LICENSING LAWS (WALES). (Hansard, 11 December 1929)

Major OWEN
The hour is somewhat late and but very little time is allotted to me to raise the matter of which I gave notice on the 14th of last month. We have had the pleasure to-night of listening to a discussion relating to certain nationalities which make up the community of nations forming the British Empire, but it is a curious anomaly that while the success of this Empire depends on the fair and just treatment of every one of its constituent members, it is quite impossible, under the rules of this House, to draw attention to any matter relating to the country to which I belong except on the Motion for the Adjournment and at a most unfortunate hour. I want to make a very strong protest against this. I heard with a great deal of sympathy the claims put forward on behalf of the coloured races of Africa by the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood). Time is allotted in this House for practically every section of the British Empire, with the exception of Wales, and unfortunately the tendency of recent years, at any rate since I have had the honour of being a Member of 619 this House, is, whenever a Welsh question is raised, to treat it with indifference, very often with derision, and certainly with a great amount of levity.
On the 14th of last month I put a question to the Home Secretary dealing with a matter which has been a subject of great discussion in Wales for a very long time, and that was the constitution of the Licensing Commission recently appointed by the Government. It was practically the first opportunity we had of putting a question to the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the composition of the Royal Commission. I put to him a perfectly fair question. Previously the hon. Member for Denbigh (Dr Morris-Jones) had asked him why on that Commission there was not a single representative for Wales, in spite of the fact that it consisted of 21 members. The population of the whole of Great Britain is about 45,000,000. A special Royal Commission has been appointed for Scotland, and, eliminating, therefore, about 5,000,000, we are left with a population of 40,000,000. About 3,000,000 reside in Wales, and yet the Government do not think fit to give that nation a single representative on the Commission. What is the position with regard to this? The demand on the part of Wales for separate treatment on the matter of licensing legislation is not new. We have had, much to the surprise, I presume, of the right hon. Gentleman, a Sunday Closing Act for nearly 50 years, and yet in the House, when replying to me, he seemed to have forgotten entirely the existence of that Act. The only part of this Kingdom where the Sunday Closing Act applies is Wales, and we have had it since 1881, but the right hon. Gentleman thinks that that is of no importance whatever.
Further than that, when replying to me, he treats Wales in the most cavalier fashion. In reply, for instance, to the hon. and gallant Member for Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte), he said that it would be impossible to have a Commission smaller than a great mass meeting if we are to have representatives of every area. Wales to him is an area! May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that Wales was a nation before ever a Saxon or Angle or Jute came here? Apparently, the only estimate the right hon. Gentle- 620 man has of a nation is the extent of its territory, the vastness of its armies and its great wealth. He forgets that the true measure of the greatness of a nation is not in its wealth so called, but in what its people contribute from its inmost soul towards the development of the rest of the world. Of the nations constituting the British Empire, Wales has done more than its share in that direction. Over a period of seven centuries there was not a greater influence in the whole of civilised Europe than that of the culture and literature of Wales. We are not a people to be treated as a little area somewhere. May I remind the House that the British Empire is largely due to the efforts of Welsh kings? They, at any rate, set the foundations of it, and during the whole of that period the greatest statesmen of this country were Welsh men. [An HON. MEMBER "And still are!"] While the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were still barbarians, we had learned the arts of peace, but when the crisis comes we are prepared to take up the defence of our country and our Empire. This country owes to a Welshman its lead in the last Great War. My time is limited, but I want to urge this. The right hon. Gentleman says that if we want representation for Wales there will have to be a mass meeting of a Royal Commission. That is only an argument in favour of the proposition I put to him. Let him establish a separate Royal Commission for Wales.
What is the history of this demand by Wales? No fewer than 18 Local Option Bills have been introduced into this House, and on at least three occasions the House has given the Bills a Second Reading. On the first occasion, 22 Welsh Members voted in favour of the Bill, and not a single Welsh Member voted against it. On the second occasion, in 1893, 23 Welsh Members voted in favour of the Bill, and one against it. On the third occasion, in 1920, 21 voted for the Bill, and four against it. I had the privilege of making my maiden speech in this House on a Welsh Local Option Bill, and on that occasion, although the Labour Government were then in office, they refused to give it their support. We who live in Wales and have our being amongst its people know that this demand for separate licensing legislation has been a strong one in Wales for 50 years.
621 We say to the right hon. Gentleman that if Scotland deserves a special Royal Commission of its own we in Wales demand to have one too. If it is to be the practice of this House and of every Government to treat Wales with indifference, to treat it derisively, I want to utter a word of warning. I want to end the remarks I have to make with these words. An English king, Henry II, was returning from Ireland and boastfully hurled gibes at the old Welshman of Pencader. These were the words in which the old Welshman answered him. They are recorded by a famous Welshman. I will not give it in the original, though a Welshman can not only speak his own tongue but the Saxon as well: This nation, O King, may often he weakened and in great part destroyed by the power of yourself and others, hut many a time, as it deserves, it will rise triumphant. Never will it be wholly destroyed by the wrath of man unless the wrath of God be added; nor do I think that any other nation than this of Wales or any other tongue, whatever may hereafter come to pass, shall on the day of the great reckoning before the most High Judge answer for this corner of the earth. You cannot by derision and indifference kill a nation. Let it have a chance of developing itself as it should in this great community of nations.

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Clynes)
The hon. and gallant Member for Carnarvonshire (Major Owen) has given us a very fine instance of the best kind of Welsh orator. I can assure him that in one or two respects I have not offended. I have the greatest admiration for his country and his countrymen, and I hold them in as high regard as I do people in any part of the British Empire. But if the hon. Member really felt so deeply and was so indignant on this question I am at a loss to understand why we did not hear him earlier, and why questions were not put weeks and months before one found its way on to the Order Paper.

Major OWEN
As a matter of fact it was not appointed until 8th October, 1929, and the House was not sitting.

§ Dr. MORRIS-JONES
I put down two questions to the hon. Gentleman at the earliest 'opportunity.

§ Mr. CLYNES
think the hon. Member is rather hazy about the beginning of the Session. This Session of Parlia- 622 ment began on the 2nd of July, and this subject was an election issue. It was found in the utterances and publications of the leaders of the Labour party, and it found its way as a separate paragraph in the Speech from the Throne, on 2nd July. Later, on 14th August, the papers all over the country announced the proposed appointment of the first batch of the members of the Commission. On 26th September the complete personnel of the Commission was publicly announced. While I do not describe the appeal which has been addressed to me as an after-thought, I would say that if there is all this depth of feeling on this question, the matter might have been raised very much earlier and brought forward long ago. The truth is that so far as there has been a distinction between any one part of the Kingdom and another on a matter of licensing the distinction has been between Scotland and England. [Interruption.] I am coining to the point raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. Throughout the history of licensing legislation England and Wales have always been treated as a single unit, and Scotland as a distinct and separate unit. I know that more than 40 years ago a separate Welsh Commission was appointed for the one purpose of dealing with Sunday closing in Wales, and on such a subject of course, there had to be a separate Welsh Commission. But for all other purposes in connection with licensing legislation, England and Wales have been treated as one piece of territory.
I have not thought of putting forward any test of locality, and certainly the constitution of this Commission was not settled on any basis of numbers. If we were to say that Wales should have a separate Commission because her population is 3,000,000 or thereabouts, Lancashire, say, would be entitled, on that basis, to two commissions, for its population is more than 6,000,000. You cannot therefore on any mere basis of numbers declare the right to a separate Commission. I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that when I used the word "area" in reply to a supplementary question I was not thinking of Wales alone. There has been a large mass of correspondence claiming representation from many parts of the country and from a large number of separate organisations and societies. 623 A number of such communications have come from Wales, but certainly neither in terms nor in numbers do they indicate anything like that depth of indignation which found expression in the eloquence of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. The members of the Commission were not selected on a territorial basis or as representing any part of the area throughout which licensing law extends. They were chosen for their knowledge of the problems involved and for their experience in dealing with the social aspect of this question. It would be a mistake in my judgment to regard the Commissioners as advocates for any particular area, and I aim confident that the fullest consideration will be given by the Commission to the people's opinion in Wales as it will be represented to them in evidence. Indeed, I think it would be a very bad thing for the work of the Commission if men holding views and opinions upon definite schemes were to have any considerable voice on the Commission. I think that such definite schemes can be best presented in the body of evidence which I am certain will be laid before the Commission—in other words, that definite schemes and ideas as to what should be done can be better represented by evidence than by representatives on the Commission.

§ Mr. LEIF JONES
Is that why Mr. B. T. Hall is appointed?

§ Mr. CLYNES
Mr. Hall certainly is a man of very wide experience and represents a vast number of people, and probably would make a claim that the clubs of the country, which come under the licensing laws, should have an expert spokesman on the body.

§ Mr. JONES
No man in the country stands out more definitely committed than Mr. Hall, who goes on to the Commission with his mind made up.

§ Mr. CLYNES
It is not a point about his views. It is his experience and knowledge of the problem. The Government thought it was proper that societies and organisation as such should not be represented on the Commission, but that points of view and experience should be represented there through the personnel of the 20 men who were on that body.

§ Mr. JONES
Is that why the President of the National Commercial Temperance League was put upon it?

§ Mr. CLYNES
I am ready to discuss at the proper time the personnel of the Commission, but it is not the moment to answer the question at any length. The Commission consists of persons with special knowledge of various questions affecting licences. One of the objects of the Commission will be to conduct an impartial examination of the various proposals that may be made for amending the existing licensing laws, and I can only repeat that I am confident, from my knowledge of the Chairman of that body and its members, that they will have due regard to the authority they have received from this House and in the name of the King, and will not unduly press any personal views, but will have regard to the well-being and benefit of the nation as a whole.

§ Mr. ERNEST EVANS
It is no question of personnel at all. The right hon. Gentleman has overlooked the fact that in regard to Wales we had special treatment in regard to licensing matters. There are definite views that are entertained by the Welsh people in regard to them and I think the Government have insulted Wales by the treatment they have accorded her.