§ EARL STANHOPEasked the Government whether prosecutions were instigated by the police against the owners of public houses in England and Scotland as to the "payment of wages in public houses" in direct contravention of the Act of 1883, and of Section 11 of the Regulation of Coal Mines Act, 1887. Though he had no wish to make any aspersions on the County and Borough Police, a body of men who performed their duties very efficiently, often under trying circumstances, he thought they sometimes looked too indulgently on offences committed in public houses. This was very natural, as public houses served as clubs to the labouring classes. He thought this matter of payment of wages in public houses was not brought by the police to the notice of the magistrates. He hoped, therefore, that the Government would either issue new instructions to the police to prevent infractions of the Acts which he had referred to, or allow the question to be included in the terms of the reference before the Royal Commission on Licensing which was about to be appointed.
§ LORD BELPERsaid the Secretary of State for the Home Department had caused inquiries to be made in a large number of counties and in several important industrial towns, and the result was to convince him that the police were ready to prosecute in any cases of breach of the law which came within their cognizance. As the noble Lord had stated, cases of the kind referred to were now very rare in any part of the United Kingdom, while in the Metropolitan and many other districts of the country it had entirely ceased. If the noble 1579 Lord could point out any cases of infringement of the law within his own knowledge, the Home Secretary would make inquiry into them and direct the necessary steps to be taken.