Lords Sitting of 12 July 1889

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILLS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD DENMAN: My Lords, the suspension of a Resolution like this was opposed by Lord Redesdale, Chairman of Committees, in 1855, because no opposition, so late in the Session, could be of any avail. Since then, especially in 1879, when limited liability for banks was carried by suspension of the Standing Orders on August 14, and the Bill carried the next day by Royal Assent, all has been hurry. The noble Chairman of Committees said it would be better to have no Resolutions than to annul them afterwards. I think it should be possible for this House to go through all the business before it with due deliberation. I can only say that I have constantly advised Members of the Government to adjourn Parliament instead of proroguing it. There are several precedents for it, and if that were done there would, I assure your Lordships, be sufficient opportunity afforded for the consideration of business. On the 17th December, 1831, Parliament was adjourned to the 17th January following, and by that means obstruction and a great waste of time was avoided. I think it would be for the good of the country if the Government would at once announce that they are prepared to adjourn the Session instead of proroguing Parliament.
  LORD BALFOUR: My Lords, a great number of Provisional Orders are on such minor matters as the alteration
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  of local boundaries, not being those of counties, and not sufficiently advanced to come before the House. I am not speaking from absolute information, but I think it most likely that this large number of Bills has relation to matters which are the subject of local inquiry. The House will agree that it is, under any circumstances, exceedingly difficult for those who have to pass Provisional Orders Confirmation Bills through the House to comply with the very stringent Sessional Orders, and it is only with very great difficulty that they can be complied with at all. They are exceedingly stringent. I quite agree with the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees that it is undesirable to continue the Standing Orders. I venture to think it would be very desirable for next Session, before the next Sessional Orders are passed, to consider whether the time should not be extended.
  LORD DENMAN: The necessity for supplementing the Local Government Bill shows how hastily it was carried. I wish no such Resolution hid been passed at all.
  THE EARL OF MILLTOWN: It was suggested that the Provisional Orders Bills, which your Lordships know are not discussed at any very great length by this House, should be considered by the Standing Committee, but since that time not a single Provisional Orders Bill has been sent to the Standing Committee. As no ono seems to know very much about them, I venture to suggest to the noble Viscount that he should send them to the Committee on General Purposes.

THE EDUCATION CODE.
LORD NORTON: My Lords, I to move a Resolution, of which I given Notice—

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"That in the opinion of this House the Education Code should fix a certain general grant to all certified elementary schools, according to their circumstances, as the normal contribution of the State to the expenses incurred by managers, instead of the grants proposed in Article 100 (a) to be awarded on a graduated scale by the Department according to Reports of Inspectors on the efficiency, in various senses, of each school; and that any reported inefficiency should not be met by reducing the means of efficiency, but the grant should be continued until persistent refusal or neglect to amend the reported inefficiency should forfeit the certificate of the school."
I hope your Lordships will accept my statement of petitions, of which I have about 50 to present, from Teachers' Associations and other bodies connected with national education in favour of this Motion. The 30th edition of the Education Code to which they refer, as your Lordships will have seen by the Report of what took place in the other House yesterday, is withdrawn, but some new edition must follow the Report of the Royal Commission, and the present is a favourable opportunity to pass in preparation such a Resolution as I now propose. It is most essential that that new edition of the Code should be based on sound principle, and should be upon permanent basis embodying the experience of so many years. There is nothing more injurious than constant change in a Code upon such a subject. I want to show your Lordships that all the demands for change may be traced to one source. At the bottom of all the dissatisfaction and faults found and demands for alteration is the radically vicious basis of co-operation between the managers who undertake national education and the State which subsidises their work. The managers are either school boards with unlimited command of local taxation, or voluntary bodies who began, and are carrying on, the work from private resources. Soon after I first reduced a mass of Minutes of Council on this subject to a Code, as Vice President of the Council Mr. Lowe (now Lord Sherbrooke) in revising it, following me in that office, originated the idea of the State dealing with managers on terms of bargain and sale. So many samples of instruction were to be produced for inspection, and were to be paid for, if approved, by the State. All the specified samples together, approved and accepted, would fall very
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far short of anything that deserved to be called education; and, so purchased, must actually hinder it. Thirty years of such a mercenary system of piecemeal education have so utterly degraded the whole idea of the work, and so accustomed and practised those engaged in the trick of the bargain, that each yearly new edition of the terms is simply canvassed and estimated by the sum to be won out of it. I heard a leading educationalist the other day condemning the just withdrawn Code, on the ground that it would cause an actual loss of 4 ½d. a head in the school in which he was interested. One cannot but think when one reflects for a moment on what the real scope of education is, the formation of character, the instilling of sound principles of action, and the training of the intelligence of the great bulk of the nation, that it is a matter of grave importance to ascertain what is the cause of so much mischief. The educational value of the Code is merged in the simple cash calculation. The system is condemned. If anyone supposes I exaggerate in saying that the mode of payment is the root of all its evil, they have only to consider for a moment the grievances put forward. The Notice Paper of the other House shows 12 Amendments to the Code just withdrawn. I think that has been the cause for its withdrawal. Every grievance would be met by recognizing the true principle of a public support of education. For instance, complaints are made that under the present system there is a neglect of religious instruction. That is because a money grant cannot be attached even to elementary instruction in religion. Another very prominent grievance is that a sort of evanescent cramming of the memory has been substituted for the training of the intellect of children. Why is that? Simply because the payments depend on performances, and not on the requirement for education. Another grievance is the anxiety and distraction of mind arising from precarious income. Why is that? Because there has been substituted for a general contract for the great work of education, special payments for details of instruction. My Lords, I maintain that this system is condemned by all who have thought impartially about it. Nowhere is it more pointedly

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condemned than in the Code which has just been withdrawn. That Code followed the Report of the Royal Commission in a wide departure from this system. It largely increased the fixed rate of support given by way of subsidy from the State, but at the same time it unfortunately retained a number of those special payments which have been the cause of mischief, enough to still vitiate the whole system. The Code, as withdrawn, after laying down most properly general conditions on which any subsidy should be obtained, proceeded only partially to enlarge the fixed part of the subsidy given by the State, and that in a precarious manner and with liability to total forfeiture; but it made up its amount by a number of the old grants in detail, and these would still be the most interesting stakes to play for, in hopes to cover expenses incurred. There were—a shilling for needle-work, a shilling for singing by note or sixpence by ear, one or two shillings for class subjects. English, geography, and history, and four shillings apiece for specific sciences and foreign languages, which the richer classes would monopolize. That Code recognized what was advocated only partially, and spoilt it by retaining what was condemned. There should, no doubt, be what this Code had not—namely, different curricula for schools in different circumstances; but in each case the State subsidy should be dependable and should be adequate for the contemplated work. What is the use of asking for half remedies, such as an extension of the 17s. 6d. limit of subsidy, which, indiscriminately applied, might be too much or too little; or for freedom from rates, which would be dangerous and unjustifiable indefinitely granted? Such is the necessary failure of a remedy which did not touch the cause of the old disease. What is wanted is not casual prizes, but means for the work to be done and for its necessary cost. So inveterate has become the earning, and eleemosynary, habit that a more definite contract between the State and managers is neither desired nor thought possible. Yet it is the practice of all other countries, including our Colonies. In Canada a supply from the Central School Fund is distributed to every school district simply in proportion to the school population, that is children between the age of five
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and 15, and the rateable value of the district. The Mother Country might take a limit in practical wisdom from her daughter, and fix a normal scale of capitation for State subsidy to local managers, who would soon come to terms in detail with boards and voluntary contributors as to its application to their own particular requirements. But the Code made a further blunder in proposing the enlarged fixed subsidy to be awarded on a graduated scale, according to the inspectors' judgment of the comparative merit of schools as good, fair, or excellent. Inspectors were unanimous in their evidence of the impossibility of such discrimination, and the invidiousness and falsehood of the attempt. The fact that the sample turned out is not so good in one place as in another is no test of the merit of the teaching. The object is not competitive exhibitions, which, from the circumstances of the school or accident of pupils' intelligence, may vary inversely with the teachers' labour. The object is to put good education within the reach of all. A normal fixed State subsidy to local managers is the true principle for public support of national education, and this is gradually breaking on the long bewildered public mind. But there lingers still enough of the old fallacy to make some suppose a guarantee of work, and a stimulant to exertion, necessary in the shape of praemia on superior show, and fines on failure. It is strange that the teachers' profession should be thought incapable of the pride or honesty of good work, and to require enticing or flogging up to their duties by threats of their income being withdrawn, and of the very means for carrying on their service being mulcted—that they alone of all people in the country should be thought incapable of doing their duty, except by a 'petty system of rewards and punishments. I am convinced that your Lordships will not take that view. A false parallel has been put forward to bear out that view in the dependence of all work for profit on its success. The open market certainly will not come for nor remunerate unsuccessful product. But there is no parallel in that fact to a Government subsidy for national education by instalments of payment on details of approved instruction. The Government should take no

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measure of the work required in subsidizing national education by non-success in particular performances. The Government should, by constant inspection, instead of that useless inspection which now goes on on fixed days, ascertain a bonâ fide service, and so long as is continued give a fixed subsidy of adequate amount. In case of persistent neglect or of misapplication of the means given they should withdraw them until their proper use was restored. The only objection that I have heard of any weight whatever is the notion that too much will have to be trusted to the inspector's judgment, but in any system there must be trust to the inspectors. In common with the Code proposal, on persistent refusal to correct faults the total grant should be taken away after, say, two years' warning. That I believe is the proposal that has been made in the Code, and I have made precisely the same proposal. But I would go further even than that. I would suggest that where an inspector's judgment is challenged there should be an appeal, to a sort of Committee of Inspectors. Your Lordships know there are similar means of appeal in other Department. My Lords, all I ask is the affirmation of a better principle for the New Code which must follow next year. I ask that a final draft of the Education Code should be made on a sound basis; that we must have at least the State subsidy fixed; and that the managers of our schools should be placed, in relation with the State, on terms suitable, independent, and adequate for the work of national education.
Moved to resolve—
"That in the opinion of this House the new Education Code should fix a certain general grant to all certified elementary schools, according to their circumstances, as the normal contribution of the State to the expenses incurred by managers, instead of the grants proposed in Article 100 (a) to be awarded on a graduated scale by the Department according to reports of inspectors on the efficiency, in various senses, of each school; and that any reported inefficiency should not be met by reducing the means of efficiency, but that the normal grant be continued until persistent refusal or neglect to amend the reported inefficiency should forfeit the certificate of the school."—[The Lord Norton.)
VISCOUNT CRANBROOK: My Lords, I think it is a little hard of my noble Friend to repeat now to your
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Lordships the same arguments as he urged on the last occasion when he brought the question before the House, and withdrew his Motion. My noble Friend who was a Member of the Royal Commission not only used all these arguments before, but he gave an opportunity to any Member of the Commission who might agree with him to sign the protest which he made upon this particular point, but he could not get any of his colleagues to join him in subscribing it, and it was made solely and entirely without their consent. The Report of the Royal Commission is most distinctly in contradiction to everything that my noble Friend has said in your Lordships' House. The New Code is no longer before the House, and we need no longer discuss it. But my noble Friend, after the explanation which he has given, finds at last that the principle embodied in the Report is the same as that which he himself adopted. I must ask your Lordships to see what it is that he proposes. It is that the House should lay down as the principle to be acted upon that any report of inefficiency in schools should not be met by reducing the means of efficiency, but that the "reported inefficiency" should be continued until persistent refusal or neglect to amend the reported inefficiency should forfeit the certificate of the school. The noble Lord does not mean this; but can he expect your Lordships to adopt a Resolution so drawn? Now, my Lords, just let me for one moment call your attention to the fact that the proposal of the Royal Commission, of which, as I have said, my noble Friend was a member, was that there should be a fixed grant of 10s. per child, and that the fluctuating grants beyond that should be so far modified as that their amount should depend upon and be regulated rather by the acquirements of the great majority of the scholars than the exact number of children who acquire the necessary standard. That is to say that they wanted it to depend no longer upon individual results, but upon the general condition of the school, the character of the teaching, and the order and discipline prevailing among the children. They expressed their conclusions in the most distinct terms, and they went on to say that the distribution of the

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Parliamentary grant could not be made wholly free from the present system of examination, without greater evils resulting than those which it was sought to cure, nor could they believe that Parliament should make a larger grant without in some way satisfying itself that the quality of the education would justify the expenditure. But they also said that the present system of payment by results is carried too far, and is too rigidly applied, and that it ought to be applied for the interests of both the scholars and the teachers. That was the principle on which we proceeded. In that respect the Report of the minority was in practical agreement with that of the majority, and went distinctly in favour of that which had been voted by the majority. Therefore, I may say it is perfectly clear that what the Royal Commission recommended was a fixed grant, that each school should receive a certain amount in the course of the year, so that they would be enabled to make proper arrangements for teaching, and so forth, but that the teachers and managers should be able to earn more according to their qualifications and the manner in which they conducted the school. The inspectors were to report upon the moral training, accuracy, and general knowledge of each school, and upon the qualifications and instructions of the pupil teachers. They were to judge according to the best characteristics of the best schools, and according to the quality of each school they were to make the grant, and beyond that they were to give payment for certain subjects. I should have been very glad if an opportunity had been afforded of going into this question, and regret that the New Code has never yet undergone adequate discussion; but as my noble Friend is in opposition to all his colleagues on the Commission, as he has submitted to this House practically the same Motion once before, and it was withdrawn having received no support from your Lordships, I would ask you to negative the Resolution at present before you.
On Question, resolved in the negative.

THE LIQUOR LAWS IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, I rise to ask Her Majesty's Government
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  if they will take steps to obtain and lay before Parliament reliable information regarding the present working of the "Liquor Laws "in Canada and in the United States? My Lords, in moving for the Return according to the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper, I would ask Her Majesty's Government what information is already in their possession, which would place your Lordships in a position to judge of the success or otherwise of the prohibition of the sale of liquor in the United States and Canada. This Notice of mine has been for some time on the Paper, and I am glad it has been delayed, because within the last month or so facts have come out which corroborate the statements I have to lay before your Lordships, and which considerably strengthen the position I take up on the subject. My object in bringing this forward is to show that prohibitory liquor legislation has failure written on its face, and that it has always failed even when tried under the most favourable circumstance. This we are now able to prove by statis. tics. In Canada and the United States they have had prohibitory laws of almost every kind and description. They have had total prohibition, local option, and Sunday dosing in all the phases and forms which compulsory regulation of the traffic can take; and if, as we are told by temperance advocates, drinking is the cause of crime, madness, and poverty, these countries ought to be free from all those evils. But is that so? The facts do not prove anything of the kind. On the contrary, crime, madness, pauperism, and all the other evils are just as rampant in the prohibition countries as here in proportion to the population. About two years ago I ventured to say in this House that in Canada and the United States these evils prevailed to an enormous extent. I was taken to task by the Member for Glasgow, who was then about to leave for America, and he promised to give me his reply when he returned. I am waiting still for the reply. Probably the hon. Member will find as a result of his inquiries that the facts I stated were true. Since then I have spoken to one of the American Ministers to this country upon the subject, and his reply was that what I had stated was perfectly true, and he told him that in Maine hot pickles were

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  taken, in substitution of liquors, as a stimulant. His Excellency mentioned the death of a well-known temperance lecturer from this kind of intemperance. He told me that he had known a temperance advocate who had lately died. He asked the doctor what was the cause of death, and the answer was "Intemperance." But it was not intemperance in alcohol, but in hot pickles, which for this gentleman were a substitute for alcohol. The failure of this legislation is shown by all the Parliamentary Papers and Foreign Office Reports on the subject of liquor traffic. Of the failure of prohibitory legislation in America and Canada, we have ample proof in the Parliamentary Papers, thanks to the action of Mr. M'Lagan, who is well known as a local optionist. No doubt, having heard from his friends of the success of the laws in Canada, the hon. Member called for a Return on the subject, which, much to his surprise, proved the total failure of the Acts. Professor Goldwin Smith, whose views always carry great weight upon this subject, said in an article of his which appeared in Macmillan's Magazine—
  "It is evident that English politics are beginning to be disturbed like those of the United States and Canada by the formation of a prohibitionist party. The party usually calls itself that of temperance. But though we may wish to be courteous, we cannot concede a name which not only begs the question at issue, but is a standing libel on those who take their glass of wine or beer without being in any rational sense of the term temperate. Temperance is one thing, total abstinence is another, and coercion, at which these reformers aim, is a third. As temperance implies self-restraint, there can be no temperance in the proper sense of the term where there is coercion. The 'temperance' people on this side of the water are not much inclined, so far as I have come in contact with them, to listen to anything so rationalistic as the lesson of experience. They tell you that with them it is a matter not of experience but of principle; but their cause is the cause of Heaven; yours, if you are an opponent, that of the darker power; and they intimate, with mere or less gentleness and courtesy, what, if you persist in getting in Heaven's way, will be your deserved and inevitable doom. To those, however, who in practical matters regard the dictates of experience as principles, and who wish, before committing themselves to a particular kind of legislation, to know whether it is likely to do good or harm, the result of Canadian or American experiments may not be uninstructive."
  Now, Professor Goldwin Smith is a well-known advocate of local option, and I am
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  sure that anything coming from him will have very great weight with your Lordships. Then he goes on to show the evils arising from passing such laws, which are regarded as unjust and unnecessary laws. Here are the facts brought out by Professor Goldwin Smith as regards those countries, and as taken from the official returns. He goes on to say that the Canadian Temperance Act, known as the Scott Act, was passed in 1878, and might be described as a county and city option measure, which, when adopted, remained in force three years. In Ontario, out of 42 counties and 11 cities, 28 counties and two cities adopted it. The other day ten counties repealed it, and in 18 counties and two cities petitions either had been presented or were understood to be in preparation for the same object; and the general result where the Act had been tried was the substitution of unlicensed and unregulated for a licensed and regulated trade. The demand for drink, he says, remains the same, but it is supplied in illicit ways, and drunkenness, instead of being diminished, has increased, as the illicit liquor seller is more active than the licensed publican in thrusting his temptation on those most likely to yield to it. In the north-west territories, where the law is qualified by a power of giving permits vested in the Lieutenant Governor, he states that the measure was a disastrous failure, that anybody could get liquor who wanted it, and that the only fruits of the system were smuggling, perjury, secret drinking, and deterioration of the liquor. Ardent spirits were everywhere substituted for lager beer and light drinks. At Milton there were before the Act five places where liquor was sold; after it was passed there were 16, and the trade had gone from respectable people into the lowest dens. Sometimes the spirits sold in these places are literally poisons, and such measures naturally provoke the desire to break the law. It is wrong, of course, to break the laws, but it is wrong also to make laws unsupported by any moral obligation, and which people are sure to break. There has been the same experience in the United States. In Maine, where it is supposed that the law is so strict that it is impossible to get liquors, the actual facts show that it is sold to all who wish to obtain it in nearly every

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  town in the State. The universal testimony is the same, that in cities and villages alike they can get liquors enough for bad purposes in bad places, but they cannot get it in good places for good purposes. Now, my Lords, comes the question of statistics. The Maine Prison Report states that intoxication is on the increase, and that some new legislation must be passed if it is to be lessened. The number of committals for drunkenness, it states, in the year was 1,316 for a population of 648,000, while in Canada, which was not then under these laws, the number was only 593 for 661,000 of the population. In ordinary crime there has been an increase, and the pauper rate is larger in Maine than in any other State. In Vermont, where for the last 30 years prohibition has been tried in its severest form, the law for all practical purposes is a dead letter. In Iowa prohibition means free liquor, and in Kansas, under the most strict prohibition, the drug stores are little better than rum-shops. Local option, which has been in force for three years in seven counties in Ontario, was submitted to the electors for a renewed term, but was rejected in all those counties by large majorities. In June last the repeal of the liquor prohibition Amendment by the Rhode Island Constitution was voted by a heavy majority, and in the same month the people of Pennsylvania rejected a prohibitory liquor Amendment to the Constitution by 175,000 votes. In Philadelphia the majority was 93,750, against it, and in nearly every county there was a large hostile majority. All this goes to prove the signal failure of the Acts; but such legislation is most disastrous in other respects, because it engenders an enormous amount of deceit, and every mode of breaking the law is resorted to. My Lords, I take it that those facts show that there has been a signal failure in producing the effects by those Acts which their promoters hoped they would produce. I have received numerous letters upon this part of the subject from a person in Maine who is thoroughly conversant with the subject, giving instances of the deceits resorted to for the purpose of evading the law. For example, in some transatlantic places, if you go into a place where liquor is sold, by turning the taps in one direction you get water, if turned in another you get spirits. In
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  many cases spirits are obtained under the pretence of illness; and as druggists are allowed to sell liquors medicinally the usual prescription when the patient required "bracing up" was "spirit fumenti, "and whiskey was produced. In smaller towns in America spirits are obtained from "the bootless saloons" where men go in with long jack-boots and they have only to give a wink and they get the boots filled, and a very common mode was upon what was known as the "loan system." A gentleman desiring a bottle of champagne with his dinner mentions the fact to the waiter, with the result that a bottle is "lent" and a document is signed by the gentleman promising to give back the bottle on a future occasion—whether it is full or empty does not appear. The law cannot possibly touch such a case, for it is all colourably legal enough. But, my Lords, you must not suppose that these evils are at all confined to the transatlantic countries, for we know that in our own country Sunday closing has had very similar effects. We have had ample illustrations in the United Kingdom. Sunday closing was in force in Wales, but in Neath the hotels were watched for two or three months, and an average to each house of 280 "bond fide travellers "were seen to eater. In Glasgow there are 4,000 she been and 2,000 clubs. Lord Aberdare, who was an earnest advocate of what is called "temperance legislation, "and who, when he was in the House of Commons, made a proposal by which in 10 years all the licences would have lapsed, and who strenuously supported the Welsh Sunday Closing Bill, has written admitting that it was a failure. Now, my Lords, in the face of all these facts what will the enthusiastic teetotal advocates, or "hydrocephalists" as one may call them, for they certainly suffer from "water on the brain, "say in defence of their position? Doubtless, as regards America and the United States, they will argue that the systems were different, and that what has happened there would not happen here. It is perfectly astonishing the fearful extremes to which some of these enthusiastic water drinkers will go. I read some time ago in a Scotch paper that the pastor and deacons of a kirk, who were all water drinkers, and who objected to the use of wine in the Communion Service, with-

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  out the knowledge of the congregation substituted water mixed with chalk. It is interesting also, my Lords, to see what professional prohibitionists say on these matters. I have in my hands the speech of a distinguished political gentleman, and as the passage in question expresses my own views much better than I could do I will read it. The speaker (Sir W. Harcourt, M.P.) in 1872 said—
  "I heard it affirmed that crime, poverty, and disease were the results of increased and increasing drunkenness. When I come to examine these assertions I find they cannot be supported. There seems to be, day by day, a growing disposition more and more to invoke the interference of Government in every relation of social life. I believe this to be a most dangerous tendency, and one to which it is necessary to offer an early and determined resistance. The question is, Can you, or ought you to put down drinking by legislation? You might, of course, make it impossible for any man to get anything to drink, and then, of course, no man could be drunk; just in the same way you might make an end of all crime by putting everybody in prison. But when you have put everybody in prison you will not have made your population virtuous. No more will you have made the nation moral when you have compelled them to be sober against their will. "What really makes sobriety valuable is the voluntary self-control, the deliberate self-denial which resists temptation and leads a man for the sake of himself and others to abstain from vicious indulgence, and this is the thing which you cannot create by Act of Parliament. I shall he told that this sort of restrictive legislation is promoted by well-intentioned people for excellent objects. I know it is. But I also know that the greatest crimes and the greatest mischiefs the world has ever known have been the work of well-intentioned people for excellent objects. They thought it was their right and their duty to compel men by any and all means to do what was good for their temporal and eternal welfare. The Bishop of Peterborough's sentence, that he 'would rather see England free than sober, 'has become famous. I know he has been loudly condemned for it, but it seems to me to convey sound sense and true policy, and if he had only added that he would rather see England free than orthodox, I should have been disposed to have called him a model Bishop. I am against the whole system of petty molestation and irritating dictation, whether by a class or by a majority. I am against forbidding a man to have a glass of beer if he wants a glass of beer. I am against public-house restrictions and park regulations."
  Now, my Lords, in 1888, addressing the assembled hydrocephalists, the same gentleman said—
  "It cannot he but a matter of supreme satisfaction to men who have worked far longer than myself (sic) in this great cause, to men like those whom I see around me upon this platform, and perhaps first and foremost of all my friend
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  Sir Wilfrid Lawson, men who worked so faithfully—at times it must have been so desperately—in the cause which they have lived to see advance to a point when we are within sight of final victory, to Bee this great cause moving like some of the great heavenly bodies with cumulative velocity and with ever-increasing momentum…. In spite of all your progress your gaols are still replenished with crime; your workhouses are filled with paupers; homes that might be happy become the abodes of wretchedness; men who might be an honour and a service to their country become either mischievous drunkards or useless sots; and women who should be the nursing mothers of future generations offer to their children the fatal example of intemperance and vice. Depend upon it, there is no place like the Home Office for impressing upon the mind the terrible significance of this cancer which eats into the vitals of society, Can we sit with folded hands and accept this shocking and far-reaching mischief? You do not act with helpless impotence in other things. If you have foul sewers, you cleanse them. If you have swamps which breed fever, and endanger the vital powers of the community, you cleanse them. But this fruitful source of moral pestilence is allowed to work its unnumbered evils. Is there no remedy for it?—[Cries of 'Yes, 'and' Shut them up.'] The remedy is at your hand. It is the very thing which the alliance exists to promote [i.e. prohibition). I propose to give the absolute control, including prohibition, to the Local Government."
  My Lords, it is difficult to understand that in these two instances the speaker was the same; but in 1872, at Oxford, Sir William Harcourt was not the professional politician he was at Manchester in 1888, when he made the second speech addressing the hydrocephalists. What a professional politician may sometimes feel himself impelled to do I do not know—I am sure it is not for me to say what a professional politician may or may not do. It is highly possible that those who err in one direction will fall into an extreme in the other. But, my Lords, it is of secondary importance what a professional politician out of office may say upon any question as compared with what will be done by the Government of the country. My Lords, I can hardly doubt that those who sit on the Treasury Bench will agree that it is no crime for a man to drink a glass of beer or spirits. I do not believe, my Lords, that at Cabinet dinners there is only water provided; and I hope Her Majesty's Government will courageously put their foot down when any question of legislation of this sort comes before them. I could refer your Lordships to some powerful passages in the Report of the Lords' Commission on the subject.

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  The evil of drunkenness is, no doubt, a question of great importance; but there are more serious matters even than drunkenness, and those questions are liberty and law. I hold that we shall cease to be a free people if it is not to be in the power of a sober and temperate man to get a glass of beer or spirits if he wants to do so. I appeal to the Government to consider well before assisting any legislation of a prohibitive character, and I urge that if legislation is undertaken it should be on the lines laid down in the Report of the Lords' Commission. The other aspect of the question, to which I would again refer, is obedience to the law, and I think there is nothing which would be more hurtful to the nation in the long run than such prohibition by law—in the long run it would tend to produce contempt for the law, and induce the evils of evasion and drunkenness which it has produced elsewhere. I trust, therefore, that those who desire that prohibition which has failed in other countries, and among all English-speaking races, Will be warned by those examples, and I hope your Lordships will resist the tyrannical views and action of the Temperance Alliance, and those who are in favour of prohibiting the liquor traffic. In the event of the licensing being transferred to the County Councils, I trust that whatever Government may be in office a minimum will be fixed both as to the number of licenses and as to the fees to be charged. In that way alone should the interests of the minority be protected. That protection for minorities is demanded, otherwise, upon taking the opinion of perhaps a few hundreds of the population of a district, all places where liquor is sold would be shut up and the licenses taken away. On the other hand, it is quite possible to impose such a fee upon licenses as to be sufficiently prohibitory. My Lords, I think the evil effect in every way, moral and otherwise, of this kind of legislation is so clearly shown in the cases where it has been adopted, and its failure so apparent, that I now ask the question which stands in my name, for the purpose of having laid before your Lordships any Papers on the subject.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS(The Marquess of SALISBURY):
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  My Lords, the only objection I know to the demand of my noble Friend that the Government should furnish him with more information is, that he has so much information already that I am not sure we could give him any material to his purpose. We have already a good deal of information on the Table, and we will do what we can to obtain from the American States any further light upon this debateable question. I am authorized by Lord Knutsford to say that he will take the same measures with regard to Canada. My noble Friend must remember, however, that at the beginning of the operation of a law when it has not been in operation for a great length of time, it is not easy to produce, in the form of statistical figures, evidence of its actual working. It is only when it has been in operation for a considerable number of years that the evidence takes that form, and any evidence which really depends on the estimate formed by the reporter is of less value, and in the case of a foreign State is rather difficult to furnish. It is quite a simple affair to ask the Secretaries of the Embassies in any foreign State to give any facts they know, but it is not so easy to ask them what they think of the working of the law, because they might say something to which the Government to which they are accredited may very fairly take exception. Therefore, I must ask my noble Friend not to imagine that there is a larger store of information at our disposal than actually exists; but I can assure him we will do our best to obtain all we can, and shall be very glad to lay it on the Table.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Much of the information which I have quoted is contained in Papers already presented to Parliament, and my desire is that we should have a continuance of that information down to the present date.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Quite so; that will be easily done. My noble Friend dealt a good deal with movements of opinion, and addressed many exhortations to the Government or those who might occupy our places; but he knows very well what the opinions of the Government are upon this subject. We embodied them in certain clauses of the Bill of last year, but we found there were difficulties, not

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  political, but of a material character, in I the way of carrying our opinions any I further. We find it bad enough to be obliged to devote a Session to Ireland and a Session to Scotland, and if in addition we are to devote two or three Sessions to public-houses, there really would be a very serious impediment to public business. The vigour of the controversy which rages on this subject makes it very difficult to introduce any legislation at all. The noble Earl spoke rather as if he imagines that handing over the power of licensing from the Magistrates to the Local Authorities would be a measure in derogation of the liberty of which he is very justly jealous. That is not my opinion. I think that the views to which he is particularly adverse only exist in particular strata of society; they do not spread very largely, but they are found in persons who announce them with great vigour and propagate them with great energy. Those views have in some counties invaded the Magisterial Bench, but I am not sure that the liberty of which he is the champion will not in the long run be exposed to this kind of risk if the present system of magisterial licensing continues without any modification. At all events, I feel we should, on the whole, be quite as safe with the County Councils as with the Magistrates in this matter, though I entirely concur that such measures should be taken in any legislation on this subject as should prevent any oppressive action of the kind which he dreads. But there is one point in my noble Friend's reasoning which struck me as he went on, and to which I will draw his attention. I quite admit there is this desire for what is called prohibition. It is nothing new. It has existed in civilized communities from time to time. One of the earliest heresies that afflicted the Christian Church was a heresy which forbade to drink wine or to eat flesh or to marry. In these days we separate the three, and there are three separate sects who preach these various doctrines. They are delusions which prevail from time to time; they grow, they flourish, they reach their height, and then they fall away. And I think from some of the statistics which my noble Friend has brought forward, there is ground for believing that we are not in great
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  danger of this feeling spreading very much further than it has already spread. But it is mixed up with another feeling, with which, I think, my noble Friend has wrongly confounded it, but which is defensible on other grounds, and that is the movement for shutting public-houses on Sunday. Now that is not, in my view of it, mainly a teetotal movement. It is much more analogous to what we may call, without offence, the Sabbatarian view, which turns much more on the sanctity which attaches to Sunday than on the movement for restraining the sale of spirituous liquors, and, therefore, it has at its back a much stronger force of opinion—a force of opinion drawn from the sentiments and the deep convictions of a large school of the Christian Church, and I do not deny that that movement has acquired considerable I strength, and may acquire greater strength yet. My noble Friend must not imagine I am at all in its favour; I deprecate it very much; but I was anxious to distinguish between two different currents of opinion which I think it is a mistake to confound. I think the movement for Sunday closing is one of considerable power, and I do not venture to prophesy how far it will succeed or how far it will fail. We know it has already succeeded in the Celtic portions of this country, and it may extend somewhat further, but the movement against the liberty to consume alcohol, which is separate from the question of Sunday closing altogether, is not in my belief a very powerful movement, and I think my noble Friend need be under no apprehension that it will ever acquire sufficient power to interfere with individual liberty. That is the only point on which I wish to express any opinion on the points raised in the observations of my noble Friend. I quite agree it is important that we should watch these movements and obtain as much information as we can, and we shall be glad to give our assistance to my noble Friend in doing so.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: May I suggest that information should also be obtained from Australia and New Zealand?
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: We will obtain information from those places.

PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION (ALTERATION OF MEMORANDUM OF ASSOCIATION).
LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, I move that a Select Committee be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider and report under what circumstances, or upon what conditions, if any, Private Bills altering the terms of the Memorandum of Association of Companies ought to be allowed to pass. It will be apparent to your Lordships that this Motion arises out of the difficulty felt in regard to a Private Bill which came before your Lordships yesterday. The Chairman of Committees was in considerable difficulty in the matter, and he thought it ought to be submitted to the House to say whether the Bill was one which ought to be allowed a Second Reading or not. I am quite sure that what took place yesterday is not likely to determine his difficulties in this respect. And, my Lords, the difficulty is increased by the fact that a different view in the matter has been taken by the two Houses, as to the mode in which these Bills ought to be dealt with. A measure of that kind came before the other House, and was considered by them, and they thought it was a case in which an alteration might be allowed. There is no doubt that the mistake yesterday arose from a misapprehension. I think your Lordships will agree that two things are very desirable; first, that some rule should be made as to the mode in which such an application should be dealt with, and next that that rule should be as nearly as possible the same in both Houses, so that those interested in the matter should know exactly under what conditions such application would be likely to be successful, and under what conditions it would be useless to make them. I think this Motion is likely to have a very useful result in preventing any difficulty arising, and in removing any misconception as to the construction of the Act.
Moved, "That a Select Committee be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider and report under what circumstances, or upon what conditions, if any, Private Bills altering the terms of the Memorandum of association of companies ought to he allowed to pass."— (The Lord Herschell.)
THE EARL OF MORLEY: My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble and learned Friend for raising this question. It is one of great importance, as the doubts he has alluded to might lead to considerable difficulties in dealing with Bills of this nature. I think it is desirable that what he suggests should be done now, so that promoters may know, before November, when their Bills must be deposited, on what principles Parliament will act in future. I can only say that I will give such assistance as I can with regard to the appointment of such a Committee.
Motion agreed to.

TRUST COMPANIES BILL.(No. 10.)
House in Committee (on re-commitment) (according to order).
Amendments made.
Report of Amendments to be received on Monday next, and Bill to be printed as amended (No. 158.)

SMALL DEBTS (SCOTLAND) BILL. (No. 136.)

  SECOND READING.
  LORD WATSON: My Lords, the Bill which I ask your Lordships to read a second time is not by any means an ambitious measure. The Sheriff in Scotland exercises a very cheap and summary jurisdiction in cases for the recovery of debts not exceeding £12. The first object of the Bill is to extend the jurisdiction to the case of an owner whose goods are unlawfully detained, and who shows that they are under the value of £12. The remaining clauses of the Bill relate to alterations in the procedure of the Court, which, it appears to me, will be of considerable value.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Six o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.