HL Deb 12 July 1889 vol 338 cc245-56
THE EARL OF WEMYSS

My Lords, I rise to ask Her Majesty's Government 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 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 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 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 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- 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 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. 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)

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 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 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.