BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 24 March 1893)

THE BISHOP OF LONDON

called attention to the subject of licensing reform, and presented a Bill. He desired, as representing the Church of England Temperance Society, to call 994 attention to the present state of the law regulating the licences granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and to present a Bill dealing with the matter. A number of measures had been presented to Parliament on the subject, and their Lordships had probably watched the progress of the discussion in Parliament. Those Bills had not, however, proposed to deal with the subject as a whole at all. The Government Bill, as far as they had seen, was an experiment—a remarkable experiment—leaving it to localities to decide under special circumstances whether the powers granted to them should be acted upon. Certainly that Bill would not entirely cover the ground, for it left out the very important item of refreshment rooms at railway stations, which, when licensed houses wore closed, would still be open to anyone who chose to enter them. The Bill submitted by the Bishop of Chester was also in the nature of an experiment. A very strong feeling was entertained by the Church of England Temperance Society that some attempt should be made to deal with the whole question, and he therefore now proposed the First Reading of a Bill drawn up by the Society. There could be no doubt that the number of places where intoxicating liquors were now sold was far in excess of the needs of the population, and that they produced very serious evils to the community. The main purpose of this Bill was to reduce the number of those places. The great number of licensed houses was attended by three mischievous consequences. In the first place, they increased the temptations to drunkenness, which were now found to be too much for the moral strength of a large number of the population. The number of people who struggled against giving way to intoxication, and yet yielded to the temptation, was very much larger than their Lordships would suppose. He deeply sympathised with the poor wife who said of her husband that she "could get him past one or two public-houses, but not past 19," which in her case lay in the man's way home. They could not divide mankind into the people who were determined to be sober and the people who were determined to be drunkards; there was a large number of people between these two classes who wished, but had not the 995 moral strength, to be sober. The second evil which followed from the existence of this large number of public-houses was the exceeding difficulty of enforcing the law in reference to the conduct of houses, and preventing them from supplying men with intoxicating liquors until they became drunk. And a third evil was that the houses, from their excessive number, were necessarily in competition one with another to an extreme degree, and that this competition drove the publicans both to adulterate their liquor—if it was only water they put into it he would not complain—and to do their best to make people buy liquor. The framers of the Bill were of opinion that the number of public-houses should be under the control of the people themselves. They did not merely propose to let the question as to what the number should be be decided by a direct vote of the population, to which course of proceeding there were obvious objections. For instance, there was always the possibility of the introduction of personal spite, or of other considerations than the good of the people; but they proposed that the power of renewing old licences and granting new ones should be transferred from the magistrates to a Board to be elected by the people, and that certain very definite regulations with regard to the exercise of that power should be laid down. The Bill proposed that during the five years after the measure became law, during which the present licence-holders would be able to arrange to meet the changed circumstances, the new Board should exercise the power now vested in the magistrates, and that their decision should be final. It further proposed that by the end of the five years the number of public-houses in the various districts should be restricted by law according to their population, adopting in that respect the principle of a Bill brought before Parliament some 20 years ago by Lord Aberdare, then Home Secretary. That Bill proposed that in one class of cases the number of public-houses should be fixed at 1 in 1,000 of the population, and in the urban districts 600. The proportion of public-houses to population was, of course, only a matter of detail which was open to discussion, and in no way affected the principle of the Bill. During the five years before this provision came into force it was not proposed 996 to interfere by law with the existing number of public-houses, but in the mean time the Boards would have the power of refusing to renew licences just as the magistrates had at present. In the interval, the owners of public-houses would have time to make arrangements to meet the changed state of things, and in all probability a system of insurance would be established among such owners which would secure those whose houses were closed against loss. The framers of the Bill, however, were not unwilling to admit of any other form of compensation which was equitable and just. In assessing the amount of the compensation to be given to the owners of public-houses which might be closed, the fact should not be overlooked that a large portion of the profits of many owners resulted from infractions and evasions of the law, in the way of soiling intoxicating liquors to already half-drunken people. In view of the necessity for restricting the number of public-houses care should be taken that their places should not be occupied by so-called clubs, established for the purpose of evading the law and supplying intoxicating liquors, so to speak, "behind its back;" and, therefore, it was proposed that in the future all clubs in which intoxictaing liquors were supplied to the members should be registered and should be placed under proper regulations. He would not trouble their Lordships further at that moment; but if the measure were to reach the Second Reading stage, he should enter more fully into the subject with which it dealt. He would simply ask now that the Bill be read a first time.