Lords Sitting of 28 July 1893

LOCAL VETO LEGISLATION.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSSasked Her Majesty's Government whether, assuming the possibility under proposed legislation of the universal suppression of licences, they had calculated the loss that would thereby be caused to the Revenue; whether they would state the total estimated amount of such loss; and what measures of Imperial or local taxation they had in contemplation whereby the deficit so created would be made good? He said, the House of Commons, whatever else it might or might not have done, had been fruitful, if not in good works, at any rate in liquor Bills, because it had given birth to something like nine of such measures. One of them had been discussed in, and had passed, their Lordships' House. He regretted he was absent abroad when it was in its last stage, or he should certainly have moved for the exclusion of Dublin from its operation; and that the clause preventing the sale of liquor in Ireland on Saturday nights after 6 o'clock should be deleted from the Bill as being one-sided class legislation, and dealing very hardly with working-men. But his object was not to refer to general legislation with reference to the liquor trade. He would confine himself to the question of the finance relating to it. On the Bishop of Chester asking for his support for that right rev. Prelate's recent Bill, he inquired "How as to Revenue?" and was answered by a shrug of the shoulders, as though that mattered not at all. The question of Revenue and taxation in connection with the liquor trade was so grave and important that it was desirable the public should know what the prevention of drunkenness in the few people who indulged in it meant, in the matter of taxation, upon the practical suppression of the trade. In that excellent publication, Mr. Ross's Parliamentary Record, under the head of "Budget," he found that the keystone of the Budget was the
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  Excise. It was fully £5,000,000 higher than any other item. The Army and Navy cost about £32,000,000 a year, and the Excise was very nearly sufficient to pay the whole of that sum, seeing that it amounted to about £25,000,000. That was a very large sum which ought not to be lightly dealt with in the promotion of what many people thought was more or less a fad. On the whole, the population of this country compared favourably, as regarded sobriety and drunkenness, with any other people in the world. During the discussion on the Bishop of Chester's Bill it was stated that the drunkards in Norway were as 40 in 1,000 of the population, whereas in England they were only five in 1,000. That being the case, he had thought it desirable to bring the matter before the House, and he hoped his statements would go out to the country and would cause people to look seriously at the financial aspect of the question. He did not know whether the Government had considered the matter, but he could hardly believe that no calculation had been made, so great a financier as Mr. Gladstone being at the head of the Government. He felt sure that Mr. Gladstone could not allow the question of vetoing the liquor traffic to come under the consideration of the Government without giving full weight to the financial aspect of the question. No doubt Sir W. Harcourt, with the zeal of a convert to Lawsonism, might be prepared to play ducks and drakes with the Revenue, but Mr. Gladstone would surely be more prudent. But all men, and especially Ministers, were fallible, and he had, therefore, thought it his duty to bring the matter forward, after looking into the matter himself. As he had said, about £25,000,000 was raised from the Excise; but the Government Veto Bill only dealt with Excise licences, which in Great Britain, leaving out Ireland, amounted to a sum of £1,777,000. Ireland must, of course, be now no longer looked upon as belonging to Great Britain—as part of the United Kingdom—and they were not likely to get much from Ireland from a financial point of view. But apparently their Budgets were framed on the principle that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." That loss of £1,777,000 now received by the State from Excise licences was equal to 1d.

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  in the £1 on the Income Tax, so that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to put another penny into the slot. Although the Veto Bill dealt only with licences, did any mortal suppose this liquor legislation would stop there? The results of the Irish Land Bill would show it must be expected, for following that measure came the crofter legislation in Scotland and the appointment of the Crofter Commission, which lowered rents 25 per cent, and struck off 25 per cent, of arrears. Could any sane man, the most verdant of greenhorns, believe that once Home Rule was passed Ireland would not go in for separation? This liquor legislation must be looked at from that aspect; and those who were now pressing forward this Veto Bill would be the first to urge further measures in the same direction. In a letter to the hon. Member for Rochdale Sir Wilfrid Lawson said—
  "The business of the hour is to get statutory measures passed with regard to the liquor traffic. The Rochdale men are sensible enough to understand all that, and they hail the measure as it stands with great joy. The measure is good, but of course it might be better; let us take the goods that God provides, and then go in for more."
  He was, therefore, justified in saying that if this Veto Bill became law the agitation would not stop for a moment; but that, in the words of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, "they would go in for more." Taking the Excise Duties on beer and spirits at £21,281,000, the licences at £1,777,000, and deducting the cost of collection, the net revenue In Great Britain from those sources was £23,367,794, which would be lost under total prohibition. That, he estimated, would represent a sum equivalent to an additional Income Tax of 1s. 1d. in the £1, and this did not include the loss of Customs Duties on foreign wines and spirits. And the case did not stop here, for, notwithstanding the decision in "Sharp v. Wakefield," there would be a further sum for compensation on the abolition of licences, and this had been put down at no less than £200,000,000 sterling for England and £6,858,000 for Scotland. The interest on this sum capitalised would represent one-third of the Imperial Revenue, and to meet the annual charge an additional Income Tax of 1s. 4d. in the £1 would be required. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead of putting a
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  penny in the slot, would have to put 16 pennies in. Now with regard to the question of compensation. It was very confidently asserted that there was no legal right to compensation, and that was based upon the decision in "Sharp v. Wakefield." Lord Bramwell, who everyone would acknowledge was a very great authority, was very much opposed to that view, and had before his death prepared a Bill for granting compensation to publicans. That Bill he had in his possession, and either by introducing it as a substantive measure, or by amendment to any Bill on the subject which might be introduced into their Lordships' House, he should certainly do all in his power to get a recognition of the principle of compensation. He thought it most barefaced and dishonest on the part of the State not to freely recognise the principle. The State had been deriving between £20,000,000 and £30,000,000 annually from the publicans, and to suddenly turn round upon them, and because they would not find votes, or from some other insufficient reason, threaten to abolish them altogether was a little too bad. He knew there was the strongest opposition possible on the part of the Alliance people against this question of compensation, but he could not believe that the country at large was so unjust. In Ireland they had two unchallenged decisions, one delivered in 1877 and the other in 1892, which laid it down that the licence-holder in Ireland was absolutely entitled to a renewal of his licence so long as he continued to obey the law and behaved himself. These decisions had taken it out of the power of the Irish Magistrates to refuse licences under such circumstances, and he did not see why they should be tried by a different standard of morality in this country. He noticed that they were to still retain 80 Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament, and he had no doubt that those Representatives would see that the principle of those decisions was adhered to still in Ireland. The object of his bringing this question forward was to make people thoroughly understand the cost they would have to meet if the Bill of the Government was passed, and if all the predictions of its results were fulfilled. He hoped that, at any rate, the figures he had given would lead the

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  sober, sensible people of this country who were not led away on the subject to consider what this liquor legislation meant in £ s. d. He begged to put the question which stood in his name.
  LORD PLAYFAIRsaid, that in the absence of his noble Friend Lord Kimberley, he had been asked to answer the question which the noble Lord had put to the Government. He had to answer the question as it appeared on the Paper, and he could not and was not authorised to discuss the subject of compensation for the abolition of licences, of which no notice appeared in the question. He presumed that the noble Lord was alarmed at the decline of revenue derived from duties on spirits which had occurred in the last few years independently of any prospective legislation. While the duties on beer had remained nearly stationary, those on spirits had declined about £1,000,000 sterling in three years, the decline last year amounting to about £400,000. But the question which the noble Lord put, to the Government was not based upon facts which could be verified, but altogether upon a "possibility," upon an hypothesis which he asked the Government to accept in lieu of facts. He could not say it was impossible that licences might not be universally suppressed, because a possibility was always possible unless the conditions were inherently impossible, but the probability was the question he had to answer. The greatest advocates of temperance, in their wildest dreams, never went so far as the noble Lord in supposing that there would be a universal suppression of licences and that all public-houses would cease in the land, or that we should become all at once or in the near future a nation so distinguished for temperance that total prohibition would result not in a few districts, but would be universal throughout the country. Yet the noble Lord's question was founded upon that hypothesis. The Government certainly never conceived that such a result would follow local option. Perhaps in the course of a long period temperance would be so promoted as to exert a sensible effect on the Revenue. In that case there would be ample time for consideration as to what stops might be taken to supply any deficit. The growth of temperance would so much promote the prosperity and comforts of the
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  people that a natural compensation for the loss of drink revenue would result in the increased consumption of other taxed commodities. If these were not sufficient, the people would willingly consent to other methods of taxation which would give revenue without injuring the health, morals, and productive powers of those people who, by excessive drinking, raised the amount of Revenue through the Excise. The United Kingdom was not yet an Utopia, and the possibility of a universal suppression of drunkenness, public-houses, and licences by any contemplated legislation was not within the sphere of practical politics; and, therefore, he must answer his noble Friend that the Government had not made calculations for such a remote contingency, and were unable to give him the information which he desired.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I sympathise entirely with what has just been said from the Government Bench, because I differ from my noble Friend on the Cross Benches entirely in the horoscope that he draws of the condition of England in the future if Sir W. Harcourt's Bill should pass. I do not in the least believe there will be this disappearance of public-houses or this disappearance of drink. On the contrary, I think if you once commit to the local vote of small communities the question whether people should be at liberty to feed themselves as they like, or whether they should be restrained by the interference of the law, you will find a new division of local Parties taking place, and many persons who are now very keen in their support of temperance, properly understood, and are very anxious to promote it, will feel that there is a more sacred cause even than temperance in issue, and that is the cause of freedom; and that in resistance to the efforts of the extreme anti-alcoholic party will be found large classes of the population who are now either sympathetic with temperance or who do not meddle with the question at all. I believe—and that is one of the grounds why I deeply distrust the proposed measure of the Government—you will make a public-house party in every parish in the country, and that that public-house party will, in a vast number of instances, prevail over the other, and that the result of the Bill will be to show

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  that such apprehensions as those of my noble Friend on the Cross Benches are utterly vague, because rivers of gold, a new Pactolus, will flow into the lap of the Chancellor of the Exchequer from the increased consumption of alcoholic liquors which will result from the legislation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. However that may be, I utterly disbelieve, if you fairly consult them, that you will ever get the sober people of this country to consent to being deprived of that which they look upon as a harmless, nay, as a salutary indulgence, in order simply to prevent a small minority of drunkards from giving way to their own bestial propensities. That, I think, is far the more reasonable way to look at the future; and if I could believe that this Bill would pass, which I certainly do not, the Temperance Party ought to prepare themselves for a terrible disenchantment, for they are adopting a plan by which they will give a new sanction to the trade in liquor by which they will introduce other motives and other considerations, which are not working now, in order to support and to extend the action of this trade. I ask you to remember what took place in this country 250 years ago, when the extreme believers in the possibility of dragooning mankind into abstinence and temperance obtained for a time the upper hand, and when the reaction against their tyranny was so great that vice was never so powerful in England before or since. That is the saturnalia you are preparing if ever that Bill should pass; but I am happy to believe that of all the Bills of the Government—and that is saying a great deal—this Bill is the least likely to pass into law.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL): My Lords, I am not going to enter into a competition of prophecy with the noble Marquess, but one cannot help being struck with the fact that those connected with the liquor trade do not seem to have the same horoscope of the future, if the Local Veto Bill should pass, as the noble Marquess. If the noble Marquess is right, instead of canvassing the country against it, and making strenuous efforts for its destruction, they ought to vote heartily for the Bill which has been introduced by Her Majesty's Government. Of course, the whole matter is one of speculation, upon
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  which opinions may differ, and I only wish to indicate that those who are indisposed to interfere with drunkenness among the people appear to entertain very divergent views upon the subject.

ISOLATION HOSPITALS BILL [H.L.]—(No. 218.)
Amendments reported (according to Order); a further Amendment made; and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
STATUTE LAW REVISION (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]—(No. 222.)
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee made: Standing Committee negatived: The Report of the Amendments to be received on Monday next.
INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES BILL.—(No. 209.)
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without Amendment: Amendments made; and Bill recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House; and to be printed as amended. (No. 225.)

HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACT (1890) AMENDMENT BILL. (No. 208.)
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without Amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.
House adjourned at ten minutes past Five o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.