REGISTRATION OF CLUBS (IRELAND) BILL. (Hansard, 15 July 1904)

§ THE EARL OF DENBIGH
moved to amend the first sub-section, which provided that the application for registration should be accompanied by a certificate in the form set out, and proceeded— The certificate shall be signed by two justices of the peace sitting at petty sessions for the county or by any two justices of a county borough, as the case may be, within which such premises are situate, and shall also, where such premises are not owned by the club, be signed by the owner of such premises or, where the owner is under any legal disability, by his legal representative. He moved to insert, after the word "signed" the words contained in his Amendment.

§ THE EARL OF DENBIGH
explained that the Amendment standing in his name to this clause was antecedent to another Amendment, the object of which was to deal with the question of the sale of excisable liquor to members of a club for consumption off the premises. In the House of Commons the Irish Government proposed an Amendment which would have permitted such sale, but that Amendment was resisted by the pramoters of the Bill. An arrangement had subsequently been arrived at between the promoters and the Irish Government to which effect was proposed to be given by the Amendment standing in his name to Clause 8 (Penalties for supplying excisable liquor for consumption outside registered club)— Provided that the Court when granting an application for the registration of a club, may, if it thinks fit, make an order authorising the sale or supply on the premises of the club, between the hours of eight o'clock in the morning and ten o'clock at night, of excisable liquor to members for their own consumption outside those premises, and where such order is made this section shall not apply in the case of any sale or supply of liquor thereby authorised. But if the noble Lord in charge of the Bill (Lord Clonbrock) preferred the Amendment standing in his own name, which would assimiliate the law in Ireland to that in England and Scotland in this respect, the Irish Office were quite prepared to accept it and would withdraw their Amendment to Clause 8.

LORD CLONBROCK
said that although the effect of both Amendments would be the same he preferred his own wording.

§ THE EARL OF DENBIGH
intimated that he would not, therefore, move his Amendment.

§ THE EARL OF DENBIGH
accepted the Amendment.

THE EARL OF MAYO
had on the Paper an Amendment to the proviso at the end of Clause 4. The proviso ran— Provided always that this section shall not apply to any lodge of Freemasons duly constituted under a charter or warrant from the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The Amendment proposed to add the following words— Or to any society formed for religious, social, philanthropic, or political purposes, where the society only meets as such at stated intervals provided by its rules, and where during the interval between such meetings no exciseable liquors are sold or supplied to its members as such. The noble Earl explained that since putting the Amendment on the Paper he had had time to study it closely, and had come to the conclusion that it would raise what would prove a highly contentious question in the other House. In 150 the circumstances, therefore, he thought it would be wiser to withdraw the Amendment for the present; but he reserved to himself the right to bring it up in another form, if thought desirable, at a subsequent stage of the Bill.

§ THE ACTING-CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH)
Then the noble Earl does not move his Amendment?