§ Notwithstanding anything contained in this or any other Act to the contrary, the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, Schedule I (c) (Provisions applicable to retailers' off-licences, Spirits; (2) Mininmum quantity of spirits to be sold), shall be deemed to have effect, as if, in lieu of the words "one reputed quart bottle" there were inserted the words "one reputed pint bottle," and accordingly the minimum quantity which may be sold by a person holding an off-licence to be held by a retailer of spirits shall be in England one reputed pint bottle.—[Lieut. Colonel James.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Lieut.-Colonel JAMESI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
I do not wish to detain the House with long arguments. Last year about this time I supported a similar proposal. This Clause has two main sides, first, the financial side, and, secondly, the administrative side. With regard to the financial side, the Clause should cause no 1234 loss of revenue to the Exchequer, any more than, I believe, it would produce any increase of revenue; so in that respect matters will remain very much as they are. As regards the administrative side, no doubt arguments can be produced for and against the Amendment. Against the Amendment it is argued by Members such as the Noble Lady for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) that this half-bottle Regulation, a child of D.O.R.A., was wished for by the country during the War to prevent a habit of "nipping" amongst women in munition factories. It is some years since the War ended; it is some years since we had large gatherings of women working in munition factories under specially nerve-racking conditions, which no longer exist. I would also say, surely the Noble Lady can trust her own sex a little to look after themselves? I believe this particular restriction to be no longer necessary, and it certainly is exceedingly irksome. Only this afternoon an hon. 1235 Member of this House told me that while coming up from the country to-day, and passing through a town about 25 miles from London, he had come across a woman by the side of the road who had fallen off her bicycle and was very ill. It was a quarter of an hour before he could get any brandy to give to the woman. He had not got any in his car, and the closing hours prevented his getting any. In 20 minutes the woman was dead. [Interruption.] It is suggested by the Noble Lady the Member for Plymouth that she would have been dead anyhow. I do not think that is a fair or reasonable argument. I wish to avoid personalities. I do not wish to have to reply to the sort of arguments which are occasionally used against me, but perhaps I will do so now, in order that I may make a definite denial. The Noble Lady has occasionally reproached me on public platforms and in this House with being a servant and a slave of the licensed trade. I deny that totally. I hold no interest, direct or indirect, in it. I have told her so already, and I repeat it in public. Her remark, when I told her so before, was, "You have dinners with them." Does she honestly think I have sold myself for the price of a dinner?
Viscountess ASTOROn a point of Order. Has this got anything to do with the Amendment—for the hon. Member to get up here, and attack me before I have opened my mouth?
§ Mr. SPEAKERAs far as I heard, the hon. and gallant Member was trying to defend himself.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI am glad to hear it. We can now deal with the Amendment on its merits.
§ Mr. MAXTONOn a point of Order. Is the speech the hon. and gallant Gentleman is making in order on an Amendment which deals with Easter offerings?
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe House has just concluded the question of Easter offerings.
§ Lieut. - Colonel JAMESAfter that slight diversion I will endeavour to resume. With regard to the administra- 1236 tive side of the problem, there are certain interests which, I believe, are opposed to this proposal. I refer particularly to certain branches of the licensed victuallers' trade, who, I believe, oppose it because they say that if the Clause is passed they will suffer disadvantages in regard to the off-licence holder.
I support this Amendment not for any sectional interest, but in the public interest. It seems to me to be a gross hardship that a man or woman who desires to obtain a small quantity of any excise-able article should not be allowed to get it. If this particular Regulation were logical, were reasonable and not intolerable, would there be any objection to insisting that a poor woman who desired to buy tea at the grocers should be forbidden to buy a less quantity than, say, half a pound. The arguments which have been used in regard to the latter case are just as strong as they are in this case. Suppose one introduced Amendments into future Finance Bills to say that cigars could be sold only 50 at a time, and suppose Members went to an official called, say, Collins, and said, "Collins, give me a cigar," and he replied, "I can only serve you with 50." We should regard that as grotesque and ridiculous. That is very much my view of the present Regulation. It is a War-time Regulation which has outlived its utility. So far from this being an unnecessary Clause, I believe it will make a very necessary amendment in the law. Take the case of an agricultural labourer, with his miserable wage, who has sickness in the house. If the doctor says to him, "Your wife must have brandy," and he goes to the local grocer, he finds that he cannot buy a half-bottle of brandy for his sick wife, but is compelled to pay 12s. 6d. for a bottle of rather inferior brandy for her. He cannot afford it. It may not be worth it and at the same time it is a very severe drain on his weekly wage, and surely it is better to get half a bottle instead of having to do as he has to do at present. Now he has to buy a bottle, and after giving the invalid the necessary amount, instead of restoring the cork and keeping the spirit there is a tendency to drink it all at once instead of wasting it. I do urge the Secretary for the Treasury to give this new Clause full and careful consideration, because I believe 1237 it has a large body of support in this House and outside. For these reasons I trust the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to meet us in a satisfactory way.
§ Mr. SCRYMGEOURrose—
§ Mr. SPEAKERDoes the hon. Gentleman rise to second this Motion?
§ Mr. SCRYMGEOURNo, I do not.
Mr. GUINNESSAs the hon. and gallant Member for Bromley (Lieut.-Colonel James) has said, there is no money in this new Clause, which divides itself into two parts, the revenue side and the administrative side. Although the revenue side is of little importance, on the administrative side this proposal has had rather a long and chequered career. I am afraid the hon. and gallant Member is wrong in thinking it dates merely from D.O.R.A. It has a more hoary record. D.O.R.A. made certain Amendments with regard to the selling of spirits off the premises, but we have now reverted to the position of "As you were" as regards all these D.O.R.A. Drink Regulations. The particular Regulation to which the Mover of this new Clause has drawn attention dates back to 1861 to Mr. Gladstone's time, and Mr. Gladstone provided that the off-licence holder should not be entitled to supply spirits in less quantities than a quart.
The matter was left at that until 1909, when the Liberal party, in their famous People's Budget, brought forward a proposal to level Scotland up to a half-bottle limit and to bring England down to the same figure. A good deal of controversy was excited, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) found it advisable to make a strategic movement to the rear, with the result that the matter, as regards England, was left exactly as it was before. Scotland, however, enjoyed the Amendment, levelling it up to the half-bottle, whereas up to that time they had been allowed to sell spirits in any quantity they chose. The legislation of 1909, while dropping the proposal to bring down the limit in 1238 England, actually raised the limit in Scotland. Since then the matter has been raised on two or three occasions, and, from the way in which my two hon. Friends on this side of the House fell out to-night—the hon. and gallant Member for Bromley (Lieut.-Colonel James) and the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor)—I fear that the old antipathies might easily be again aroused on this vexed question.
That, however, is not to prejudge the issue; it is only to say that it needs a good deal of examination. As the hon. and gallant Member who moved the Amendment pointed out, it has a very important administrative side, which affects the Home Office, and not merely the Treasury. In fact, I think it is a matter in which the Home Office probably has more definite views than the Department that is merely concerned with a non-existent financial side of the matter; and there is also the trade side of the matter. There are various interests, which have not been consulted, and for these reasons it is out of the question for the Government to-night to express any considered view on this difficult question, with its long and chequered Parliamentary history. All I can say is that we will give it very careful consideration; we will consult the other interests concerned, especially the Home Office; and we hope to be able to give a more definite and considered opinion if it is brought up on another occasion, perhaps on the Finance Bill next year.
§ Lieut.-Colonel JAMESI beg to ask leave to withdraw.
§ Mr. SCRYMGEOURI would like to take this opportunity of speaking on this question. The appeal of the hon. and gallant Member for Bromley (Lieut.-Colonel James) is evidently going to have serious consideration by the Treasury, and if that be so I should certainly contend that it deserves to be considered on its merits and demerits as a whole, and not simply as a sectional and altogether unimportant matter, as suggested by the hon. and gallant Member. The real question is not the size of the bottle that may be sold; it is the contents of the bottle. I am quite well aware that this question has, for very nearly the last century in this House, been received almost invari- 1239 ably with an undue exhibition of the sense of humour. There is no room for treating this matter in a humourous vein in a House which has very grave reason to consider the effects of the particular issue as they see it in the House itself. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] I am agreeable to the withdrawal of the drink from the House if that is what you want to withdraw. What I am speaking of is the seriousness of the question as it really presents itself to the House at any time. We are quite well aware that the results sometimes present a ludicrous aspect. When you look behind the ostensible view and see the realism that lies behind it you begin to realise that points such as those introduced by the hon. Member are a mere bagatelle contrasted with the vital character of the question itself. What difference could this make on the real question at issue if the hon. Member's proposition is adopted and we revert to the opportunity of the retail dealer handling supplies in this way? He has made the suggestion that the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division (Viscountess Astor) should allow women folk to look after themselves. I would strongly commend that recommendation to the hon. Member and those whom he represents in the trade, that if the women are allowed to look after themselves without the use of this concoction he will find a better womanhood in the country and better development of the country at large in its widest aspects, but to set specifically limited opportunities for the seduction of women, to traduce women and cast them on the streets as prostitutes by the production of such a concoction, is a diabolical act.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. Member cannot on this Amendment go into the whole question of the liquor trade and its good or evil. The only question is the bottle or half-bottle.
§ Mr. SCRYMGEOURI bow to your decision, Sir, and the very phraseology in which you have directed my attention to the situation proves the special point I want to make, that you are so circumscribed in dealing with this question by various limitations of the procedure of the House that the biggest question you have to face is compressed on every occasion 1240 almost into such a limited scope that they cannot really get dealing with the question at all. And yet in that bottle, of whatever size it may be, is the situation in which every man sitting on that Front Bench is bottled on this question. That applies to every party which has what is called numerical strength in this House, and no party can face the real question which is involved in the bottle, whatever size it may be, and therefore I transgress no further upon your time.
§ Mr. THURTLEI rise as a mere Englishman to say I do not think it is in the best of taste for a Scottish Member to endeavour to persuade the House to deny to the English people a right which is already enjoyed by the Scottish people. I think if the Scottish nation may be entrusted to buy half bottles of spirits without any serious harm to the nation, the English nation ought to be allowed the same right.
§ Lieut.-Colonel JAMESI ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Captain BENNI would not have said a word, but I thought someone from these benches should in a sentence say this Amendment is intended to increase the facilities for drink. To that proposal we shall give our opposition.
§ Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.