Commons Sitting of 16 October 1908

Preamble
The House met at Twelve noon of the Clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Education Board Provisional Orders Confirmation (Cornwall, etc.) Bill [Lords]; reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]. Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Tuesday next.

PETITIONS.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against: From Brinscombe; Bristol; Filton; Forest of Dean; Hawkesbury; Huntingdon; Nailsworth; Old-bury; Rochester; Stinchcombe; and Tytherington; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Canning Town; Hethersett; Plaistow; Sheffield and other places; and Wrexham; to lie upon the Table.

  WOMEN'S ENFRANCHISEMENT BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Brighton; Edinburgh; and South Bristol; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.
  Copy presented, of Returns of Accidents and Casualties as reported to the Board of Trade by the several Railway Companies in the United Kingdom during the six months ended 30th June, 1908, together with Reports of the Inspecting Officers of the Railway Departments to the Board of Trade upon certain Accidents which were inquired into [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  OLD-AGE PENSIONS ACT.
  Copy presented, of Financial Instructions for Pension Committees and Sub-
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  Committees [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 302.]
  Copy presented, of Old-Age Pensions Regulations, 1908. Dated 20th August, 1908 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 303.]

  BANKRUPTCY (RULES).
  Copy presented, of General Ride, dated 20th August, 1908, in substitution for Rule 103 of the Bankruptcy Rules, 1886, in pursuance of Section 127 of The Bankruptcy Act, 1883 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Council of the County Borough of Salford, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the Hours of Closing for certain classes of Shops within the county borough [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.
The British South Africa Company and the Transvaal Government.
MR. SLOAN: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if the British South Africa Chartered Company are in negotiation with the Transvaal Government with the view of the latter buying the rights of the British South Africa Chartered Company; and, if so, is it with the sanction of His Majesty's Government.
(Answered by Colonel Seedy.) No, Sir; I am not aware of any such negotiation.

Crown Agents for the Colonies.
MR. CLAUDE HAY: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Committee appointed to inquire into the constitution, management, etc., of the Office of the Crown Agents for the Colonies has yet made any Report; and, if so, whether he has any objection to state the purport of the same and what action, if any, has been taken thereon.
(Answered by Colonel Seely.) The Committee has not yet made any Report.

Postal Pay at Oswestry and Newtown.
MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs): To ask the Postmaster-General why Oswestry with units of work and cost of living 120 and ninety-six, respectively, is given a 44s. scale of pay for clerks while Newtown, with corresponding figures of 120 and ninety-three, is only given 40s.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The volume of work at Oswestry and at Newtown is the minimum for offices in Class IV. Oswestry, where the cost of living index number is ninety-six compared with a normal 100. falls naturally into Class IV.; but the index number of the cost of living at Newtown, which is only ninety-three, is not sufficiently high to remove it from Class V.

Employment of Temporary Clerks in Belfast Post Office.
MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General if he can say under what circumstance it has been considered necessary to employ six temporary sorting clerks in Belfast post office since 1907; if the necessity for employing these officers justifies an increase of staff; and, if go, if steps will be taken to do so.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The employment of temporary sorting clerks and telegraphists was sanctioned as the best alternative to overtime pending definite provision for the duties concerned. Authority has already been given for replacing them by established officers.

Old-Age Pensions Regulations
SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the signature of the Statutory Old-Age Pensions regulations which caused the delay in laying upon the Table of the House the regulations dated 20th August, and stated to have been signed and given under seal on the 20th August, and explained in the Local Government Board circular dated the 21st August; whether the document as signed on the 15th October is to be substituted for that previously issued; and whether it differs from it; and, if so, in what respects.
(Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) I am advised that the requirement of Section 10 (3) of the Old-Age Pensions Act applies only to substantive regulations,
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and does not apply to draft regulations, such as those signed on the 20th August last, even though they are, as these were, brought into operation forthwith as provisional regulations under the provisions of the Rules Publication Act, 1893. The substantive regulations under the Act were signed on behalf of the Treasury, and I believe also on behalf of the other departments concerned, yesterday, in accordance with the draft, subject to a few small Amendments, for particulars of which I may perhaps refer my right hon. friend to the regulations themselves, which will be circulated early next week.

The Kathiawar Succession.
MR. REES: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he can now give the House any information regarding the disposal of the memorial from the Chief of Jasdan regarding the law of succession in Kathiawar.
(Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) No memorial from the Chief of Jasdan has recently been before the Secretary of State in Council on the subject mentioned. It has, however, been decided on the memorials from several Kathi Chiefs and others, concerning which my hon. friend asked a Question on the 31st July last, that cases of succession to Kathi estates must be dealt with as they occur on their merits.

Madras Landed Estates.
MR. REES: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the memorial of the Madras Landholders Association against the Madras Landed Estates Bill is still under the consideration of the Secretary of State in Council.
(Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) The memorial in Question, dated the 6th May 1908, has received the careful attention of the Secretary of State in connection with the Act to which it referred. After full consideration he decided to leave the Act, to which the Viceroy had already assented, to its operation. But insomuch as it deals with complicated and difficult questions, the Secretary of State has directed that its working should be carefully watched. Any amendments of its provisions which experience may show to be needed will doubtless be made the subject of legislation with no unnecessary delay.

Irish Proclaimed Counties.
MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what are the counties in Ireland which, since August 1907, have been declared by proclamations of the Lord-Lieutenant and Privy Council to be in a state of disturbance necessitating the employment of additional police; what was the date of each such proclamation;

Proclaimed Counties.

Counties.

Dates of Proclamations.

Actual Strength of Police Forces now serving.

Free Force.

Extra Forces.

Appointed in pursuance of Proclamation.

Reserve.

Clare

27th August, 1907

356

107

52

Galway

"

595

338

—

King's

"

157

24

—

Leitrim

"

145

19

—

Longford

"

108

21

—

Roscommon

"

247

107

—

Sligo

12th June, 1908

206

30

—

Westmeath

"

184

45

—

what is the total number of police at present serving in each county, distinguishing between ordinary and extra establishments; and in what districts of counties unproclaimed are additional police employed, and to what extent.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The formation asked for is given in following tables:—

Cattle-driving in Ireland.
MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will consent to the Return of which notice appears on the Paper for Monday relative to the number of cattle drives in Ireland since 1st January, 1907.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Answer is in the affirmative.

Training of Irish School Teachers.
MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the senior inspector at Derry has the authority of the Commissioner of National Education for pressing teachers in the Ballymoney district who have received a course of training in elementary science to attend another course now, and if authority has been given to demand from teachers their reasons for refusing to attend a second course; and what steps, if any, will be taken to protect teachers from such interference with their personal freedom.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The courses in question are held by local technical committees under the Department of

Number of persons tried.

Number convicted

Number acquitted.

Number in whose cases the jury disagreed and the prosecution was dropped.

Number in whose cases the jury disagreed and new trials have not yet taken place.

Number of cases withdrawn.

Agrarian Crime:

Year ended 30th September, 1907

65

14

42

8

Nil

1

Year ended 30th September, 1908

85

21

54

Nil

10

Nil

Cattle-driving:

Year ended 30th September, 1907

12

Nil

12

Nil

Nil

Nil

Year ended 30th September, 1908

124

5

18

50

51

Nil

Failure to serve Writs in Ireland.
VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH (Maidstone): To ask the Chief Secretary to
Agriculture and Technical Instruction for the training of national school teachers in elementary science. The Commissioners of National Education inform me that their inspectors recommend the teachers for whom such courses are desirable or necessary and who are willing to attend. So far as the Commissioners are aware no pressure is exercised by the inspectors to secure the attendance of teachers. The teachers who are recommended by inspectors are furnished with forms on which they may make application for admission to the courses. Teachers who have already attended a course are debarred from attending a second similar course except at their own expense.

Agrarian Grime in Ireland.
MR. STAVELEY-HILL (Staffordshire, Kingswinford): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the number of persons tried before juries in respect of agrarian crime and cattle-driving in each of the two years ended 30th September, 1908, and the result of the trial in such cases.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The required particulars are as follows:—
the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many cases have occurred during the Current year of process servers being

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unable to serve writs owing to the disturbed condition of the district.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) During the period in question seven such cases came to the knowledge of the police, and four other cases were reported which the police regard as doubtful. The police authorities have no information as to the number of cased in which writs may have been sent by post owing to the belief of the process servers that formal service could not be effected.

Camp Pay to Territorial Soldiers.
MR. HERBERT (Buckinghamshire, Wycombe): To ask the Secretary of State for War on what date the pay and allowances due to members of the Territorial Force for attendance in camp this year were paid over by the War Office; whether he is aware that no payment in respect of such attendance in camp has yet been paid to the Territorials entitled to it; and, will he make some regulation requiring prompt payment in such cases.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The regulations provide for the issue of cash to the adjutant of each Territorial unit before proceeding to camp. He issues to officers commanding companies the sums required by them for the pay and allowances of the non-commissioned officers and men during the training. All the men, therefore, should have been paid at camp. Perhaps the hon. Member will give me some specific instance.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD (Somersetshire, Wellington): May I ask the Prime Minister if he can tell us the arrangements for business next week?
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,)said they proposed on Monday to take first the conclusion of the Report stage of the Children Bill and the Third Reading, next the Prevention of Crime Bill to be ordered for Third Reading, at 8.15 the instruction on the Second Reading of the London Electric Supply Bill, and afterwards the White Phosphorus Matches Prohibition Bill. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
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and Friday would be the sixth to the ninth allotted days, for the Committee stage of the Licensing Bill.

LICENSING BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
Clause 3:
MR. JAMES HOPE (Sheffield, Central)moved an Amendment to insert after the first "the" in the first line of subsection (1) the words "expiration of the lease of any licensed premises granted prior to the 5th day of April, 1908, or if there be no such lease, after the." the object of the Amendment, he said, was to mitigate a great injustice which the provisions of the Bill would undoubtedly inflict on the leasehold occupier of licensed premises in some cases, and of the reversionary owner of premises let on lease in other cases. What would be the position of the leasehold occupier of licensed premises under the Bill, assuming that he was not compensated during the fourteen years reduction period? During all that time he would pay the levy, in the first instance. Then at the end of that time he stood to have the whole of his interest taken away from him summarily without compensation, and at the same time he remained burdened with conditions of sale which might very possibly include payment for repairs, and also in many cases he was still saddled with the interest of the money which he had borrowed in order to acquire that interest. He could give as one example a lease granted in 1907 by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for eighty years at £200 per annum rent. In addition they exacted a premium of £3,000, and they made the lessees spend £6,000 on the premises and promise to spend £1,500 more in 1918. All this burden, imposed by a Department of the Government, would remain on the unfortunate lessee, and unless he had what he supposed, on the whole, would be the good luck to be turned out within the fourteen years, all that burden would remain to him and to whoever acquired his rights after him

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for the whole term of seventy-nine years. There was another instance, in which he could not give the names, but they were all vouched for by the Central Board of the Licensed Victuallers' Protection Association of London, and he did not doubt that that body would, if challenged, at any rate, give the names in private. They vouched for examples like this—unexpired term of lease thirty-two years, licensed victualler's own money invested £16,000, of which £6,500 remained as a private loan. There were plenty of other cases—twenty-eight years unexpired, private loan £21,000, on which interest had to be paid; seventy years, private loan £20,000; fifty-two years, private loan £2,500. Much heavy and irreparable damage would fall upon the leaseholder, and in many cases upon the mortgagee as well. Another position was where a short time had to run, and in that case it was not so much the leaseholder who might suffer as the reversionary owner. In the case of a short term the reversionary owner would stand to have the full value of the licence, which in many cases, of course, was infinitely greater than the freehold, taken away from him. He supposed the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley and others would say that these persons ought to have known the risks they were running. Ought they to have known? Certainly not before the time of Sharpe v. Wakefield. Ought they since? He contended that they certainly could not know the risk they were running of anything like the procedure which the present Bill contemplated. No doubt after the judgment in Sharpe v. Wakefield there was considerable alarm among all connected with licensed property. But as the limitations of that judgment became better understood it became clear that many of the original forebodings were very greatly exaggerated. For example, in the years between Sharpe v. Wakefield and the 1904 Act the average reductions of full licences, at any rate for redundancies, were only thirty-two a year, which worked out at a proportion of about I in 2,000 every year. If that was the risk, very light insurance premiums would have enabled all those interested to have fully covered their
616
risks. He did not know what premiums the corporation they had heard so much about yesterday demanded, but he was certain they could not possibly in the face of the present Bill renew their policies at anything like the premium when the risk was only 1 in 2,000 a year. Again, the expectation of the reversionary owner of licensed property was distinctly held to be good by two decisions in Courts of law. In the first instance, there was the case of Bolton v. London County Council in 1893, whore the County Council tried to establish that the licence was granted nominally for one year only, and that there was no lasting value arising from the possession of the licence. The Divisional Court, Justices Day and Collins, entirely disregarded and put that aside, and said the market value of the property must be taken into consideration, and the decision of the arbitrator, admitting the reversionary value arising from the licence, was upheld. In another case, Cocks v. Lady Henry Somerset, in 1895 it was decided that Lady Henry Somerset, having a life interest in some licensed property, was not entitled to close the house and dispose of the licence, because of the ultimate reversionary benefit. Those who entered into those contracts, whether they were the leaseholders or the owners having a reversionary interest in future, or whether it was the case of a man having a reversionary interest in licensed property, were fully entitled to the expectation that the right which they bought would be guaranteed by the State, and if that was so before the 1904 Act their title was infinitely stronger since. Therefore, great as was the injustice to every class, the position of those whose interests were involved, where there was a question of a lease of licensed property, was very much greater, and it was that injustice which he asked the House to obviate. He was quite certain that in no other description of property would at any rate the majority of hon. Members opposite adopt or defend the same procedure which they applied to licensed property. He knew before this controversy arose that he held different religious beliefs from those of the majority of the House, but till this controversy arose he never knew how vast was the difference of his religious

617
belief from that held by the great majority opposite, because he was convinced that, with the exception of the hon. Member for South Hackney and one or two other chosen spirits, they were all guilty of the Manichæan heresy, which held that certain forms of matter were essentially evil in themselves and not merely in their effects, and that must be the belief of hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to alcohol. They must look on it as something essentially vicious, and on anyone having to do with alcohol or making any profit by it as tainted by some special vice which disentitled him to the ordinary consideration that all other of His Majesty's subjects enjoyed. Only on this theory could he explain their attitude, and it was to obviate the worst injustice which this attitude produced that he moved this Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 9, after the first word 'the,' to insert the words 'expiration of the lease of any licensed premises granted prior to the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and eight, or, if there be no such lease, after the.'"—(Mr. James Hops.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
*THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL,)said the Amendment as it stood would in the first place make nonsense of the clause. From the drafting point of view it was quite impossible and would have an effect entirely different from that which the hon. Member had mentioned.
MR. JAMES HOPEsaid that if the hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment he would undertake to regulate the drafting.
*MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid the Committee was entitled to ask that when an Amendment on so serious a matter as this was put down the necessary consequential Amendments should be put down also. The effect of the Amendment if accepted, unless greatly modified, would be that the whole of Clause 3 would not operate until after the termination of the longest lease
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now existing for any house. The monopoly value would not be taken until the longest lease had come to an end. Secondly, if it was modified in that particular it might have the opposite effect with regard to other existing leases which ran out, say, next year, and it would bring the monopoly value clause into operation as respected these houses immediately and would give them no time-limit. As soon as the lease came to an end the monopoly value would be taken. He failed to see why they should make this discrimination between the house which was held on a lease and a house which was held freehold. There were perhaps in a given neighbourhood two houses, one belonging to one brewery company and the other to another. The first had been bought freehold and was the absolute possession of the company, and in the case of the second a long lease had been purchased perhaps for a lump sum. In the case of the first house, if the principle of the Amendment was accepted, the monopoly value would be taken as soon as the time-limit came to an end. In the case of the second, no monopoly value would be taken until the end of the lease, perhaps seventy or eighty years hence. Obviously the company which held the freehold house would be put in a most unfair position in contrast with the company which held the leasehold house. They would be paying year by year the monopoly value, the trade would be undoubtedly handicapped in competition with the other house, and he failed to see from the point of view of the liquor trade itself how a discrimination of this kind could be defended. The hon. Member said the leaseholder at the termination of the time-limit when he began to have to pay the monopoly value had a continuing obligation. He had to continue—in spite of the time-limit and the monopoly value charge—to pay the rent which he undertook to pay before this legislation was introduced. That was the point of substance the hon. Member had in his mind. But so had the freeholder who had a mortgage on his premises in precisely the same way; so had the brewery company which had issued debentures. They were all in precisely the same position so far as

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this point was concerned. Therefore, there was no reason whatever to discriminate between the leaseholder as such, and all those other persons. If they had any objection to raise at all it was against the time-limit clause as a whole, and not specially on behalf of the leaseholder as distinct from those other persons. Therefore, the case for this Amendment disappeared, and they came back to the general discussion of the time-limit. Their answer on the main point was simply that with regard to the leaseholder as with regard to the freeholder, or with regard to the brewery company which issued debentures, at the end of the time-limit they would have still in their possession the actual buildings which they had undertaken to rent, and on which the mortgage or the debentures had been issued. With regard to monopoly value it was their duty during the interval to put by a sum sufficient to enable them to meet the obligations they had entered into. The question resolved itself into the larger issue whether or not the time given was sufficient for the purpose. There was no reason whatever for drawing any discrimination between various classes of persons.
MR. A. J. BALFOURSlid he did not propose to dwell on what the hon. Member had described as the larger issue, because he had spoken on that, but a few words had fallen from the hon. Gentleman on which he wished to speak. In the first place he had criticised very severely the action of his hon. friend in having put down an Amendment, the general purport of which was perfectly clear, without at the same time having put down all the consequential Amendments required to carry it out in detail. He could not imagine a criticism coming with a worse grace from the Treasury Bench, or anything more inconsistent with Parliamentary convenience or Parliamentary practice than the way in which they had treated the House. They came down in the morning and found they were expected to discuss Amendments of which no notice had ever been given, and of which they had no conception when the Closure Resolution was moved, and that without a word of explanation
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or apology. He would be out of order if he were to pursue that subject further. He only mentioned it in order to say he hoped they would hear no more as to putting down Amendments without notice. No crime, in respect of drafting, would equal in magnitude those which the Government were in the habit of committing. The only other issue which the hon. Gentleman raised besides the broader issue which he left to others to discuss was that this only dealt with one point of a general grievance. That might be true, but he had yet to learn that it was an adequate reason for not accepting an Amendment dealing with a small portion of a grievance that it left a large portion of the grievance still unredressed. Beyond the attack on his hon. friend on the drafting point, the hon. Gentleman had said literally nothing against the Amendment except that there were other grievances, similar in character and not less in magnitude, affecting brewers, landlords, and other classes. But that was no reason why they should not deal with the leaseholder, and he could not imagine that anything which had so far fallen from the Government supplied an adequate reason why the Amendment should be withdrawn.
*MR. F. E. SMITH (Liverpool, Walton)said it was a little difficult to understand why the hon. Gentleman should make any point at all about the drafting of the Amendment unless the Government were prepared, if the Amendment was properly drafted, to accept the spirit of it. The hon. Gentleman had not told them, and it must be assumed that the Government was not prepared to accept the spirit of any such Amendment. Therefore, it was no use criticising its drafting. On the merits of the Amendment which had received such perfunctory treatment there was, perhaps, a point of considerable substance. The hon. Gentleman said there was no difference in quality, and he gathered his view was that there was no difference in extent either, between the grievance of the leaseholder and the grievance of the freeholder. Therefore the suggestion was made that his hon. friend was ill-advised and inconsistent when he attempted to apply

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a partial remedy to the case of the leaseholder, whereas the only logical resource open to him was to deal with both the case of the leaseholder and the case of the freeholder. Five minutes of reflection would show how ill-founded such a position was. The hon. Gentleman said the leaseholder was in exactly the same position as the debenture holder. What the Government had told them from the First Reading until the present day was that under the magnanimous provisions of the Bill in fourteen years the debenture holders could all pay themselves off. They were told that this was an annual licence and it was only the good fortune of the licensed victuallers that they happened to be governed by a Ministry of unexampled generosity who had given them fourteen years to cover their financial loss in regard to something for which they were only entitled to one year's compensation. What had they to say with regard to the leaseholder with forty or sixty-five years still to run of licensed premises which were not worth the rent now being paid for any other purpose at all? If they would not produce that rental for any other purpose, what was the use of saying that such a leaseholder was in the position of a debenture-holder who could recoup himself in fourteen years? Such a proposition would not stand examination for a single moment. He would take for example the case which had constantly arisen in his own experience in the Courts—the application of a man who had taken a lease of premises say for sixty or seventy years. Those men were not wealthy brewers, but they were persons who in order to take advantage of the licence which they had been fortunate enough to obtain must of necessity borrow money and could only carry on their business by extensive loans. Now what was the position of those men who had incurred such large pecuniary obligations to enable them to take up the licence? They would ask themselves as business men whether a licence was a security on the strength of which they were entitled to borrow money. Practically there could only be one answer to that question. With regard to the criticism made by the hon. Member for Hackney of the right hon. Member for the Spen Valley's con-
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nection with a financial paper, he wished to say that on the Opposition Benches they did not make the slightest attack upon the good faith or earnestness with which the right hon. Member for the Spen Valley had championed his view of the case for many years. At the time the right hon. Gentleman was the responsible editor of that paper he must have been aware of the tenor of the articles appearing in it. Supposing one of those persons who obtained a licence wished to decide whether it was wise to borrow a large sum of money over a period of years he would say to himself: "Is it a good investment and is there a reasonable prospect of the permanence of the licence?" Financial papers like the one which was edited by the Member for Spen Valley would be ready to advise him that it was a good investment.
In the case of Belton against the London County Council it was contended by the present Lord Justice Moulton that when taking licensed premises where there was a reversionary right there ought not to be compensation on the assumption that the lease gave an expectation. The learned counsel said that they ought not to compensate the holder of the reversionary interest, because the licence was only an annual right. That contention was carefully considered, and it was decided that there was no such limitation, and that it had the value which a reasonable expectation must be allowed to possess, and that was the market value. If a man took up a lease for seventy years at £300 or £400 a year, of premises which if not used for a licensed victuallers' business would not be worth £100 a year, were they going to propose to saddle that man with a loss of the difference for a period of forty or fifty years? It was preposterous to say that there was no injustice in such a case, and it was an injustice which hon. Members opposite must be conscious that the country would never allow them to commit. For argument's sake he would assume that the Government were right from the moral point of view and that the policy of the reduction of licences on this Bill was a sane and well-considered policy. Surely it was possible to achieve those moral objects and at the same time deal adequately and even liberally with men

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who had been encouraged by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite and their predecessors to invest their money in the trade.
When the Member for the Spen Valley said that everybody had received a warning that the State could repossess itself of that which it ought never to have parted with, two distinct propositions were involved: first, that the State ought never to have parted with it; and, secondly, that, having parted with it, the State could place itself at any moment in the same position as if it had never parted with it. But the fundamental truth of all this was that the State had actually parted with it. Let them assume that it had done so for misguided reasons. The Leader of the Opposition said last night most convincingly that the trade did possess and had been held by every legal tribunal to possess the right to be compensated on the market value which had been judged by lawyers and by men of business, and had been assessed by ordinary business methods which were always applied when considering value. It was impossible to deny the justice of that method. The Government might refuse to accept this Amendment, but he ventured to call the attention of private Members of the House, many of whom he knew were profoundly and seriously concerned in this matter, to the fact that the moral object of this Bill could be secured without injustice, and he hoped that even at the eleventh hour they would resolve that they could serve that moral purpose better by dissociating themselves from this proposal.
MR. SHERWELL (Huddersfield)thought the Leader of the Opposition had entirely misconstrued the logical meaning of the statement made by the Under-Secretary, who was quite right in the interpretation he had placed upon this Amendment, which the Opposition must realise did in its very essence, spirit, and intent raise the whole question of the length of the time-limit. The mover of the Amendment had stated that those who had invested in reversionary interests had no reason to believe before Sharpe v. Wakefield that their investments were in jeopardy.
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Surely when the hon. Member made that statement he was oblivious of the fact that in 1871 there was introduced in this House a responsible proposal for a time-limit of ten years.
MR. JAMES HOPE: And so unpopular was it in the country that the Bill never got to a Second Reading.
MR. SHERWELLsaid that The Times—an organ of public opinion to whose weight and authority hon. Gentleman on the other side would defer—in commenting on the proposal of Mr. Bruce, wrote in 1871—
"Every public-house for some years past must have been taken with full notice of prospective amendments in the law, not to speak of possible additions to rates and taxes."
Speaking of the actual terms of the compensation proposed, The Times wrote—
*THE CHAIRMAN: I think the remarks which the hon. Member is making would be more appropriate on the next Amendment. We are only dealing now with the exception in the case of leaseholders, and the hon. Member appears to be addressing himself to the wider question.
MR. SHERWELLsaid he would, of course, bow to the ruling of the Chairman, but he desired to say that he was only referring to a line of argument adopted on the opposite side. The purpose of this Amendment was to show that the precise term of time-limit suggested in the Bill was inadequate to compensate those who had invested their money in licensed premises. There were many hon. Members sitting on the Ministerial side who were prepared to consider any reasonable argument on that particular head, but what they objected to was the attempt to discredit the whole proposal of a time-limit on matters of detail. The onus of proving that the time-limit proposed by the Government was not sufficient lay with hon. Gentlemen opposite and not with those who were satisfied with the proposals of the Government.
*THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not confining himself to the Amendment.
MR. SHERWELLsaid he would reserve his remarks until the next Amendment was proposed.
LORD R. CECILsaid that this Amendment brought before the Committee the precise injustice which was inflicted by the proposals of the Government. He was not without hope that some hon. Members at least would bring themselves to see what was the real point of the objection to this subsection. The Under-Secretary for the Home Department had said that, if this Amendment were accepted, they would introduce unfairness as between different licence-holders; but that was not the real point. He rather agreed with the hon. Gentleman that a freeholder who entered into a contract had a strong claim of a similar character to that of the leaseholder who had entered into a contract. But that was not the real point. The real point of the Opposition objection was that of people who entered into contracts under one condition of the law, and if the law were changed and a different situation created, upon whom injustice was thereby inflicted. The injustice was not got rid of in the case that the Committee were considering by the Government declaring that the injustice was no worse than the injustice often inflicted in other cases. The Under-Secretary made no answer on this point except by saying that the people affected ought to insure, that they ought to create a sinking fund during the fourteen years, and then they would be able to apply that fund in liquidation of any loss incurred. How was that contention consistent with the proposition that no loss was being inflicted? If the Government admitted that at the end of the licence term there would be a loss which had to be met by the creation of a sinking fund, then they admitted the whole case against the Bill. Who would contend that if a property was taken away from a man no loss was being inflicted upon him because he ought to insure against the loss? Take the case of a burglary—and he did not say that this Bill was burglary—in which the argument was the same. What defence would it be for a burglar to say: "Oh! if the man had only insured against burglary he would not
626
have suffered any loss." The argument was perfectly nonsensical. He was sure that neither the Under-Secretary nor the Solicitor-General could believe in that aspect of the Bill, They could not say they were not inflicting any loss upon the licence-holder because if he had a sinking fund the loss would be made up during the period. The hon. Member for Huddersfield had put the matter in a different way. He said: "It is quite true we are taking away something from the licence-holder, but we are not taking more than we might do by way of taxation."
*THE CHAIRMAN: I think the noble Lord is not addressing himself to the Amendment now before the Committee.
LORD R. CECILsaid he did not dispute that ruling, and he would not follow that line of argument. All he would say of the particular case was this. Here they had the clearest possible case reduced to pounds, shillings and pence. Men who had spent large sums of money on their property and had agreed to onerous contracts in the belief that their licences were to be renewed year after year found by this clause that the right of renewal was being taken away, in addition to a fresh obligation being put upon them to pay a great deal of money. In this way the Government were forcing upon these men a different set of circumstances from those in which they entered into their contracts, and they were transferring the burden which ought to be shared between landlord and tenant entirely to the tenant, and allowing the landlord to go free of the burden. That was a clear case of hardship.
THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir S. EVANS,)said he hoped the Committee would come to a decision on this Amendment for the reason that they had not much time to discuss the larger question which was to come up afterwards. [An HON. MEMBER: Whose fault is that?] He was not saying whose fault it was; he was only pointing out the fact. The case put forward by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment was not that of the short leaseholder but that of the long leaseholder. He did not understand what the noble Lord

627
meant by loss. The phrase ought to be properly defined before the Committee could discuss it. But the point of the Amendment was clear. Assuming that the policy of the Government was right—namely, that there should be a timelimit—the only question that arose was: "Ought there to be an exception in the case of leaseholders, whether long or short?" Supposing a man before 5th April, 1908, intended to carry on his own business and bought a freehold. He gave the full value for it, with all the anticipations that every purchaser or investor under such terms would have. But, suppose in the next street, a brewery company took a sixty years' lease under the same conditions, with the anticipation and prospect of what legislation might be hereafter. The meaning of passing this Amendment would be that the man in his own freehold would have to pay the monopoly value after fourteen years, whereas the brewery company would be exempt for sixty years from the monopoly value. That was the sole point raised by the Amendment.
MR. LAMBTON (Durham, S. E.)said the issue involved here was a narrow one. If a man was a leaseholder, he could not get rid of his obligations—he could not sell them in the open market. He was bound under his contract for a period of years. A freeholder could get rid of his. Was the leaseholder on whom this Bill would cast expense to get no relief?
*MR. GRETTON (Rutland)said he did not wish to go into the general arguments. The Amendment, as he understood it, was for the purpose of relieving the leaseholder of penalties when the time-limit came to an end. The majority of these leases were for long terms, and many had fifty years and upwards still unexpired. He wanted to make it clear that this point did not affect brewery companies so much as retail licence-holders. In nearly every case there was an increased price charged for a lease if there was a licence attached to it. It had been recognised by the law of the land that that enhanced value was an obligation on the leaseholder, who, if he lost his
628
licence, had to meet that obligation. The Bill proposed to take away licences at the end of fourteen years without any compensation whatever. At the end of the time-limit, whatever that limit might be, the long leaseholder would be left with the obligation to pay the increased rental. The Government said that they could not accept the Amendment. Were they going to break contracts? Most of these leases had been taken up under a contract to preserve the licence; and if the licence were lost during the term of the leasehold, the leaseholder was under penalties to pay a lump sum down at the termination of the lease. There was another point. When premises were fitted up and adapted for a licensed trade, they were not adapted to other classes of business. If the licence were lost, alterations in the premises would be required in order to adapt them to some other business, so that rent might be obtained for them between the termination of the time-limit and the termination of the leasehold. That would be a tax on the leaseholder, who would have to spend a lump sum of money in order to alter and adapt the premises for some other trade or business. Such cases were exceptionally hard, and the Government, he was sure, had not realised the impasse into which they were leading the committee. If they were not prepared to accept the Amendment, they would have to meet this case in some form or other or they would find themselves in a dilemma which would raise an uproar and outcry in the country among some of those who were at present inclined to support the Bill in the belief that it was just to the leaseholders.
MR. JAMES HOPEsaid that the answer to the Solicitor-General was that the leaseholder was really subject to time-limit already. The time-limit was the limit of his lease, and the leaseholder had to make all his arrangements so as to make himself secure at the end of his lease. Now, the Government were making him attempt to do that in fourteen years, whereas, at present he had the whole period of his lease in which to do it.
Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 59; Noes, 183. (Division List No. 262.)

AYES.

Acland-Hood. Rt. Hn. Sir Alex F.

Fletcher, J. S.

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Ashley, W. W.

Forster, Henry William

Remnant, James Farquharson

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Balcarres, Lord

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (City Lond.)

Harris, Frederick Leverton

Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Helmsley, Viscount

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Bottomley, Horatio

Hill, Sir Clement

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

Bowles, G. Stewart

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Kimber, Sir Henry

Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

Carlile, E. Hildred

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Stanier, Beville

Castlereagh, Viscount

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Starkey, John R.

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R.

Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark)

Clive, Percy Archer

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Valentia, Viscount

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

Du Cros, Arthur Philip

Moore, William

Younger, George

Faber, George Denison (York)

Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)

Oddy, John James

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Gretton and Earl Winterton.

Fell, Arthur

Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

NOES.

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Essex, R. W.

Jardine, Sir J.

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Esslemont, George Birnie

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

Evans, Sir Samuel T.

Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Everett, R. Lacey

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Armitage, R.

Fenwick, Charles

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Ferens, T. R.

Jowett, F. W.

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Ferguson, R. C. Munro

Kearley, Sir Hudson E.

Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury. E.)

Findlay, Alexander

Kekewich, Sir George

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Barker, John

Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

Fullerton, Hugh

Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

Beale, W. P.

Gibb, James (Harrow)

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

Black, Arthur W.

Gilhooly, James

Lehmann, R. C.

Boulton, A. C. F.

Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John

Levy, Sir Maurice

Bowerman, C. W.

Glover, Thomas

Lewis, John Herbert

Brace, William

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Lupton, Arnold

Brigg, John

Grant, Corrie

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

M'Callum, John M.

Byles, William Pollard

Gulland, John W.

M'Crae, Sir George

Cameron, Robert

Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton

M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Hall, Frederick

Marnham, F. J.

Cawley, Sir Frederick

Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale

Massie, J.

Cheetham, John Frederick

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Masterman, C. F. G.

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

Menzies, Walter

Clough, William

Hart-Davies, T.

Molteno, Percy Alport

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth

Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.

Morse, L. L.

Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

Harwood, George

Murray Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard.

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Myer, Horatio

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Haworth, Arthur A.

Norman, Sir Henry

Cowan, W. H.

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Helme, Norval Watson

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Crooks, William

Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

Nuttall, Harry

Crosfield, A. H.

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

O'Grady, J.

Crossley, William J.

Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe

Partington, Oswald

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.

Higham, John Sharp

Pollard, Dr.

Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.

Horniman, Emslie John

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central

Duckworth, James

Hudson, Walter

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

Hutton, Alfred Eddison

Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

Hyde, Clarendon

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Erskine, David C.

Illingworth, Percy H.

Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

Richards T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n

Soares, Ernest J.

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Richardson, A.

Stanger, H. Y.

Waterlow, D. S.

Ridsdale, E. A.

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Roberts, Sir John H. (Denbighs.)

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Summerbell, T.

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Robinson, S.

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P.

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Rose, Charles Day

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth

Rowlands, J.

Tomkinson, James

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Toulmin, George

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W.

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.)

Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

Ure, Alexander

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Verney, F. W.

Winfrey, R.

Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne

Wadsworth, J.

Wood, T. M'Kinnon

Seddon, J.

Walsh, Stephen

Sherwell, Arthur James

Walters, John Tudor

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Walton, Joseph

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan

After the Chairman had announced the figures of the division—
MR. GRAYSON (Yorkshire, W. R., Colne Valley)said: Mr. Chairman, before you proceed with the next Amendment to the clause, I wish to call the attention of the House to the fact that, as I stated yesterday, there are thousands of people dying in the streets while you are trifling with this Bill. [Cries of "Order."] I shall not keep order. I am alone in this House, but I am going to fight.
*THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member—
MR. GRAYSON: I refuse to keep order. [Cries of "Sit down."] I defy you to silence me.
*THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order.
MR. GRAYSON: I will not keep order. I am alone in this House, but I have a large mandate behind me, and I refuse to allow the House to proceed while I am in it.
*THE CHAIRMAN: Will the hon. Member—
MR. GRAYSON: The people I represent—[Cries of "Order" and "Sit down," and ironical laughter.] This is not a matter for laughter and callous indifference.
*THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order. [Cries of "Order, order" and "Sit down."]
MR. GRAYSON: I absolutely refuse to sit down in this Chamber while it refuses to do something for the people who are starving wholesale. I refuse to wait another moment. [Renewed cries of "Order."]
*THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order. Will the hon. Member allow me to ask this question: Does he understand that the House is in Committee, that the Committee can only deal with what the House instructs it to deal with, and that until I report progress we can deal with nothing else?
MR. GRAYSON: Then I will move that you report progress.
*THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member cannot move to report progress, because that is not allowed to anybody except a member of the Government, under the special Resolution dealing with this Bill. If the hon. Member wishes to raise this question, he should do so in the House, and not in Committee.
MR. GRAYSON: Yes, Sir, the point I want to make is—[Renewed cries of "Order," and "Sit down."]
MR. GRAYSON: I shall not sit down.
*THE CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. Member refuse to obey the orders of the Chair?
MR. GRAYSON: Quite so, Sir. I feel this matter so deeply that I must refuse to obey the Rules of the House.
*THE CHAIRMAN: I must direct the hon. Member to resume his seat.
MR. GRAYSON: I know there is force and machinery enough in this House to compel me to sit down and to remove me from the House. I wish to say that I refuse to obey your orders, Mr. Emmott. [Renewed cries of "Order, order."] I know very well that Members of every section of the House are pledged to the Licensing Bill, but I refuse to obey— [Cries of "Order, order."]
*THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member has refused to obey my instructions to resume his seat, and I therefore order him to withdraw from the House for the remainder of the sitting.
MR. GRAYSON: I refuse to withdraw from the House voluntarily, until the House has given some intimation of an attempt to attend to this urgent matter of unemployment—
*THE CHAIRMAN: I want the hon. Member to understand what his conduct means. If he refuses to obey my order to leave the House, then I must name him, and the sitting will be suspended and the Speaker will be sent for.
MR. GRAYSON: I cannot help that. I refuse to permit the business of the House to go on until the House considers the people who are starving. [Cries of "Order" and "Withdraw."]
*THE CHAIRMAN: Then, in that case, I name you, Mr. Victor Grayson, for disobeying the orders of the Chair.
The CHAIRMANthen left the Chair to report the circumstance to the House.
MR. GRAYSON: You cannot shame me. [Ironical laughter and cries of "Withdraw."] It is all very well for Members to laugh. [General cries of "Order, order."] Members have been always willing to adopt that attitude towards this question. [Renewed cries of "Order, order."] I shall obstruct the
634
proceedings so long as the House refuses to consider this question.
Mr. SPEAKERresumed the Chair, and Mr. EMMOTT reported that Mr. GRAYSON had been named by him to the Committee as disregarding the authority of the Chair.
Whereupon Motion made, and Question, "That Mr. Grayson be suspended from the service of the House,"—(Mr. Asquith,)—put, and agreed to.
*MR. SPEAKER, addressing Mr. Grayson, said: I have to inform the hon. Member that he is suspended from the service of the House, and I must ask him to leave the House.
MR. GRAYSON: I leave the House, as I said yesterday, with pleasure, because I feel that no man—[Loud cries of "Order"]—can stay in this House another moment. [Renewed cries of "Order."]
*MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled to address the House after he has been suspended.
MR. GRAYSON: Well, then, I leave the House, as I said before, feeling that I have gained in dignity by leaving this institution, and I hope that—[The remainder of the sentence could not be heard in consequence of loud cries of "Order."]
The hon. Member having started to go out of the Chamber turned back again and loudly exclaimed: "This House is a House of murderers." He then withdrew.

LICENSING BILL.
Again considered in Committee.
*MR. BOTTOMLEY (Hackney, S.)said the object of the Amendment he desired to submit to the Committee was to extend the period of the time-limit from fourteen to twenty-one years. He was aware that by the Resolution of the Committee last night the principle of the time-limit was no longer before them, and he would endeavour to avoid

635
any discussion of the matter from that point of view, but he was encouraged to move the extension of the period by the fact that the Prime Minister had more than once intimated to the House that Clause 1, fixing the reduction period, did not necessarily govern Clause 3. The grounds upon which he asked the Committee to say that the time-limit in the clause was too short were, first, that the whole thing had been thrown on the trade by way of surprise, and secondly, even if that point failed, it was impossible for any prudent trader interested in this trade to make adequate provision for the redemption of his licence within the proposed period of fourteen years. As to the first point, it was frequently contended that whether the time-limit was fourteen or twenty-one years, or any other period, the trade had been fully warned, that some time-limit would probably be enacted, and in the discussion of a subsection which occupied the time of the Committee the night before, he ventured to indicate, so far as the chief champion of that view was concerned, it was a novel point of view for him to take. He wished to say especially after a word or two with the right hon. Gentleman, that nothing was further from his desire than to impugn the absolute integrity and good faith of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley, and he accepted without any reservation his personal assurance that, whatever might have appeared in the City Oracle in the way of financial answers, he was not primarily responsible for it, although he was responsible. But when the right hon. Gentleman said that, he could not help asking the Committee what would be said of a licensed victualler charged with allowing intoxication on his premises, who pleaded that, owing to pressure of work, he had overlooked the man. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to extend the same generous consideration and allowance to the members of the trade as he asked for himself in this particular matter. It was said that the trade and the investing section of the public had been warned that some kind of time-limit was imminent, and in proof of this, the Member for the Spen Valley called attention last night to the fact that in 1891, about the
636
time of Sharpe v. Wakefield, an institution was established called the Licences Insurance Corporation. If he inadvertently did an injustice to that Corporation when he said it was not doing the flourishing business which was anticipated, he apologised. He was misled again by the right hon. Gentleman's journal, because he found that when that company was being offered to the public, and when the right hon. Gentleman, it was said, knew very well, and every licensed victualler ought to have known very well, that the danger was imminent, and of the pressing necessity of insuring against losing his licence, the right hon. Gentleman's journal said—
"In our opinion, the idea of the Licences Insurance Corporation is a good one, but whether the company will ever secure the business for which it caters we cannot say."
He thought that quotation justified the view which he took at that time, and which the right hon. Gentleman himself took, that there was no imminent danger. When the hon. Member for Tyneside was speaking last night, he interrupted him to say that he had established by quotations from the right hon. Gentleman's journal that he had held out to the public that brewery investments were intrinsically sound. The hon. Member had called his attention to the fact that he had not done so, and, therefore, simply for the purpose of keeping good faith with the Committee, he desired to read one quotation, typical of many others, in the general answers—
"Brewery Shares.—We should hold these shares. They represent very sound property."
He only mentioned these matters in aid of his argument that, even at the time of Sharpe v. Wakefield, subject to good behaviour and the requirements of the district, the expectation of the renewal of a licence was a thing of which any Court of equity would take cognisance, upon which any ordinarily prudent trustee could invest money, and which, as a matter of fact, did lead to the investment of an enormous amount of capital by perfectly innocent people. After Sharpe v. Wakefield and up to the time the Act of 1904 was passed the average annual number of licences disallowed was thirty-two. Therefore it was obvious that whatever discretion the justices had they quite understood

637
after Sharpe v. Wakefield it must be very judicially exercised, with the result that the Act of 1904 was passed under which the man who lost his licence was reimbursed by his fellow tradesmen for the loss of his property. He did not wish to weary the Committee by abstruse calculations as to how far under a limit of fourteen years it was possible for a licensee to redeem his property. He desired to take one concrete and governing case in support of his contention that the time-limit of fourteen years was too short—the case of the last of the licences sold by His Majesty's Government. He thought there could not be a stronger argument submitted to the Prime Minister than that he should be able to show that the licence recently sold by the Government to a purchaser in the open market, which, under the operation of this clause, must go in fourteen years, must of necessity involve a very heavy financial loss on the purchaser. It was said, yesterday, by the Secretary of State for War, that the purchaser of the "Coach and Horses" was thoroughly satisfied with his bargain. He had in his hand a circular, dated 12th March, 1908, which had been issued by the purchaser, and in which he complained bitterly that, within a few months of paying his £10,000 to the Government, this "confiscation Bill," as he discourteously called it, was sprung upon him. This was how the purchaser dealt with the question of the time-limit, and if any member or supporter of the Government could answer his argument, he would be quite prepared to withdraw his Amendment.
"I assume £10,000 to have been the reserve placed upon the property at the sale, as there were bids against me to that amount. … The Government must have known their intentions, when they fixed their reserve and accepted the full market value of the property as licensed premises, of introducing (less than six months later) a confiscation Bill, which, if passed into law, will deprive my company of at least three-fourths of the amount they duped me into paying. I have had this property valued, minus the licence, by three of the principal firms of valuers in Portsmouth, with the following results."
He gave the names of the valuers, and their figures were £2,500, £1,950, and £2,000—
"giving an average of £2,150 as the value of the whole of the land, with the bricks and mortar. In the common division of brewery
638
holdings, one-third ordinary shares, one-third preference shares, and one-third debenture stock, the investment would work out as follows: £3,333 6s. 8d. ordinary shares, £3,333 6s. 8d. preference shares, £3,333 6s. 8d. debenture stock. With a time-limit as proposed in the Government Bill the whole of the ordinary shares would disappear, the whole of the preference shares would disappear, and, accepting the mean valuation at the figure quoted, £1,183 6s. 8d. belonging to the mortgage debenture stockholders would also be lost. The futility of the contention that the capital value of the licence could be written off in the time-limit suggested in the confiscation Bill is self-evident. I am able to prove that the profit secured by rent and trade on this investment is 3¾ per cent. It would be impossible to write off the capital value of the licence as assessed by the Government in any time-limit."
He would not read the peroration with which he concluded, because it was not quite suitable for a business argument, but here was a case of a man acquainted with the trade purchasing, at a price fixed by the Government, a licensed property, and by the operation of this clause passed within a few months of the completion of that purchase they had this solemn statement by the purchaser, which, unless it was confuted by the Prime Minister, meant that of necessity he must lose two-thirds of the purchase price, of which he was to make a present to the Government who sold him the property. That was one case. The purchaser there represented a brewery company. He would take one other case, which was the case of a publican. Quite recently a man with whom he was acquainted, and who owned two large licensed houses in London, died. Upon his applying to the solicitor to the estate he was told that the following was the effect of this Licensing Bill. One of the houses was held on a lease of which there was an unexpired term of thirty-seven years to run, at an annual rental of £150. That house was valued for the purposes of probate at £29,000, and the present mortgage upon it was £37,455. The other house was valued for probate at £17,000, and the value of the mortgage was £26,000. The valuer told him that but for the present proposals of the Government the valuation of the goodwill of the two houses would have been increased to the extent of £25,000, and further, that if this time-limit of fourteen years prevailed it would be impossible

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to set aside out of the earnings of this property a sufficient sum to allow any margin whatever for the maintenance of the widow or the education of the children. There was a tragedy in a picture of that kind. He happened to be well acquainted with the family of the deceased man, who died suddenly at an early age. The children were being well brought up and receiving a good education. They were respectable people in every way. The man, by his industry and energy, his vigilance and enterprise in the conduct of these houses, upon which a slur had never been cast, believed he had made provision for his family. Yet he was scarcely dead when the solicitor who had the conduct of his affairs showed that by the operation of this Bill the family had become practically paupers. If a state of things like that could happen, the Government surely could not resist the contention that a fourteen years time-limit was inadequate. He therefore suggested it should be increased to twenty-one years, not because he believed that twenty-one years was sufficient to enable proper provision to be made, but because he thought that possibly a compromise to that effect might be conceded, in which case those persons holding licensed property would be so much better off than they otherwise would be. He had been struck by some very remarkable features of this discussion. The hon. Member for West Aberdeen had made a most interesting speech. He exhibited the spectacle of a stern Scottish temperance reformer championing the brewers. He had pointed out that they had had plenty of time within this time-limit to make provision, and had declaimed loudly on the fact that compensation had been paid in cases where none was due, and that therefore the trade had been deceived. He (Mr. Bottomley) was sure that the trade was grateful to the hon. Member and he hoped that the hon. Gentleman would continue to show the same solicitude when he saw that the trade was likely to be defrauded, whether by the State or by an individual. Then there had been the spectacle of the hon. Member for Tyneside, one of the most cultured agnostics in the country, championing the cause of the Nonconformist conscience. The hon. Member, had referred to him as a distinguished and
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successful financier. He hoped he might be entitled to claim that description. At any rate, he did not know of any reason why he should not. However that might be, he claimed to be a successful journalist, and he hoped as a journalist he should never select the argument that anything which appeared in his paper appeared there without his responsibility simply because he had not physically and actually written it. The point he wished to make to the Committee was that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley had allowed this temperance movement, as it was called, to become his obsession. Other earnest temperance reformers were in the same position. The again the words "temperance party" were almost an insult. It was certainly an anomaly in the Parliamentary life of this country that there should be a so-called temperance party. He did not think that anyone who was in opposition to this Bill would like to be called a member of the intemperance party. Anybody who took part in this debate, whatever attitude he might take with reference to this Bill, was alive to the evil of intemperance, the opponents to this Bill just as much as the most ardent and enthusiastic temperance reformer. It was a waste of time to tell them about the evil; they could not walk a yard without realising it. But the imposition of a time-limit of fourteen years, and that was why he desired to make it longer, came as a great shock to the conscience of the public. Rightly or wrongly, people had arrived at the idea that some injustice was being done to their fellow-citizens, and no Act of Parliament which gave rise to that idea could obtain the moral sanction of the community. If the Government could concede another seven years to the time-limit, that would be some satisfaction to popular feeling. People would say that the trade had so much longer to protect itself. Not only the trade, but other people who had invested their money in these things—that they also had a better chance of protecting themselves against the effect of this Bill. Fourteen years had been shown to be absolutely insufficient to enable the trade to protect themselves, and therefore they should be given a better chance. It was the organic principle of the articles of faith of the Liberal

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Party that there should be equality of opportunity and fair play for every section of the population: therefore he begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 9, to leave out from the first word 'the,' to the word 'compensation,' in order to insert the words '5th day of April, 1930.'"—(Mr. Bottomley.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
MR. NUSSEYsaid that as he had put a similar Amendment upon the Paper he felt compelled to support the hon. Member for South Hackney, and should follow him into the division lobby. He hoped the Government would see their way to say that this fourteen years was not a hard and fast time-limit which could not be altered. There was a general feeling that there should be some extra time over and above the period of the fourteen years during which the trade had to pay compensation to those whose licences were suppressed in order that those which were left might to a certain extent recoup themselves. This Amendment did not affect the question of the reduction of licences, which, as he understood, was the main principle of the Bill. But the Amendment did affect a very large and valuable class of property held by people all over the country. The value of these licences had been estimated at anything between £95,000,000 and £150,000,000. He was not lawyer enough to be able to say whether licences were actual property or not because their value was based on great expectations which had been formed by the trade. At the same time those expectations were sufficiently good and sound to enable these licences to be bought and sold. In other words, those who bought them knew exactly what their value was and what the state of the law was. The main fact was uncontroverted that if this Bill did not become law these licences at the end of fourteen years would be of very much the same value as they were to-day, bat that if this Bill were passed into law with this time-limit they would be worth nothing. Under the Bill the Government were going to transfer the millions of
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money represented by these licences from the pockets of the people who held them into the hands of the State. They were told that a time-limit made all the difference, and in a sense of course it did, because it enabled a sinking fund to be formed, during which the trade could set aside a sum of money yearly to meet this vast change in their condition; but he ventured to think that fourteen years was too short a time to enable the trade to do that. If they invested their money at 4 per cent. to raise a certain sum in fifteen years, they had to put away 5½ per cent. of the capital they wished to raise yearly. The trade ought to expect a fair return from the money invested in it, and they might take 8 per cent. as a fair return, and if they had to put away 5½ per cent. of their capital value it would leave them a small return indeed to meet the actual charges on that trade. If they took a twenty-one years time-limit they had a slightly better state of affairs. They were told that these breweries were very rich companies with vast reserves, out of which they could pay these heavy charges. That might be so in some cases, but there were a great many of these houses owned by private individuals, and it did not seem to him really to affect the issue whether they were owned by wealthy brewers or not, because they had to consider whether these charges could be met by a reasonably prudent trader. There was another aspect of the question. A time-limit would immediately affect the market value of the whole of these securities to a very great extent. They were based at present on the expectation that these licences would be renewed, and they were bought and sold as if the licences would be renewed in perpetuity. If they put in a term of fourteen years they immediately dropped the value of those licences by something like 50 per cent. the very first year of their time-limit, and as it went on it would decrease to vanishing point. He would urge that the test of this question was what the ordinary prudent trader could do who had to meet the ordinary trade risks and make the ordinary business profit. He knew that all this class of property had always been subject to fresh legislation and that they should have been prepared to meet

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fresh legislation, but he did not think it was fair to say that they ought to have been prepared to meet legislation with a fourteen years time-limit. They might say that railway companies ought to be prepared to meet the possibility of all their lines becoming national property, but he thought in this Bill they were putting the case too high against the ordinary prudent trader. It had always been the practice of Parliament not to bring about violent disturbances of property without careful compensation being awarded, and he hoped in this case that course would not be departed from. If this Bill was to become law it would have to commend itself to the ordinary fair man in the street, and it would not do that unless they extended their time-limit to twenty-one years.
*MR. CLOUGH (W. R., Skipton)said he supposed that, this Amendment having been moved by the hon. Member for South Hackney, the Amendment in his name would naturally go overboard. His Amendment was to reduce the time-limit to twelve months instead of extending it to twenty-one years. He was opposed to compensation in any shape or form for the liquor traffic. He was not one of those who thought the liquor traffic was a gigantic charity organisation carried on for the moral, intellectual, and spiritual benefit of widows and orphans. He held more the opinion of the late Lord Randolph Churchill that it was a devilish and destructive traffic, and for that reason he was not prepared to vote for compensation either in the way of hard cash or money to be provided by Parliament, and if there was to be a time-limit twelve months was long enough for him. He was quite aware that the Act of 1904 had given them to some extent a vested interest, but they never had one before then. They knew they never had one. If they took the first Licensing Act of any moment, that of 1828, they would find it laid down by Lord Brougham that the licensing justices had absolute discretion. They could renew the licence of a house that had been conducted, and badly conducted, for only twelve months, and they could refuse the licence of a house that had been conducted for fifty years
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and had been conducted well. That was proved up to the hilt by the celebrated case of Sharpe v. Wakefield. If they had to have a time-limit, one extending beyond one year was too long for him. The time-limits of the past had been expended by now. The Royal Commission of 1899 (Minority Report) recommended a time-limit of seven years. Those seven years had flown and two others along with them. In 1893 the Bishop of Chester introduced a Bill into the House of Lords, and he suggested that five years notice should be given to the licence holders that after the expiration of that time they would be annual licences, but since that Bill was introduced, in addition to the five years, another ten years had flown. In 1876 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham proposed that they should have compensation to the tune of five years purchase on the average annual profit. Since then not only had the five years flown, but twenty-seven years as well. In 1871 Mr. Bruce proposed in his Bill a time-limit of ten years, and since then there had flown in addition to the ten years twenty-seven years. Therefore he submitted to the House that for the Government to come along at this date and put on the top of all those warnings and proposals another time-limit of fourteen years was altogether more than met the necessities of the case, and he would appeal to the Government that they were setting a very dangerous precedent in compensating expectations. The hon. Member for Tyneside yesterday said that the late Mr. Gladstone had once fallen into the pit of thinking that all the landowners should have compensation for the abolition of the corn laws because of their expectations, and they would have the same thing when they came to deal, say, with education. Now that the denominational schools had been thrown on to the rates would they not want compensation for expectations when they took them off? Notwithstanding all that, when the Chairman put the Question from the Chair, he would be so inconsistent as to vote "that these words stand part," and he trusted an overwhelming majority of the House would put the reduction period in the Bill at fourteen years, and that the Government would set their faces like a flint so

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as not to allow the other House to extend the period by one day.
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTS (Lincoln)said there were two points involved in this Amendment. The mover said he moved it because of his zeal for temperance reform. He did not question his zeal, but he was postponing the most valuable temperance reforms in this Bill from fourteen to twenty-one years. He should express his zeal for temperance reform in some better way than that. His other point was a question of whether the liquor sellers were really able to write down their capital within the period of fourteen years without suffering excessive loss, and he instanced the case especially of the "Coach and Horses." He said that fourteen years was a shock to the consciences of the British public, and that twenty-one years would relieve their feelings; but surely that was a somewhat vague method of treatment. He had heard from the benches on the other side that this was a question of actuarial discussion, and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said it was the sort of question on which no bishop dared express an opinion. In this discussion let them then get a closer grip with the facts and have some more definite statements than the mere case of the "Coach and Horses." There were two points in that case, one being that no sufficient notice of the intentions of the Government were given to Sir William Dupree, but he thought there was. Statements of Members of the Government could be quoted during all the months preceding the purchase of that house. They were recorded in the liquor trade papers, and it was common knowledge, but that was a small point; they knew it very well.
AN HON. MEMBER: Knew what?
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTSsaid they knew, in the words of the Home Secretary, that—
"No solution of the question could be satisfactory which did not ultimately effect the transfer of the licence value, or the monopoly value; the Government were pledged to deal with the question at the very first opening of the next session."
That was on 7th June, 1907, and it was taken into account by the Brewery
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Debenture Holders Committee. Member after Member of the Government during 1907 and also in 1906, had repeatedly stated that they were going to deal with a comprehensive measure of licensing reform. That must have been present in the mind of Sir William Dupree.
MR. YOUNGER: What about the promise of the Prime Minister that there was to be no confiscation or injustice?
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: The Prime Minister said there was to be no confiscation or injustice, but he went on to say—
"What would amount to confiscation was a matter on which opinions would probably differ."
He had a letter of Sir William Dupree which he had studied, and, in the first place, Sir William said in reference to the "Coach and Horses," that he had no grievance over the purchase. The actual words were—
"My only object was to show that six months before the introduction of the Bill, the licence was sold by the Government for £7,500."
"Under the law of value existing at the time of the purchase," he had no reason to be dissatisfied with the purchase, and, in fact, if he had wished to get rid of it, trade competitors would have been very glad to relieve him of that purchase.
MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS: Would they now?
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: Oh, yes. I understand so.
SIR F. BANBURY: Because they know the Bill will never pass.
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: How do you know that?
SIR F. BANBURY: The bye-elections show it.
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: They were elections in which the other side polled a minority vote during the time that the Licensing Bill was before the country.
SIR F. BANBURY: Haggerston.
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: I am taking the votes of the years' elections altogether, and that is a fact. Continuing, the Member said in reference to the contention that the licence value of the "Coach and Horses" was worth £7,500, and that the site and structure were worth £2,500, Sir William Dupree said he was only getting 3¾ per cent. on that purchase. That, frankly, was incredible. He was a member of a compensation authority, and he knew quite well that if Sir William was only getting 3¾ per cent. on the purchase the licence value could not be £7,500. Either he had got at least £900 (£750 from trade and £125 from rent) in which case the licence value was worth £7,500, or else the value of the licence was only £3,750; or else if he was getting 3¾ per cent. from rent and profit together the value of the licence was £2,500. That was the utmost any trade valuer would give him; no trade valuer in his senses would value at a higher price if that was all Sir William was getting. He took it that he had got £900 a year at least, and therefore, £7,500, was the market value. Under the Kennedy judgment he must be making £900 a year out of his wholesale property, otherwise the licence would not be worth that. Therefore, he had £900 to play with. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire had stated on the previous night that these values were being compensated on the basis of ten years purchase, and therefore during the period of fifteen years it was possible to pay 5 per cent. on capital, and at the same time write off the whole of the capital value. If he had to write off the whole of that £7,500, then out of the profits he was making he could pay himself 5¼per cent. on the whole capital—6¼ per cent. on the ordinary shares, 5 per cent. on the preference shares, and 4 per cent. on the debenture stock, and yet get back the whole of the capital at the end of the term. That really depended on the arithmetical ratio which had been established under the Kennedy judgment. Any licence value which could be justified under the Kennedy judgment, must have corresponding to it a return of 10 per cent. annual profits. This meant that the whole of the licence value could be paid off in fifteen years with a return of 5¼ per cent. on the whole capital. That
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was one justification which might be fairly made for fixing the time-limit. They had many appeals to actuarial experts on the other side, but what he had to complain of was that the real facts were very rarely given in individual cases, the names of which they had the utmost difficulty in getting. The hon. and learned Member for the Walton division in his first reading speech said he would give them "the names, figures and calculations" of fifteen brewery companies. The hon. and learned Gentleman had supplied the names in such a way that he could only identify one, that of the largest of the number, and he was still waiting for the calculations. He thought the hon. and learned Gentleman had not treated the House quite frankly in this matter. He profoundly distrusted the actuarial calculations of trade experts. He had seen in the Compensation Courts that they always claimed as much as they could get for their clients. They perhaps got half of what they claimed, but unless one was in a position to check their figures, and go into the cases of the individual companies, one could not trust those actuarial experts. In regard to the fifteen brewery companies, the hon. and learned Member for the Walton division had placed their licence values at £22,127,651. But his answer to that was that the hon. and learned Gentleman would not give him an opportunity to go into the individual figures, except in one case, that of Watney, Coombe, Reid & Co. The hon. and learned Member had placed the total values of the licences belonging to this company at £7,728,621; but this must be exaggerated, because the total capitalisation of Watney, Coombe, Reid & Co., in its market valuation, fell to £6,356,916 in 1907. As he could not get the names of the individual companies, he could only say that the hon. and learned Gentleman had put the licence values of all the fifteen breweries at £22,127,651. If that was so, then, under the Kennedy judgment, there must be £2,217,000 of annual profits corresponding. This would allow 5 per cent. on the total licence values, and repay the whole of those values by 1923. If there was not that amount of annual profits, then the licence values were over-estimated and inflated. There must be that amount of annual profit to correspond to the values, under

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the Kennedy judgment. He would refer to one other case, that of Messrs. Wethered & Co., who lately wrote a letter to The Times saying they were prepared to allow the Government to send any expert to test their figures, and they would place all information at the disposal of the Government expert. All he could say was that Thomas Wethered & Co. seemed to be in a very flourishing condition. He would be very glad indeed if they would allow him to send in his expert, and he accepted their challenge. The company had paid 27 per cent. in 1902, and although their dividends were going down a bit, yet they were still pretty well up. On the average they had paid 20 per cent. from 1902 to 1906. They could pay 4 per cent. interest on debenture stock, 5 per cent. on preference shares, and 10 per cent. on ordinary shares, and yet he found by the 1906 balance sheet that there was left over for depreciation and sinking fund a sum which would replace, by 1923, a capital of £240,000. He found that all the public-houses, freehold and leasehold, belonging to this firm when it was registered in 1899, were valued at not more than £150,620. That included the site and structure, besides many cottages and some land. It was obvious that this firm could make proper provision by 1923. The monopoly value to be taken by the State in 1923 was only a small portion of the licence value. When he said small, he did not think it could be put higher than half of the licence value, which was the capitalisation of all the profits made in the house. Therefore he did not see that it was necessary to write off the whole of the licence value at the end of the time-limit because there would still be profits made out of the sale and manufacture of beer and spirits. The wholesale profits would continue to be made, and there would be capital value corresponding to those. The monopoly value could only be a portion of the licence value, for the licensees and wholesale traders must be able to get their ordinary profits at the expiration of the time-limit, in fact, they would get the profits which they would obtain if there were free trade in drink. Therefore, it would only be necessary to write off, not the whole but half of the licence values, and that would be enough. If
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that were so Sir William Dupree would have to write off only £187 10s. a year and he would still be able to get a sum approaching 8 per cent. on the total investment, and if he was prepared to be content with 3¾ per cent. he thought he was very well off.
SIR F. BANBURY: Why don't you write that off?
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: That really involved the whole question whether there was to be a time-limit or not. He admitted that the time-limit did mean a loss, but it was a loss which they might fairly ask the trade to prepare for, seeing that it was occasioned by the fact that at last, after long years of waiting, they asked that the value of the monopoly should be reserved to the State which the State had got a right to to-day. Taking the market values as they stood to-day, there was time for the liquor traders to write off these values and still leave themselves reasonable profits. What he had been saying was confirmed by what was said by Mr. Cripps, in 1904. He was the author of a standard book on. "Compensation," and he said as Member of Parliament for Stretford in this House—
"If they introduced a twenty years' time-limit, the first effect would be not to diminish the amount to the householders, but to give them an unfair amount of compensation to which they were not entitled to at all."
At present they were being compensated on the basis of ten years' purchase, or a fifteen years' run. If they introduced a twenty-one years' time-limit the first effect would be to give a compensation not on ten years' purchase, but on fifteen years' purchase—that was, not on the basis of a fourteen years' run, but on a twenty-one years' run; thus they would raise the whole standard of compensation by 50 per cent., and pro tanto they would have to raise the compensation levy, or else they would lower the rate of reduction in the number of licences. That was a very serious point to be borne in mind. Though this question was not raised by this particular point, it had often been suggested that the reduction period should take place after fourteen years, and that then there should be a close

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time. That would have a very pernicious effect from the point of view of temperance reform. That close time, during which there would be entire security to the trader, was, he felt convinced, a time which would mean deterioration of the conduct of the trade, because the greater the security of the trade, the worse had always been its conduct. All the facts were in favour of that. The Leader of the Opposition had, as one of his most cherished illusions, the doctrine that they must give security to the trade so that the conduct of the trade should be satisfactory. The history of the beer-houses, which had absolute security of tenure, when the brewers, if they had chosen, could have introduced the Continental café system, showed that that time was one of growing demoralisation, a time when things went backward in England, and it was not until control was re-established by the Government of 1869 and 1872 that they turned the corner and made progress. He looked with great suspicion and distrust upon this proposal for a seven years close time. So far from it being a shock to public opinion in the country, he had found it exceedingly difficult to defend the length of the time allowed in the Bill. Might he remind the Committee what the precedents were. Take the case of the Church of England Temperance Society, which had a Bill in 1893, backed by the Bishop of Manchester, imposing a five years time-limit. Cardinal Vaughan in 1891 advocated a five years time-limit.
MR. JAMES HOPE: Were they to pay a levy all the time for compensation of others?
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTSsaid they undoubtedly were, except in the case of the Manchester Bill in 1891, under which the proposal was that the total reduction, which was more drastic than that proposed under this Bill, was to take place in the first year. The time-limit originated in the Church of England Temperance Bill, and their representatives before Lord Peel's Licensing Commission, including the Member for North-West Manchester, justified it. The Archbishop of Canterbury's proposal in 1904 for twenty-one years was made only
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after proposals for a time-limit of seven and fourteen years had been rejected in the Commons. It was proposed, as a last desperate expedient, to get a compromise of some sort into the Bill. He wanted to lay stress on the fact that this proposal was a far more generous one than had been made in any of our Colonies. There had been terms of fourteen years in South Australia and ten years in Victoria, but those were in commutation of a definite statutory right of renewal, and not in commutation of an indefinite expectation of renewal. In Canada and in the United States they had never given a particle of compensation or a month of time-limit. But his main objection to this extended time-limit was owing to its effect on temperance reform. They were asked: Why not make a concession? His answer was because it involved a postponement of all the most important temperance reforms to which they attached importance. Mr. Gladstone's statement had been quoted that he thought the reduction of public-houses, as a remedy, was an imposture. Both his actions and his speeches showed that he said that because he believed the reduction of licences would be of lesser value unless they wound up the monopoly at the same time, Mr. Gladstone said in 1880—
"At the present, the number of public-houses is enormous. Yes, Sir, but something else ought to be taken into consideration. Why is it that the position of public-houses in this country is lower than it is in any country in Europe? That is the result of the management we have followed, and the number does not in the slightest degree tend to mitigate that statement. I am one of those who see the almost incurable, radical and profound mischief from what is called the publicans' monopoly, and not through any fault of the publican or indeed of anyone. My firm belief is that as long as the monopoly connected with private interests belongs to the trade, you will never have true and efficient police supervision exercised over the public-houses, and without that they must continue to hold the disparaged and unsatisfactory position which they do hold now and have held for many generations."
They had waited long enough for real temperance reform in England. Everyone admitted the urgent character of the evils. The Leader of the Opposition had told them they were in the presence of the great and ever-present tragedy of drink, and had spoken on several occasions of the immense importance of

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grappling with the problem, but no one had done more than the right hon. Gentleman to rivet upon the country and to perpetuate that tragedy of drink which deplored. It was because in this Amendment they were asked to wait for an additional seven years that he implored the Government not to make any concession in this matter. He wished to register his emphatic protest against the lengthening of the time, and to protest against the excessive and inordinate postponement of the day of deliverance which had been too long already delayed.
*MR. F. E. SMITHsaid that many parts of the speech of the hon. Gentleman had caused him surprise, but certainly those observations which he made as to the part which the Leader of the Opposition had played in the history of licensing reform in this country caused him the greatest degree of astonishment. As to his statement that his right hon. friend had riveted the drink trade more firmly upon the people of this country than it had ever been riveted before—he (Mr. Smith) asked himself what importance it deserved, and in order to answer that question, he recalled for a moment some further observations and predictions that were indulged in by the hon. Gentleman and his political friends at the time his right hon. friend introduced the Bill which it was said had riveted the trade on the people of the country. It was stated freely by every opponent of the Bill that it would have no effect whatever in the reduction of licensing, and that it would endow the brewing trade. The Prime Minister said—
"I predict that this Bill will have no effect in reducing the number of licences, and it will endow the brewers of the country."
Was there any Member of that Party who would by reasoned argument repeat those statements? None; and he dismissed the hon. Gentleman's observations on the Bill of his right hon. friend with the remark that there had been no Bill which haddone more for temperance reform if the view of hon. Gentlemen opposite that reduction of licences promoted sobriety was the true one. As to its truth he expressed no opinion, but if indeed that was the fact and it was worth while causing great proprietary disturbance in order that they might reduce the number of
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premises on which alcoholic drink could be obtained, then beyond controversy that Act which the hon. Gentleman stigmatised as having riveted the drink trade upon the people of the country must be pronounced to have been more successful than any of its prodecessors. He did not in the least complain of the hon. Gentleman saying that any calculations or any argument which he had addressed to the House had no value at all. It was entirely a matter for the opinion of the Committee or ultimately perhaps of the country, but he thought he had some grievance against the hon. Member when he repeatedly stated that on the First Reading he had promised to give something to the House which he had never given it, and that he had been guilty of a breach of faith. The only method of determining whether or not anything which he had omitted to do constituted a breach of faith, was to consider what he had said on the First Reading, which he should imagine the hon. Gentleman had never done. What he said was—
"This statement that I have deals with fifteen representative companies, and I am quite prepared to give privately to any hon. Member the names of the companies and the figures and calculations which I now offer to the House."
He asked the Committee to note carefully the scope of the undertaking which he gave. It might have been that it would be a more useful method of checking the figures which he laid before the House, if he had been able to make a more extended undertaking. In fact those who had given the figures had authorised him to make the undertaking which he had just read out, and he made no other simply because he was not authorised to make any other. The reason he offered to give the figures and calculations was because he realised the unreasonableness of asking the House to recollect figures which occupied about a column of Hansard and which no one could intelligently follow as hurriedly stated in debate. The hon. Gentleman thought it proper to write to the provincial Press, and he (Mr. Smith) only saw the hon. Gentleman's lucubrations by accident. He had totally failed to establish that he had been guilty of a breach of faith. The truth was, of course, that it would have assisted the hon. Member if he had given him access—

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which he was in no position to do—to the books of every company he had mentioned. That entitled no opponent to state in the House or out of it that he (Mr. Smith) had been guilty of a breach of faith or that the calculations which he had put forward did not possess the value and the importance which he attributed to them.
*MR. CHARLES ROBERTSsaid he thought the hon. Gentleman had not been quite frank with the House. The matter was a small one, but his complaint was that the figures had been left for months with the impression produced upon everybody that he had had the means of checking them, and was utterly unable to make any reply. He was entirely justified in saying that he was not given—it was not the fault of the hon. Member, but of the companies—the kind of figures in this matter which would be required in any compensation Count and which were necessary to form a real judgment on these calculations.
MR. F. E. SMITHsaid he did not wish to pursue this controversy, but he did not think the Committee would deny a few moments explanation to an hon. Member to answer a charge of being guilty of want of frankness. It could not be shown that he had been guilty of a breach of faith, because he had never promised the figures to the House. He desired to make one or two observations as to cases in which the hon. Member had been offered the fullest opportunity of testing the calculations offered to the Committee. The hon. Member was familiar with the offer made in the Press by one company that any expert appointed by the hon. Member would be allowed to test by actuarial calculations whether it was possible at the end of fourteen or twenty-one years time-limit for them to make good the losses caused by this Bill. A similar offer was made by Mr. Buxton, but no one had accepted the challenge. Personally he should not vote upon the particular proposal that was before the House, for the reason that to his mind the distinction between a fourteen and a twenty-one years time-limit was utterly immaterial. It was only material in the sense that to some extent it qualified the injustice, which remained an injustice, whether
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the period decided upon was fourteen or twenty-one years. They fastened upon one principle in dealing with the question of compensation which they said licensed victuallers were entitled to, and that principle was that, if they took away for public purposes what licensed victuallers enjoyed to-day, they should give the market value for it. When he said the market value, he did not mean the freehold value. Nobody ever had contended that they were entitled to the freehold value. The contention that had been successfully put and supported in, the Courts was that a licence at the present day, and had for many years past, carried with it an expectation which was so definite in its character, and in the average of cases extended over so protracted a period, that it was of very considerable value indeed. Their position was that if they were going to take that away for public purposes, the measure of their liability was that they should pay that market value which they would have to pay if that value was local and not national in character. All that Sharpe v. Wakefield did was to say that the magistrates might take away a licence after a particular consideration of the individual case of an individual house. It never said that they might take away licences wholesale; in fact, the then Lord Chancellor most carefully excluded himself from that construction of his words by saying that they were not to be taken generally, but after an examination of the facts of a particular case.
*THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am afraid the hon. and learned Member is entering into a discussion of the general question. The Amendment deals only with the duration of the time-limit, the Committee having already, on the Amendment to leave out subsection (1), determined the principle of a time-limit.
MR. F. E. SMITHsaid that when the hon. Member for Marylebone advanced this very argument on the last Amendment the Chairman said it would be in order on this Amendment.
*THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I must deal with the matter as it comes before me. The observations of the hon. and

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learned Member clearly relate to the general question which has already been decided rather than to the subject matter of the Amendment.
EARL WINTERTONsaid that when the Chairman was in the Chair he led the Committee to understand that on this Amendment it would be possible to have a general discussion of this point.
*THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I was in the House at the time, and there is nothing in my ruling which is inconsistent with what the Chairman said.
MR. F. E. SMITHasked how far any of the calculations hitherto addressed to the Committee had satisfied them that there would be no loss to any of the shareholders whose affairs had been described. He was prepared to accept the three published statements put forward. First of all there was the list of Sir William Dupree, in regard to which the hon. Member opposite had stated that he could not accept the specific statement of fact he had made. If they were going to deal with the statement of a man so highly respected in the commercial world as Sir William Dupree in that summary manner, there would be no difficulty in disposing of any objections. In the cases he had cited, was it contended that ordinary shareholders, under the fourteen years time-limit, would be able to protect themselves, under any circumstances, against loss? Was there anybody who could produce the affairs of any company which would show that in any case the ordinary shareholders would be able to recoup themselves in fourteen years? If that could not be done, then the Amendment must open up the broad question as between fourteen and twenty-one years, and as to what justification there was for interfering with the livelihood of persons who had invested their money in the way they had done under the law. No answer had been given to that—a matter for most serious consideration. Surely it was clear under these circumstances that no case had been made out for interfering by legislation wholly novel in its character with the savings of persons who had been encouraged for generations to make investments
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of this kind. While a limit of twenty-one as compared with fourteen years was undoubtedly more indulgent, it bore no relation at all to any compensation based on the principle of market value, and therefore was almost as unacceptable as the original proposal. No allow ance of years that did not actuarially correspond to the market value of the licences would meet the legitimate expectations of those who had been encouraged by generations of legislation to make investments in licensed property.
*MR. RIDSDALEsaid that in this matter it was necessary to view the trade as a whole and not the instances of particular licensed houses. They could not otherwise gauge accurately what the trade were going to suffer. In this case the position was that during the period of fourteen years the Bill provided that one-third of the trade was to be shut down without compensation. [Some cries of "With compensation."] No, it was without compensation, for the trade as a whole was to compensate part of itself. Out of some 97,000 licensed houses they were going to shut down 32,000, and the trade, as a whole, was not going to be compensated. What position was it in to put up a sinking fund in order to replace the loss that was going to accrue to it at the termination of the time-limit, whatever that time-limit might be? It was very difficult to ascertain exactly what was the sum that they had got to make provision for. They were going to have the monopoly value taken away from them at the end of that time. Nobody in the House and nobody outside the House was agreed exactly as to what this monopoly value was. Then they were going to have local option thrust upon them, so that those houses which would remain after they had compensated one-third of their number, the two-thirds, would be paying the compensation levy during this time, and would then have to face the question of the payment of the monopoly value, and also to face the absolutely indeterminable risk whether the country generally would adopt a scheme of local option and shut down their business altogether. Let them take the case of an ordinary brewery. He had looked

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through the list of breweries and they usually divided their capital into, say, one proportion of ordinary stock, one proportion of preference stock, and two proportions of debentures. Let them take a brewery company doing a fair business, earning, say, 5 per cent. on the whole of the capital involved in the business. What was the fair amount it should set aside out of its earnings in order to meet the contingencies imposed by this Bill? What amount could a trader afford to put by? If he put by a quarter of the whole of the money returned by his business he was putting by as much as he could reasonably be expected to do. If he did agree to put by 25 per cent. of the whole of the profits after paying the ordinary working expenses, how would that work out in the case he had just put before the House, where the ordinary capital was one quarter, the preference capital a quarter, and the debenture capital one half of the total capital of the company? The debentures were paying 4 per cent., and the preference shares 5 per cent. He had postulated the concern as earning 5 per cent. on the whole of the capital, and to provide a sinking fund to recoup some of the capital, and to meet some of these emergencies at the end of the time-limit, 25 per cent. of the whole profit was to be set aside. Therefore, an ordinary shareholder in a brewery of that description, who had been earning a dividend of 7 per cent. before this Act came into operation, would, after it had come into operation, have to accept a lower dividend. He was suggesting that 25 per cent. of the whole profit of the company should be set aside in order to make a sinking fund. How did that work out in figures? Twenty-five per cent. of the total profit meant that the ordinary shareholder would have to put by 5 per cent. and reduce his dividend from 7 per cent. to 2 per cent. That was a very severe drop for him; but if he agreed to put it by, what proportion of the capital Would be returned in fourteen years at compound interest at 4 per cent., or in twenty-one years at compound interest at 4 per cent? The 5 per cent. on the ordinary shares, or 25 per cent. of the total profits, was equivalent to
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1¼ per cent. on the whole of the capital in the business, and 1¼ per cent. at 4 per cent. compound interest for fourteen years would replace 23 per cent. of the capital, and 1¼ per cent. at 4 per cent. compound interest in twenty-one years would replace 40 per cent. He respectfully submitted to the temperance advocates in the House that the risks involved in local option at the end of the period—the claim to the monopoly value on behalf of the State and the compensation levy which the people would have to pay during the fourteen years—were not over-compensated by their being allowed to have 40 per cent. in cash put by, and the freehold property in their brewery remaining. He thought twenty-one years might about give them the opportunity to turn round and put themselves in a fair position. He was perfectly clear that fourteen years did not do so, and that the accumulation of 23 per cent. which would be provided by the sinking fund would be a perfectly inadequate provision to meet the emergencies of the situation. He believed it always had been the practice in the past, when it had been found necessary to do anything for the good of the community against the interests of part of the community, to compensate that part generously. In this particular instance they could afford to be generous, even the most extreme temperance Member. For the time-limit was not a temperance matter in any appreciable degree at all. He agreed that the reduction period was a temperance matter, because there they had to determine in what period a certain number of houses had to be done away with. But they must not confuse the reduction period and the time-limit. The two matters were distinct, and this time-limit was a matter more for financial experts than for temperance reformers. He noticed with regret that a great many of his hon. friends with a keen interest in temperance would press for a short time-limit rather than for temperance reforms. Let them take the case of a brewery earning rather more than the 5 per cent. on the whole of its capital. Take a case, in which a brewery earned 7 per cent. on the whole of its capital. That capital was divided as before into one-fourth ordinary,

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one-fourth preference, and two quarters debentures, the debentures bearing interest at 4 per cent. and the preference shares 5 per cent. In that case the ordinary shares would be getting 15 per cent. Twenty-five per cent. of its whole profits, if put by, would produce a sinking fund of the amount of 1¾ per cent. on the whole capital of the company. If they applied that to a sinking fund of 1¾ per cent. at 4 per cent. compound interest during fourteen years it would recoup 32 per cent. of the capital, a far better return than in the first case. But this 1¾ per cent. on the whole capital must come from the ordinary shareholders. The consent of the ordinary shareholders to provide the sinking fund would be required. What sort of sacrifice had they to make to produce this 32 per cent.? This 1¾ per cent. sinking fund represented 7 per cent. on the ordinary capital, and meant a reduction of the ordinary shareholders' dividend from 15 per cent. to 8 per cent. If they were asked to reduce it they might say: "Oh, no! The directors are appointed by us, the ordinary shareholders, why should we pay this 7 per cent.? If we pay it for the whole of the fourteen years it means 98 per cent. of our capital without added interest and all to replace 32 per cent. of a capital on which the preference holders and debenture holders have a prior claim." They would say: "We will take what we can while we can, and the preference shareholders and the debenture holders can go whistle." That was a situation he did not want to see come about. That was a situation which, if they extended this time-limit, would not come, because they would so allow the incidence of the sinking fund to fall that the ordinary shareholder need not feel it. He suggested that they should put in a period of seven years between the fourteen years reduction period and the period in which the time-limit should become operative. He was sorry that the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Hackney obtained precedence on the Paper, for although it effected a great deal of good there were one or two points it omitted. It did not make any provision for telling the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amount he would come into when the whole monopoly value suddenly devolved upon
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him. That it would be a large sum they all believed. What it would be he had no information upon himself, and he very much doubted if anybody had. He thought it would have been far better if the hon. Member's Amendment had incorporated a means by which the Treasury would have felt their way gradually as to what the sum might be. It also rather left the trade to face a sudden situation and an enormous claim upon them without themselves being able to adjust the way in which they were to meet the burden imposed. But even if they could not get a graduated scheme he trusted that the general principle of the Amendment would be accepted by the Government and that the trade, after paying compensation levy for fourteen years and being on the rack for that time, might have a certain time in which to say their prayers.
EARL WINTERTONsaid the hon. Member for Brighton did well to call the attention of his friends who represented the temperance interest to the fact that this Amendment raised hard and dry financial facts, and that it was not possible to discuss it from the point of view of the hon. Member for Lincoln. The hon. Member for Lincoln, and the Prime Minister, speaking on another Amendment, seemed to assume that there was some justification for the proposal of the Government in the precedents to be found in other countries. It had been stated that in America licences had been taken away without notice or compensation. He was anxious to challenge hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite on that particular point. He ventured to lay down that there had never been in any country put into legislative operation any system such as that suggested by the present subsection. It was quite impossible under any circumstances to compare the state of things in the United States of America with the situation which had arisen here. In the first place, as hon. Members knew, in the United States nothing like the same value attached to licences as in this country. Neither was there anything like the same expectation of continuity. What had been the result where licences had been taken away? In Colorado, for instance, the people who sold liquor

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before with a licence now sold it without a licence. [Cries of dissent.] If hon. Members would look into the United States Federal Government statistics they would find that there was not a State in the Union where there had not been as much liquor sold without as with licences. He challenged any hon. Member to show any instance in European countries of any proposals being passed at all equal to the proposals in that Bill.
*MR. LEIF JONES: Norway and Sweden are European countries.
EARL WINTERTON: Neither had any connection whatever with this proposal. The liquor traffic there was on an entirely different basis. The hon. Gentleman could not have chosen a worse example. Norway and Sweden were the most drunken countries in Europe.
*MR. LEIF JONES: They were the most drunken countries in Europe, but they got legislation somewhat on the lines of the Government proposals and they are now the most sober countries in Europe.
EARL WINTERTON: The hon. Gentleman surely did not want them to believe that what the Government was proposing was the Gothenburg system. He regretted that in the heat of the moment he used what might seem an opprobrious term in regard to Norway and Sweden, but he still said that there was a regrettable amount of drunkenness in those countries. Neither of those countries could be taken as a good example of any system of temperance. The Government had not put forward any reason for proposing the adoption of the system in this country on the ground of popular sanction. The principle suggested in the subsection would never be tolerated by the people of this country. If the country had known at the last election that this was to be the great legislative effort of the present Government when they got into office, he did not believe that the constituencies would have endorsed it. [An HON. MEMBER said it was announced.] In some isolated cases they might have done so. No doubt the people were led away by
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vague talk, but they were not aware of the wholesale drastic financial attacks on the trade made by this Bill. Before the Committee came to a decision on this subsection the Government ought to give some justification for adopting the altogether novel system which they proposed. As his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, the objection of the Opposition was based, not only on the number of years, but on the whole system which they believed to be unjust. While he would vote against the fourteen years time-limit proposed by the Government he could not support the proposal of the hon. Member for South Hackney.
*SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER (Wiltshire, Chippenham)supported the Amendment. Every one of the speeches had been an attack on the principle of the time-limit. It seemed to him that there were three schools of opinion on this subject in the House. There was the school represented by the Opposition; the school represented by his hon. friend who spoke strongly in favour of the fourteen years limit; and the school, with which he desired to associate himself, which believed that while a fourteen years limit would be totally inequitable, a twenty-one years limit would be fair and equitable. He had an Amendment on the Paper which was practically identical with that before the Committee. The Amendment was not his own, but was moved in another place in 1904 by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Bill of that year. The Amendment was supported then by practically the whole bench of Bishops, by the whole of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords, and by a fair sprinkling of Unionist Peers. His Amendment would not disturb in any way the period for the reduction of superfluous houses; and, therefore, all those who desired to see the reduction of these superfluous houses within the prescribed, time would be able to realise that desire if his Amendment were adopted. It added to the fourteen years reduction period seven years during which a lease should be granted to the surviving houses, and during which period these houses should be exempted from any charge for monopoly value. He thought that

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the more closely a proposal like his was looked into, the more the trade would see what an advantageous proposal it was in their interests. It might be assumed that before the end of the fourteen years all the redundant houses would be extinguished, and that all those who had survived "the reign of terror" would enjoy an additional profit to that which had previously attached to their houses. He believed that it had been estimated that from 40 to 45 per cent. of the profits of the houses which would be extinguished would find its way into the tills of the surviving houses. He would point out that the surviving houses would be able to conduct their business on a better administrative basis. This proposal, therefore, offered a really fair chance to the trade to readjust its arrangements to the circumstances during the protracted reduction period; and enable them to lay by a sufficient sum of money to meet the necessary liabilities at the end of twenty-one years. Undoubtedly fourteen years would be an extremely short period for accomplishing the double object of finding compensation for the houses extinguished, and providing an insurance against the liability of those houses which survived that process to be extinguished at the expiration of the period. Those two operations being combined during that short period of fourteen years, so far as he could gather from the figures he had obtained, the trade would be put into a very precarious position. Let him give an instance which showed what the difference would be between fourteen years and twenty-one years. He knew of a brewery company which held twenty-one licences. The capital value of these licences, apart from buildings, was £550,000. The net annual profits amounted to £46,160. Allowing £5 a week for remuneration of each licence-holder would give £4,460. Then there would be £40,700 available for interest and sinking fund. Fourteen annual payments to receive £100 at the end of the period would amount to £5 3s. 9d., whereas, if the calculation were extended over a period of twenty-one years it would be £3 7s. 9d. Therefore, it would be seen that the sinking fund required in fourteen years would be £31,280, leaving only
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£9,420 available for dividend, which came out at 1¾ per cent.; whilst the sinking fund over a period of twenty-one years would be £18,630, leaving for dividend £22,070, which would be equal to 4 per cent. fully. He would give another instance of how severe the treatment would be at the end of the fourteen years' limit. In 1904 the Central Public House Trust Association bought the "Bell Inn" at Kennington. They gave for it £2,200, a perfectly good business transaction as things then stood. The licence value was estimated at £1,850. That was the sum to be wiped out in the course of fourteen years; to do it, they must put aside yearly out of net profits a sum of £125. Now, calculating their not profits at £180, the Association was left with the small sum of £55 for dividend purposes, which on the present share capital would only amount to 1 per cent. If the period was extended to twenty-one years, the Association would be able to pay interest of 4 per cent. to their shareholders. It was impossible to go closely into all the financial intricacies of this very difficult problem; but he was satisfied from all the information he had been able to gather on the question, that an extension of the period from fourteen years to twenty-one years would remove all ground for the allegations of harsh treatment brought against the time-limit system by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Let him make one more point. When dealing with cases like this it had been the immemorial practice of the State to treat a trade affected by any legislative reform in a generous manner. He did not intend to quibble about whether a licence was for a year or not. By practice it had been always a good deal more. Whilst they on that side of the House were anxious to resume to the State the full control of these licences they desired to do it in a just and fair manner. He would give an instance of what he meant. Some years ago the London County Council undertook, under the Housing Act, the Boundary Street clearance scheme at a cost to the ratepayers, not the owners of property, of £270,000, including compensation to all the trade interests in the area dealt with. What he asked for was that the Government should mete out similar justice to the trade affected by the proposals of this Bill. He thought

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it was the general opinion that if ever this Bill became an Act of Parliament it must contain an extended time-limit period beyond fourteen years. He wanted to see that done in this House. He did not want to see any opportunity given in another place to reject this measure, and certainly he did not want to see an opportunity given to hon. Members opposite of saying that the people of the country had to look to the other House as the custodian of equity and justice. While it might be regarded as a tactical point for the Government to make this concession at a later stage of the Bill, he hoped they would make it now. He knew that he voiced the opinion of many hon. Members when he expressed the sincere hope that the Government and his right hon. friend the Prime Minister would give a careful and earnest consideration to the proposal now before the House, especially when they realised that if this measure was to become an Act of Parliament and a true temperance reform they must treat the trade concerned with greater justice.
MR. BARNESsaid he wished to express the view of his colleagues with regard to this particular Amendment; but before doing so he desired to say a word with reference to the speech of the noble Lord, the Member for the Horsham division of Sussex, who had said that Norway and Sweden were the most drunken countries in Europe. He did not know whether anybody else had used the expression that they were the most drunken countries in the world.
EARL WINTERTON: I expressly said that they were the two most drunken nations in Europe, and that statistics proved it.
MR. BARNESsaid he had had the opportunity of studying the position on the spot in Norway and Sweden. He knew that those countries had adopted legislation not of the character of the measure before the House, but legislation suited to their own conditions and habits, as they were entitled to do. He knew, as a matter of fact, and he had gone into the figures very carefully, that though it was quite true the consumption of alcoholic liquor was still very high in
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these countries, so far as the liquors coming under the operation of their temperance legislation were concerned, there had been a diminution of the consumption of just about one-half.
EARL WINTERTONsaid that even now the latest statistics showed that in Christiania the arrests for drunkenness per 1,000 of the population were forty-three, in London ten, in Liverpool, eleven, in Manchester, thirteen, and in Glasgow, eighteen.
MR. BARNESsaid he had it in his mind that these figures had absolutely no bearing upon the question before the Committee nor on any question of temperance legislation at all. They might have something to do with the police regulations in Christiania and other cities. However, he would not say anything more on that point. What he wanted to state on behalf of his colleagues of the Labour Party was that they felt very strongly on this question of the time-limit, and that they hoped whatever fate was to befall this Bill, it would not be weakened as regarded the time-limit. The Labour Party, having regard to all the notice which had been given to the trade in various temperance legislation proposals for a generation past, and having regard to the fact that time-limits of a much smaller number of years than fourteen had been proposed even from the benches above the gangway—from five years upwards—thought that fourteen years was not only a just but a generous proposal. He did not want to go into the percentages which had been quoted by various hon. Members, but he thought that the House ought to back up the Government in limiting the period to fourteen years and leave it to the other place to deal with it as they thought proper.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,): The Committee discussed and decided yesterday the question whether a time-limit—not a time-limit in terms—should form a part of the scheme of this Bill, and, by an overwhelming majority, they answered the question in the affirmative. We are to-day on a different point—a point not of principle, but rather of machinery,

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namely, assuming that there is to be a time-limit, what the duration of the limit ought in fairness and equity to be. Now it is quite obvious from the course the debate has taken that on that point the Committee is divided into two entirely hostile and irreconcilable camps. There are those who voted yesterday against any time-limit at all, on the ground that, given the scheme of this Bill, it would be impossible for any time-limit to be reconciled by its machinery with the ordinary dictates of justice and fair play. That is the position of the Leader of the Opposition and practically of all those who support him. We have had to-day declarations from the other side of the House—those of the Member for Liverpool and the noble Lord—which are perfectly consistent with the position they took up yesterday. On the other hand, there are to be found the great majority of the representatives in Parliament who are in favour of a time-limit and the resumption by the State of the property which it ought to have, but there is a difference of opinion as to what the precise duration of the time-limit should be. I ventured when I introduced this Bill at the end of last February to lay down on behalf of the Government what appeared to us to be the governing principle in this matter. I said—
"Your time-limit should be as long as, and not longer than, the time that shall suffice for a prudent trader who has carried on, and is carrying on, his business with due regard to its special character and peculiar risks, to make adequate provision against the disappearance of that part of his property which is to be attributed to the monopoly value."
That is I think a perfectly sound principle which the hon. Member has not attempted to controvert. All he has said is that twenty-one years would be more reasonable than fourteen. Now, Sir, I have listened to these debates and have been reading during the last six months vast quantities of literature directed to the point that the term of fourteen years proposed by the Government is an inadequate term. The Government have always preserved a perfectly open mind upon this, which is not a matter of principle, but of detail. I have given the most impartial attention to the arguments, and am bound to say, speaking with full responsibility, that nothing that has been said or put forward has
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satisfied me that the term of fourteen years is otherwise than a just and a fair one. Let me point out, in parenthesis, that there is no necessary, and indeed no logical connection between the term of fourteen years which the House has already adopted in the first clause as the term during which the compulsory and statutory reduction is to take place, and the term, whatever it may be, which is selected for what we call the time-limit, meaning thereby the period at the end of which the State will resume the monopoly value of all licences, there is no necessary connection between the two things. But after careful examination, we came to the conclusion that the trader who had conducted, and continued to conduct, his business on the lines I have laid down might and ought to be able to make provision for the redemption of that part, and that part only, of his property which is the monopoly value within fourteen, or rather fifteen years from the introduction of the Bill. As I have said, I have not only listened to what has been said here every day, but I have read a great deal of what has been said outside. I find it comes down to particular cases like that of the "Coach and Horses," which, I think, foundered long ago in an argumentative morass [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh, no"]—well, they have been flogged into activity again during the last two days, but I think they still present a very sorry spectacle. After all, the "Coach and Horses," so far as I know anything of the case, was one of the clearest cases, if ever there was one, in which a man entered into a speculation with his eyes open. Everybody knew, in the spring or summer of 1907, when the contract was entered into for the purchase of the "Coach and Horses," not only from the result of the general election more than a year before, but from repeated declarations by responsible Ministers, that legislation on the lines of this Bill was impending. It is, therefore, ridiculous to say that the purchaser, a shrewd man of business—I gather from his observations a very shrewd man of business—has any ground of complaint whatever if Parliament chooses, in the public interest, to legislate on the lines of the present Bill. I am not going to detain the House by

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entering into specific cases like that of the "Coach and Horses." But I will just mention one or two points which seem to me not to have had sufficient attention or weight given to them in the debate. The allegation that a trader carrying on his business on the lines and in the spirit indicated in the passage I have referred to could not make good the monopoly value within the term prescribed by the Bill seems to rest upon two assumptions, neither of which is well founded. The first assumption is, I find this perpetually in all the literature circulated by the trade, that the monopoly value of licensed premises represents something—I see the proportions differently stated at different times and places, but something which varies from two-thirds to three-fourths, and even nine-tenths, of the total value of the premises. I do not believe that there is the least foundation for the assumption. I think that it is a gross exaggeration. I will give the Committee the summarised totals of the dealings of the Board of Inland Revenue with the houses that in fact have been suppressed under the right hon. Gentleman's legislation in 1905 and 1906. There are 500 houses, and the total Schedule A value of these houses with their licence is £13,952. The total present Schedule A value without a licence is £9,540. In other words, the value of the houses without a licence as compared with their value with a licence is 68 per cent. of the total. If those cases are anything like typical, it shows how gross is the assumption that a licence adds three or four times to the value of the premises. I agree that there is some criticism to be made on these figures if you are to take them as being typical. In the first place, some of those houses were of a lower class. There is the ante-1869 beer-house whose vitality some hon. Gentlemen are so anxious to preserve, and it is true that in some of the houses, owing to density of population and other causes, the monopoly value is less than in other parts of the community. But when you have made the fullest allowance, there is still an enormous margin, which goes to disprove the suggestion that the monopoly value created by the possession of a licence is anything like the figure which the trade and others
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constantly represent it to be. Another point which is equally important and upon which not sufficient stress has been laid in the course of the debates is that owing to the state of the law, well known now certainly for the last twenty years, provided against by insurance and otherwise, and taken into account by all persons engaged in this industry who survey the situation around them, it has been possible to build up, and there has been built up, enormous reserve funds to preserve them against this contingency. The Under-Secretary for the Home Department, in a speech on the First Reading, made a careful analysis and gave figures to show that these funds, even leaving out of account Guinness', amounted to £11,000,000 sterling, and if the other members of the trade pursue the course which was so widely and prudently taken, and which they might themselves have taken had they had the same insight into the circumstances of the case, I do not believe that there will be the least practical difficulty on an average in having sufficient funds provided for a contingency in respect of the extinction of the monopoly value at the end of the time-limit. Taking all these things into account, I must say that speaking for myself and for my colleagues, we do not think that the term of fourteen years, or rather fifteen years, in the Bill can be said to be in any way unjust. We certainly cannot accept the Amendment which has been brought forward now by the hon. Member for Hackney. If you continue the compensation levy for seven years beyond the fourteen years, you prevent the possibility during that time of the free exercise by the justices of their discretion and you delay the whole settlement of this question for twenty-one years. No; if there is to be anything in the nature of a compromise on this point it must not proceed on these lines. I will state exactly the conditions of what I conceive the problem to be. By the first clause of the Bill a compulsory statutory reduction must take place within the next fourteen years. During these fourteen years compensation will continue to be levied from the survivors among the licence-holders. At the end of fourteen years it is our intention that the compensation levy should cease and that the magistrates should resume the control

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which they used to possess, and which they ought to possess—a free and unrestricted control over the grant of licences in their district. In addition to that we have by the provision which we propose to insert in the second subsection of the clause reserved to the inhabitants of the locality by an adequate and not excessive majority the power of dealing with the question as far as their own community is concerned. Given those conditions, which the Government regard as fundamental, I am prepared to entertain the suggestion that for a short term of years following the expiration of fourteen years when an old licence is re-granted it should be re-granted without attaching to the re-grant as a condition the surrender of its monopoly value—in other words, to postpone the resumption by the State of the monopoly value of the surviving houses until the expiration of that additional term. That is in accordance with the principle of the Bill, because at the expiration of fourteen years it gives to the justices and to the community the absolute power over the licences which are to be granted or are not to be granted in the locality, but, on the other hand, it may have the effect in exceptional cases of hardship, of postponing the date at which the State would resume the actual possession, and it may have the effect of softening the operation and preventing any possibility—I will not say of unjust, but of inconsiderate treatment. I am not proposing to introduce any Amendment at this stage, but I throw out that suggestion to the House for consideration between now and the Report Stage of the Bill. It will not placate, and it is not intended to placate the opposition of those who are opposed to the principle of this Bill. Those who are opposing the measure would not take twenty-one years as the time-limit; neither would they take a forty years time-limit nor any other time-limit. It is with no desire or expectation of what I may call buying off the hostility of the root and branch opponents of the Bill that I throw out the suggestion. It is made with the object of satisfying even the most meticulous—no, I will not say that, but the most farfetched scruples of any one who feels that injustice in any particular case may be done to individuals It is made in order to meet these scruples, to satisfy every
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reasonable man who accepts the principle of a State-created monopoly to which the State is entitled and which it is bound to resume. It is to satisfy the scruples of those who hold the view that any possible case of hardship or grievance can be made out, without sacrificing in the least degree the fundamental principle of the Bill, which is that at the end of fourteen years every licence should be held at the uncontrolled and unfettered discretion of those who represent the community. It might be possible by this extension of date at which the monopoly value is in practice to be resumed, to cover all the possible cases of hardship which some hon. Members feel as being likely to occur. The suggestion is made in the interests of the Bill and of those who support its principle. But on the main question of the maintenance of fourteen years, which is the governing principle of the Bill, the Government is absolutely determined to adhere to the lines they have already followed and to ask the House to support them in rejecting the Amendment.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman is correct when he says that we on this side of the House do not think it would be satisfying us to substitute twenty-one years for fourteen years, and even had he accepted the Amendment of the hon. Member he would not have placated those who oppose this Bill, among other reasons, because it is an unjust interference with legitimate rights. I do not now deal with that part of the right hon. Gentleman's argument in which he speaks of the immense reserve funds of the brewers as a sufficient ground for despoiling other parties of their property. I have no acquaintance with the management of these concerns, but I understand that these reserve funds were not accumulated in order to deal with predatory projects of legislation. They were accumulated as reserve funds to deal with the inevitable ups and downs incident to every species of trading; and the truth of what I have said may be found in the fact that Guinness has a large fund, though no licences. There is another curious fact to mention. I believe that a large amount of these reserve funds is invested in public-house property. Now if a reserve fund had been an accumulation to meet attacks on that

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kind of property it would not have been invested in that property. If I am right in that fact, it proves that the trade at all events never contemplated the species of legislation which the Government have now taken under their control or that it would be seriously pressed. I turn from the right hon. Gentleman's criticism on the management by brewers of their business to the actual proposal he has made. I am not quite sure that I apprehend the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion, but I think his suggestion was this—that for fourteen years existing licence-holders should pay compensation out of their own pockets to those of their number who are going to be dispossessed during the fourteen years to come, and that then these licence-holders who have paid compensation for fourteen years are to be handed over to the discretion of the justices in the first place, and of the parish electors in the second place; and that, after that again, every licence-holder would continue in possession of the goodwill, of the improvements he had made in his house, and of the expectations of his licence, entirely at the discretion of not merely the justices acting upon the old principle, but of justices animated by the new principles with which the right hon. Gentleman is endeavouring to inoculate them, and at the unfettered discretion of a bare majority—or was it two-thirds—of the electors in each parish. I think that it is probably an extremely bad plan from the temperance point of view. I think you are going to ask a trade to be carried on under conditions under which no trade can be carried on, and the result will be that you will create injury to the cause you profess to serve. Those who do not want this accommodation provided the public, those who want all drinking suppressed are no doubt quite right in doing what they can to increase the abuses. But I hold, and I believe the majority of the House hold, I am certain the majority of the country hold, that you not only must, but ought to give legitimate opportunities to the poor public as you must continue to give them to the rich public, of obtaining alcohol. If you are going to give those facilities—if you admit the necessity—in Heaven's name see that the trade by which that necessity is to be met is carried on under conditions which will give you men of credit and character to conduct it, and
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will enable this consumption of alcohol to be carried on under conditions which will not produce vice and excess, and not lead to the intolerable evils under which we groan, but which will, so far as legislation can, enable the public to be served in a manner best calculated to produce moderation in the use of alcohol and diminish crimes which so often follow upon excessive indulgence. Is it not clear that the new plan of the Government is not temperance reform, whatever else it is? Is it a concession to the justices? It is no concession to the justices. Under the old system the magistrates abolished some perfectly insignificant number of public-houses, because they felt it was most abominable treatment for men investing their money to be deprived without compensation. You are going to put magistrates in the old position—are the magistrates in fourteen years going to exercise their discretion in the old manner? If they do, I think it will introduce a great deal of that insecurity that existed before 1904, and all the evils consequent upon insecurity in the management. You are going back to that state of things—an utterly bad and rotten state of things—and to argument its evils by supplementing the action of the magistrates by the action of the parishes. I think it is absurd to say that a plan of that kind is temperance reform. Is it not equally absurd to say that it makes this Bill a juster Bill than at present? I think that to ask people for fourteen or fifteen years to pay compensation for the abolition of licences and then to throw the remaining licences to the wolves—
AN HON. MEMBER: Who are the wolves?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The temperance faddists. You talk of the evils of the intervention of the publican in politics, local and Imperial; just conceive what the intervention of the publican must be after the fourteen or fifteen years. He knows that at any moment a hostile majority in the parish may deprive him of his whole means of livelihood. Why, his life will be spent in canvassing, and in doing all that his ingenuity and his powers of management of men may enable him to do to collect a sufficient party in his parish to see that his property will not be interfered with.

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And you call that legitimate security—you call that treating these men in a spirit which is likely to make them good servants of the public and to prevent them interfering unduly in their own personal interests with the management of public affairs. It is characteristic of the method in which we are asked to discuss the Bill that the Government have given us no notice of the method in which they are going to deal with this difficulty. They have adopted neither a modification nor an extension of the old scheme; but a now scheme carrying with it large possibilities which we have only had time to think of while the right hon. Gentleman was speaking. I do not contradict the Prime Minister when he says it is consistent with the Bill, but I do say it is not a modification of the Bill. It is a new scheme which requires much more study than the House can give to it. The Government have known it for months past. They have deliberately compelled us to discuss this Bill under the threat of the closure, and, knowing that we could not protest, they have deliberately abstained from giving us either the smallest notice of what their new plans are or the slightest opportunity of discussing them. Of all the travesties of Parliamentary procedure surely the greatest is this—that exactly sixty minutes before the guillotine falls upon this subsection we should be asked to decide upon two enormous questions neither of which the House has ever had the opportunity of discussing on any occasion; one, the entirely new plan for dealing with the fifteen years period and the other the question of the off-licences. Could there be anything more preposterous, and would any Government in the world that had not bound hand and foot the Assembly with which they were dealing treat that Assembly in that way? Whether I consider the substance of the right hon. Gentleman's plan, or the form in which he has proposed it, or the general manner in which he has treated this House, his action seems to me to be equally open to our condemnation and that condemnation we shall give—in the only manner permitted by the rules under which we are working—in the lobby.
*MR. LEIF JONESsaid he had listened with grave concern and anxiety to the most important announcement
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which the Prime Minister had made to the Committee that afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman showed in the course of his speech that the fourteen years time limit was ample for the purpose for which it was intended. He rightly said that none of the opponents of the Bill had been able to prove that injustice would be done to the trade by the fourteen years notice. He (Mr. Leif Jones) thought that never had a proposal emerged more unscathed from a long discussion. There had been plenty of general statements about hardship, but when details were asked for they were not forthcoming. Therefore he regretted that the Prime Minister had felt it necessary to offer more than the too generous terms which wore offered in this clause. He rightly said it would not placate the Opposition, and the tone of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition was sufficient evidence that his foresight in that matter was absolutely accurate. The real issue was between those who wished the nation to control the trade and those who were not unwilling that the trade should control the nation. No concession that the Prime Minister could make would satisfy the grasping and greedy demand that the trade should be allowed to carry on its demoralising business undisturbed. The concession announced by the Prime Minister was a very large giving away of what he considered the nation's right to put reasonable taxation, taxation equivalent to the monopoly conferred, upon licences. The interesting speech they had had from the hon. Member for Huddersfield showed how little taxation was placed on licences in this country as compared with other countries, and yet to-day when the Prime Minister indicated a further period of seven years during which the nation should forego its right to extra taxation, there were renewed cries of dissatisfaction. If the Prime Minister's concession meant that after the expiration of the fourteen years limit the publicans were not to pay monopoly value for a further seven years, that would be a serious giving up of what he considered to be the nation's right to put on the licences taxation equivalent to the monopoly value conferred on them. He noticed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not present when the Prime Minister made the announcement, but he would be very curious to know, if with ease he had been

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induced to consent to so liberal a foregoing of money which he might reasonably have expected to have at his disposal. Let them look at the position the trade would be in at the end of the reduction period. As he understood it, at the end of that period there would be no compensation levy, and they would be free from having to pay any portion of the monopoly value during the seven years suggested, so that they would be in a far better position than at the present time.
MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS (Sheffield, Ecclesall): And they will receive no compensation either.
*MR. LEIF JONESsaid that at any rate there was to be no new burden for seven years. No doubt they would be exposed to certain risks to which they were not exposed at the present time, as the magisterial discretion was to be restored and the temperance provisions of the Bill to come into operation. It was to those temperance provisions that many hon. Members on that side of the House attached the greatest importance. He himself had not ventured into the financial discussion between experts on one side or the other; that was to him far and away the least important and interesting part of the question. It was for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and those responsible for the finances of the nation to see that taxation was justly levied, and from all he could gather the trade was not justly taxed at the present time. But what he was most concerned about was to see that they should not have to wait longer than the fourteen years for the temperance reforms that were in the Bill. Very many important reforms were to come into operation at the end of fourteen years—magisterial discretion and the local option clauses, the latter of which had been described by the right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, as throwing the publicans to the wolves, the wolves being the voters in the village. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would live to repent that phrase. Even right hon. Gentlemen opposite sometimes repented. At any rate, they ought to. He regretted the concession which the Prime Minister had felt himself justified in making. He failed to find in the arguments which had been
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advanced anything proving that the time-limit proposed was too short, and he was there to say, on behalf of the temperance people with whom he worked, that, whatever financial arrangements might be made by His Majesty's Government, they would not give thanks for a Bill which postponed the temperance reforms which they all so much desired for a longer period than fourteen years. So rapid had been the education of the people during the discussion of this measure that he said, if owing to the operations of another House, the Government found themselves unable to carry their Bill with the time-limit of fourteen years, temperance reformers would sooner drop the Bill altogether and wait the issue between the nation and that most dangerous trade—for he was confident that the nation would not wait much longer for a genuine settlement of this question.
MR. BARNARDsaid he took a totally different view from the last speaker and welcomed the announcement made by the Prime Minister. But he would like to ask if he understood the right hon. Gentleman rightly to foreshadow that on some future occasion the Government would give the seven years referred to and also give a preference to the sitting tenant in connection with having the first opportunity of continuing in his tenancy. He was, as the House knew, opposed to the Bill, but he had come there prepared to vote for any Amendment which would improve it, and from his point of view it seemed to him the offer of the Prime Minister was far and away better for the trade than what was offered by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney. What did it amount to? It came to this, that after the end of the fourteen years—if ever it did come to an end—the tenant would be in the position of continuing to occupy the house for another seven years without having to pay monopoly value, for that period he would be relieved from the compensation charge. Surely that was far and away better than twenty-one years under existing conditions. He would like to press his question as to preference being given to the sitting tenant. They had been told in many speeches that there was no desire to interfere with the existing tenant, and therefore he would like to see words inserted giving that tenant a

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reasonable priority. As the existing tenant must be a dying person it would not be creating a new vested interest to do this.
LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E.)said it was very difficult to discuss the proposal of the Prime Minister, because they really did not yet know what it amounted to. The last speaker had interpreted it in quite a different sense from the hon. Member for the Appleby Division, who evidently thought they were going to get local option at the end of fourteen years. He did not see how that could be compatible with the proposal made by the Prime Minister, and if it were, then he thought the hon. Member for Kidderminster would hesitate before welcoming it as an improvement on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney. The language of the right hon. Gentleman was perhaps, necessarily vague, and the great probability was, as the Prime Minister knew very well, that they would never have an opportunity of discussing the proposal when it was put on the Paper in black and white. So that they had to make up their minds now whether that proposal was one which at all met the objections they had hitherto felt to the Bill. Speaking for himself, he might say at once that it did not. The hon. Member for the Appleby division in picturesque language had said that the great issue was whether the trade should master the country or the country master the trade. He ventured to say that had nothing at all to do with the question. [Mr. CLOUGH, Yorkshire, W. K., Skipton: Hear hear.] He did not expect to be able to convince the hon. Member for Skipton and had never succeeded, but, as he had said, that was not the real point at issue. The Prime Minister said the question at issue was, "Are you or are you not in favour of the State resuming its monopoly?" He was in favour of it. It would be desirable, he thought, to get rid of anything which was in the nature of a State-aided trade—a trade which
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depended for part of its profits Upon a special privilege given to it by the State. He had always said that. But he said that if they were to do that they must pay for it. That was the whole point. It was on this point he differed from the hon. Member for the Appleby Division. The hon. Member seemed to think he was entitled to get this advantage for the State without paying for it. He differed from him. He did not care a straw about the elaborate argument as to whether the property was freehold or not; it was a thing which had a money value in the open market, and if they were going to take it away from the men who now had it they must pay for it.
*THE CHAIRMAN: The noble Lord is now going back to yesterday's discussion.
LORD R. CECILsaid he had not intended to do so; he had merely made that observation in passing. The Prime Minister had said this value had been greatly exaggerated. He failed to see how that affected the point whether the Government's proposal was fair, and whether the State was going to pay for the advantage which it sought to get. He could not understand the position of those who claimed to be right, and proposed to carry their morality into effect at the expense of other people. When a public improvement was executed, the people whose property was taken were not called upon to pay for it; when they cleared away unhealthy areas they paid the full value of the property taken for the purpose; but, in regard to the licences which would be taken, the Prime Minister admitted to the full that a large proportion of the cost of that public improvement would be paid, not by the State, but by the individuals from whom the licences were taken. He certainly could not understand the justice of that, and he should vote for the Amendment not because it was satisfactory but because it was at any rate an improvement on the proposal of the Government.
MR. WYNDHAMasked the Prime Minister if he understood the change which he had made in a complicated scheme to be that, if an existing licence were renewed at the end of the fourteen or fifteen years time-limit, the holder was not to pay more for that licence than he paid on the present scale—that the scale on which he paid was not to be increased in respect of the monopoly value during the next seven years.
MR. ASQUITH: This is not a question of taxation at all. It is a question of the conditions under which justices renew licences. Under the Act of 1904 justices might attach as a condition to the grant of a new licence the payment of the whole monopoly value. Under the Bill, as it stands, that would apply to all other licences as well. The suggestion now is that in regard to licences that existed prior to the passing of the Act, that particular condition shall not be put into force for the time being.
MR. WYNDHAMsaid he thought he did understand the point. The magistrates need not renew the licence; and, if the Committee adopted the Amendment down in the name of the First Commissioner of Works, it could also be taken away by a two-thirds majority of the parish. There were two possibilities by which the existing licence holder might not receive the concession which the Prime Minister offered. He need hardly say that that concession did not modify his opinion of the injustice of the scheme, whilst it did—and he invited the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the point—increase the arbitrary incidence of that injustice. They would, or might have, an existing licence holder in one parish who got a renewal, who had not to pay compensation, and who had not to pay any more as a condition of the magistrates granting it, whilst in the next parish, perhaps a hundred yards away, another licence holder might lose
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the whole of his property. They would thus create a more glaring injustice as between those two men.
SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERW. R., Spen Valley)said that, when they were discussing the legal right and power of the nation to deal with the licences, he felt they must insist upon that right very stringently and very strictly. He felt they must establish that principle; but when it came to settling the length of the time limit, it was a matter of expediency and arrangement, and he had always been amongst those—perhaps right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite would not think it amounted to much—who were anxious and willing to deal with the trade, as he considered, generously. They might not consider it generous, but it had been his view. They had to recognise the position which had grown up, but let them have the principle established, and although he thought the fourteen years ample, he was not going to quarrel with the Prime Minister for making an addition to it. After all, they wanted to establish a great principle and a great policy, and the sooner they could do that the better; but he would give a few years extra in order that it might be done with less friction and less inconvenience to the nation. He wanted to get it and he would make it more difficult for those who would otherwise refuse it to do so. Therefore, whilst he was one of those who thought fourteen years really ample, he was not going to vote against seven years extension of the surrender of the monopoly value. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had said that it did not amount to much and suggested two possibilities by which a man might still lose his licence. He was always interested to hear the views of right hon. Gentlemen opposite on questions of temperance reform. They spoke on them from opposite points of view. Sometimes they told them that local veto would be no use because the vast majority of the people wanted the public-houses. The Leader of the

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Opposition had told them that that afternoon. If that was so, why did they object to local veto?
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that if the hon. Member referred to his argument it was that local veto, whether it did or did not abolish public houses, did produce an insecurity which was bad in itself.
SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERsaid he was referring to the remark of the right hon. Gentleman that the majority of the people wanted the licences. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, however, would prefer that they should thrust licences upon a district against the wish of two-thirds of the people of the locality. Then, with regard to the discretion of the justices, he thought they might assume that, after the great reduction had been effected, there would be good and substantial reasons if a licence were taken away. He attached importance to the financial question, and he believed a great number of people in the country wished that there should be a time limit during which those in the trade could accumulate funds to enable them to write off any loss. Surely twenty-one years was a very different term from fourteen years. It would enable them to accumulate more than half as much again. Practically, the fourteen years notice was fifteen years notice, because the fourteen years did not commence till next year, and the twenty-one years notice was really twenty-two years. In fifteen years £1 accumulated annually at 4 per cent. compound interest would amount to £20, and in twenty-two years £1 accumulated annually at 4 per cent. compound interest would amount to £34. That was a very great difference indeed, and it would make an enormous difference in enabling the trade to deal with the question. Of course he knew that some would say it did not matter, and, even if they were able to accumulate these funds, they had no right to call upon them to do it. They, however, said that with a precarious
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security and a risky grant they ought to be prepared to deal with it. Some illustrations had been given, but he noticed that they did not allow for or take into consideration any preparations already made. Prudent concerns had already accumulated very considerable reserve funds, and they would not have the whole preparation to make during the fourteen or twenty-one years. Some of them had made very considerable preparations; and, oven if those funds were invested in public-house licences and those licence values had to be written off, it was simply a matter of book-keeping arrangement. They had only to write off the value of the licences on one side of their balance sheet and their reserve fund on the other side and the thing was done. If the money were invested in licence values, obviously, when those values disappeared the reserve fund disappeared. Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite did not expect that they could write off something and still have the reserve fund remaining; they were assuming some elementary knowledge of finance. It was clear that if the reserve fund was that of some other trade and was invested in licence values, and they wanted to realise them for some other purpose, they would not be available, but the fact that it was invested in the very property to be written off provided the remedy. A very large number of concerns had very prudently accumulated reserves, and this addition to the time during which they could accumulate the extra funds required, would make an enormous difference, it would ease the situation very much indeed, and certainly, so far as he was concerned, he should not do anything to oppose such a proposal.
MR. LAMBTONsaid he was sometimes unable to work himself up to such a state of indignation as regarded this Bill as some of his hon. friends, but he thought that in the speeches of the right hon. Member for the Spen Valley and the hon. Member for the Appleby Division of Westmoreland, there

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might be found justification for the phrase "thrown to the wolves." The right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had dismissed the question of loss of reserve capital by thousands of traders as a mere matter of book-keeping. The hon. Member for Appleby said he was a temperance reformer, he wanted temperance, and he did not care two-pence about financial considerations. The country, however, did take these matters into consideration, and was not prepared to accept the Bill as a punitive measure invented by the right hon. Member and the hon. Member opposite. Both had spoken of the fourteen years proposal as having come scathless through Committee, but that could scarcely be so seeing the Prime Minister had adumbrated an Amendment to be submitted at a later stage. The hon. Member for the Appleby division was not in the House when the hon. Baronet the Member for Chippenham referred to the time limit as a "reign of terror," and perhaps the Rosespierre and Marat of the period might be found in the right hon. Member for the Spen Valley and the hon. Member for Appleby. The Prime Minister had suggested an Amendment which was not altogether understood, and discussion was impossible under an absolutely unnecessary closure resolution, while Ministers skulked under the scaffolding of the guillotine.
MR. BOTTOMLEYsaid he had a little difficulty in deciding what course to adopt in view of the Primo Minister's statement. He desired to do what would meet the general convenience of the Committee. If he clearly understood the right hon. Gentleman's statement, it was the intention on the Report Stage to put down some clause giving present licence-holders a further respite, or purgatorial period of seven years. His own view, if he might respectfully say so, was that the Committee should have an opportunity of seeing the Amendment in black and white, and then consider on the Report Stage whether it met the points raised and how, and whether a case had been made out for re-opening the matter at that stage. Subject to the view of the Committee he was disposed to withdraw his Amendment and not put them to the trouble of a division, which must of necessity result in cross-votings because nobody could understand where they were. Therefore, he formally asked leave to to withdraw the Amendment.
Leave to withdraw being refused—
Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 287; Noes, 119. (Division List No. 263.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Barran, Rowland Hirst

Bryce, J. Annan

Acland, Francis Dyke

Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Beale, W. P.

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.

Beck, A. Cecil

Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

Alden, Percy

Bell, Richard

Byles, William Pollard

Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt

Cameron, Robert

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo.

Carr-Gomm. H. W.

Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

Berridge, T. H. D.

Cawley, Sir Frederick

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd

Channing, Sir Francis Allston

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

Cheetham, John Frederick

Astbury, John Meir

Birrell, Rt. Non. Augustine

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Atherley-Jones, L.

Black, Arthur W.

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Boulton, A. C. F.

Clough, William

Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

Brace, William

Clynes, J. R.

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Bramsdon, T. A.

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Branch, James

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Barker, John

Brodie, H. C.

Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W.

Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

Brooke, Stopford

Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

Barnes, G. N.

Brunner, Rt. Hn. Sir J. T. (Cheshire

Cooper, G. J.

Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n

Cory, Sir Clifford John

Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea

Richardson, A.

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Cowan, W. H.

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

Roberts, Sir John H. (Denbighs)

Crooks, William

Jowett, F. W.

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Crosfield, A. H.

Kearley, Sir Hudson E.

Robinson, S.

Crossley, William J.

Kekewich, Sir George

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Dalziel, James Henry

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan

Laidlaw, Robert

Roe, Sir Thomas

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Rose, Charles Day

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.

Lambert, George

Rowlands, J.

Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.

Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Dobson, Thomas W.

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W.

Duckworth, James

Lchmann, R. C.

Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

Lever, A. Lavy (Essex, Harwich

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

Lewis, John Herbert

Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester

Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne

Erskine, David C.

Lynch, H. B.

Sears, J. E.

Essex, R. W.

Mackarness, Frederic C.

Seddon, J.

Esslemont, George Birnie

Maclean, Donald

Seely, Colonel

Evans, Sir Samuel T.

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Shackleton, David James

Everett, R. Lacey

Macpherson, J. T.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Faber, G. H. (Boston)

M'Callum, John M.

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Fenwick, Charles

M'Crae, Sir George

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Ferens, T. R.

M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

Simon, John Allsebrook

Ferguson, R. C. Munro

M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

M'Micking, Major G.

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Findlay, Alexander

Mallet, Charles E.

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

Soares, Ernest J.

Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston

Spicer, Sir Albert

Gibb, James (Harrow)

Marnham, F. J.

Stanger, H. Y.

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

Massie, J.

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.

Glover, Thomas

Menzies, Walter

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Micklem, Nathaniel

Steadman, W. C.

Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

Molteno, Percy Alport

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

Grant, Corrie

Mond, A.

Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Stuart, James (Sunderland)

Gulland, John W.

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton

Morrell, Philip

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Hall, Frederick

Morse, L. L.

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale

Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)

Tomkinson, James

Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

Myer, Horatio

Torrance, Sir A. M.

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

Toulmin, George

Hart-Davies, T.

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Norman, Sir Henry

Ure, Alexander

Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Verney, F. W.

Harwood, George

Nuttall, Harry

Wadsworth, J.

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Partington, Oswald

Walsh, Stephen

Haworth, Arthur A.

Paulton, James Mellor

Walters, John Tudor

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Walton, Joseph

Helme, Norval Watson

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent)

Henry, Charles S.

Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton)

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan

Higham, John Sharp

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Pirie, Duncan V.

Waterlow, D. S.

Hodge, John

Pollard, Dr.

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Holland, Sir William Henry

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Weir, James Galloway

Hooper, A. G.

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Horniman, Emslie John

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Horridge, Thomas Gardner

Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Pullar, Sir Robert

Whitehead, Rowland

Hudson, Walter

Radford, G. H.

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

Hutton, Alfred Eddison

Rainy, A. Rolland

Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P

Hyde, Clarendon

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Wiles, Thomas

Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

Redmond, William (Clare)

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen

Jardine, Sir J.

Rees, J. D.

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

690

691

Williamson, A.

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)

Yoxall, James Henry

Wills, Arthur Walters

Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Winfrey, R.

Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

Wood, T. M'Kinnon

NOES.

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Gardner, Ernest

Percy, Earl

Ashley, W. W.

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Randles, Sir John Scurrah

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Ratcliff, Major R. F.

Balcarres, Lord

Gretton, John

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (City Lond.)

Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston

Remnant, James Farquharson

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Haddock, George B.

Renwick, George

Banner, John S. Harmood-

Hamilton, Marquess of

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Bottomley, Horatio

Helmsley, Viscount

Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

Bowles, G. Stewart

Hill, Sir Clement

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

Bull, Sir William James

Hunt, Rowland

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Joynson-Hicks, William

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Butcher, Samuel Henry

Kerry, Earl of

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

Kimber, Sir Henry

Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

Carlile, E. Hildred

King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Stanier, Beville

Castlereagh, Viscount

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Starkey, John R.

Cave, George

Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.)

Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt. -Col. A. R.

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham)

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Wore

Lowe, Sir Francis William

Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Clive, Percy Archer

Lupton, Arnold

Thornton, Percy M.

Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham)

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm

MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent. Mid)

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

M'Arthur, Charles

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Watt, Henry A.

Craik, Sir Henry

M'Iver, Sir Lewis

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

Magnus, Sir Philip

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Marks, H. H. (Kent)

Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

Du Cros, Arthur Philip

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Winterton, Earl

Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

Faser, George Denison (York)

Moore, William

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)

Morpeth, Viscount

Younger, George

Fardell, Sir T. George

Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

Fell, Arthur

Oddy, John James

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia.

Fletcher, J. S.

Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend

Forster, Henry William

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

"Question, "That the Amendment be made," put, and agreed to.

And, it being Five of the clock, the CHAIRMAN proceeded, in pursuance of the Order of the 17th July, to put the Question on an Amendment of which notice had been given by the Government.
Another Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 13, to leave out the words 'on-licence' and insert the words 'licence (whether an on-licence or an off-licence.)'"—(Mr. L. Harcourt.)
Whereupon the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 31st July, adjourned the House without Question put.
Adjourned at Two Minutes after Five o'clock till Monday next.