select class on the one hand, who had got a great monopoly at the expense of the community to exploit the community, and the claim of the community itself on the other, to see that that which belonged to it was restored to it within a reasonable time.
§ * MR. JESSE COLLINGS (Birmingham, Bordesley)said the hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken of a select class of people, but he would like to put a question which he had asked before, and which had not been answered. There had been discussions between clever lawyers raising nice points, but the question which he had to ask put the matter in the way in which the country would regard it. He had already mentioned, by way of illustration, the case of a man who had invested his savings in brewery shares. He was a small tradesman with whom he had been in communication, and he knew his statements to be correct. That man was getting about 6 per cent. on his investment. If he put by his dividends and invested them in a sinking fund at 3¼ per cent. he would at the end of fourteen years have just got back his money invested in the 947 brewery shares. But supposing, as he was entitled to do, he used his annual dividends, then, at the end of fourteen years, he would have lost every penny of his investment. The country would approach the matter from the point of view of this case. What answer could be given to it on the public platform? Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of small people made these investments. It was not merely a case of the big brewers with which they were dealing. The case he had mentioned showed the line of argument which would be taken by the people at the general election, which he was afraid was not so near as some of his hon. friends thought, because the Government were afraid to put this question before the public. The country had made up its mind already. But
§ the question would have to be answered why these investors of small sums, say of £200 or so in brewery shares, which, from what had gone before, they were led to believe were safe investments and recognised by the community as such were to be reduced to beggary. The only answer which had been given was that by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley, who said that these investors ought to-have known that it was a precarious stock. These men had invested honestly earned savings, of which every penny, under this Bill, would disappear. He wanted a straightforward answer to his question.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 261; Noes, 103. (Division List No. 381.)
951| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Clough, William | Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) |
| Agnew, George William | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil |
| Alden, Percy | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r.) |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Harmsworth, R. L (Caithn'ss-sh |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Hart-Davies, T. |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Crooks, William | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Cross, Alexander | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Baker Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Crossley, William J. | Hazel, Dr. A. E. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Curran, Peter Francis | Hazleton, Richard |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Dalmeny, Lord | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Barker, Sir John | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Hemmerde, Kdward George |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) |
| Beale, W. P. | Dobson, Thomas W. | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) |
| Beauchamp, E. | Duckworth, Sir James | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Higham, John Sharp |
| Bell, Richard | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Hobart, Sir Robert |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. |
| Bennett, E. N. | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Hodge, John |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Hooper, A. G. |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Erskine, David C. | Horniman, Emslie John |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Esslemont, George Birnie | Horridge, Thomas Gardner |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Black, Arthur W. | Everett, R. Lacey | Hudson, Walter |
| Boulton, A. C. F. | Ferens, T. R. | Hyde, Clarendon |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Findlay, Alexander | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Branch, James | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Jackson, H. S. |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Fuller, John Michael F. | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Fullerton, Hugh | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J. T. (Cheshire | Gibb, James (Harrow) | Jenkins, J. |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.) | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Glover, Thomas | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Byles, William Pollard | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire |
| Cameron, Robert | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Jowett, F. W. |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Griffith, Ellis J. | Kekewich, Sir George |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Gulland, John W. | Kelley, George D. |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye | Summerbell, T. |
| Lambert, George | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Lamont, Norman | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury |
| Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington) | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton |
| Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Radford, G. H. | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Lupton, Arnold | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Tomkinson, James |
| Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro') | Toulmin, George |
| Lynch, H. B. | Ridsdale, E. A. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Verney, F. W. |
| Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Maclean, Donald | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd | Walton, Joseph |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Wardle, George J. |
| M'Crae, Sir George | Robinson, S. | Wiring, Walter |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Maddison, Frederick | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Mallet, Charles E. | Roe, Sir Thomas | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Wratt, Henry A. |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launcetston | Rose, Charles Day | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Marnham, F. J. | Rowlands, J. | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Massie, J. | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Wralter | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Masterman, C. F. G. | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Menzies, Walter | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Sears, J. E. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Mond, A. | Seaverns, J. H. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Money, L. G. Chiozza | Seely, Colonel | Williams Llewelyn (Carmarthen |
| Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Shaw, Rt. Hn. T. (Hawick, B.) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen | Sherwell, Arthur James | Williamson, A. |
| Morse, L. L. | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Murray, Capt. Hn A C. (Kincard) | Simon, John Allsebrook | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Slyer, Horatio | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Napier, T. B. | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Snowden, P. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Nicholls, George | Soares, Ernest J. | |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Spicer, Sir Albert | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Parker, James (Halifax) | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | |
| Paul, Herbert | Steadman, W. C. | |
| Paulton, James Mellor | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | |
| Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Strachey, Sir Edward | |
| NOES. | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. |
| Ashley, W. W. | Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Hay, Hon. Claude George |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn Sir H. | Courthope, G. Loyd | Heaton, John Henniker |
| Balcarres, Lord | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S) | Hill, Sir Clement |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Hills, J. W. |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (City Lond) | Dalrymple, Viscount | Hogan, Michael |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) |
| Banner, John S, Harmood- | Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Hunt, Rowland |
| Barnard, E. B. | Faber, George Denison (York) | Kerry, Earl of |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Keswick, William |
| Bertram, Julius | Fardell, Sir T. George | Kimber, Sir Henry |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Fell, Arthur | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Fletcher, J. S. | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. |
| Bull, Sir William James | Forster, Henry William | Lane-Fox, G. R. |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Gardner, Ernest | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Campbell, Rt, Hon. J. H. M. | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Gretton, John | Lowe, Sir Francis William |
| Cave, George | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Marks, H. H. (Kent) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Halpin, J. | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc) | Hamilton, Marquess of | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Morrison-Bell, Captain |
| Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Salter, Arthur Clavell | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Nolan, Joseph | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Oddy, John James | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York. E. R.) |
| Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton | Winterton, Earl |
| Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlingtdn | Stanier, Beville | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
| Percy, Earl | Starkey, John R. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) | Young, Samuel |
| Randles, Sir John Scurrah | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) | Younger, George |
| Ratcliff, Major R. F. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | |
| Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Thornton, Percy M. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire | |
| Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) | Walker, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) | |
| Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | Whitbread, Howard |
§ And, it being after half-past Seven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, in pursuance or the Order of the House of 17th July, to put forthwith the Questions on the Amendments moved by the Government, of which notice had been given., which were necessary to dispose of the Business to be concluded at half-past Seven of the Clock this day, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 11th November.
952
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 3, line 19, to leave out the words 'licence whether an.'"—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 232; Noes, 134. (Division List No. 382.)
955| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Agnew, George William | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Alden, Percy | Crooks, William | Hazleton, Richard |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Crossley, William J. | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Curran, Peter Francis | Hemmerde, Edward George |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Dalmeny, Lord | Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Davics, Ellis William (Eifion) | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. | Higham, John Sharp |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Hobart, Sir Robert |
| Barker, Sir John | Dobson, Thomas W. | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Duckworth, Sir James | Hooper, A. G. |
| Beale, W. P. | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Horniman, Emslie John |
| Beauchamp, E. | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Horridge, Thomas Gardner |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Hyde, Clarendon |
| Bell, Richard | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt) | Erskine, David C. | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Esslemont, George Birnie | Jackson, R. S. |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'd) | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Everett, R. Lacey | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Ferens, T. R. | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Black, Arthur W. | Findlay, Alexander | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) |
| Boulton, A. C. F. | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Fuller, John Michael F. | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. |
| Branch, James | Fullerton, Hugh | Kekewich, Sir George |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John | Kelley, George D. |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs, Leigh) | Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.) | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) |
| Brunner, Rt. Hn. Sir J. T. (Chesh.) | Glover, Thomas | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Lambert, George |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Lamont, Norman |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis |
| Byles, William Pollard | Griffith, Ellis J. | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington) |
| Cameron, Robert | Gulland, John W. | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Lupton, Arnold |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-sh | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Hart-Davies, T. | Lynch, H. B. |
| Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Priestley W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Radford, G. H. | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Ridsdale, E. A. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Maddison, Frederick | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Mallet, Charles E. | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Tomkinson, James |
| Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd | Toulmin, George |
| Marnham, F. J. | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Massie, J. | Robinson, S. | Verney, F. W. |
| Masterman, C. F. G. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Walker, H. de R. (Leicester) |
| Menzies, Walter | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Roe, Sir Thomas | Walton, Joseph |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Rodgers, F. E. Newman | Waring, Walter |
| Mond, A. | Rose, Charles Day | Wason, Rt Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Money, L. G. Chiozza | Rowlands, J. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Morrell, Philip | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh |
| Morse, L. L. | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Murray, Capt Hn. A. C. (Kincard) | Sears, J. E. | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Myer, Horatio | Seaverns, J. H. | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Napier, T. B. | Seely, Colonel | Wiles, Thomas |
| Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Williams, Llewelyn (C'rmarth'n |
| Nicholls, George | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Norton, Captain Cecil William | Simon, John Allsebrook | Williamson, A. |
| Parker, James (Halifax) | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Paul, Herbert | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Paulton, James Mellor | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.) |
| Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Soares, Ernest J. | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Spicer, Sir Albert | Winfrey, R. |
| Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | |
| Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Strachey, Sir Edward | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | |
| Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | |
| Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt Hn. Sir Alex. F. | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Hogan, Michael |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Cross, Alexander | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. | Dalrymple, Viscount | Hudson, Walter |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Hunt, Rowland |
| Balfour, Rt Hn. A. J. (City Lond. | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Jenkins, J. |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Jowett, F. W. |
| Barnard, E. B. | Faber, George Denison (York) | Kerry, Earl of |
| Barnes, G. N. | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Keswick, William |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Fardell, Sir T. George | Kimber, Sir Henry |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Fell, Arthur | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) |
| Bennett, E. N. | Fletcher, J. S. | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. |
| Bertram, Julius | Gardner, Ernest | Lane-Fox, G. R. |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Gibb, James (Harrow) | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Bull, Sir William James | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Gretton, John | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Campbell, Rt, Hon. J. H. M. | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Lowe, Sir Francis William |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Halpin, J. | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Hamilton, Marquess of | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Cave, George | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Maclean, Donald |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Marks, H. H. (Kent) |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Wore | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Heaton, John Henniker | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. |
| Clough, William | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Morrison-Bell, Captain |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Hill, Sir Clement | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Hills, J. W. | Nolan, Joseph |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Hodge, John | Oddy, John James |
| Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington | Sherwell, Arthur James | Wardle, George J. |
| Percy, Earl | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) | Whitbread, Howard |
| Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Snowden, P. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Randles, Sir John Scurrah | Stanier, Beville | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Ratcliff, Major R. F. | Starkey, John R. | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Steadman, W. C. | Winterton, Earl |
| Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Summerbell, T. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Young, Samuel |
| Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) | |
| Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | Thornton, Percy M. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr Forster and Lord Balcarres. |
| Salter, Arthur Clavell | Valentia, Viscount | |
| Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 3, line 19, to leave out the words, 'or an off-licence.'"—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 232; Noes, 134. (Division List No. 383.)
| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Crossley, William J. | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Curran, Peter Francis | Hooper, A. G. |
| Agnew, George William | Dalmeny, Lord | Horniman, Emslie John |
| Alden, Percy | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Horridge, Thomas Gardner |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Hyde, Clarendon |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Dobson, Thomas W. | Jackson, R. S. |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Duckworth, Sir James | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Barker, Sir John | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea. |
| Beale, W. P. | Erskine, David C. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire |
| Beauchamp, E. | Esslemont, George Birnie | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Kekewich, Sir George |
| Bell, Richard | Everett, R. Lacey | Kelley, George D. |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Ferens, T. R. | King, Alfred John (Knutfsord) |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Findlay, Alexander | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Lambert, George |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Waldon) | Fuller, John Michael F. | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Fullerton, Hugh | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Black, Arthur W. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Boulton, A. C. F. | Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W. | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Glover, Thomas | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Branch, James | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Lupton, Arnold |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Lynch, H. B. |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) |
| Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J. T. (Cheshire | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Mackarness, Frederic C. |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Griffith, Ellis J. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Gulland, John W. | M'Micking, Major G. |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Harcourt, Rt. Hd. L. (Rossendale | Maddison, Frederick |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Mallet, Charles E. |
| Byles, William Pollard | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) |
| Cameron, Robert | Hart-Davies, T. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Marnham, F. J. |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Haworth, Arthur A. | Massie, J. |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Masterman, C. F. G. |
| Clough, William | Hedges, A. Paget | Menzies, Walter |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Hemmerde, Edward George | Micklem, Nathaniel |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W. | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Corbett, CH (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Mond, A. |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Money, L. G. Chiozza |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Higham, John Sharp | Montagu, Hon. E. S. |
| Crooks, William | Hobart, Sir Robert | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Roe, Sir Thomas | Toulmin, George |
| Morrell, Philip | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Morse, L. L. | Rose, Charles Day | Verney, F. W. |
| Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard | Rowlands, J. | Vivian, Henry |
| Myer, Horatio | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Napier, T. B. | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | Walton, Joseph |
| Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Wardle, George J. |
| Nicholls, George | Sears, J. E. | Waring, Walter |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Seaverns, J. H. | Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Parker, James (Halifax) | Seely, Colonel | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Paul, Herbert | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Paulton, James Mellor | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Watt, Henry A. |
| Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Simon, John Allsebrook | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh |
| Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Soares, Ernest J. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh. | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | Williamson, A. |
| Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E. | Strachey, Sir Edward | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Radford, G. H. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Summerbell, T. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Ridsdale, E. A. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury | Winfrey, R. |
| Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'd | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) | |
| Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Robinson, S. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | |
| Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Thorne, William (West Ham) | |
| Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Tomkinson, James | |
| NOES. | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Kerry, Earl of |
| Ashley, W. W. | Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Keswick, William |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Kimber, Sir Henry |
| Balcarres, Lord | Faber, George Denison (York) | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) |
| Balfour, Rt Hn. A. J. (City Lond.) | Fardell, Sir T. George | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Fell, Arthur | Lamont, Norman |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Fletcher, J. S. | Lane-Fox, G. R. |
| Barnard, E. B. | Forster, Henry William | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Gardner, Ernest | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Gibb, James (Harrow) | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Bennett, E. N. | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Lowe, Sir Francis William |
| Bertram, Julius | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Halpin, J. | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hamilton, Marquess of | Maclean, Donald |
| Bull, Sir William James | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Marks, H. H. (Kent) |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Hazleton, Richard | Morrison-Bell, Captain |
| Cave, George | Heaton, John Henniker | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Nolan, Joseph |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Hill, Sir Clement | Oddy, John James |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A (Worc. | Hills, J. W. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Hodge, John | Percy, Earl |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Hogan, Michael | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Randles, Sir John Scurrah |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm'gham) | Houston, Robert Paterson | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S. | Hudson, Walter | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Hunt, Rowland | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Cross, Alexander | Jenkins, J. | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Jowett, F. W. | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) | Winterton, Earl |
| Sherwell, Arthur James | Thornton, Percy M. | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Snowden, P. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) | Young, Samuel |
| Stanier, Beville | Whitbread, Howard | |
| Starkey, John R. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh) | Wilkie, Alexander | |
| Steadman, W. C. | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
959
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 3, line 24, at the end, to insert the words 'Provided that until the expiration of seven years after the termination of the reduction period there shall be no power to attach to the re-grant of an old on-licence any condition
§
for securing to the public the monopoly value of the licence.'"—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 270; Noes, 29. (Division List No. 384.)
961| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. |
| Agnew, George William | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. | Hart-Davies, T. |
| Alden, Percy | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd) | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Courthope, G. Loyd | Hazel, Dr. A. E. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Heaton, John Henniker |
| Ashley, W. W. | Cross, Alexander | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Crossley, William J. | Hemmerde, Edward George |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Curran, Peter Francis | Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Dalmeny, Lord | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Dalrymple, Viscount | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Higham, John Sharp |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Hobart, Sir Robert |
| Barker, Sir John | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Hooper, A. G. |
| Barnard, E. B. | Dobson, Thomas W. | Horniman, Emslie John |
| Beale, W. P. | Duckworth, Sir James | Horridge, Thomas Gardner |
| Beauchamp, E. | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Houston, Robert Paterson |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Hyde, Clarendon |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Bell, Richard | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Erskine, David C. | Jackson, R. S. |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Esslemont, George Birnie | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred |
| Bennett, E. N. | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Everett, R. Lacey | Jenkins, J. |
| Bertram, Julius | Fell, Arthur | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Ferens, T. R. | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Findlay, Alexander | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. |
| Black, Arthur W. | Fuller, John Michael F. | Kekewich, Sir George. |
| Boulton, A. C. F. | Fullerton, Hugh | Kelley, George D. |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Gardner, Ernest | Kerry, Earl of |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.) | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Branch, James | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Lambert, George |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington) |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Griffith, Ellis J. | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Byles, William Pollard | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Cameron, Robert | Gulland, John W. | Lupton, Arnold |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Lynch, H. B. |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Mackarness, Frederic C. |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Maclean, Donald |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Harris, Frederick Leverton | M'Crae, Sir George |
| M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Ridsdale, E. A. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Maddison, Frederick | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E. |
| Mallet, Charles E. | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Marnham, F. J. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Tomkinson, James |
| Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Toulmin, George |
| Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Roe, Sir Thomas | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Massie, J. | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Verney, F. W. |
| Masterman, C. F. G. | Rose, Charles Day | Walker, H. de R. (Leicester) |
| Menzies, Walter | Rowlands, J. | Walsh, Stephen |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter | Walton, Joseph |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | Wardle, George J. |
| Mond, A. | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Waring, Walter |
| Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Morse, L. L. | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Myer, Horatio | Sears, J. E. | Whitbread, Howard |
| Napier, T. B. | Seaverns, J. H. | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Seely, Colonel | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Shaw, Rt. Hn. T. (Hawick, B. | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Nicholls, George | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Paul, Herbert | Simon, John Allsebrook | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Paulton, James Mellor | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Williamson, A. |
| Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington | Soares, Ernest J. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Spicer, Sir Albert | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Stanier, Beville | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Stanley, Albert (Staff s, N. W. | Winfrey, R. |
| Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Starkey, John R. | Young, Samuel |
| Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | |
| Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Strachey, Sir Edward | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Radford, G. H. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | |
| Randles, Sir John Scurrah | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) | |
| Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Summerbell, T. | |
| Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Hudson, Walter | Snowden, P. |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Steadman, W. C. |
| Clough, William | Jowett, F. W. | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Crooks, William | Lamont, Norman | Vivian, Henry |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | |
| Glover, Thomas | Parker, James (Halifax) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Hodge and Mr. Howard. |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | |
| Hazleton, Richard | Robinson, S. |
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 3, line 26, at the end, to insert the words 'shall not be applicable to off-licences and.'"—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 234; Noes, 123. (Division List No. 385.)
965| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Ashton, Thomas Gair | Beale, W. P. |
| Agnew, George William | Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Beauchamp, E. |
| Alden, Percy | Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Beaumont, Hon. Hubert |
| Allen, A. Actland (Chrischurch) | Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Bell, Richard |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Barker, Sir John | Bellairs, Carlyon |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Hyde, Clarendon | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Illingworth, Percy H. | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Roberston, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd |
| Black, Arthur W. | Jackson, R. S. | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Boulton, A. C. F. | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Robinson, S. |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Jardine, Sir J. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Branch, James | Jenkins, J. | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Roe, Sir Thomas S. |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea | Rose, Charles Day |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Rowlands, J. |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Byles, William Pollard | Kekewich, Sir George | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Cameron, Robert | Kelley, George D. | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Camley, Sir Frederick | Laidlaw, Robert | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Sears, J. E. |
| Clough, William | Lambert, George | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Seely, Colonel |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.) |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Lehmann, R. C. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Lewis, John Herbert | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Lupton, Arnold | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Crooks, William | Lynch, H. B. | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs | Soares, Ernest J. Spicer. |
| Dalmeny, Lord | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Spicer Sir, Albert |
| Davies, Ellis William (Elfion) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh. |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | M'Crae, Sir George | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Dobson, Thomas W. | M'Micking, Major G. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Duckworth, Sir James | Maddison, Frederick | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Mallet, Charles E. | Tennant, Sir Edward (Sailsbury |
| Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Mansfield H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Marnham, F. J. | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Erskine, David C. | Massie, J. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Masterman, C. F. G. | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Venzies, Walter | Tomkinson, James |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Micklem, Nathaniel | Toulmin, George |
| Ferens, T. R. | Molteno, Percy Alport | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Findlay, Alexander | Mond, A. | Verney, F. W. |
| Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Vivian, Henry |
| Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Morrell, Philip | Walton, Joseph |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | Morse, L. L. | Waring, Walter |
| Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W. | Horton, Alpheus Cleophas | Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Glover, Thomas | Hurray, Capt. Hn. A. C. (Kincard. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Myer, Horatio | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Napier, T. B. | Watt, Henry A. |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Nicholls, George | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Gulland, John W. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Parker, James (Halifax) | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Paul, Herbert | Wiles, Thomas |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh | Paulton, James Mellor | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Williamson, A. |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Hemmerde, Edward George | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Price, C. K. (Edinburhg, Central | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E. | Winfrey, R. |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Higham, John Sharp | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford. E.) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Radford, G. H. | |
| Hooper, A. G. | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir Alex. F. | Gardner, Ernest | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Gibb, James (Harrow) | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Morrison-Bell, Captain |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (City Lond.) | Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Oddy, John James |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Halpin, J. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Hamilton, Marquess of | Percy, Earl |
| Barnard, E. B. | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Powell, Sir Franics Sharp |
| Barnes, G. N. | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Randles, Sir John Scurrah |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Roberst, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Bennett, E. N. | Hazleton, Richard | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Bertram, Julius | Heaton, John Henniker | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Hill, Sir Clement | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hills, J. W. | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton |
| Bull, Sir William James | Hodge, John | Snowden, P. |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Hogan, Michael | Stanier, Beville |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Starkey, John R. |
| Cave, George | Houston, Robert Paterson | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff sh. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Steadman, W. C. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Hudson, Walter | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc | Hunt, Rowland | Summerbell, T. |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Kerry, Earl of | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Keswick, William | Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark) |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm'gham) | Kimber, Sir Henry | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S. | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Lamont, Norman | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Cross, Alexander | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Wardle, George J. |
| Crossley, William J. | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt-.Col. A. R. | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Winterton, Earl |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W. | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Young, Samuel |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | |
| Fell, Arthur | Maclean, Donald | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Forster and Lord Balcarres. |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Marks, H. H. (Kent) |
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 3, line 30, to leave out Paragraph (6) of subsection (2) of Clause 3.'"—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 265; Noes, 99. (Division List No. 386.)
969| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Burns, Rt. Hon. John |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Bell, Richard | Burnyeat, W. J. D. |
| Agnew, George William | Bellairs, Carlyon | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Alden, Percy | Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Byles, William Pollard |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Bennett, E. N. | Cameron, Robert |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Berridge, T. H. D. | Carr-Gomm, H. W. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Bertram, Julius | Cawley, Sir Frederick |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Clough, William |
| Baker, A. Joseph (Finsbury, E.) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Cobbold, Felix Thornley |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Black, Arthur W. | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Boulton, A. C. F. | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. |
| Barker, Sir John | Bowerman, C. W. | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Bramsdon, T. A. | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd |
| Barnard, E. B. | Branch, James | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Brocklehurst, W. B. | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) |
| Beale, W. P. | Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Crooks, William |
| Beauchamp, E. | Bryce, J. Annan | Cross, Alexander |
| Crossley, William J. | Jowett, F. W. | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Dalmeny, Lord | Kekewich, Sir George | Rose, Charles Day |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Kelley, George D. | Rowlands, J. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. | Laidlaw, Robert | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Lambert, George | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Dobson, Thomas W. | Lamont, Norman | Sehwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Duckworth, Sir James | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Sears, J. E. |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington) | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Lehmann, R. C. | Seely, Colonel |
| Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Lewis, John Herbert | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.) |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Erskine, David C. | Lynch, H. B. | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Ferens, T. R. | Maclean, Donald | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Findlay, Alexander | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh. |
| Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | M'Crae, Sir George | Steadman, W. C. |
| Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | M'Micking, Major G. | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Maddison, Frederick | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Mallet, Charles E. | Summerbell, T. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Glover, Thomas | Marnham, F. J. | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Massie, J. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Masterman, C. F. G. | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Menzies, Walter | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Micklem, Nathaniel | Thomasson, Franklin |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Molteno, Percy Alport | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Gulland, John W. | Mond, A. | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Tomkinson, James |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Toulmin, George |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Morrell, Philip | Verney, F. W. |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Morse, L. L. | Vivian, Henry |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-sh | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard. | Walsh, Stephen |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Myer, Horatio | Walters, John Tudor |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Napier, T. B. | Walton, Joseph |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Wardle, George J. |
| Hazleton, Richard | Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Waring, Walter |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Nicholls, George | Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Hemmerde, Edward George | Norton, Capt. Cecil Wiliam | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Parker, James (Halifax) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Paul, Herbert | Watt, Henry A. |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Paulton, James Mellor | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Higham, John Sharp | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Hodge, John | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Hooper, A. G. | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carraarth'n |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Hudson, Walter | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Hyde, Clarendon | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Radford, G. H. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Sea, Russell (Gloucester) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Jackson, R. S. | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Ridsdale, E. A. | Winfrey, R. |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Jenkins, J. | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Johnso, John (Gateshead) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd | |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Robinson, S. | |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| NOES. | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Ashley, W. W. | Gretton, John | Randles, Sir John Scurrah |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Guinness, Hn. R. (Haggerston) | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Hamilton, Marquess of | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Harris, Ferderick Leverton | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Heaton, John Henniker | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Hill, Sir Clement | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hills, J. W. | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Bull, Sir William James | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Snowden, P. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hunt, Rowland | Stanier, Beville |
| Cave, George | Kerry, Earl of | Starkey, John R. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Keswick, William | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Kimber, Sir Henry | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Wore. | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Lumbton, Hn. Frederick Wm. | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingham | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Wilson, A. Stanley (York. E. R.) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lupton, Arnold | Winterton, Earl |
| Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Marks, H. H. (Kent) | Young, Samuel |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Younger, George |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | |
| Fell, Arthur | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Morrison-Bell, Captain | |
| Forster, Henry William | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | |
| Gardner, Ernest | Oddy, John James | |
| Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington |
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 4, line 15, to leave out the words 'Subject to the foregoing provision,' and to insert the words 'Except as provided by this section with respect to the limitation of optional reduction by the financial provisions of this Act
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 263; Noes, 91. (Division List No. 387.)
| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Cobbold, Felix Thornley |
| Agnew, George William | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Alden, Percy | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras W. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Black, Arthur W. | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Boulton, A. C. F. | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Bowerman, C. W. | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Bramsdon, T. A. | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Branch, James | Crooks, William |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Brocklehurst, W. B. | Crossley, William J. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Curran, Peter Francis |
| Barker, Sir John | Bryce, J. Annan | Dalmeny, Lord |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Davies, Sir W. Howe (Bristol, S. |
| Beale, W. P. | Byles, William Pollard | Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. |
| Beauchamp, E. | Cameron, Robert | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Dobson, Thomas W. |
| Bell, Richard | Cawley, Sir Frederick | Duckworth, Sir James |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) |
| Bennett, E. N. | Clough, William | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Clynes, J. R. | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) |
| Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington) | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Erskine, David C. | Lehmann, R. C. | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Lewis, John Herbert | Sears, J. E. |
| Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Lupton, Arnold | Seely, Colonel |
| Ferens, T. R. | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Shackleton, David James |
| Findlay, Alexander | Lynch, H. B. | Shaw, Rt, Hon. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Maclean, Donald | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Gill, A. H. | M'Crae, Sir George | Snowden, P. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | M'Micking, Major G. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.) | Maddison, Frederick | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Glover, Thomas | Mallet, Charles E. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Stanley, Hon. A, Lyulph (Chesh. |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Steadman, W. C. |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Marnham, F. J. | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Massie, J. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Gulland, John W. | Menzies, Walter | Summerbell, T. |
| Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Micklem, Nathaniel | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Harcourt, Rt Hn. L. (Rossendale) | Molteno, Percy Alport | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Mond, A. | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil | Montague, Hon. E. S. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wore'r) | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Thomasson, Franklin |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Morse, L. L. | Thorne, G. R. Wolverhampton) |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard. | Tomkinson, James |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Myer, Horatio | Toulmin, George |
| Hazleton, Richard | Napier, T. B. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Verney, F. W. |
| Hemmerde, Edward George | Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Vivian, Henry |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Nicholls, George | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Walsh, Stephen |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Parker, James (Halifax) | Walters, John Tudor |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Paul, Herbert | Walton, Joseph |
| Higham, John Sharp | Paulton, James Mellor | Wardle, George J. |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Waring, Walter |
| Hodge, John | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Wason, Rt Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Hooper, A. G. | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Hudson, Walter | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Hy[...]e, Clarendon | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Radford, G. H. | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Jackson, R. S. | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro') | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Ridsdale, E. A. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Jenkins, J. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Robinson, S. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Jowett, F. W. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Kelley, George D. | Roe, Sir Thomas | Winfrey, R. |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Wood, T. M. Kinnon |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Rose, Charles Day | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Rowlands, J. | |
| Lambert, George | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Lamont, Norman | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | |
| Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir Alex, F. | Baldwin, Stanley | Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks |
| Ashley, W. W. | Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Beckett, Hon. Gervase |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Banner, John S. Harmood. | Bertram, Julius |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Bull, Sir William James | Heaton, John Henniker | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Hill, Sir Clement | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hills, J. W. | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Cave, George | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Houston, Robert Paterson | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc. | Hunt, Rowland | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Kerry, Earl of | Stanier, Beville |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J.) Birmingh'm | Keswick, William | Starkey, John R. |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Kimber, Sir Henry | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Cross, Alexander | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Marks, H. H. (Kent) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Fell, Arthur | Mason, James F. Windsor | Winterton, Earl |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Gardner, Ernest | Morrison-Bell, Captain | Young, Samuel |
| Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Younger, George |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Oddy, John James | |
| Gretton, John | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Forster and Lord Balcarres. |
| Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | |
| Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Randles, Sir Joseph Scurrah | |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
§ and the exclusion of appeal in the case of a licence extinguished in pursuance of a scheme for statutory reduction.'"—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
973
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 4, line 17, to leave out the words 'an old on-licence,' and to insert the words 'all old on-licences.'
Question, "That the Amendment be made," put, and agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed to the Bill—
In page 4, line 18, to leave out the words 'have for the time being with respect to other
§ on-licences,' and to insert the words 'had with respect to the renewal or transfer of alehouse licences before the passing of the Licensing Act, 1904."—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 251; Noes, 83. (Division List No. 388.)
977| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Bramsdon, T. A. | Davies, Ellis William (Elfion) |
| Agnew, George William | Branch, James | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) |
| Alden, Percy | Brocklehurst, W. B. | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Bryce, J. Annan | Dobson, Thomas W. |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Duckworth, Sir James |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Byles, William Pollard | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) |
| Barker, Sir John | Cameron, Robert | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward |
| Barnard, E. B. | Cawley, Sir Frederick | Erskine, David C. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Evans, Sir Samuel T. |
| Beale, W. P. | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Everett, R. Lacey |
| Beauchamp, E. | Clough, William | Ferens, T. R. |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Clynes, J. R. | Findlay, Alexander |
| Bell, Richard | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman |
| Bennett, E. N. | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Fullerton, Hugh |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Gibb, James (Harrow) |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Gill, A. H. |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John |
| Black, Arthur W. | Crooks, William | Glover, Thomas |
| Boulton, A. C. F. | Crossley, William J. | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Curran, Peter Francis | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Mallet, Charles E. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Gulland, John W. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Marnham, F. J. | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Snowden, P. |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Massie, J. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Menzies, Walter | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Mieklem, Nathaniel | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh | Molteno, Percy Alport | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Mond, A. | Steadman, W. C. |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Hazleton, Richard | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Hemmerde, Edward George | Morse, L. L. | Summerbell, T. |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Myer, Horatio | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury |
| Higham, John Sharp | Napier, T. B. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Hodge, John | Nicholls, George | Thomasson, Franklin |
| Hooper, A. G. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Parker, James (Halifax) | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Paul, Herbert | Tomkinson, James |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Paulton, James Mellor | Toulmin, George |
| Hudson, Walter | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Hyde, Clarendon | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Verney, F. W. |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Vivian, Henry |
| Jackson, R. S. | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Walters, John Tudor |
| Jenkins, J. | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Walton, Joseph |
| Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Radford, G. H. | Wardle, George J. |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Waring, Walter |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Wason, Rt. Hn E. (Clackmannan |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Ridsdale, E. A. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Kelley, George D. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Watt, Henry A. |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Lambert, George | Robinson, S. | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Lamont, Norman | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington | Roe, Sir Thomas | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Rose, Charles Day | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Rowlands, J. | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Lupton, Arnold | Samuel, Herbert J. (Cleveland) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Lynch, H. B. | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk, B'ghs | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) | Winfrey, R. |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Sears, J. E. | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Maclean, Donald | Seaverns, J. H. | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Seely, Colonel | |
| M'Crae, Sir George | Shackleton, David James | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) | |
| Maddison, Frederick | Sherwell, Arthur James | |
| NOES. | ||
| Ashley, W. W. | Bull, Sir William James | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Du Cros, Arthur Philip |
| Balcarres, Lord | Carlile, E. Hildred | Faber, George Denison (York) |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Cave, George | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Fell, Arthur |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Clive, Percy Archer | Fletcher, J. S. |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Forster, Henry William |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Courthope, G. Loyd | Gardner, Ernest |
| Bertram, Julius | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Cross, Alexander | Goulding, Edward Alfred |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Dalrymple, Viscount | Gretton, John |
| Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Stanier, Beville |
| Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm. | Marks, H. H. (Kent) | Starkey, John R. |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) |
| Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Hay, Hon. Claude George | Morrison-Bell, Captain | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester |
| Hill, Sir Clement | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark |
| Hills, J. W. | Oddly, John James | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire |
| Houston, Robert Paterson | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Warde, Col. C. K. (Kent, Mid) |
| Hunt, Rowland | Randles, Sir John Scurrah | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Kerry, Earl of | Ratcliff, Major R. F. | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Keswick, William | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Winterton, Earl |
| Kimber, Sir Henry | Remnant, James Farquharson | Young, Samuel |
| King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) | Younger, George |
| Lane, Fox, G. R. | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | |
| Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Salter, Arthur Clavell | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | |
| Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
§ * THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. L. HARCOURT, Lancashire, Rossendale)I beg to move the Amendment which stands in the name of my hon. and learned friend the Solicitor-General in order to make it clear what was the original intention of the Government with regard to "off-licences." The intention was unfortunately confused in the mind of the House owing to the error by which my Amendment was put down in Clause 3. They were in fact the wrong words in the wrong place, and for that I accept the entire responsibility, but I am happy to say that the minimum of inconvenience was caused either to the House or to the public outside, because I was able on the following day, owing to the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, to make an interruption in one of his speeches, and was able to explain at once what really the intention of the Government was. As Clause 5 originally stood, and as it stands to-day in this Bill, it secures that monopoly value shall be taken of all new oft-licences. I think it is obviously desirable that we should take the same monopoly value for old off-licences after the period of twenty-one years time-limit at the same time that we are dealing with monopoly value for old on-licences. I think it is admitted that off-licences have no monopoly value now. ["Yes."] The amount is so infinitesimal that it cannot really be disputed that there is practically no monopoly value now. But if a larger monopoly value is to be created by the operation of other sections of this Bill in the future, it is very desirable that we should give a warning at once to those people to whom 978 it might accrue that they will not in future be allowed to retain it. This Amendment will serve as a notice which will prevent the growth as regards off-licences in the future of any of those expectations which are less than a freehold but which are yet a "sacred right." I am sure that none of us wish to see the growth in the future of any of these sacred or profane rights. The late Government did their best to ensure that there should be no growth of an expectation on the part of off-licences, because in the Bill of 1904, although they were limiting the discretion of the justices in other directions, they left the licensing justices full powers to deal as they thought fit with off-licences. In spite of the fact that the magistrates' discretion was left unfettered the late Government did not think it necessary to provide any compensation for oft-licences that were removed, and, of course, no compensation levy was imposed upon them.
§
Amendment proposod—
In page 4, line 36, at the end, to insert—(2) On the expiration of a period of seven years after the termination of the reduction period any powers under the Licensing Acts for the purpose of securing to the public the monopoly value of an off-licence may be exercised on the renewal of an off-licence in the same manner as they may be exercised on the grant of a new on-licence."—(Mr. L. Harcourt.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. LANE-FOX (Yorkshire, W.R., Barkston Ash)said the position of the Government with regard to off-licences was a distinctly curious one. He had no desire to quarrel with the proposal 979 now put forward, but merely wished to draw attention to the difference of the treatment accorded to off-licences and on-licences. Undoubtedly, on a previous occasion the House did distinctly vote that off-licences should be subject to the same conditions as on-licences, and yet now they were told that that was all a mistake on the part of the Government. This evening they had voted in exactly the opposite direction and the House had stultified itself, the only consistent Members being the Opposition and those few Members opposite who voted with them. They did not wish to penalise the grocer and say that he ought to be penalised as against other traders, but they did say that there ought to be equality of treatment dealt out as between one form of licence and another, and the result of this undue favouring of one particular class of the trade would be that drinking would be driven from the open light of day into the home. Nobody who cared for temperance could desire to see that.
§ MR. CLAVELL SALTER (Hants, Basingstoke)did not hesitate to say that while many potions of this Bill were rather difficult for the ordinary elector to follow, the point raised by this Amendment was one which was readily appreciated by the public. He had no hesitation in saying that the differential treatment between the publican and the grocer was a simple aspect of the Bill which was eagerly seized upon' by ordinary people and was made a test as to the sincerity of those who brought in the Bill. What he would like to know was why should there be any distinction made under the Bill or for the purposes of the Bill, between a man who sold drink for consumption on one side of the door, and another who sold it for consumption on the other side. They were both drink-sellers. The Government were challenged to put the grocer and the publican upon a level; they agreed to do so, and they introduced into Clause 3 an Amendment in the most pointed terms which struck out the word "on-licence" and substituted the words "licence, whether on or off." The Government had said that when they enacted that grocers' licences were on renewal after a certain 980 period to be deemed new licences in the same way as publicans' licences were to be deemed new licences they did not understand that the incidence of new licences would attach to grocers' licences. However profound might have been the ignorance of the Government on the main outstanding features of tie Bill, that ignorance was not shared by a large number of their followers who were authorities on the matter, and the Amendment in a very full House was carried nem. con. They deliberately voted that grocers and publicans should be placed upon a level. They were put into the prison-house together, and were in an equally hard case. But within forty-eight hours the Liberal Party were at the door of the prison-house, and, with every sign of agitation and contrition, had fetched out the grocer and left the publican where he was. What had happened in that short space of time? This was one of the dramatic occurrences which took place. The publican and the grocer had been put on an equality as regards the disqualification of new licences, and the restrictive conditions of local veto. But the Government had decided to relieve the grocer, and had made the most complete amend to him. They had provided that although the publican's licence was to become a new licence at the expiration of a certain time with all the disadvantages that that entailed, the grocer's licence was not. He asked the Government, if they stood by the two principles of the desirability of reduction of facilities and of local control, on what ground did they apply those things to the publican and not to the grocer? In regard to this particular Amendment, when they came to exact the monopoly value it was not much to do, since they were told that there was none; but it was a most notable thing that the grocer was not put on the same basis as the publican. In the case of the publican, under the Act of 1904 the justices had no discretion, but were expressly enjoined that they must exact the monopoly value. Why was the grocer to have a chance to escape when the publican had no chance? It was being said in the country that the Government had surrendered in this matter to members of a powerful liquor interest. Of course it 981 must not be forgotten that while there was a powerful liquor interest in the publican, there was also a powerful liquor interest in the grocer. It was being asked why, if the Government were sincere in these provisions, they were unwilling to apply to these sellers of drink who were sometimes said to be friendly to them the same scale and measure that they applied to those who were said to be their foes? What ground or principle was there for this differentiation between one drink seller and another, and especially what reason was there for this distinction between compelling justices to exact compensation in the one case and giving them a discretion in the other?
§ MR. YOUNGER (Ayr Burghs)said he did not agree with one of his hon. friends behind him that there was no particular monopoly value in the case of these licences. He entirely agreed that that was practically the case at the present time, but this Amendment was intended to deal with the position as it would be on the expiry of the twenty-one years, which they had been dealing with under Clause 3. The First Commissioner of Works and the Solicitor-General knew perfectly well that by relieving the off-licence from the risks which the on-licence holder would have to face under local veto they must inevitably considerably add to whatever monopoly value was caused, and having created that monopoly value by that special exemption, they very naturally supposed that they should get a proper share of it. He would like to know the meaning of the addition to the clause of the words "may be exercised." His hon. and learned friend behind him had dealt with the peculiar fact that the word "may" was used in the clause and not the word "shall." No doubt the Solicitor-General would explain how these powers were to be permissive and not mandatory. But beyond and above all that there was another point which appeared to arise out of the general wording of the Amendment, in regard to the words "any powers under the Licensing Acts." What did that mean? Did it mean powers given under the Bill with which they were now dealing, or did it include powers given under Section 4 of the Act of 1904? If that 982 were so it opened the door also to differentiation in the manner of estimating the monopoly value as between the off-licence holder and the on-licence holder. In the case of the on-licence holder the monopoly value under the proposals of the Government differed very considerably, at all events, from that under the Act of 1904, which dealt with new licences only. They had not put any Amendment down, but they might bring one forward, because they thought the clause ought to be mandatory and not permissive.
§ SIR S. EVANSIn reply to the hon. Member for Basingstoke I have to say that although we shall be able to show that there is a great difference between off-licences and on-licences, yet I think that it will not be in order here to go into detail on that question. I may, however, touch upon some of the differences which have been pointed out not only in this debate but in some of the debates of 1904. Off-licences were not dealt with specially in the Act of 1904, and it was pointed out that they could not be dealt with conveniently under that measure, on the ground that they were not subject to the compensation levy. It was pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University that these off-licences were put on a wholly different footing from the ordinary on-licences dealt with under the Act of 1904. On the 15th June the right hon. Gentleman said that the question of off-licences was absolutely different from that of on-licences. They differed in essential points. There had been various alterations of the law with regard to off-licences, but when the grocer's licence was put on a different footing no question of compensation was raised. The right hon. Gentleman added that, if he remembered rightly, there were various points of difference, such as that the licence for the sale of beer and spirits attached to the person and not to the premises. Again, in the debate which took place on the same Bill on 8th June, 1904, upon an Amendment moved by a supporter of the Government to strike out the word "on" so that the provision could apply to off-licences, the then Solicitor-General said it was evident to anyone who understood the law that the Government could not 983 accept the Amendment in that form. It included an immense number of off-licences, of which there were fourteen different kinds, and it would be impossible to apply the Bill to off-beer licences. I am not going into the history of these off-licences, but as the House is well aware the status of the off-beer licence up to 1882, to all intents and purposes, was freehold. With regard to other off-licences, that was also the status of wine and spirit off-licences, up to the year when Mr. Ritchie brought them under the full and absolute discretion of the justices, excepting with regard to persons then holding the licence. That being so, it did not appear to be right and fair that the bargain which was made in that way in 1902 should be brought under the local option clauses of this Bill. As I pointed out they could not be brought under the compensation clauses, and there is no reason why they should be brought under the local option clauses of this Bill during the existence of the present holders of the licence. What we have done is this. When we deal with the question of the monopoly value with regard to the new off-licences being entirely in the discretion of the justices to deal with, we think that the justices "may," which I think in this case means "shall," apply the same provision as to monopoly value in the case of the renewal of an off-licence as they apply to the granting of new on-licences. It follows that at the expiration of the reduction period, plus the seven years, that is to say twenty-one years, the provisions with reference to monopoly value shall be applicable to the renewal of off-licences just as they shall be applicable to the renewal of on-licences. That is shortly the general position of the Government with regard to this matter. Now I come to the questions put by the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs. I think the word "may," in the Amendment moved by my right hon. friend means "shall." Under the Act of 1904, Section 4, which deals with the various conditions which might be attached to the granting of a licence, it says that the justices in granting a licence may attach conditions as to payments to be made, suitability of the premises, management, and so on. That section gives them the power to attach 984 these conditions subject to the remaining part of the section as to the conditions under which they got the monopoly value.
§ MR. YOUNGERasked whether the condition as to value was not altogether of a different kind.
§ SIR S. EVANSIf the words had been "the powers in the Licensing Acts should apply to off-licences as well as on-licences," there would be no question at all on the matter but the intention is the same. If the hon. Member would like to insert "shall" instead of "may," I should accept it with pleasure, so as to make it perfectly clear. The intention is certainly to apply to these new off-licences the same provisions in regard to monopoly value as are applicable under Section 11 of the Act of 1904. That would make "may" mean "shall," but there ought to be no doubt about it. There is no question about the meaning, and it would make it clearer to substitute "shall" for "may." The hon. Member asked me what was the meaning of the words "any power under the Licensing Acts for the purpose." I do not know whether he remembers Clause 43 of this Bill which defines the expression "Licensing Acts" in this way—
The expression 'Licensing Acts' means the Licensing Acts 1826 to 1906 and this Act.Now the hon. Member says if that be so, is there not a difference between the section of the Act of 1904 with reference to the basis upon which the monopoly value is to be ascertained and the provisions of this Act. That is not so, because the basis of the monopoly value under Section 4 of the Act of 1904 is repealed by this Bill. From the words "monopoly value" down to the words "taken into consideration" is repealed. These are the words which are repealed—which is represented by the difference between the value the premises will bear in the opinion of the justices when licensed and the value of the same premises if they were not licensed.It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the basis for the fixing of the monopoly value under Section 4 of the Act of 1904 985 will be the basis under this Bill, and that will be applicable in the same way to new off-licences, and to the renewal of off-licences in twenty-one years as in the case of a new on-licence.
§ MR. YOUNGERasked how, if the definition of monopoly value in the Act of 1904 was repealed, the monopoly value of the new licence was to be defined in future. Was it to be under this Bill? And was the definition of monopoly value of a new licence to be granted under a new Bill to be the definition applying to old licences at the end of the period, because, if so, it was very different from the Act of 1904.
§ SIR S. EVANSThe hon. Member will see that on page 37 of the Bill as amended in Committee, line 34, Section 4, from the words "which is represented "down to" taken into consideration" is repealed and the words are those which I read a short time ago.
§ * MR. GRETTONsaid he had handed in a manuscript Amendment for the very purpose of making clear the intention of the Government that the authorities should secure monopoly value, and that it should not be a matter left to their discretion. He thought these words were really entirely necessary, because of the remarkable variation which the Bill represented with this Amendment as now drafted and the other part of the Bill. There was no doubt whatsoever as to what was to be done in the case of the on-licences. The Act of 1904 was referred to in specific terms. But in the case of the off-licences, and in the case of this Amendment as it stood there was no such reference. The whole Amendment on the Paper in this particular was vague and open to argument and misunderstanding. Therefore it seemed to him that to carry out the intention which the hon. and learned Gentleman had just announced it was quite necessary that the word "shall" should be substituted for the word "may" in the second line of the Amendment, and that he understood the Government were willing to accept. He would like to call attention to the entirely different position which had been 986 created by the proposal of this Bill. The arguments for bringing off-licences under the Act of 1904 were by no means applicable to the present situation that the Bill had created. He could not help noticing when the hon. and learned Gentleman was speaking of the Act of 1902 he referred to what he termed the bargain then made by the off-licences according to which the present holders of these licences secured a freehold for their licences. But the Government and their supporters refused to recognise that there was any binding arrangement under the Act of 1904 as regarded on-licences. If the argument held good that there was a bargain as regarded the off-licences it appeared to be an irresistible conclusion that there was also an understanding by which the Legislature was bound as regarded on-licences. The Act of 1904 dealt only with the one question of reduction. There was a desire in the House and outside that licences should be reduced, but there was not at that time a demand that off-licences should be reduced. The Government in this Bill were taking a very different course, and going very much further, because they were not only reducing the number of licences, but introducing the principle of veto, and many more stringent and urgent conditions according to which on-licences should be granted and controlled in future. Therefore the new situation which the Bill was intended to produce in the case of on-licences would undoubtedly place the off-licences, if they were not brought under similar conditions, in a position of privilege as compared with other classes of licences. In one particular he had no doubt it had escaped the attention of the Government, but apparently under the clause as drafted no conditions could be imposed on existing off-licences until the twenty-one years period had elapsed. New ones could be granted to-morrow, and no one would be injured by the conditions for anyone taking a new off-licence would do so with his eyes open, knowing the conditions to which he would be subjected. He was dealing entirely with the case of old licences. They would be subject to conditions and to payment of monopoly value after twenty-one years. But the old on-licences were to be subject to all 987 the conditions—local veto and all the other disabilities—which, either separately or together, must result in reducing their value to their holders. They were to be subject to those conditions at the end of fourteen years. Therefore, off-licences would have a further privileged period, a seven years run, competing with the on-licences, whose trade was to be reduced, whose business was to be subject to new conditions, and in some cases swept away by the operation of the Act and by local veto. They would continue in an unassailable and privileged position so that they could establish themselves in the trade which was being lost to the on-licences which were subject to all these limitations. He was not complaining or trying to make the case in any way disadvantageous to off-licence-holders. He was not one of those who thought that because a wrong was done a second wrong must be done to keep pace with it. He held that the off-licences merited tender and careful treatment, but it was remarkable that the Government should make all these exceptions in favour of, and show all this tenderness to, the present holders of off-licences, and that the whole weight of their vengeance should fall on the holders of on-licences alone, and those connected with them. This was a fact which everyone could grasp and which the Government in this clause had brought prominently and unmistakeably before the eyes of the country. On what principle did the Government intend to do away with on-licences and allow off-licences to escape the weight of their vengeance altogether?
§ MR. YOUNGERseconded the Amendment. He pointed out that under the Government Amendment the new off-licences granted under the Bill would be charged only monopoly value on the basis of the new definition in the Bill and not that in the 1904 Act which of course was entirely different. It therefore placed the off-licence holder in an infinitely better position to get a new licence than the on-licence-holder. If that was intended he would like to know why. Possibly the Solicitor-General had only just found it out.
§
Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment—
In line 3, to leave out the word 'may,' and to insert the word 'shall.'"—(Mr. Gretton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'may' stand part of the proposed Amendment."
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Amendment proposed to consequential Amendment agreed to.
§ Amendment, as amended, agree to.
§ *MR. DICKINSON (St. Pancras, N.) moved to add at the end of the sub-sect on the words: "Provided that the conditions to be attached to the granting of new off-licences shall include such conditions as the justices think best adapted for ensuring that the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be carried on separately from the sale of other commodities and that such liquors separately charged and paid for." This Amendment was one which he put down a long time ago for consideration on the Committee stage but unfortunately, owing to the guillotine, this clause was not discussed at all, and consequently no Amendments were possible. It was a matter for regret that, owing to the procedure which had been adopted, they were unable to discuss the important questions of the conditions upon which off-licences should be carried on under the Bill. As the House was well aware this was a matter which had created a great deal of interest in past years, and was demanding much attention to-day. The subject was considered of great importance by both sides of the House and by all parties, and it was one which ought to have been dealt with in any measure purporting to be an Amendment of the licensing laws. This clause afforded a very good opportunity to discuss the question. They knew that the provisions of Section 4 of the Act of 1904 were to apply to new off-licences as they had hitherto applied to new on-licences, and new off-licences would in the future come before the magistrates in the same way as on-licences, and 989 would have to receive consideration at the hands of the magistrates who would be able to impose conditions which in the past they had not had the power to impose. It was the nature of some of those conditions which he asked the Government to consider on this occasion. One of the conditions which would have to be imposed on a new off-licence would be one to secure to the public the monopoly value. The right hon. Gentleman said just now that he did not think there would be any considerable monopoly value attached to off-licences, but he did not hold that view. The Licensing bench upon which he sat had refraine[...] from granting new off-licences and there was no doubt that in that district the existing off-licences had a monopoly value, and they would possess a far greater monopoly value when the number of public-houses in the district was reduced. By the new definition of monopoly value contained in the new section, and also the old section of the Act of 1904, a grocer's licence would have to be looked upon as possessing a duplicate character, that portion of it which had to do with the sale of intoxicating liquors being assessed as having a monopoly value, whilst the other portion would be excluded from that assessment. Therefore, from that point of view alone, he submitted that it was of importance that the business arrangements in those shops where other trades besides the sale of intoxicating liquor were carried on should be kept separate. But apart from that practical reason which he urged in support of his Amendment there was also the moral reason. Grocers' licences had existed for many years, and he believed it was recognised on all sides and by all parties that, however much they conduced to the convenience of a certain section of the community, they were open to very great abuses and had brought about some very serious evils. It was with a view to remedying to a certain extent some of those evils that he had ventured to make the suggestion he was now putting forward. With reference to this matter he would draw attention to the action taken by the House as long ago as 1872, when the Licensing Act of that year was passed. The question before them was discussed at that time upon an Amendment moved by Sir Henry 990 Selwyn-Ibbetson. It was resisted by the then Liberal Government, but it was carried not with standing that opposition. The object of that Amendment was to place the grocers on the same footing as other people who dealt in intoxicating liquor. In the year 1878 a Royal Commission was appointed to consider the question of grocers' licences in Scotland, and that Commission reported that the combination of the liquor dealer with the grocer was fraught with great danger, and had been productive of great evil. The Commission were inclined to believe that the only solution of the difficulty in order to remedy the evils complained of would be the entire separation of the two trades. But they felt that they could not recommend such a separation because of certain difficulties, mostly of a local character. In view of the difficulties which existed that Commission were of the opinion that other measures could be more speedily taken to reduce the evil, although they were very much impressed by the serious evils which this system of grocers' licences had brought about. The subject was again considered by Lord Peel's Royal Commission in 1899. Even the Majority Report recommended that grocers' licences should be brought into the same category as the on-licences and should come under the purview of the justices, while the Minority Report contained a striking passage in which they stated that remarkable facts had been placed before them by various individuals who had given evidence of a remarkable character on this subject. He did not need to trouble the House with those facts beyond stating that they tended to show that the mixture of the two trades of supplying groceries and intoxicating liquor provided great opportunities for secret drinking and great temptations to persons who might otherwise be saved from falling victims to drink. He did not need to weary the House with an account of the instances quoted before the Royal Commission, because they were all aware of the evils which could be seen at the present day. He was told only the other day of the case of an assistant in a large grocery establishment who had sold a bottle of whisky to a customer, and that customer insisted that it should be put down as 991 groceries. Unfortunately that assistant was provided with too stringent a conscience and he refused to do so. The customer complained to the head of the firm with the result that the assistant was dismissed. Cases of that kind were by no means rare, and it would be a great protection to grocers and dealers if they were compelled to conduct the two trades on a distinct footing.
§ SIR GILBERT PARKER (Gravesend)asked if the hon. Member meant to suggest by his Amendment that there should be a separate room in the same building or a separate compartment in the same room?
§ * MR. DICKINSONsaid he was just going to deal with that point. The Minority Report of the Peel Commission made a definite recommendation in favour of a separation of the trades so complete that there should be no sale within the same premises of intoxicants and groceries or other articles. That was their recommendation, but they pointed out that that might be hard upon the existing interests and they suggested that five years should be allowed during which the restriction should not apply to premises now holding a licence, but after that period they proposed that the grocery and the intoxicating liquor parts of the premises should be structurally separated. His Amendment did not go to that extent because he fully recognised the difficulties there would be in laying down a definite rule that in all grocery establishments where wine and beer were sold there should be an absolute structural separation of the premises. The Amendment contemplated that the justices would have to do their best to ensure that the sale of intoxicating liquors should be carried on separately from the sale of other commodities. The proposal was one which could not have any very immediate or harsh effect upon any existngi[...] interest. In the first place, it only applied to new licences. He confessed that when he drafted the Amendment he had hoped that grocers' licenses would in all respects come under the same category as on-licences. He had hoped that at the end of the fourteen 992 years period existing grocers' licenses would have become new licences, and that then the magistrates would have insisted on some kind of separation between the two kinds of business. That was before the Solicitor-General's Amendment was carried. He could see that the result of the Amendment just now carried would be to prevent that coming into operation. At the same time it would be of great value if justices would attach that condition to new licences. The justices would not insist on structural separation. He knew from experience that they were fully alive to the importance of dealing with grocers licences. They would be able to make ordinary commonsense arrangements which could be varied according to the requirements of different cases. If possible there should be separate departments of the premises, or, at any rate a separate cupboard or counter. At present in large grocery establishments there was a separate department, and in most grocers' shops where intoxicating liquors were sold the liquors were kept separate. He was fully persuaded that the magistrates could without difficulty or hardship devise proper means to bring about this result. At any rate, they could always do what would be of very great importance—they could insist that the taking of the orders and the charging for the same should be carried out separately from the orders for other commodities. The change he had indicated would be very gradual, but none the less it would be of great value. He was sure the justices would try to carry out the principle to the utmost of their power, and gradually there would be brought about a system whereby the conjunction of the two kinds of traffic would be remedied. The present system had been disapproved of and discountenanced by every Commission that had inquired into the matter. He thought it was generally felt by those who had taken an interest in the social condition of the people that there was a real abuse in connection with grocers' licences. He believed that that could be remedied without much difficulty. What he proposed would make the dealers themselves more careful how they carried on their business, and no doubt by this somewhat minor change in 993 the law an improvement in the practice would be effected which would very likely result in saving many persons and homes from the degradation of drink. He begged to move.
§ MR. LUTTRELL (Devonshire, Tavistock)seconded the Amendment. It appeared to him to be a very useful Amendment, and not antagonistic to the desires of the Government as expressed in the Bill. One of the great objections to grocers' licences was that they had led to a large amount of secret drinking. He was one of those who held that it would be very much better if grocers' licences were treated in the same way as other licences under the Bill, but as that had not been done there was no reason why this Amendment should not be made. It would have the effect of preventing a certain amount of the great evil of secret drinking. The Amendment had the assent of a large body of public opinion. It seemed to him that the House would be very wise in accepting it. Of course, it might be said that the justices had already the power to administer the law, but they were not forced to make any conditions, although, if they chose, they could do so. The Amendment would compel them to make conditions, but, while compelling them, it left to their discretion what the conditions should be. It was a reasonable Amendment which the Government might very well accept.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 4, line 30, after the words last inserted to insert the words 'Provided that the conditions to be attached to the granting of new off-licences shall include such conditions as the justices think best adapted for ensuring that the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be carried on separately from the sale of
994
other commodities, and that such liquors be separately charged and paid for.'"—(Mr. Dickinson.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ SIR S. EVANSsaid the mover of the Amendment had made a very interesting speech in regard to grocers' licences generally. Although these licences had often been called grocers' licences, they were not restricted to grocers at all; they were off-licences. He could not at this stage of the Bill go very largely into the discussion of that question. He had heard a great deal in regard to the mode in which these off-licences should be dealt with. He had read both sides of the question, and he had still an open mind upon it. He was not at all sure that the evil complained of as appertaining to grocers' licences was as great as some people imagined. No doubt there were cases where the evil existed, but he was not at all sure that the instances were not exaggerated so far as their number was concerned. He was also aware that on this particular topic there was no desire on the part of those who sold intoxicating liquors under on-licences to minimise the evil which did exist. However, that was a matter which was open to discussion and a great deal of argument on one side and the other, and, nearing as they were the end of the Report stage of the Bill, he did not think they could argue it further now. The alteration which would be made by the Amendment was extremely slight. The hon. Member sought to apply it to new off-licences only. They would be few in number. At present there existed of these licences 25,000, and there was a provision which enabled the justices to impose conditions, and 995 even to refuse licences. He was not at all sure that even in the limited number of cases to which the Amendment would apply it would have the force and virtue which the hon. Member thought would attend it if carried. He did not know from the terms of the Amendment whether the hon. Member proposed that there should be a restriction as to the room in which these liquors were sold. As the Amendment stood there was nothing to prevent a grocer from selling liquors on any part of the premises on which he liked to sell them. The Amendment required the justices to make conditions for ensuring that the sale of intoxicating liquors should be carried on separately from the sale of other commodities, and that such liquors should be separately charged and paid for. What difference would there be if the grocer or other tradesman did that? Anyone could go and ask for tea and sugar at one counter and far a bottle of wine at another counter, and the tradesman would have the greatest pleasure in putting the articles on separate bills. The Amendment would not be of the slightest use in that matter. The hon. Member had suggested that there should be a separate department, cupboard, or counter. It was quite obvious that in the Amendment there was no provision for anything of the kind. These words would have very little effect indeed. The main answer which the Government made to the Amendment was that the justices had now the power to do all that the Amendment would make them do, if they wished to do it. He would remind the House of the provisions of the Act of 1902 which, if put in force, would have a great deal of effect in checking the evils dealt with by the hon. Member. It was provided by 996 that Act than an off-licence possessed by a person at a certain date should not be taken away from him unless for misconduct. By Section 10, subsection 4 of that Act, the justices were empowered, on proof of misconduct such as surreptitiously selling spirits and booking them as tea, to take away the licence. He hoped that he had satisfied the House and his hon. friend that the Amendment ought not to be adopted in the form in which it was moved, and than even, if it were adopted, the value of it would be very small indeed.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS, in moving to omit Clause 6, [said that this was an important provision to carry out the scheme of reduction. It made it obligatory on the licensing justices, before April 1st next or such later date as should be allowed by the Licensing Commission, to prepare a scheme for carrying out in their district the statutory reduction of licences required by the Act. The scheme had to show as respects each rural parish and urban area in the district, the effect as regards the number of licences of the Schedule scale as applied to the parish or area, giving particulars of any modification made in the strict application of the scale. The scheme had also to provide for the statutory reduction being distributed reasonably over the reduction period having regard to the circumstances of the district. What he wanted to ask was the meaning of the phrase "the licensing justices." He would suggest to the hon. and learned Gentleman that there were no such persons as "licensing justices," for the reason that each year the justices of each district 997 had to assemble at the general annual licensing meeting. At that meeting they fixed dates for adjourned meetings, and days for the transfer of licences were appointed. But apart from that annual meeting there were no licensing justices. The justices who happened to be at that meeting were certainly licensing justices having the jurisdiction of licensing magistrates, but apart from that they were not licensing justices. If the Government meant the justices of the district apart from the justices assembled at the annual licensing meeting the Bill ought to say so, and to give directions as to their meetings. In boroughs, as the House was aware, the licensing committee was appointed at a meeting of the justices of the borough a fortnight before the general annual meeting. But that committee had no more power than the annual licensing meeting in a country district. His point was that the Bill did not say who were the licensing justices who were to be served with a writ of mandamus. The clause made it obligatory on the licensing justices to prepare a scheme and submit it as soon as possible to the Licensing Commission. They had no option; they must do it whether they liked it or not. Whether or not under the present law they were reducing the number of licences sufficiently, and acting to the satisfaction of the public generally, they must prepare a scheme. He had the honour to represent a large borough where the licences were being reduced most satisfactorily without any scheme at all, especially in the centre part of the borough, where the population was dense, and the licences were superabundant. But they had no details by which they could judge the ratio between licences and the density of population. 998 His hon. friend asked whether the Government would not institute some inquiry in order to give them this necessary information, and the reply of the Government was that it would entail too much labour. How were the justices to prepare a scheme satisfactorily without that detailed information? But going back to what he was saying with regard to his own city, the acreage of the borough with the present population would give an average ratio of nineteen persons to the acre. According to the Schedule in the Bill, one licence was to be given for every 500 persons. That would provide a statutory reduction under the Bill in the course of fourteen years of 258 on-licences. What was going on at the present moment? The on-licences were being reduced with compensation at the rate of twenty per annum, and ten in addition without compensation, or thirty in all; but he would only put it at twenty-five, which in fourteen years would reduce the licences by 350, instead of 258.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that the hon. Member must not multiply by fourteen because there was no guarantee that the rate of reduction would be maintained.
§ MR. SAMUEL ROBERTSsaid that the licences which were predominant, and which would be reduced in the same way as they were now, were old ante-1869 beerhouse licences. These old licences were created perhaps on a wrong principle, but they were being taken away under the operation of the present law. He must multiply by fourteen, and that gave him, as he said, 350 on-licences reduced in the course of the fourteen years period, or ninety-two licences more than would be 999 reduced under the Government scheme. His argument was that the justices were at their own discretion reducing licences more in proportion than would be done under the scheme of the Bill. Coming back to the clause, the scheme was to be prepared, and the effect of it shown with the modifications mentioned in the Schedule. Those modifications were very important. They made provision for areas where there was a large influx of population during the day, such as in London, and for seaside places where the population varied according to the period of the year. In the Bill, there was no provision whatever for any of the parties interested in the premises being consulted, or represented before the justices, or the Licensing Commission. There was no consultation at all. The licensing justices of their own free will were to make a scheme, and there was no provision for the parties interested being represented either before the licensing justice or the Licensing Commission. They entirely objected to that. Under sub-clause (b) the scheme provided that the statutory reduction should be distributed "reasonably" over the period, and might he ask the hon. and learned Gentleman how he interpreted the word. Would it be reasonable for the justices to say to the Licensing Commission: "We think that it would be better, on the whole, to postpone this reduction until the end of the reduction period. You, the Licensing Commissioners, want the money for other districts, postpone it in this; we think the population is increasing in our district and that matter will settle it." The Licensing Commissioners would say: "Oh, wise justices, we will postpone it, take the surplus which you are good enough to send us and apply it in other directions, 1000 in Wales or elsewhere." But supposing the justices were to say: "We think that speedy reduction is better; we do not want to postpone it till the end of the period; we do not know what will happen to this population; let us take it at once; let us be sure of our ground." The Licensing Commission would say "Yes, perhaps on the whole it is reasonable," and who could say it was not reasonable? As he had said at the start, this was a clause which took it out of the discretion of the local justices, and that was their great objection to it. Their case was that under the present law the local justices were doing their duty, and doing it well, plus the justices in Quarter Sessions. Why interfere with the present law and make the Commissioners arbiters for every district, parish, urban area, ward and borough, throughout England and Wales? In opposing the Bill of his party in 1904 Ministerialists said that the then Government would not trust the licensing justices; but now it was they themselves who would not do so. He might point out that the justices could reduce without any scheme at all if the Government would leave it to them. For the reasons he had given he hoped, though perhaps it might be a rather distant hope, that the Government would see their way at all events to modify the plan of the Bill. He begged to move the omission of Clause 6.
§ MR. RAWLINSON (Cambridge University), in seconding, said that, as he understood the procedure of this clause, the suggested method was that the licensing justices, whoever they were, should meet together and draw up a scheme, and in drawing up that scheme they would 1001 have considerable and important powers, the exercise of which would entail very large financial considerations for a large number of people. As he understood it, none of these people would have any opportunity of being heard before the licensing justices at all. Supposing the licensing bench were divided in opinion upon the drawing up of the scheme. The majority might take a very strong temperance view and want to reduce the licences in accordance with the statute, while the minority were in favour of granting licences to a larger number of places. The majority would carry the day, and the scheme would be sent to the Licensing Commission, who, after giving the licensing justices an opportunity of consulting with them, might make such alterations as they wished. The minority would be anxious to have the scheme altered. Were they alone to be heard, or were the majority alone to be heard? Was this consultation, moreover, to be in public, or were the public not to know what went on between the justices and the Commission? Before the Licensing Commission there would be thousands of pounds at stake, and nobody would be allowed to appear. The proprietor of a large seaside hotel would have no opportunity of appearing before either the justices or the Commission when the report of the majority of the justices came before them. What did the Government mean the procedure was to be in regard to the consultation between the justices and the Commission? Was it to be in public or not; were the parties to have any locus standi before either body at all, or could they send their views to the Commissioners? He thought the Solicitor-General would agree with him that this was somewhat a new departure from anything we had in English law 1002 at the present time. He considered that the public ought to be informed of the procedure which the Government proposed to establish.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 5, line 2, to leave out Clause 6."—(Mr. Samuel Roberts.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'first' in page 5, line 3, stand part of the Bill."
§ SIR S. EVANSI venture humbly to congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield on having moved an Amendment and made a speech without referring to the three gentlemen or the trio in London. It is quite clear who the licensing justices are. They have been actually defined ever since the year 1872, by Section 74 of the Act of that year, as the justices having jurisdiction in respect of the grant of new licences in the licensing districts as laid down in a previous Act, and amended by that Act. The hon. Member will find that provision throughout licensing legislation, and in the Acts of 1902 and 1904, the phrase "the licensing justices" is constantly used. The licensing justices who will have to prepare the schemes under Clause 6 when the Act comes into operation will be the licensing justices in the licensing districts. The word "reasonably" is a term importing a question of fact, and not a question of law, and I desire at the outset once and for all to say that I cannot give a legal definition of a particular word when that particular word is not capable of a definition. Everybody knows that the word "reasonably" is a question of fact, and is not capable of legal definition. I have no doubt the justices will act "reasonably" in making a scheme to extend over fourteen years. The great part of the 1003 speech of the hon. Member was really directed towards Clause 1, which compels the justices to make the reduction in accordance with the scale of the schedule, and Clause 6 is machinery to enable them to do it.
§ MR. SAMUEL ROBERTSsaid there need not be a scale at all.
§ SIR S. EVANSBut they are bound to reduce according to some scale, and if there is to be anybody who is to have control over the justices it is obvious that there must be some such machinery as this. As to the question of the hon. Member for Cambridge University, we have purposely left the procedure, as between the licensing justices acting locally on the one hand, and the Licensing Commission acting in London, or locally through themselves or their representatives, elastic. It is not a legal proceeding at all. ["Hear, hear."] I do not mean that it is an unlawful proceeding as the hon. and learned Member would rather indicate by his cheer, but it is a piece of administrative work. While the justices have locally to prepare a scheme the Licensing Commission in London must take all the circumstances into consideration, and there will be the fullest opportunity for the justices to communicate with the Commission and
§ for the Commission to communicate with the justices. I have no doubt that the Commission will avail themselves of the opportunity they have of sending representatives down to the localities in order to see if the scheme ought to be modified or passed in its entirety. There will also be an opportunity for the minority to place their views before the Licensing Commission, and even a single justice will be able to communicate with that body. He will have the fullest right to lay his views before the Commission, and those views will be listened to and given such weight to as they deserve. We purposely have not made rules, is if this was a legal proceeding, and the proceedings will be of the most elastic kind. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman will put us to the trouble of dividing on this particular clause. We must have machinery of this kind, and so far as the criticism to-night has gone it is not directed to this particular clause.
§ MR. YOUNGERsaid they were obliged to divide against the clause, because they objected to subsection (4).
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 271; Noes, 91. (Division List No. 389.)
1007| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R. | Bryce, J. Annan |
| Agnew, George William | Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Burnyeat, W. J. D. |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Bennett, E. N. | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Berridge, T. H. D. | Cameron, Robert |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Cawley, Sir Frederick |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Black, Arthur W. | Chance, Frederick William |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Boulton, A. C. F. | Channing, Sir Francis Allston |
| Barker, Sir John | Bowerman, C. W. | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Bramsdon, T. A. | Clough, William |
| Barnes, G. N. | Branch, James | Clynes, J. R. |
| Beale, W. P. | Brocklehurst, W. B. | Cobbold, Felix Thornley |
| Beauchamp, E. | Brooke, Stopford | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Bell, Richard | Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Brunner, Rt. Hn. Sir J. T. (Chesh) | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. |
| Cooper, G. J. | Jenkins, J. | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'd) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Robinson, S. |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Crooks, William | Jowett, F. W. | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Crossley, William J. | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Kekewich, Sir George | Rose, Charles Day |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Kelley, George D. | Rowlands, J. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Laidlaw, Robert | Samuel S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Lambert, George | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Lamont, Norman | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Dobson, Thomas W. | Lehmann, R. C. | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne |
| Duckworth, Sir James | Lewis, John Herbert | Sears, J. E. |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Seddon, J. |
| Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Lupton, Arnold | Seely, Colonel |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Shackleton, David James |
| Erskine, David C. | Lynch, H. B. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Ferens, T. R. | Maclean, Donald | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Findlay, Alexander | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Snowden, P. |
| Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | M'Crae, Sir George | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | M'Micking, Major G. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Maddison, Frederick | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Gill, A. H. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | Marnham, F. J. | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Glover, Thomas | Massie, J. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Menzies, Walter | Summerbell, T. |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Micklem, Nathaniel | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Molteno, Percy Alport | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Mond, A. | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Gulland, John W. | Montgomery, H. G. | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Morgan, G. Lloyd (Carmarthen | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Morrell, Philip | Thomasson, Franklin |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Morse, L. L. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Murray, Capt Hn. A. C. (Kincard.) | Tomkinson, James |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r.) | Myer, Horatio | Toulmin, George |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-sh | Napier, T. B. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Verney, F. W. |
| Harwood, George | Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Vivian, Henry |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Nicholls, George | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Walsh, Stephen |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Walters, John Tudor |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Nuttall, Harry | Walton, Joseph |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n |
| Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Parker, James (Halifax) | Wardle, George G. |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Paulton, James Mellor | Waring, Walter |
| Higham, John Sharp | Pearce, Robet (Staffs, Leek) | Wason, Rt Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Hodge, John | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Hooper, A. G. | Pollard, Dr. | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Hudson, Walter | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Hyde, Clarendon | Radford, G. H. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro') | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Jackson, R. S. | Ridsdale, E. A. | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Williamson, A. |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) | Winfrey, R. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon | |
| Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) | Yoxall, James Henry | |
| Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Ashley, W. W. | Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham) | Randles, Sir John Scurrah |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Gretton, John | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Guinness, Hn. R. (Haggerston) | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Hamilton, Marquess of | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hill, Sir Clement | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Bull, Sir William James | Hills, J. W. | Stanier, Beville |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Starkey John R. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Houston, Robert Paterson | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) |
| Cave, George | Hunt, Rowland | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark) |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Kerry, Earl of | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Kimber, Sir Henry | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire |
| Clive, Percy Archer | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | White, Patrick (Meath North) |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Winterton, Earl |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Magnus, Sir Philip | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon | Marks, H. H. (Kent) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Young, Samuel |
| Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Younger, George |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Morrison-Bell, Captain | |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Fell, Arthur | Oddy, John James | |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | |
| Forster, Henry William | Percy, Earl |
Motion made, and Question, "That further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be now adjourned,"—(Mr. L. Harcourt,)—put, and agreed to.
§ And, it being after half-past Ten of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 17th July, to put forthwith the Questions on the Amendments moved by the Government, of which Notice had been given, which were necessary to dispose of the Business to be concluded at half-past Ten of the clock this day, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 11th November.
§
Amendments proposed—
In page 5, line 34, after the word 'licences,' to insert the word 'proposed.'
In page 5, line 36, to leave out the first word 'the,' and to insert the words 'any such.'
In page 5, line 30, after the word 'licence,' to insert the words 'which they decide to extinguish.'
1008
In page 5, line 37, to leave out the words '1828 to 1906.'"—(Sir S. Evans.)
§ Amendments agreed to.
§ Bill, as amended to be further considered To-morrow.
§ Whereupon, Mr. SPEAKER, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 31st July, adjourned the House without Question put.
§ Adjourned at Eighteen minutes before Eleven o'clock.