Lords Sitting of 25 November 1912

BARONY OF STRABOLGI.
Committee for Privileges to meet for the hearing of further evidence on Thursday the 5th of December next, at half-past Ten o'clock.
EARLDOM OF OXFORD.
Several witnesses ordered to attend the Committee for Privileges on Monday next, and one of them to produce a document.
REPRESENTATIVE PEER FOR IRELAND.
Writs and Returns electing the Lord Decies a Representative Peer for Ireland in the room of the Lord Crofton, deceased, with the Certificate of the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland annexed thereto: Delivered (on Oath), and Certificates read.

NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT, 1911.
1. Provisional Regulations, dated 20th November, 1912, made by the Insurance Commissioners entitled the "National Health Insurance (District Insurance Committees) Regulations (England), 1912";
2. Regulations of the National Health Insurance Commission (Scotland), dated 14th November, 1912, as to the time within which a re-engaged seaman, marine or soldier may elect to have deductions made from his pay and within which a discharged seaman, marine or soldier may become a member of an approved Society or apply for re-admission to the Army and Navy Fund:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 170.)

TEMPERANCE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Petition in favour of; of the Corporation of Glasgow.
Petitions against; of The Brewers' Association of Scotland; and persons signing (4).
Petitions for amendment of; of the Corporation of Oban; and persons signing (3).
Petitions against amendment of; of the Corporations of Goorak, Newton Stewart, Falkirk, Grangemouth, Stranraer (2), Burnt Island, Troon, Peebles, Kilreany, Anstruther Wester, Anstruther Easter, Crail, Selkirk, Milngaire, Dalkeith, Tillicoultry, Macduff, Elgin, Banff, Lossiemouth and Branderburgh, and the Convention of Royal Burghs of Scotland.
Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

BETTING INDUCEMENTS BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to prevent the writing, printing, publishing, or circulating in the United Kingdom of advertisements of any betting or tipster's business—Was presented by the Duke of Devonshire (for the Lord Newton); read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 171.)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I wish to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House a Question of which I have, given him private notice—namely, whether he is able to tell us what arrangement of business he proposes for the remaining days of this week.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, I understand that it would not be altogether convenient to some members of the House to carry on the discussion in Committee on the Scottish Temperance Bill until late this evening. Therefore I propose that we should sit up to dinner this evening and resume the discussion of that Bill in Committee to-morrow. I hope there will be at any rate a fair chance of finishing the Committee stage of the Scottish Temperance Bill before a late hour to-morrow. In that case the Agricultural Holdings Bill, which is down for to-morrow, would be taken on Wednesday; and it probably would be for the convenience of the House to take the Criminal Law Amendment Bill on Thursday instead of, as was originally intended, on Wednesday. I throw out these suggestions in the hope that the noble Marquess may approve of them.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I should like, not on behalf of myself but of others, to make one reminder to the noble Marquess the Leader of the House. This Bill is of certain interest in Scotland, and if you sit late to-night, now that there is pressure in another place and facilities for telegraphing, of course, to Scotland are less good than in the case of the Press nearer London, it may tend to inconvenience in this respect, that the reports of the proceedings may be so abbreviated that those who are interested in the matter in Scotland would not know what had really happened.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I entirely appreciate the noble Lord's point, and I am sure in that case he will do his best to help to the conclusion of the Committee stage, within the limits of fair discussion, by a reasonable hour to-morrow.

PIER AND HARBOUR ORDERS CONFIRMA- TION (No. 3) BILL. [H.L.]
Commons Amendments considered (according to Order), and agreed to.
FALKIRK BURGH ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

THE TERRITORIAL FORCE.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH rose to ask His Majesty's Government the following Questions relating to the Territorial Force—
1. What was the strength of the Force on 1st October, 1912.
2. What was the number of officers, non-commissioned officers and men who were present in camp for 15 days or over.

I. The number who were in camp for 8 days.

II. The number who were in camp for less than 8 days.

III. The number who did not attend camp at all.

IV. The number who were absent from camp with leave.

V. The number who were absent from camp without leave.

3. What punishments were inflicted on the 41 officers and 6,703 non-commissioned officers and men who were absent without leave from camp in 1911.
4. Of those whose engagements expired on 30th September, 1912, how many re-engaged for further service in the Territorial Force.
5. What was the number of recruits taken during the four years ended 30th September, 1909, 30th September, 1910, 30th September, 1911, and 30th September, 1912, respectively.
6. What is the number of non-commissioned officers and men whose ages are under 19.
What steps are taken to verify the ages given by recruits taken for the Territorial Force.
7. How many recruits were tested in musketry; how many qualified; how many failed.
How many trained men were tested; how many qualified; how many failed.
Of those returned as "qualified," how many passed the standard test; how many "qualified" merely to enable the County Associations to draw allowances for them.
8. How many battalions of Infantry carried out battalion field firing; how many carried out company field firing.
9. What was the number of horses in camp with the Yeomanry. How many of these were (a) the property of officers, non-commissioned officers and men; (b) how many were hired; (c) how many were the property of Government; (d) how many belonged to the Associations.
10. Territorial Horse and Field Batteries: were these batteries marked for "fire tactics" at annual practice; how many batteries carried out annual practice in 1912; what percentage does this represent of the total number of Horse and Field Batteries; did all the Horse and Field Batteries that went to camp have their full complement of horses.
11. What was the total cost of the Territorial Force for the year ended 31st March, 1912.
12. What is the number of officers who have resigned their commissions during the year ended 30th September, 1912, and the number of new officers who have joined the Force during the same period.
13. What is the strength of the Territorial Force Reserve; how many of those who left the Force during the year ended 30th September, 1912, joined the Reserve.
14. Is the National Reserve part of the Territorial Force; if not, why was it shown under the heading "Territorial Force" in the General Annual Report of the British Army for 1911.
15. Were any regiments of Yeomanry or any batteries of Artillery trained in camp together with the Infantry of the Force; or did these arms train separately.
16. Was not the infantry of the Force put back to "company" training by the orders of the Inspector General of the Forces.
17. What was the average number of drills, exclusive of camp, performed by the men of the Artillery, the Yeomanry, and the Infantry of the Force respectively.
18. How many qualified signallers are there in the Territorial Force. Is this an increase or a decrease on the figures of the previous year.
Is the signalling in a satisfactory condition.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I do not think it is necessary that I should trouble your Lordships by reading the list of Questions standing in my name on the Paper, but I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply to me to be good enough to answer each Question seriatim. Perhaps I might run through the list, touching upon any Question upon which there may be a point requiring explanation. Questions Nos. 1 and 2 are perfectly clear, and I think speak for themselves. They are very similar to those put by me last November to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. As regards Question No. 3, the figures there given of officers and non-commissioned officers and men who were absent without leave from camp in 1911 are the figures that were given to me in November last, and I specially want to know whether those men have been, as they ought to be, properly punished. As regards Question No. 4, I am specially anxious to get an answer in regard to re-engagements, because, as those of your Lordships who are connected with military matters are aware, it is usual in the Regular Army only to allow 10 per cent. to reengage in order that you may maintain a sufficient Reserve. I have no comments to make upon Question No. 5; and in regard to Question No. 6, I ask what steps are taken to verify the ages given by recruits taken for the Territorial Force.
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I want to know whether a boy's mere statement is sufficient, or whether any steps are taken to verify the statement. Question No. 7 speaks for itself.
As regards Question No. 8, in which I ask how many battalions of Infantry carried out battalion field firing and how many carried out company field firing, I should like to read to your Lordships a private letter which I have received from a responsible officer. It is a perfectly bona fide letter, although I am not in a position to mention the name of the writer. I think the letter is interesting, as it illustrates how field firing has to be carried out and the great difficulty attending it when you have to deal with semi-trained men. The incidents which this letter describes took place early in August last year on a sandy stretch of sea shore on the coast of England. The general idea was that an invading force had landed or was about to land. A brigade of Infantry (Territorials) who had bivouacked close by during the night were hastily called up to repel the invader. This is the description given by the officer in his letter—
"My orders were to weed out of my company, first, all recruits; secondly, all men who had not passed the standard test; thirdly, any men who were such fools as to be unworthy to be trusted with ball ammunition. With these heavy losses my company looked very meagre, for out of some eighty men thirty had to be turned out as unsafe and untrained in the use of a rifle. We were then allowed to advance. When we reached a certain spot we were given plenty of time to extend. In war time all these movements would have had to take place very rapidly. These extensions had to be made under the personal and individual supervision of the officer commanding the company. Owing to the shortage of officers in my battalion we had only one officer per company. When we reached another spot the left and right-hand men had to stand by certain flags. This was to ensure the whole line being absolutely straight, so that one man could not get in front of the other. I cannot imagine flags being placed in position on a modern battlefied! All this time no ammunition had been served out, and, in fact, no ammunition was served out until the men actually reached the firing line. They were then given twenty-five rounds per man, which had to be placed in the pouches, and not in the rifle. The individual company officer could give no commands to his men except on the call of the Brigadier's bugle. Every movement—fire, cease fire and advance—was made by the one bugle belonging to the Brigadier. On the bugle blowing 'Fire,' then, and not till then, were the picked men allowed to load their rifles. Furthermore, although it is a general order that empty cases should be gathered after firing, on this morning the rule was suspended, and no empty cases were allowed to be picked up by the men actually firing. This was to avoid the possibility of an untrained man swinging his rifle round and firing off at his

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comrade at his side. It was interesting to note the way in which every officer and sergeant kept very well to the rear of his men, even though all these precautions were taken, for we all know that, with men who necessarily had had so little experience of firing, owing to excitement and lack of discipline, there was quite a sporting chance of a stray bullet finding a billet. We all felt that these precautions laid down by the General Staff were wise and necessary precautions, and that if they had not been taken casualties would certainly have occurred. The behaviour of the men on the whole was calm and good, as it ought to be, considering that it took us two hours to advance a mile over the sands. The fact that such precautions were necessary shows clearly in what estimation the Territorial Force is really regarded by those Regular soldiers who are responsible for the annual training."
That, my Lords, is a perfectly bona fide letter, and I think it is very eloquent of the importance of the Question.
Question No. 9 is perfectly straightforward and clear, and I have nothing to comment upon it. Neither have I anything to say on Questions Nos. 10 to 15. But when I come to Question No. 16—in which I ask, Was not the Infantry of the Territorial Force put back to "company" training by the orders of the Inspector-General of the Forces—I do feel that if this is so it is very unsatisfactory, because, as noble Lords know, company training is, so to speak, the lowest class of training. It is very unsatisfactory if the Infantry of the Force have to be put to company training after their fifth year in camp. The next Question is perfectly clear and straightforward. I ask Question No. 18, as to how many qualified signallers there are in the Territorial Force, because I am informed, I believe on good authority, that out of the 203 battalions only 95 have officers in possession of the signalling certificate. Everybody knows of what great importance it is that in these days the signalling should be in an efficient condition. I do not wish to occupy your Lordships' time at any length. I am really out this evening for information.
But before I sit down I feel that I must call attention to a speech delivered by General Bethune, the Director-General of the Territorial Force. It is stated—I do not know for what purpose—that certain persons and associations of persons are actively engaged in disparaging the Territorial Force. That seems to me to be in itself a very inadequate argument, because all that we have to consider is, Is the Territorial Force an efficient military machine? I am bound to say that I have never known any language more tending
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to disparage the Territorial Force than the language which is being held by the Director-General and which he himself allows to be used in his presence. On October 5 of this year the Director-General went to Edinburgh for the purpose of assisting recruiting and promoting the welfare of the Territorial Force. A luncheon was given by the Lord Provost, and there was a meeting in the evening at which the Lord Provost recommended, among other things to make recruiting easier and to make the Territorial Force more popular, that it should be optional for a man to skip camp each alternate year. That was greeted with great applause. General Bethune, the Director-General of the Territorial Force and a most distinguished officer, as we know, allowed that remark to pass unrebuked; and, following the Lord Provost, he said that he would like to see every country disarm. He thought war was an "old-fashioned thing they had grown out of"—rather an ill-timed remark to make within a few days of the outbreak of the great war in the Near East which is going to change the political map of Europe. But what did General Bethune say specially with regard to the Territorial Force? He used these words—
"Why should not they look upon soldiering as a sport, and take it up in the same way as they took up cricket and football and golf?"
It is quite evident that General Bethune had not had the controlling spirit or the controlling advice of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. The noble and learned Viscount, speaking on January 28 of this year on the occasion of the opening of a new riding school at the headquarters of the 4th Northumbrian Howitzer Brigade at South Shields, said—
"There were some people who spoke of the Territorial Force lightly, as if it were a pleasure ground on which people might amuse themselves. He hoped that notion would soon be rooted out of the minds of those who indulged in these light fancies. Defence was a necessity."
That is the language of a responsible Minister. I am bound to say it is in strange and weird contrast to the ill-advised utterances of the Director-General of the Territorial Force. Coining from hint language of the kind I have quoted in reference to the Territorial Force is especially unfortunate, because it gives a sort of official countenance, if I may say so, to the belief which is already far too prevalent and which I maintain is fatal and injurious to the self-respect of the Territorial Force—namely, that invasion

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being impossible the Territorial is merely a sort of sop thrown to a stupid political antagonist. If reasonable criticism of the Territorial Force is to be twisted into disparagement of that Force it is doubly unfortunate when the Director-General gives the appearance, both in his own language and in what he allows to be said before him, that the Territorial Force is not one which ought to be really seriously considered. I ask these Questions because I think it is reasonable and just that the country should know from time to time exactly how we stand, and I hope that the noble Lord who will answer me will act up to the spirit of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, who in November last when Secretary of State for War said that I had touched on many questions affecting the Territorial Force "upon which it was his duty to give me as full information as he could." I beg to put to the Government the Questions which stand in my name, and I again repeat the hope that the noble Lord who will reply will be good enough to answer each Question seriatim.
LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, I hardly think that your Lordships will expect me to follow the noble Earl in his remarks as to the Director-General of the Territorial Force, for the matter which he has raised in that connection is entirely extraneous even to the vast number of Questions he has upon the Paper; and in view of the fact that not the smallest notice has been given that that particular question would be raised I think I may be excused from following the noble Earl in that matter. I will now deal seriatim, as the noble Earl has asked me to do, with the Questions of which he has given notice.
Question No. 1. The strength of the Force on October 1 was 9,236 officers and 252,152 non-commissioned officers and men. Question No. 2. The number who were present in camp in 1912 for fifteen days and over were 6,855 officers and. 154,995 non-commissioned officers and men. (1) The number who were present in camp for eight days and less than fifteen was 1,014 officers and 66,366 men. (2) The number present for less than eight days was 47 officers and 314 non-commissioned officers and men. (3) (4) and (5) The total number who failed to attend camp was 1,362 officers and 33,350 non-commissioned officers and men, of whom 1,325 officers and 27,331 non-commissioned officers and men were absent with leave
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and 37 officers and 6,019 non-commissioned officers and men without leave.
Question No. 3. With regard to the 41 officers and 6,755 non-commissioned officers and men who were absent without leave from camp in 1911, disciplinary action was taken in the case of 20 officers and 2,490 other ranks. Of these officers 16 resigned, one was reported to his General Officer Commanding, and action is still being taken in the case of the remaining three. Disciplinary action was taken against 2,490 of other ranks, of whom 1,012 were struck off the strength under Paragraph 268 of the Territorial Force Regulations, one was discharged on the grounds of unsatisfactory conduct, 895 were prosecuted, 347 were prosecuted and fined, 97 were fined by County Associations, three were allowed to purchase their discharge, 53 were warned, three were reduced, and action is still being taken in the case of 79. Question No. 4. The number whose engagements expired between October 1, 1911, and September 30, 1912, was 80,403, and the number who re-engaged during this period was 39,681. Question No. 5. For the year ended September 30, 1909, 110,020 recruits joined; for the year ended September 30, 1910, 42,239 recruits joined; for the year ended September 30, 1911, 39,086 recruits joined; for the year ended September 30, 1912, 57,946 recruits joined. Question No. 6. The number of non-commissioned officers and men under 19 on October 1, 1912, was 40,684. The steps taken to verify the ages given by recruits taken for the Territorial Force are laid down in Paragraph 132 of the Territorial Force Regulations.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: Will you kindly explain what steps are taken to verify the ages?
LORD HERSCHELL: Paragraph 132, to which I have referred, reads as follows—
"Should a recruit appear to be under the age standard, inquiries should be made before final approval."
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: Is that done?
LORD HERSCHELL: I understand that is so. Question No. 7. In the musketry year 1910–11, from the Yeomanry, Field Companies, Royal Engineers, and Infantry 52,590 recruits were tested in musketry; 31,976 qualified, and 20,614 failed; 125,322 trained men were tested, of whom 111,432 qualified, and 13,890 failed. All the men given above as

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having qualified passed the standard test. In addition to the number I have given as having qualified 17,932 recruits and 12,316 trained men qualified in musketry by attendance at classification 30 yards, or miniature ranges, in accordance with Paragraph 361 (2) or (3), of the Territorial Force Regulations. I presume that this is what the noble Earl means by the latter part of his Question. At the same time it is not for one moment admitted that the object of these Regulations is to enable County Associations to draw allowances. The object of the Regulations is to ensure that those men who are unable, owing to various circumstances, to do the training necessary to pass the standard test shall at any rate be in a position to have some training in the use of the rifle. Question No. 8. Thirty-four battalions of Infantry carried out battalion field firing. The number of battalions in which all companies have been exercised in company field firing is 92. There are 62 battalions in which some, but not all, companies have been exercised in company field firing, and there are 53 battalions in which no company field firing was performed. Question No. 9. There were 20,817 horses in camp with the Yeomanry. Of these, 8,034 were the property of officers, non-commissioned officers and men, 12,761 were hired, 14 were the property of the Government, and eight were the property of County Associations.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: Did the noble Lord say 14,000 were the property of the Government?
LORD HERSCHELL: No, fourteen. The total number is 20,817 and I had already accounted for 8,034 and 12,761. Question No. 10. Territorial Horse and Field batteries were not marked for "fire tactics" at annual practice. In 1912, 131 batteries carried out annual practice, and, in addition, the eleven batteries of the 1st London Divisional Artillery fired a modified course at Shoeburyness during Summer on Saturday afternoons. For this horses were not required. This represents 78 per cent. of the total number of Horse and Field batteries, not counting the eleven batteries mentioned. Of all the Horse and Field batteries that went to camp, 102 took their full complement of horses. The average deficiency in the remaining 29 batteries was eleven horses, but almost all had sufficient for the personnel who attended camp. Question No. 11. The actual cost of the Territorial Force for the year ended
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March 31, 1912, cannot be given, but it is estimated at £3,200,000.
Question No. 12. During the period from October 1, 1911, to September 30, 1912, 1,364 officers were appointed to the Territorial Force, including the Unattached List, and 1,184 resigned. These figures do not include the reduction owing to death, transfer to the Reserve, and compulsory retirements. Question No. 13. The strength of the Territorial Force Reserve on October 1, 1912, was, according to the Army List, 313 officers and 865 men. The increase of non-commissioned officers and men in the Reserve during the year has been 375, and this is roughly the number who have joined from the Territorial Force during the period. Question No. 14. The National Reserve is not part of the Territorial Force. As, however, it is administered by County Associations it was considered convenient to record its strength in that part of the General Annual Report which deals with the Territorial Force Reserve which is also administered by the County Associations.
Question No. 15. According to information received from the Commands, in the Eastern Command the Surrey Yeomanry and the 1st Home Counties Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, trained with Territorial Infantry units. In the London District the 3rd County of London Yeomanry trained with the Infantry of the 2nd London Division. The Artillery of the Honourable Artillery Company trained with the Infantry of the same unit. The Artillery of the 1st London Division trained with the Infantry of that division. In the Northern Command no Yeomanry or Artillery units trained with Infantry except the following: The 1st and 2nd North Midland Brigades Royal Field Artillery, and North Midland (Staffs.) Heavy Battery Royal Garrison Artillery trained with their division. The 1st and 2nd East Riding batteries Royal Field Artillery carried out their second week's training at Army manœuvres. In the Scottish Command no regiments of Yeomanry or batteries of Artillery trained with Infantry; these arms trained separately. In the Southern Command the South Midland Royal Garrison Artillery trained with the Infantry of the South Midland Division. The 1st Wessex Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, trained on Salisbury Plain at the same time as two Infantry Brigades of the Wessex Division. The 1st South

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Western Mounted Brigade took part in Army manœuvres. Other Yeomanry regiments trained separately. In the Western Command no regiments of Yeomanry trained with Infantry. Eight batteries of the West Lancashire Division, five batteries of the East Lancashire Division, and six batteries of the Welsh Division trained with the infantry of their Division.
Question No. 16. The Territorial Infantry was not put back to company training by the orders of the Inspector General of the Home Forces. That officer has, however, had occasion to call attention to the advanced nature of the training carried out by certain units, and the attention of the General Officers Commanding-in-Chief has been directed to the principle laid down in Training and Manœuvre Regulations that, as the time available for the training of the Territorial Force is so limited, Squadron, battery, company, and battalion training is all important.
Question No. 17. The information as to the average number of drills, exclusive of camp, performed by the men of the Artillery, the Yeomanry, and the Infantry of the Force respectively does not form part of any of the ordinary returns furnished to the War Office. The following figures for the year 1911 have been obtained at the cost of a vast amount of labour for Mr. Hunt, in reply to his Question in the House of Commons, by calling for a special Return and it is hoped that these figures which I am about to give will prove sufficient for the noble Earl, as it would be hardly justifiable to ask the staffs of the Territorial Force units to work out these figures again for 1912. During the year from November 1, 1910, to October 31, 1911, the average number of drills, exclusive of camp, performed was—By the Yeomanry, officers 11·92, other ranks 16·58; by the Artillery, officers 24·96, other ranks 22·72; by the Infantry, officers 18·19, other ranks 18·35. The average number of working days spent at courses of instruction, including attachment to training centres, was—By the Yeomanry, officers 2·79, other ranks ·17; by the Artillery, officers 5·42, other ranks ·27; by the Infantry, officers 3·63, other ranks ·09. The average number of weekends spent in camp—that is to say, extra training—was: By the Yeomanry, officers ·12, other ranks ·08; by the Artillery, officers ·57, other ranks ·24; by the Infantry, officers ·48, other ranks ·22.
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Question No. 18. The number of qualified signallers in the Territorial Force is as follows: 257 offcers (instructors), 428 assistant instructors, and 1,444 qualified signallers. These figures are taken from the Report of the Commandant, Army Signal School, for 1911. The numbers in the previous year were 234 officers (instructors), 417 assistant instructors, and 2,635 qualified signallers. It is to be observed that the examination has been made more severe, and this accounts for the large drop in the number of qualified signallers. In conclusion, I may say quite frankly that the signalling in the Territorial Force is not at present in an altogether satisfactory condition, and that the subject is engaging the attention of the Army Council.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the information which the noble Earl behind me has elicited is of the utmost importance, some of it, I am afraid, not of an entirely reassuring character. I do not, however, desire to comment upon it this evening. I rise merely for the purpose of offering a suggestion to the noble Lord who has just addressed the House, and it is that it would be for our convenience if he would lay on the Table the figures he has used this evening and let us have them in the form of a War Office Return. It is obviously not easy to follow them when quickly read, and their publication in an official form would be more convenient than that we should rely upon Press reports.
LORD HERSCHELL: I shall be pleased to see that the noble Marquess's suggestion is carried out.
THE EARL OF ERROLL: With regard to the noble Lord's answer to Question No. 9, I should like to know whether hired horses are counted two or three times over if they go out with different regiments. If so, it obviously gives a false idea of the number of horses available.
LORD HERSCHELL: I will make inquiries into that, and will see that the information is, if possible, put into the Return when laid on the Table.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: When will the Government be able to let us have the Return?
LORD HERSCHELL: It shall be laid as soon as possible. I cannot promise more than that.

TEMPERANCE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, before the House goes into Committee on this Bill I desire to say a few words, not with any idea of retarding the progress of the Bill, but more or less in the way of a personal explanation. I have always believed since I have been in this House that when the Government of the day introduce an important measure it is right and proper and due to the Government and also to your Lordships' House that some notice of it should be taken by those who sit on the Front Opposition Bench. The other evening when this Bill came up for Second Reading I had fully intended to say a few words upon it, but by one of those accidents that sometimes happen the debate abruptly terminated at a moment when I, unfortunately, was not in my place, and I lost my opportunity. I do not greatly regret that, because after the speeches made by my two noble friends on this side of the House I should only have been able to tell your Lordships that I had arrived at the same conclusion as theirs, and that we did not desire to deny the Bill the Second Reading which we were asked to give it.
I will this evening make one observation, and one observation only. This Bill comes to us in the guise of a Temperance Bill. It is described as a Bill to promote temperance. I am not at all convinced that that is a proper designation to give to this Bill. There are, it is true, clauses in it with regard to clubs and one or two other clauses which do touch the question of temperance, but the real object of the Bill is not the promotion of temperance. Its real object is to transfer the power which is now entrusted to the licensing authorities in Scotland to a majority of the electors within the areas provided for by the measure. No doubt that change in the law is suggested in the hope that temperance may result therefrom; but it is quite evident that if, contrary to the expectations of the promoters of the Bill, the electors should prove to be indifferent, or if the extinction of a large number of certificates should
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lead to a great increase in the number of clubs, or if, again, the areas should be so prescribed as to lead to additional drinking in one area while drink is diminished in that which adjoins it—if any of these things happen the result will not be the promotion of temperance. I am strengthened in my opinion that the Bill ought not to be described as a Temperance Bill by an observation made in the other House of Parliament by the Lord Advocate, who used, these words—
"The object of the Bill is not to extinguish licences, but to transfer to voters in certain areas discretionary powers now confined to the magistrates."
That, said the Lord Advocate, was "the sole object of this measure," and I think that is a more correct description than that which was given to us the other evening by the noble Earl in charge of the Bill.
The noble Earl told us that in his opinion the Bill did not introduce a new principle. I venture to say that it does introduce a new principle, and a principle which may prove extremely dangerous and far-reaching. The principle is this, that from a tribunal which is in a sense an experienced tribunal, which has responsibilities attaching to it, which has a judicial character, you are going to take these functions away and hand them over to a body of electors who have no judicial characteristics, who have no responsibilities, and who have no experience. Now that, as I said a moment ago, is a new principle, and to my mind a very important one. I will say no more upon it. We have been told on excellent authority that this Bill is largely supported in Scotland. That being so, we on these Benches did not desire to refuse it a Second Reading; but we regard it as a very hazardous experiment, and we desire that this experiment should he carried out under the most careful conditions possible. We do not think that the conditions laid down in the Bill as it now stands are sufficient for the purpose, and I am very glad that several of my noble friends on this side of the House have put Amendments on the Paper with the object of rendering those conditions more adequate than I believe them to be at present.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Date of Act Coming into Operation.
1. This Act shall, except as otherwise in this Act provided, come into operation on the expiration of five years front the first day of June nineteen hundred and twelve.
LORD LOVAT: I move to leave out "five years" and to insert "fourteen years." In this Bill the Government aim at introducing an entirely new licensing authority based wholly on the popular vote instead of on the elective principle as at present. Whether or not the result will be that a certain number of licences will be taken away, it remains, I think, for this house to see that as far as possible adequate compensation is given to those who are deprived of their licences. It is now proposed that the Bill shall come into operation at the expiration of five years, and I venture to suggest in my Amendment that the period shall be altered to fourteen years. This point turns on the question of the property in the licence. It is quite true, as the noble Earl in charge of the Bill pointed out in moving the Second Reading, that the certificates are only made out to May 28 of the year following the date on which they are issued, but it by no means follows that the receiver of the certificate is not likely to obtain a renewal. In fact, the very reverse is the case. Except in the event of default by bankruptcy or improper conduct, or in the case of the premises not being suitable, or in the case of a conviction having taken place, it is the universal rule that these licences should be renewed. So much is that the case that, when licensed premises are bought and sold, from fifteen to eighteen years of the net profits is the rate at which they change hands. These premises have been so dealt with for a considerable number of years, and men of all sorts and kinds, poor men as well as rich men, have invested their money in them, and some have sunk their little all in property of this nature.
Again, the fact that these licences are renewable is taken into account for purposes of local taxation, and it is customary for the sum which is assessed for the goodwill of the premises to be calculated by
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the number of years for which the lease runs. We have in Scotland County Assessment Rolls, and it is easy to see for yourselves exactly what the assessment is fixed at for all these premises, and the fact that the assessment is high and is based on the principle of the number of years of the lease shows that it is an accepted principle that, given good conduct on the part of the licensee, a licence once granted will be renewed. Then, again, we have the question of the Death Duties. The Death Ditties are based as a rule on something like seven years' profits of licensed premises. If there is no expectation or certainty of a renewal of the licence, it is very difficult to see on what grounds Death Duties are so charged. One might even say that the mere fact of five years' grace being given in the Bill as it now stands clearly shows, even if it is not, admitted by the noble Earl in charge of the Bill, that the framers of this Bill, who were private Members and not the Government, had the idea in their minds that some grace should of right be allowed to the licence-holder. Therefore it does appear that the licence-holders have a right to reasonable treatment.
The question is to fix exactly what this reasonable treatment should be, and I have inserted in my Amendment a period of fourteen years. I think it should be possible in that period for the people affected to so arrange matters as to give up their licences at the end of the period without absolute and complete loss. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, speaking at Perth in September, 1908, on the English Licensing Bill, said—
"The brewer, the distiller, and the owner of licensed premises were just as much entitled to justice as any one else, and the Government intended to deal fairly with them."
The noble and learned Viscount went on to say that in the case of the English Bill they had fixed the limit of time at fourteen years, and that the result of their careful calculation had been that this wits a fair estimate of time within which licence-holders might recoup themselves. I ask, it being admitted that licence-holders have a claim to have their position considered, that Scottish licence-holders in the year 1912 should be given fourteen years in the same way as it was proposed in 1908 to treat English licence-holders.

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There is another argument in favour of extending the period now in the Bill. Should it be considered in any district that the individual licence-holder is not fairly treated, it is more than probable that the question of the reduction of licences would be decided from the point of view of justice to the licence-holder rather than of advantage to the community. If it is felt that the man holding the licence has had sufficient time in which to work out his own salvation, I think there will be much more probability of those who believe that the reduction of licences would be a good thing voting to reduce the number. After all, the question of the reduction of licences is largely in the nature of an experiment. A reduction may reduce the drunkenness with which, I regret to say, Scotland is so cursed at the present day, but we are by no means certain that that will be the result. I can only offer an opinion about a small stretch of the country that I know. I can assure your Lordships that the two most drunken districts there are those in which public-houses have been ruthlessly put down. The explanation is simple. Where an individual is unable to buy a single glass of whisky he is forced to buy a bottle. Moreover, it is not the liquor that is purchased and consumed in public-houses which causes the disgraceful drunkenness which takes place certainly during the last ten days of December, but the bottles of whisky which men carry with them, the contents of which they not only partake of themselves but share with every one they meet. My experience is that it is much more a question of the management of the public-houses and the class of liquor that is sold there than the number of licensed houses which exist in special districts. It is for these reasons that I urge that these licence-holders should be treated with justice, that they should be given time in which to work out their own salvation. I believe also that those who have studied the question carefully and consider that in any particular district it would be advisable to reduce the number of licences will be much freer to vote for such reduction if they feel that the licence-holders are given time to get back a certain portion of the capital they have invested. I beg to move.
Amendment moved.
Page 1, line 6, leave out ("five") and insert ("fourteen").—(Lord Lovat.)
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): I regret that the speech of the noble Lord, following that which was made by the noble Marquess upon the Motion to go into Committee, is somewhat ominous with regard to the prospects of agreement being generally reached during the Committee stage in this House. The noble Lord has moved an Amendment which makes so large an extension in the time to be given before this Bill comes into force that it goes almost beyond the limits of amendment, so great a difference does it make. But although the period in the Bill is set down at five years the licence-holders themselves have had a great deal more than five years in which to prepare for a Bill of this kind. The noble Lord himself probably remembers that the Minority Report of the Peel Commission, which was issued in 1899, recommended a period of five years for Scotland, and they said that at the end of that time a wide measure of direct popular control might be applied, under proper safeguards, to Scotland. Further, it was undoubtedly contemplated by the Minority Report that there should be considerable reductions during the fiveyears period. It is not expected that that would be the case with regard to this Bill. It is probable that during the five years the reductions would be very few in number. It is only after the five years that they would begin to take effect. It seems to be suggested that at the end of the five years all licences will be swept away. I need hardly say that none of us expect that.
Lord Lovat laid emphasis upon the fact that there is a great deal of drunkenness in no-licence areas, and he is of opinion, therefore, that in the districts where a limiting resolution is in force drunkenness will probably decrease. But the noble Lord's Amendment applies equally to the limiting resolution as it does to the no-licence resolution, and it would be quite impossible for any reduction of licences to take place on the scale contemplated by the Bill if this Amendment were carried. The matter has been before the country since the year 1899, and this Bill has been before Parliament for three years. Everybody admits—the noble Lord himself admitted—the existence of drunkenness and the urgent need for legislation. The Amendment constitutes indirect compensation of a large

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kind to licence-holders. His Majesty's Government do not admit the necessity for that compensation. We think five years a reasonable notice to give to licence-holders. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, in the Second Reading debate, admitted the necessity of further control and reduction, and I think on the whole, subject to Amendments, he considered that this Bill was the proper way in which to secure those ends. It would be a lamentable prospect to have to look forward to fourteen years before anything of the kind should take place, and therefore on behalf of His Majesty's Government I am afraid I must say that we are quite unable to accept this Amendment.
EARL GREY: My Lords, I hope my noble friend will not press his Amendment. I think a time limit is a very bad method of compensation. I do not propose to argue what compensation it is desirable to give to a dispossessed publican, but to prolong the time during which he might press the sale of alcoholic liquor on the public is about the worst form of compensation you could possibly devise. I do not like five years as a time limit, but to extend it to fourteen years would be a most lamentable thing. The noble Lord concluded his speech by pointing out that it was not the number of public-houses but the character of the management which is the real question we have to discuss in Committee on this Bill. Amendments will be moved later to insure the people having the opportunity of securing disinterested management for the houses in the locality in which they live, and there are Amendments which go further and propose that of the profits made by the houses placed under disinterested management a certain percentage should be used to give a money compensation to the dispossessed publican. If there is to be compensation—I do not wish to commit myself on that point at the present moment—I say that money compensation is a sound way of proceeding. But to extend the time limit, as proposed in the Amendment now before the House, is the worst possible form you could adopt for compensating a publican.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I have some hesitation in intervening but my reason for doing so is that I am one of those who are sincerely anxious to see this Bill in some form or another become law. If there is to be no compromise, no arrangement, no give and take between some of the
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extreme proposals in this Bill and some of the Amendments put forward, I think the prospects are not very hopeful. In my opinion the speech of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill was at least as discouraging to any one who wants to see a middle course pursued as, I might even say more discouraging than, the speech of the noble Marquess on this side of the House. The noble Earl referred to the Minority Report of Lord Peel's Commission and to the fact that this Bill had been for three years before Parliament. But, my Lords, any fair study of the Minority Report must, I think, carry with it this, that there was to be, in the opinion of the Commissioners, five years from the time when the new arrangement, whatever it is, was brought into force. You cannot say, because that Report is some years old, that licence-holders have had such and such warning that such and such things may happen. Nobody begins to make their arrangements until they see that Parliament has really carried into effect the proposals put before it. The noble Earl went on to say that every licence would not be taken away in five years. That is true. But it is no consolation to the unfortunate individual whose licence has been taken away that somebody else is allowed to keep his licence and perhaps make a profit by what I regard as the injustice of taking away by a popular vote a licence in so short a period as five years.
The noble Earl, Lord Grey, says a time limit is a bad form of compensation. I am not prepared to suggest anything better. But there are one or two considerations I want to put before the Government as against the proposal now in the Bill. I agree that to adopt this particular Amendment would postpone the whole operation of the Bill. It is not an Amendment which I could support. But I do say most earnestly from a careful study of the question that five years is too short a period for bringing in a popular vote on the subject of prohibition in any particular area. It is perfectly true, as the noble Lord who moved the Amendment said, that a licence is usually renewed except in case of misconduct. That is common ground. Nobody who supports this Bill will attempt to deny it. I say it is the inevitable result of the system which for long years has been pursued in regard to licences. You regulate the traffic. People are selected to hold licences, and it is inevitable if a man behaves

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himself and fulfils his contract that the licence will be renewed. It has been in the public interest that the good man should have his licence renewed. That was the only check—it may not be a satisfactory check—upon bad management. I do not put the matter as high as some people, but the fact is beyond dispute that property in these licences has been allowed to grow up. The licence is a marketable property. It is so acknowledged by the Exchequer, because they take Legacy, Exchequer, and Death Duties on the value of the licence. If they are right in taking those duties from the estate of a man who leaves the licence to a son or a widow, it seems to me perfectly idle to deny that there is a property in the licence. It is an asset, and such an asset as ought to be acknowledged fairly and properly when you are making a change of system.
I had some experience in this matter in 1903. I went very carefully under the guidance of the Law Officers of the Crown into the conditions of licence holding in Scotland. I came to the conclusion that they were not actually the same as in England, and that they varied much more as between one another in Scotland than the average English licence. I believe there are licences in the case of well-conducted houses in good districts which go up to a long period of years in value when they pass from hand to hand. There are others I know, in less orderly parts of large towns, which live from hand to mouth, so to speak, and whose transfer is not more than one year's profits or something like that. The only point I want to make at this stage of the Bill is that there is a real and substantial asset in the possession of the licence, and you will be doing an injustice, a rank injustice, if you arbitrarily take it away without due compensation to the holder in some form or another. Since the Minority Report of the Peel Commission the position of the licence-holder has been made much more onerous that it was before. He is much less able to make provision in these days on account of the extra taxation than he would have been at the time of the Peel Report. I am not able to support this Amendment as it stands, and I am disappointed with the speech of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill, because he did not seem to me to hold out any hope of a compromise on this particular point. I am not convinced myself of the fairness of the same period for total prohibition and for a
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reduction, and I think that is a matter well worthy of consideration.
But what I really rose to do was to make an appeal to the Government that they should hold out some hope of a reconsideration and extension of the period of five years now in the Bill. Unless they can do that, and also see their way to stand to it in another place, there is extreme fear of what I shall venture to describe as the calamity of the loss of this Bill. It is very difficult to take a moderate line in this matter. I have been in receipt of a great many communications since I made my speech on the Second Reading of the Bill. Some of the extreme advocates of prohibition, of what they call temperance, are intemperate in their language, and cannot even believe that a person who differs from them can be honest. I received one letter which, contrary to the custom of many, was signed by the writer. He wrote to me, I admit, more in sorrow than in anger. He said that he once had a great deal of respect for me, but my speech on the Second Reading of this Bill had made it entirely evaporate. He contended that there was no asset at all in a licence, and that the period of five years was too long. He went on to say—
"one would think that a leading elder in a Christian Church would rather disagree with the Government in giving five years; but Jacobus says, and says truly, a man's high position in the Church is no positive proof of his piety and no absolute security against perdition. Wicked men may be appointed to important posts in the services of Christ."
That may be perfectly true and it may be applicable to myself, but I replied to the letter—the whole of which I have not read to the House—in courteous terms, and expressed my sympathy with the gentleman at his want of logic and his total absence of Christian charity. But that is the sort of thing with which we have to deal. I venture to say that in that sort of spirit you will never get a settlement of this matter. Unless you can make up your minds to deal fairly with those who have invested their money in a legitimate undertaking and whose property has been recognised by the Exchequer, you will never carry with you the opinion of the people who are going to vote; and unless those who are going to vote feel that their neighbours are going to get fair terms, you will not carry into effect the provisions of this Bill as they stand. It is for that reason that I appeal to His Majesty's Government to reconsider the matter with a view to meeting this undoubted difficulty.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, the noble Lord who has just sat down has rendered great service to the cause of temperance, and we know the practical character of his mind; but for once I confess I feel a little disappointment. He appealed to us to do something, but he has given singularly little light as to what he would have the House do. He starts out by saying that fourteen years will not do. He will not have the proposal in the Amendment. Indeed he could not, because the noble Lord himself, in the discussion on the English Licensing Bill, warned this House and his colleagues in the strongest way against applying English analogies to Scotland and recognising that right of property which, he said, truly existed in a qualified form in English licences but never has existed as regards Scottish licences. Then the noble Lord said, quite truly, that there is reasonable security for renewal, and that the Crown takes toll of it for the purpose of the Death Duties. That is so. But it is so of a great many things in connection with which there is no tangible legal right. When you come to that you get involved in a sea of difficulty out of which the noble Lord did not help us.
What is to be the measure in a case of this kind? Certainly not fourteen years. You could not defend that because we all know that the principle on which licences are renewed from year to year in Scotland is totally different from that which obtains in Ireland, and very different front that which obtains in England. It has been insisted time after time, and never controverted, that the licensing authorities reserve to themselves full discretion. No doubt it is true that when a man carries on his business well and in an orderly fashion there is usually a renewal. But that it not always true. The licensing authorities always have insisted that they have the fullest discretion in the matter. If that is so, you have got something; but whatever it is it is not a right of property of a kind which you can measure, and when you come to deal with a question of this kind you must look at it from a practical point of view The noble Earl, Lord Grey, in what seemed to me to be the admirable speech which he made upon this subject, said, Whatever you do, do not have a long time limit. I entirely agree with him. A long time limit is fatal to every possibility of temperance reform. On the other hand, the noble Lord
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opposite did not have the courage to suggest that a money compensation should be raised out of the rates or the taxes, and I gather from his manner that he would scout any such proposal.
We cannot have a time limit. We cannot have money compensation. What are we to have? The view of the Government is to have a time limit of moderate length based on what may be reasonable expectation. Lord Lovat quoted a speech of mine, made some years ago, about its being wise as well as right in those who bring forward temperance legislation to have regard to the position of others, and particularly to the position of licence-holders and brewers and distillers, who, after all, carry on their business with the sanction of the law. I entirely agree. I think you must have regard to their position, but because you ought to "have regard," do not rush into the other extreme, do not destroy every possibility of bringing forward a workable Bill by setting up a right of property which does not exist. Fourteen years is out of the question. Money compensation is equally out of the question in Scotland. What you come to is some time limit, a warning—whatever you like to call it—and the scheme of the Bill has been to take five years. I cannot agree with the argument of the noble Lord that you ought not to take into account the fact that this was the period mentioned in Lord Peel's Report a long time ago, and that this whole question has been the subject of a settled determination on the part of a large number of people that they mean to redress a great social evil and that a measure of this kind is one of the ways of doing it. Those who have taken on licences have taken them on with the knowledge that their chances of renewal were more precarious than hitherto. The Bill gives a full five years, indeed, more than five years, because a certain period will have to elapse before the machinery can be got into working order. In these circumstances I think it is reasonable to say that five years is, on the whole, just about as near as you can get to the equivalent for that chance of renewal which has existed hitherto, but which cannot be measured in terms of figures. I venture to think, having regard to the totally different position in which the title to renewal of a licence-holder in Scotland stands to that elsewhere, that five years is a reasonable time. If your Lordships tried to fix another period

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you could not find any better example than in the speech of the noble Lord who has just addressed the House of the extreme difficulty of doing so. On the whole we think five years a fair period, and that is why we cannot accept the longer period proposed by the noble Lord in the Amendment now before us.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: After the description given by Lord Balfour's correspondent of those who occupy offices in the Church, I feel some diffidence in intervening in this discussion; but I should like to say how cordially I support the appeal made by Lord Balfour To the Government to make the period a little more than five years. The noble and learned Viscount who has just spoken complained of Lord Balfour because he did not state the specific period of years—somewhere between the five years and the fourteen years—which he would like to see adopted. I understood my noble friend to refrain from a specific proposal with a view to leaving it to the Government to make the suggestion themselves. To many of us who are thoroughly in accord with the principles of this Bill, with the spirit in which it is drafted, and with the general intention of it, it will be exceedingly hard if we find a lack of support in many quarters where we might have hoped for it because of this provision fixing the period at five years. I believe that there are many, who would otherwise agree to the proposals in the Bill, who would feel that the bringing into operation of the machinery of the Bill in five years was not reasonable or fair. Many of us will feel deeply disappointed if, at the outset of the discussions in Committee, we are told that five years is the fullest possible time that can be allowed for reaching the very different state of things which this Bill would bring about; and speaking as one who would support the Bill in its main principles right through I feel it would be difficult to do so as readily if one were limited in that way. Personally I could not go as far as fourteen years, but I should have thought ten years a reasonable time. I do not, however, express any opinion regarding that. If the Government would hold out some hope that they would modify the term now suggested in the Bill it would relieve many of us who desire in a large way to support the Bill. Therefore I join in the appeal made by Lord Balfour.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Like my noble friend Lord Balfour, I greatly regret that the noble Earl in charge of the Bill should have charged us—I think he did so in effect—with unreasonableness because we propose to extend the somewhat ruthless time limit which the Bill at present provides. Is it not quite obvious that a time limit of this kind must be an open question, must be a question of degree? No one can say that the five years term of the Bill is calculated on a scientificbasis and is therefore absolutely right, and that fourteen years is absolutely wrong. The noble and learned Viscount who spoke afterwards on behalf of the Government said that five years was as near as His Majesty's Government could get to it. I think that shows that in his mind, at all events, this question is not one that can be determined in any very reasoned or precise manner. The position of my noble friend Lord Grey seems to me to be much more logical. He objects to a time limit altogether, and would desire to get rid of it. He says it is the worst possible form of compensation. I will not argue that question with him now. But what I wish to point out to the House is that it is at present the only form of compensation to be found in the Bill, and if the people who are to be dispossessed under this Bill are to be compensated at all it must apparently be in the form of a time limit.
The noble Earl in charge of the Bill told us that we were making too much of the grievance because it would not follow that the whole of the licences would be swept away. But surely I am right in supposing that wherever a no-licence resolution is carried the whole of the licences will disappear, and that that will happen which the noble Earl seems to think impossible. To my mind my noble friend Lord Lovat demonstrated the inadequacy of this five-years time limit. He referred—I think very properly—to the precedent of the English Bill of 1908, when, as we all remember, the Government proposed a fourteen-years time limit with a seven years "run," as it was called, afterwards—twenty-one years altogether—accompanied by compensation. The noble and learned Viscount told us that the circumstances were different in Scotland from the circumstances in this country. That, no doubt, is true. Nevertheless I venture to maintain that, so far as the principle is concerned, the two cases are at any rate analogous—that in both cases there is an

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interest which is a valuable interest, which is bought and sold as a valuable interest, which is taxed as a valuable interest, and which ought to be treated by any Government with at any rate a certain amount of consideration. It seems to me a monstrous thing that the same Government should tax an interest of this kind as heavily as the value of these certificates is taxed upon the assumption that there is some amount of permanency or durability about them and then should proceed to legislate with regard to them upon a wholly different basis. I feel very strongly with my noble friend Lord Balfour that in the interests of the policy which this measure embodies it is desirable that the terms upon which these people are dispossessed of something which, if not legally property, is at any rate something of a by no means negligible value, should be terms reasonably generous; and I am convinced that if we fall short in that respect the result is likely to
Resolved in the negative.
be to put a serious obstacle in the way of those who desire to obtain a diminution in the number of these certificates.
I do not desire at this moment to commit myself to the view that the fourteen years which Lord Lovat proposes is exactly the most appropriate time limit, but if he goes to a Division I shall vote with him as a protest against the exiguous character of the time limit provided by the Bill. It may be that hereafter, when the other portions of the Bill have been dealt with, we may see our way to arrive at a middle term; but meantime I shall vote in favour of my noble friend's Amendment.
On Question, Whether the word proposed to be left out shall stand part of the clause?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 43; Not-contents, 60.

CONTENTS.

Haldane, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Ashby St. Ledgers, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Morley of Blackburn, V. (L. President.)

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Moulton, L.

Blythswood, L.

Reay, L.

Crewe, M. (L. Privy Seal)

Channing, L.

Rotherham, L.

Colebrooke, L.

Rowallan, L.

Lincolnshire, M.

Courtney of Penwith, L.

St. Davids, L.

Devonport, L.

Saye and Sele, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Clantawe, L.

Shaw, L.

Craven, E. [Teller.]

Glenconner, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.)

Grey, K.

Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

Loreburn, E.

Haversham, L.

Stanmore, L.

Russell, E.

Herschell, L. [Teller.]

Strachie, L.

Inchcape, L.

Tenterden, L.

Sandhurst, L. (L. Chamberlain.)

Kinnaird, L.

Weardale, L.

Airedale, L.

Lucas, L.

Welby, L.

Armistead, L.

MacDonnell, L.

Willingdon, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Canterbury, L. Abp.

Northesk, E.

Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

Plymouth, E.

Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

Devonshire, D

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Lamington, L.

Marlborough, D.

Westmeath, E.

Langford, L.

Wellington, D.

Lawrence, L.

Falkland, V.

Lovat, L. [Teller.]

Lansdowne, M.

Goschen, V.

Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

Linlithgow, M.

Llandaff, V.

Monkswell, L.

Salisbury, M.

St. Aldwyn, V.

Muskerry, L.

Zetland, M.

Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)

Balfour, L.

Oranmore and Browne, L.

Camperdown, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Plunket, L.

Clarendon, E.

Berwick, L.

Redesdale, L.

Cromer, E.

Brancepeth, L. (Y. Boyne.)

Rothschild, L.

Curzon of Kedleston, E.

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Saltoun, L.

Graham, E. (D. Montrose.)

Colchester, L.

Sanderson, L.

Halsbury, E.

De Mauley, L.

Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

Londesborough, E.

Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

Lytton, E.

Gwydir, L.

Sudeley, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Hindlip, L.

Wolverton, L.

Minto, E.

Hothfield, L

Wynford, L.

Morton, E.

Hylton, L. [Teller.]

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: By the vote just taken the House has decided to leave out the word "five." We have now before us the second question as to what number of years shall be inserted. I voted with the majority against the retention of five years, but I frankly say that I think fourteen years is too long a period. If Lord Lovat's Amendment were agreed to in its entirety it would put off the whole operation of the Bill for fourteen years. I do not think that can really be intended, but that would be the effect of inserting the word "fourteen" in this particular place. I have no authority to speak for anybody but myself, but I am inclined to make a renewed appeal to the Government not to confront us with an absolute non possumus in this matter. If it is open to me to do so—and on this I should like the opinion of the Lord Chairman—I shall vote against the insertion of the word "fourteen" for the purpose of inserting "ten." I further say that it seems to me illogical to bring both options in necessarily at the same time, whether it is five, ten, or fourteen years. Why should not a longer period be given to prepare for a total prohibition vote and a shorter period where there is to be only a reduction in licences?
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: The Question before the House is the Amendment moved by Lord Lovat to insert the word "fourteen." I think Lord Balfour would be in order in moving to amend the Amendment by substituting "ten."
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I should like to ask the noble Earl at the Table whether he is quite clear that it is possible to take this particular course. I can quite understand that before the Division took place it would have been a simple and easy course for Lord Balfour to have moved an Amendment to the Amendment proposed by Lord Lovat. But that Amendment, as I understand, has been carried and forms part of the Bill, and I should not have supposed that at this stage without further notice it was open to the noble Lord to move to amend it. I am merely asking for information and am quite open to conviction in the matter.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: What your Lordships decided by the Division which has just taken place was to leave out the
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word "five." If it would be more convenient to your Lordships now to negative "fourteen" and insert "ten," that would be in accordance with the practice of your Lordships' House.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I venture with much diffidence to make a suggestion to the House. His Majesty's Government have given no indication of a desire to accept any figure other than "five." It seems to me that this question of compensation ought to be considered as a whole. There are other Amendments on the Paper which certainly affect the question of compensation, and it occurs to me that we should be in a better position to deal with this point of the time limit when we know how we stand with regard to the other Amendments that will come before the House. Personally I think it would be a relief to some of us, having struck the five-years limit out of the Bill and agreed provisionally to put in its place a fourteen-years limit, if we could reserve the further consideration of the limit question until the discussion on the Bill has gone further.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT MORLEY): Surely the noble Marquess is mistaken. The House has not agreed to substitute "fourteen" for "five." All that has been agreed upon is that "five" is not to be the figure.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Your Lordships have struck out "five," and you must put something in its place. The Government have refused to give us any lead on the subject. We do not wish to be bound to "fourteen" when subsequent opportunities for discussing the point will arise. I think we shall be in a much better position to determine the precise figure when we have gone through the Committee stage of the Bill. The straightforward thing would be to carry through the Amendment now before the House and insert "fourteen," and consider the matter again when we come to the Report stage.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: Your Lordships have agreed to strike out the word "five," and the proposal now before us is that the word "fourteen" should be inserted. You might, of course, negative that proposal, but the difficulty

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of that mode of dealing with the question is that you might have an endless series of figures suggested for consideration. I think the simpler course would be to propose an Amendment to the Amendment to the effect that "ten" should take the place of "fourteen." If that is resolved in the negative, then "fourteen" would take its place in the clause instanter.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: It does not seem any use at the present stage to make a further appeal to the Government to assist us in this matter. I only rise to express the hope that, whatever course the House decides to adopt, we shall have another opportunity of voting on the figure to be inserted in the place of "five," in order that it may be possible for those who, like Lord Balfour and myself, voted with the majority to strike out five years, to make clear that we did so because we thought five years too brief a period and not because we necessarily accepted fourteen years. If Lord Balfour moves to substitute ten years for fourteen years I should vote for that Amendment. If, on the other hand, we are first asked to decide on the question of inserting "fourteen," I shall vote against that. But I hope that, whatever course is adopted, there will be an opportunity afforded of making the matter perfectly clear in the Lobby.
LORD SHEFFIELD: it is clear that there are two limits needed, one for a no-licence resolution and another for the rest of the Bill. You do not meet that point by merely putting in one number; you must put in two numbers. I gather that Lord Balfour would not be at all shocked at a limit of six years for the ordinary parts of the Bill if he secured ten years in the case of a no-licence resolution.
LORD LOVAT: I suggest that for the present "fourteen" should be provisionally inserted, and we could consider on the Report stage the precise number of years to be finally put into the Bill.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I am prepared to do what is most for the convenience of the House, but I wish to guard against being quoted as in favour of a period of fourteen years. I hope that whatever we do—and it does not seem to me to matter, if it is provisional, whether "fourteen" or "ten" is inserted—it will be considered whether there might not be a different period for the Bill coming into
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operation in the case of total prohibition. I will not divide the House to-day, on the clear understanding that "fourteen" is regarded as provisional, and that a subsequent opportunity will be afforded of making another proposal when we see how the discussion goes on the other clauses.
On Question, That the word "fourteen" be here inserted?
Resolved in the affirmative.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I move to omit from Clause 1 the words "first day of June, 1912" in order to insert "passing thereof." I do not understand why the words which I propose to omit appear in the Bill. I understand that they were not in the Bill last year when it was a private Members' Bill, but the Government after accepting the Bill appear to have made this alteration themselves. It was always customary that an Act of Parliament should come into force on the day of its passing or at some later date, and never until a year or two ago, have we had instances of Bills coming into force before they have passed. In this particular case the reason is obvious, because the Secretary for Scotland admitted in the other House that the first of June was inserted for the purpose of getting round the Parliament Act. The Lord Chancellor said just now that this Bill would not come into force for nearly six years owing to elections and other matters of that sort, but he forgot to notice the fact that according to Clause 1, as it now stands, six months of the time have already run. I submit that it is contrary to the practice of Parliament to make a Bill retrospective, and for that reason I propose to strike out these words and to substitute "passing thereof."
Amendment moved—
Page 1, leave out line 7 and insert ("passing thereof").—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: After the explanation given by the noble Earl I can hardly expect your Lordships to agree to the Amendment. Some of your Lordships have already expressed the opinion that fourteen years is too long. The noble Earl evidently contemplates the use of the Parliament Act in connection with this Bill. In those circumstances it would appear that instead of having a time limit of fourteen years the licence-holders would get sixteen years.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I had nothing in contemplation; it was the Secretary for Scotland who had something in contemplation.
EARL RUSSELL: Lord Camperdown cannot quite seriously have considered what he said. He stated that it was not usual to make the operation of a Bill retrospective. Does the noble Earl realise that what is proposed now that Lord Lovat's Amendment has been agreed to is that the Bill should not be operative for thirteen and a-half years from now?
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: What I said was that the Bill as it now stands conies into operation on "the first day of June, 1912," instead of at the time of its passing, and in that respect it is retrospective.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2:
Poll of Electors on Resolutions Submitted.
2.—(1) If, in the manner hereinafter provided, a requisition demanding a poll under this Act in any area is lodged with the local authority, the local authority shall cause a poll of the electors in such area (hereinafter called "a poll") to be taken in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
(2) The question to be submitted to the electors at a poll shall be the adoption in and for such area of (a) a no-change resolution, or (b) a limiting resolution, or (c) a no-licence resolution.
(3) On a poll in any area—

(a) if three-fifths at least in number of the votes recorded are in favour of a no-licence resolution, and not less than thirty per cent. of the electors for such area on the register have voted in favour thereof, such resolution shall be deemed to be carried; or if

(b) a majority of the votes recorded are in favour of a limiting resolution, and not less than thirty per cent. of the electors for such area on the register have voted in favour thereof, such resolution shall be deemed to be carried; or if

(c) a majority of the votes recorded are in favour of a no-change resolution, or if no other resolution is carried, a no-change resolution shall be deemed to be carried; and

any such resolution so carried shall come into force on the twenty-eighth day of May immediately following the taking of the poll.
(4) An elector shall not be entitled to vote for more than one of the resolutions submitted at the poll, but if a no-licence resolution be not carried,
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the votes recorded in favour of such resolution shall be added to those recorded in favour of the limiting resolution, and shall be deemed to have been recorded in favour thereof.
(5) Any such resolution if carried shall remain in force until the resolution is repealed or superseded as hereinafter provided.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN had on the Paper an Amendment to amend subsection (1) by omitting the words "lodged with" and inserting the words "found by." The noble Earl said: This Amendment and the one standing next in my name depend on whether or not your Lordships accept the Amendment which I have on the Paper to Clause 5, and therefore it would probably be more convenient that I should postpone the consideration of these two Amendments until after that clause has been taken.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I was hoping that I might have been able to meet the wishes of the noble Earl with regard to these two Amendments, but if he does not wish to move them there is no more to be said.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: In that case I will move them and I hope that when we get to Clause 5 the noble Earl will follow out the consequence of what he has done and accept my Amendments in gross.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 9, leave out ("lodged with") and insert ("found by").—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: Clause 5 is concerned with a great many other subjects besides the one which is now before us, and I think it well that I should explain to the House what will be the effect, taken by itself, of the Amendment now moved. By the proposal in the Bill as it stands the inspection of the register may be made by any elector, and if the requisition is defective the poll may be declared void and a forged signature or the defacing of a requisition is subject to heavy penalties. Already in the Bill we have provided against the improper use of the power of requisition. The object of the noble Earl's Amendment is to provide a method by direct enactment for ascertaining whether a requisition is duly signed. The Bill as it stands provides that the Secretary for Scotland shall be the authority to make regulations to provide for the procedure

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being correct. The noble Earl, as an alternative, suggests that this should be done by direct enactment and that the duty of seeing that the requisition is in order should be laid on the local authority. Under the Bill as it stands the Secretary for Scotland would have to issue regulations. Under the noble Earl's Amendment the local authority would be empowered to do it, and to that Amendment I am quite willing to agree without prejudice to anything which may happen at a later stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 10, after the first ("authority") insert ("to have been club signed").—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH moved to omit from subsection (2) the words "a no-change resolution," and to insert "a disinterested management resolution." The noble Lord said: This Amendment raises a large and important point of policy, and it will probably be convenient to take that point of policy and argue it on this Amendment. I am in favour of the additional option to the electors of what is known as disinterested management. There is an Amendment which follows immediately afterwards in the name of the noble Marquess on the Front Bench (Lord Salisbury) which is also in principle for disinterested management, but he proposes to make a less change in form upon the Bill than I do. As I understand his Amendment, he would put an additional option into the Schedule so that there would be four options instead of three. If your Lordships refer to the Schedule of the Bill you will find that as it stands the voter may vote for one of three alternatives. He may vote for no-change; he may vote for a reduction; or he may vote for prohibition in the particular area with which he is concerned. I have never been able to understand what the object of the no-change resolution is, and I hesitated to put a fourth option in the Schedule mainly for the reason that I thought it would introduce undue complication in the voting. Therefore the proposal in my Amendment is to change the form of the Schedule. There will still only be three options before the voter, but those three will be disinterested management, a reduction of licences, or total prohibition.
I suggest this change, that each voter shall have the power of voting for or against, and, of course, if he votes against all the three options that is equivalent to a no-change resolution. On that point the difference, while material in form, is not, I venture to suggest to the House, very great in substance. There are other points in the Amendment of the noble Marquess, Iris form of disinterested management and its details, which are very different from what I suggest. But in this preliminary explanation of the particular issue which is before the House I shall not discuss the details of the noble Marquess's Amendment, but endeavour to explain in as few and as simple words as I can the option for disinterested management which I propose to insert, and my reasons for doing it. In the discussions on this matter I hope those concerned will remember that under the Schedule in the Bill each voter would have only one vote—namely, in favour of the particular option. In my proposal he would have a vote for or against, thereby making a more distinct record of the opinions of those who vote. The form of ballot paper which I suggest is not altogether new. It is nearly the same as that proposed in a three-fold option Bill brought into the House of Commons so long ago as 1899 by Mr. Parker Smith.
I pass from questions of machinery to the merits of the proposal of disinterested management. In the first place, it is not municipalisation of the liquor trade. It has sometimes been misrepresented as being the same as that, and people have argued against it on that ground and for the reason that it would practically make the whole community, whatever their opinions are about the lawfulness or unlawfulness of drinking at all, partisans and parties to the sale of drink. The proposal I venture to put before the House avoids that danger. The public as a constituency would have no more concern with the liquor traffic than they have at the present time. All that would be done would be that a company of disinterested unselfish persons would be formed to manage the traffic which every one admits requires careful management and regulation, upon unselfish and disinterested lines, and I respectfully suggest to the House that this avoids the danger present in any individual interest in a licence that there would be undue or extravagant inducements put before customers to take more than they would

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otherwise desire to take. In other words, if I may repeat one suggestion I made on the Second Reading of the Bill, the interest of the community is essentially different from and opposite to the interest of the individual seller of drink. The individual licence-holder has a great temptation as a man of business, as a man who wants to make his livelihood, to sell as much as he can of the particular article in which he trades. I do not blame him; it is natural; but it is not in the interests of the community that that sale should be so pushed. If people want it, this is a free country and in my opinion they ought to have it. I will resist to the last any control over what I regard as a legitimate thing. Undue control and the prevention of getting what one desires seems to me an interference with what is legitimate freedom which is in itself indefensible. At the same time I am as anxious as anybody can be to do away with illegitimate inducements to people to take more drink than they would naturally do of their own accord.
We must assume in this matter, or at least I must for the purposes of my argument, that there will be public-houses. We are far away from the time when you can hope to prohibit them altogether. It seems to me an idle and foolish idea that you can attain to that within any measurable time. If that is so, then the best interest of the community is surely to see that they are as legitimately, as unselfishly, and as well managed as possible. The licensing authority would remain, and would regulate these disinterested management houses in the same way as it regulates ordinary public-houses. The houses would be open to the police, and there would be none of the interference with private premises which is involved in control of clubs. The locality, under my proposal, would have no direct financial interest in the amount of drink that was sold. The accounts of the company would be open to a Government audit. I am bound to say that during the last few years this idea has been gaining ground. I have received many communications from those whose opinions I value in favour of the idea. But the difficulty of bringing it into operation is very great, because unless you purchase an existing house at an extravagant price or go to the licensing authority and increase the number of houses you cannot get a footing for disinterested management. Our idea is, in
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cases where the people are willing that the experiment should be tried, that we should substitute this class of management for—using, I hope, not an undue term of reproach—the selfish management which now exists. It has support from the Minority Report of the Peel Commission, and it has the support of a Committee of your Lordships' House so long ago as 1879. I will not quote the words, because I do not wish to weary the House by so doing. After all, what is proposed is only an option, and I think I may appeal in the presence of the Government to a most notable memorial presented to the Prime Minister from Scotland a week or two ago, to which there were thousands of signatures of some of the most respected men all over Scotland, in favour of having this Amendment inserted in the Bill.
Now, my Lords, I touch upon another point as to which there may be a certain amount of controversy. In my opinion to give this scheme a fair chance you must, in the district in which it is established, give it a practical monopoly. I do not say that you must give it a monopoly as opposed to hotels and restaurants, which cater for a different class of custom, but I do think if it is to have a fair chance it must have a monopoly in the area of retail sale over the counter of ordinary spirits and spirituous liquors. I point out also that it would extinguish—and here is another controversial point—what are known as grocers' licences. There are more of these licences in proportion to the population in Scotland than anywhere else, and I am bound to say that I regard grocers' licences as one of the most pernicious forms of licences. I see no reason why the grocer should sell spirits any more than the butcher or the baker, and from what I hear the sale of spirits by grocers, in the means afforded to women secretly to get these things to a greater extent than they ought to have them, has been productive of a great deal of evil. Therefore it is one of the advantages to my mind that if we could establish this form of disinterested management of public-houses it would put an end in a large measure to one of the worst aspects of the grocers' licence.
I again touch upon a point of controversy. If disinterested management is to be brought in after the period, whenever it is, when total prohibition is enacted,

1025
then I can see no reason why the disinterested management people should have to pay compensation. If, on the other hand, the suggestion which I ventured to make a few moments ago was to bear fruit, and there was to be an option given for a reduction of licences at a less distant period than for total prohibition, and if there was also an option at the same time to bring in disinterested management, I cannot myself see any reason why those who become responsible for disinterested management houses, or disinterested management companies, should not pay their fair quota of compensation to those whom they dispossess. In that matter, however, I speak for myself, and I merely say that because I want to make a real effort to convince the House that I want to be as fair as possible to all the interests concerned. There are details involved as to certificates and the keeping of accounts, the control which the Government, through the Secretary for Scotland or otherwise, would have to exercise, and other matters that do not touch upon at this moment because I am not now moving that Amendment. The question we have to debate on this occasion is whether or not we are to have a disinterested management option in the Schedule, and, if so, in what way it is to be inserted. I am perfectly aware that it is a controversial point, but I am bound to say on the whole, having regard to the balance of opinion, that it seems to me the time has come when the country should be given a real opportunity of saying whether they will accept this proposal. If they want it they can have it under my proposal; if they do not want it, then they will not vote for it. I cannot see that any interest is harmed by the proposal I make, and I am sanguine enough to believe that this is the one hope of rapid temperance reform in the real sense.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line, 11 and 15, leave out ("a no-change resolution") and insert ("a disinterested management resolution").—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I was anxious, if your Lordships are going to discuss on this Amendment and at once the whole system of disinterested management, that the various schemes which have been put before the House on the Order Paper should be submitted to your Lordships, and that we should discuss the matter as
1026
a whole. That seems to me a much more desirable course than taking the single Amendment of the noble Lord opposite and discussing it. In those circumstances it would probably be more convenient to your Lordships if we now listened to the arguments in support of the other Amendment in favour of disinterested management.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There seems to me to be an extraordinary reluctance on the part of His Majesty's Government to commit themselves to anything. It appears to me an astonishing way for the noble Earl to treat your Lordships' House, that on every Amendment he stands back and waits for others to indicate to him the line that ought to be taken. Everybody must admit that my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh moved his Amendment with the greatest moderation with a desire to provoke a perfectly temperate and non-controversial discussion, and with a view to helping His Majesty's Government to pass a good Bill. My noble friend laid a good many facts before your Lordships and appealed to many authorities, and he did not, as far as I made out, desire in any way to make a controversial speech. But for some reason or other the noble Earl in charge of the Bill prefers to reserve himself for a later moment. With most of what my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh said he knows very well that I agree. He knows that I and those who sit on this Bench beside me are also believers in disinterested management, and as far as I know none of us have ever said anything inconsistent with that view. We believe that the time has come when the effort which has been made for many years towards disinterested management in a spasmodic sort of way should receive a more official sanction, and we hope that before this Bill passes into law an Amendment in that direction may be inserted.
I do not think that your Lordships would wish me to repeat the arguments of my noble friend, because I should only say far less efficiently what he has just stated, and there is no reason why I should repeat it. I desire, therefore, in one sentence to associate myself with most of what my noble friend has said. But when we come to the precise proposal which he has made I see considerable difficulties, and we have thought it right to put another

1027
proposal before your Lordships' House. In the first place, I do not think my noble friend's Amendment, if he will allow me to say so, errs on the side of simplicity. It is very elaborate, and it makes a radical change in the drafting of the Bill. I think that is unnecessary. No one will accuse me of being too respectful to the Bills of His Majesty's Government, but I do not think it is necessary that we should make changes unless they are changes of really considerable importance, and many of my noble friend's changes seem to me to be not really necessary, although he may think them advisable for the object he has in view. I take, for example, his method of voting in his Schedule. He thinks that he would get a truer picture of the popular view by means of his Schedule, but I confess that if I were an elector presented with his Schedule I should feel a great deal of difficulty as to what the result of my voting would be. I do not profess to be particularly intelligent, but I dare say I am as intelligent as many electors are, and I should find great difficulty in that respect. Every elector is to have six votes, for or against any one of the three propositions. [Several noble LORDS: Three votes.] No; he has six alternatives which lie may adopt, with three votes. That is an accurate way of putting it, I think. I confess I should not be at all sure what the result would be if I voted with a voting paper of that kind. If, for example, I vote "Aye" in favour of a limiting resolution and there were no limiting resolution, I have no idea what the result of that would be. [A noble LORD: A spoilt paper.] Why should it be a spoilt paper? The Bill says that every elector must indicate his vote by placing a cross opposite the resolution for which he votes, but no elector may place more than one cross opposite any one resolution. I do not propose to put more than one cross opposite any one resolution. I propose to put one cross opposite the limiting resolution, and one opposite the no-change resolution, both for. What is the effect of that? I may be very stupid, but I confess I do not understand it.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: It seems to me the effect is perfectly clear. When the votes are counted those resolutions which get a majority of the votes will be carried into effect, and those which have not a majority will not be carried into effect.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: But as you may vote in all three cases it seems to me that the elector who would have to choose where he would put his crosses would be placed in a position of very great difficulty. And let me say this. If, after considerable discussion in this House, we did arrive at what actually would take place that really is not sufficient. You have to have something which is quite clear to the elector, and unless the thing is perfectly simple and clear for him to understand I submit that in this, after all, very small matter of machinery my noble friend's Amendment is not well drawn. I rather gathered from him—I am sure I do not desire to misinterpret him for a moment—that he is quite open to accept the other form of voting, namely, the voting which I suggest—that there should be four options, and in the ordinary way the elector should be asked to vote for any single one of the four he desires, and that that should be the only alternative open to him. That seems a simple matter. My first reason, therefore, for not quite agreeing with my noble friend is that I think his Amendment is too complicated.
I think that in other respects my noble friend's proposal goes a little too far—not too far, let me say, in the case of new licences. With regard to all licences granted after the passing of the Act I think he and I are absolutely agreed that where the electors have chosen the disinterested management option all new licences should be granted subject to disinterested management. That is a very large measure of agreement. In all growing neighbourhoods where this option is adopted henceforward every new licence would be granted subject to the condition of disinterested management. That seems to me a very important point upon which we are entirely agreed.
Now I come to deal with the much more difficult question of the existing certificates, as I ought to call them, in respect to Scotland. What ought to be done in the case of existing certificates? In the first place, I am not quite sure whether my noble friend and I are agreed or not as to whether the authorised companies should be called upon to make any payment. I think I gathered from my noble friend that lie was not averse to asking them to make a certain payment. If that be so, that is another point of agreement between

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us, because in my Amendment, differing in that respect from the Amendment of my noble friend, I provide that the disinterested companies should be asked to pay what they reasonably can pay for the privilege—I use "privilege" in its technical sense—of having a sort of monopoly, a limited monopoly as I shall show in a moment, for the sale of intoxicating liquors. Why should they not pay? I think they ought to pay. Let them get the proper interest on the money of the shareholders, the 4 per cent. with regard to which both he and I are agreed. Let them have a sufficient sum of money laid by in order to make a proper reserve fund—that is provided for in both Amendments. But after that it seems only reasonable that they should pay something out of the surplus profits which they earn towards carrying into effect this Act. Not only is it fair in itself, but it would mitigate to some extent the necessary susceptibilities of the dispossessed publican. After all whatever view we may have in this House and in Parliament generally of the proper treatment of publicans, Ave must allow that the publican is entitled to a certain feeling of grievance at being thrown out of his means of livelihood by the operation of this Bill. Personally I think he has got a very strong grievance, and I think all of your Lordships will agree that it is very natural that he should feel a certain amount of irritation at his fate. I think he would feel that it was only reasonable, if he is to be dispossessed, that out of their surplus profits his supplanters—for that is the sort of word he would use—should pay something towards mitigating the blow. There should be some relief granted to him by those who are going to take his place out of the profits which they are going to make from his business, but I do not propose that they should be asked to pay anything unduly. I am quite aware that the disinterested management people will not make so good a business of it as the dispossessed publican. Obviously they will not. It is for that very reason that we want to put this disinterested management in—namely, in order that they shall not press the trade in the way in which the publican naturally, from his point of view, does press the trade. But still they can pay something, and there is no reason in the world why they should not pay something towards mitigating what must be to the dispossessed publican a serious grievance. Upon that there is no very
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great difference between me and my noble friend, although he does not provide for it in his Amendment and I do provide for it in mine.
Then comes the question of whether the option is to involve an absolute monopoly, or only a limited monopoly, of a restricted trade. My noble friend says it must be all or nothing. I confess I rather shrink from so extreme a course. I do not think it is likely to be very successful, or to recommend itself to a great body of reasonable men, for, after all, we know very little as to the financial success of these disinterested management companies. They have been in existence a long time and have had a certain amount of success in England, but I do not think any of your Lordships, except one or two noble friends of mine that I see here who have a special knowledge of the subject, are in a position to say for certain that any of these disinterested companies are an assured success. I hear a noble friend of mine say that in one county in England they are a failure. At any rate, they are upon their trial, and I think when a movement is in that position it is not reasonable to say to the electors of a particular locality, "You are in favour of disinterested management, but you do not know much about the companies who offer to give you disinterested management; you do not know much about their financial success or their management success; but if you choose disinterested management at all you must have all or nothing." Surely that is not a proposition which is likely to commend itself to any body of our countrymen, whether they live North or South of the Tweed. They are almost certain to say in the great majority of cases, "We cannot take so extreme a course as that; we shall be very glad to see this experiment of disinterested management tried; we shall be glad to give it official sanction and give it the power of the law behind it in order to bring it into being; but if we are to say straight off that we will abolish every other means for the provision of this necessary refreshment except such as can be obtained by disinterested management, without knowing anything about the subject, then you will not get it at all." If you try to press it intemperately and drive it, as it were, down the throats of the people you will not get it in that way. Therefore I suggest that it is a far wiser thing, wiser in the interests of the movement itself, to allow it to be

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tentative. What is the objection to that The objection, so far as I know, is this, that those who are in favour of the extreme form of my noble friend's Amendment are not willing to trust the licensing authority to strike the particular line to the extent to which the experiment ought to be carried. Why should you not trust them? Do you distrust the licensing authority as a matter of fact? I ask noble Lords from Scotland, do they distrust the licensing authority there? Have they found that those authorities are unwilling to interpret what is the public opinion in Scotland? I feel a certain diffidence in speaking on Scottish matters because I have no immediate acquaintance with Scotland, although I have a profound respect for that country, but I believe it to be true that the licensing authority there is already more or less a popular body. A large part of it is subject to direct or indirect election.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: The noble Marquess will excuse my saying that in some burghs the licensing authority is entirely in the hands of the justices of the peace. In those burghs in which licensing is in the hands of the town council the town council are, of course, elected, and they appoint the bailies. The bailies are the equivalent of justices of the peace, so to speak, Although the licensing authority is to a certain extent popularly elected there is the intervening secondary election, for the council elects the bailies.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am quite aware that there is the element of secondary election, but in respect to this Bill the burghs are much more important than the counties. No doubt it is in the burghs that the evils which this Bill is directed against mostly exist, and no doubt the licensing authority there is subject more or less to the wishes of public opinion. Would it not be a perfectly reasonable system that you should submit an option to the locality so that the electors may determine whether they wish to have this experiment tried or not, and then the precise details of the extent to which the experiment should be tried should be left in the hands of the licensing authority? That appears to me to be a perfectly reasonable system. I think I have said enough to show both the points where my Amendment agrees with my noble friend's and where it differs. My Amendment is a
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much more tentative Amendment than that of my noble friend, and I think it is likely to be much more successful. Moreover, it is much fairer, for I provide the payment of money which his Amendment does not provide. Lastly, it is much simpler. On those three grounds—that it is more likely to be successful and that it is fairer and simpler—I recommend it with great diffidence to your Lordships' House as a suitable alternative to the Amendment of my noble friend.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, your Lordships are now in possession of the arguments in support of the two alternative proposals which have been placed on the Order Paper for the purpose of introducing the principle of disinterested management into this Bill—the proposal of my noble friend Lord Balfour and that of my- noble friend on the Front Opposition Bench, Lord Salisbury. As I have for many years taken a deep and active interest in the application of the principle of disinterested management under very limited conditions to the public-houses in this country I desire to say one word to the House upon this question. There are really two points raised by the Amendment we are now discussing—the question of the principle of disinterested management as a method of controlling the liquor trade, and the question of how, if we approve that principle, it should be applied and introduced into this Bill. I do not think it necessary to say very much about the principle, because so far as this debate has gone there seems to be very general agreement that the principle of disinterested management has a great deal to recommend it.
But at the same time as it is a new principle which has never yet been introduced into the laws of this country and into our official licensing system I should like to say one word in passing about the main principle. Our opinions as to the merits and demerits of that principle depend upon what we look to the principle to do for us, because if it is supposed by anybody that the introduction of the principle of disinterested management is going effectively to reduce and abolish all drunkenness it is quite obvious that those expectations will be disappointed, and if we look to the countries in which this principle has been adopted we should be bound to confess that the principle has been a hopeless

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failure. But the fact is that this principle has never been introduced with that object, and it is no more possible for the principle of disinterested management to abolish drunkenness than it is to abolish drunkenness by any other administrative machinery. So long as human weaknesses and appetites are what they are to-day you will never be able to abolish drunkenness by administrative machinery. The only thing claimed for disinterested management is that it is a better system for controlling the liquor trade than that of the licensing of private individuals which we have in the country to-day. From that point of view I claim that it has been an unqualified success in the only countries in which it has really been carried out.
My noble friend who spoke just now said we knew very little about this principle of disinterested management. It is quite true that in this country we know very little about it because it has never been really completely established. Thanks to the wisdom and energy and enthusiasm of Lord Grey and of the Bishop of Chester and others who introduced the principle into this country under what we know as Trust public-houses it has been tried partially in scattered districts and under very hampering conditions. But in order to see how the principle works one must look to the country in which it has been applied without those hampering conditions and on a general scale. Therefore if we turn to Norway and Sweden, the home of this principle—the only countries in which it has been fully applied—I claim that in those countries it has been universally accepted as a better alternative method of controlling the retail liquor sale than the licensing of private individuals which we have in this country to-day and which existed in Norway and Sweden before the principle of disinterested management was introduced. In Norway and Sweden there are temperance societies, the Good Templars, the Rechabites, and other societies, the members of which believe in the total prohibition of the sale of liquor and look forward to that as the ultimate ideal of any temperance policy. They hold, in fact, precisely the same views on the question of temperance as do the Good Templars and Rechabites in this country, and yet all the members of those societies in Norway and Sweden, although they would certainly wish to abolish the disinterested management companies because
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they would like to abolish all facilities for obtaining liquor upon licensed premises, although they are opposed to the disinterested management system in that sense, they are all agreed in preferring it to the system which prevailed beforehand, and you will not find one of those societies who would be in favour of doing away with the system of controlling the trade through disinterested management companies and going back to the old system of private licensing. I claim, therefore, that in those countries where it has been tried, whatever may be the differences of opinion as to its merits as a final measure of temperance reform, by universal consent it is admitted that this system is preferable to one of private licensing such as we have in this country.
Since this method has come to occupy a recognised place in the policy of temperance reform I hold that it is desirable that it should be introduced as one of the options given in this Bill. It is a recognised system in the policy of temperance reform. This Bill is a Local Option Bill; it professes to give to the locality the right of settling for itself by the voles of the majority in what way the liquor trade in that locality shall be controlled; and I say, when speaking of local option and giving to the locality the right of controlling the liquor traffic themselves, to refuse the right of trying this experiment which has been carried out with success in other parts of the world and which has been carried out in a less degree in this country—to talk of local option and to deny that particular form of local option is simply to misuse language. Whatever our opinions may be as to whether this is a good or bad system we ought, I think, to be agreed that if you are to have local option at all the locality ought to have the right of voting for this particular form of management of the liquor trade.
Now I come to the machinery whereby, if we agree to the principle, it can be incorporated in this Bill. There are two proposals—those of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh and my noble friend Lord Salisbury. They differ in two respects. They differ partly in the form of ballot paper by which the electors are to introduce the principle. I pass by that for a moment, because, after all, it is a matter of machinery, and I do not think that the change in the ballot paper made

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by Lord Balfour's Amendment is at all an essential part of his Amendment. The other difference is this, that by Lord Balfour's Amendment the principle of disinterested management will be made a real option—that is to say, the locality shall have the right of voting for or against this particular principle, but if they vote in favour of it then it shall be applied to the licences in the district just as a no-licence resolution will be applied to all the licences in the district covered by the machinery of the Bill. But my noble friend Lord Salisbury's Amendment provides that if a locality votes in favour of the principle of disinterested management then it shall be left to the Licensing Court to put that resolution into operation according to its own discretion and to the extent which it thinks desirable. In other words, if a disinterested management resolution were carried at a poll the only result which might happen would be that the Licensing Court would apply the principle of disinterested management to one public-house in the district.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It might apply it to all.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: Quite so; it might, of course, apply it to all. My noble friend says that our objection to his form of Amendment is due to the fact that we do not trust the Licensing Court to exercise its discretion as to the extent to which this principle should be put into operation. My objection goes very much further than that. I object to it in the first instance because it is wholly inconsistent with the principle of local option. Local option may be a good thing or a bad thing, but it is the principle of this Bill, and I think it is wholly inconsistent with the principle of the Bill to give the locality a vote unless that vote is thereby going to be carried into operation if cast in a certain direction. My further objection to it is that it is impossible, as I said just now, to carry out the principle of disinterested management effectively unless it is carried out with a monopoly in a certain limited area. I say it is impossible to do that because at the present moment the experience of the Trust companies in England shows that many changes and alterations in the management of a particular public-house might be very desirable in the public interests or in the interests of temperance but impossible to be carried
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out so long as that house is conducted in competition with a number of trade houses in the immediate neighbourhood. I have in my mind at this moment a particular Trust public-house in a slum street in a small country town, and in that same street there are ten or twelve ordinary public-houses belonging to the trade. It is impossible for the Trust public-house, the disinterested management public-house, to really create any impression whatever upon the public opinion of that street or to give an adequate example of the principle of disinterested management in operation when it has to compete with these totally differing conditions, over which it has no control, in the houses immediately surrounding it. I say, therefore, it is not merely a question of the extent to which this principle should be applied.
The root objection to Lord Salisbury's Amendment is that you cannot apply disinterested management satisfactorily at all unless it is applied with a monopoly in a limited area. Then I am told, "Oh, but that is a very large order, and more than this House will be prepared to grant." I could understand that objection if we were asking at one fell swoop to place all licences in Scotland under disinterested management. But that is not what we are asking. We are merely saying that in certain country districts or in a certain burgh, after the inhabitants by a very large majority have decided in favour of this principle, it should be applied to all the licences in that district or in that burgh, and if we are to be told that that is such a large order that it cannot possibly be passed by Parliament., then I confess I despair of ever carrying any temperance reform at all which will affect the existing licensing system. To say that you cannot apply a change of this sort even in a small locality after the votes of the population have been recorded in favour of it is simply to saddle us for all time with the existing licensing system with all its evils. I contend that it is really making a very small demand upon Parliament and asking for a very small concession to say that this principle, if it is an experiment which ought to be tried, should be tried under favourable circumstances and that it should be tried in these small districts.
There are two other aspects in which I distinctly prefer the proposal of my noble friend Lord Balfour. As regards the

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arrangement of the ballot paper I confess that I like his arrangement for this reason, that it seems to me quite unnecessary and contrary to precedent to give people a vote in favour of maintaining the status quo. That is in effect exactly the same as if a noble Lord in this House were to move as an Amendment to any Motion the direct negative. When any Amendment which is in fact a direct negative is moved we are always told, either in this House or in the other House of Parliament, that the proper way is to vote against the Motion. That is, I maintain, in a poll of this sort the proper way of declaring yourself in favour of a no-change resolution—namely, that you should vote directly against the proposed change, and I see no reason whatever for introducing the no-change option. However, that is simply a matter of machinery, and I am sure my noble friend will agree with me that it is not an essential part of his Amendment. The machinery could be carried even if that were altered awl disinterested management were introduced as a fourth option instead of as a third.
I object to the limiting proposal contained in my noble friend Lord Salisbury's Amendment because in my opinion it does not really give us anything more than we have to-day. It is quite open to any Licensing Court at the present time, if a Trust company were to come forward and offer compensation to the dispossessed publican, to take away an existing licence and give it to the disinterested management company. So far as new licences are concerned, of course both Amendments are of precisely the same character; but in so far as concerns existing licences and the machinery for transferring the existing licensing system to one under disinterested management, I see in the Amendment of my noble friend very little advantage that would be gained over the existing powers possessed by the Licensing Court. Lastly, there is a matter of detail which I think has not yet been touched upon and which constitutes a difference between the two Amendments. It is that under Lord Balfour's proposals the surplus profits of the disinterested management company are to be devoted to a national fund, whereas under Lord Salisbury's proposals they are to be spent for the benefit of the locality in accordance with a scheme approved by the county council or the town council. In the evolution of this
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question of disinterested management it has come to be an accepted fact that the surplus profits of the disinterested management company ought to be devoted to a national fund and spent upon public interests generally, and should not be spent in promoting the interests of the locality from which the funds are derived. When the Gothenburg system, which, after all, is the basis of what we are discussing to-night, was first introduced into Sweden the principle of Lord Salisbury's Amendment was first accepted, but when the neighbouring country of Norway adopted the system some years later they, profiting by the experience in Sweden, were careful not to devote the surplus profits to be expended in the locality, and at the present moment Sweden is trying to alter her laws, so that the surplus profits from the disinterested management companies should go to a central fund and not be spent upon the locality in which they are earned. Though I welcome most heartily the principle of disinterested management and should be glad to see it placed on the Statute-book in some form or another, I do think it would be very unfortunate if, when we are introducing this principle for the first time, we should ignore all the experience of those who have preceded us and should deliberately make the mistakes which, if we had regarded that experience, we should have been able to avoid. For these reasons I shall certainly support the proposals made by my noble friend Lord Balfour, and I hope that they will be accepted by your Lordships' House.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: In view of the invitation which was addressed to me earlier in the evening by the noble Marquess opposite I feel that I should not delay any longer in explaining to your Lordships what the views of His Majesty's Government on this question are. I am quite sure that all noble Lords on both sides of the House are perfectly prepared to do homage to the idea of disinterested management. Where the difficulty comes in is with regard to putting a particular scheme into the Bill, for that is now the question before this House—as to whether or no a particular scheme should be put into this Bill. The point of difference was well expressed at the beginning of his speech by the noble Earl who has just sat down when he said that in his opinion, in view of the fact that this was a Local Option Bill, it was the duty of the Government

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to give the option to have a disinterested management system whether it was a good system or whether it was a bad one. That is the point where we join issue. We would be ready to say that if any disinterested management scheme met the objections which we feel to the schemes which so far have been brought forward we would be very willing to consider it, but we believe that when you come down to the practical working of the schemes there are so many objections to those which are put forward that it is not practical to put any particular scheme into a Bill of this kind. That is illustrated by what has taken place in the course of the debate to-night. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, spoke in favour of his system. Then the noble Marquess opposite, having criticised the system of the noble Lord who had preceded him, propounded a scheme of his own. The noble Earl who has just sat down criticised severely the scheme of the noble Marquess, and I have no doubt that to-morrow we shall hear from the noble Earl who sits on the Cross Benches (Earl Grey) a criticism as severe of the scheme of the noble Marquess.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: I may say I supported the scheme of Lord Balfour.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I quite agree. I do not think that I said the noble Earl did not. But, on the other hand, what we shall get probably to-morrow will be further speeches which will support the scheme of the noble Marquess while criticising the scheme of the noble Lord. The fact is, there are to both of the systems which have been proposed objections so strong that we do not see our way to agree to put either one or the other in this Bill. Really I think it narrows itself down almost to the question of the monopoly. The noble Earl spoke strongly, as other gentlemen who support the scheme of disinterested management speak strongly, upon the immense importance of having a monopoly. Without the monopoly they do not think that the scheme will be a success. It is against the monopoly scheme that the noble Marquess opposite brings most of his objections, and in view of that great difficulty, which meets one almost at the outset of this question, I think your Lordships will find it very difficult to agree upon either the one scheme or the other.
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But first of all let me say something upon the question of voting, because at the present moment we are discussing a great deal more than the actual question of disinterested management. With regard to the method of voting suggested by the noble Lord, although I do not suppose he would consider that to be the really vital point in his Amendment, there is one curious fact that I do not think lie himself can have noticed—that is, that under his Amendment it is possible for a minority of votes to carry a resolution, in a way which I will presently explain to him and I will give the figures which will illustrate that point. I think we all agree that it is very difficult to tell, as the noble Marquess opposite said, what would be the exact result of the system of voting which the noble Lord proposes. Let me illustrate what might happen. It might happen in multiples of 100, but for the sake of convenience I will take 100 votes. There will be the three alternatives put before the voters. They will be able, if they so wish, to vote for disinterested management, or for a limiting resolution, or for no licence at all. It is conceivable that the majority of those 100 people would be against any alteration at all; they would be what we may, for the sake of a label, call in favour of the trade, but they would not necessarily vote in the same numbers against each resolution. Some would vote for one and some against the other, but we might have this result that 55 would vote against disinterested management, 60 would vote against a limiting resolution, and 58 would vote against the prohibition resolution. But, on the other hand, you might have 45 people voting for disinterested management, 40 for the limiting resolution, and 42 for total prohibition. Now your Lord ships will see that in a subsequent Amendment Lord Balfour of Burleigh proposes to enact that "The resolution which has the highest number of votes cast in its favour shall be deemed to be carried, provided as follows," and so on. But your Lordships will see that in these circumstances the disinterested management resolution would be carried although only 45 people had voted in favour of it and 55 people voted against it. That hardly, I think, can be considered a very satisfactory method of voting; but I quite agree that the noble Lord would, if he were pressed, probably find some other way of securing the opinion of the people upon his resolution.

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This is not really the important point, or the point upon which your Lordships will divide. The real point will be how far a practical scheme of disinterested management can really be put into the Bill. We have already had, on the Second Reading of the Bill, some mention of the disinterested management scheme, and two objections were pointed out even at that early stage to anything of the kind. One was the point of the monopoly and the other was the question of finance. Let us take first of all the scheme of the noble Lord, the scheme for which a large number of resolutions have been passed in various places in Scotland. If the noble Lord will allow me to say so, I think they generally have been passed in favour of the principle rather than in favour of any one particular scheme. There is, indeed, a violent expression of opinion, which has probably reached all your Lordships, with regard to the Amendment of Lord Balfour of Burleigh. It was an expression of opinion which appeared in the Morning Advertiser on November 14 last. That journal said—
"There is one set of Amendments standing in the name of Lord Balfour of Burleigh which not only sins by accepting the principle of local veto, but proposes to extend it in a manner which for cynical impudence and cold-blooded robbery exceeds anything which even the United kingdom Alliance has ever imagined, We refer to the proposals made in respect of what is called 'disinterested management. We have for our own part no sort of faith in this disinterested management. The advocacy of it proceeds on the assumption that a public-house will be better managed by a man who has no interest in the prosperity of the business than by a man whose living depends upon it. We do not believe it; and although the experiences of Public House Trust Associations may be alleged in support of the claim that disinterested management is the best, we must confess that so far as we have been able to verify them they seem to us to point to the opposite conclusion."
And towards the end there comes another sentence, the last I shall venture to quote to your Lordships, which says—
"This is rank robbery and (subject to a four per cent. investment for a favoured few) confiscation."
Then we come to the points of compensation. I confess I do not even now quite understand the position of the noble Lord, whether he thinks that compensation should be paid or should not be paid. I suspect that amongst those who support the noble Lord there are some who think that it should be, and some who think that it should not be paid.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: That is perfectly clear, I think. Compensation should not be paid if the disinterested management resolution comes into force at the end of the period—the time limit, whatever that period is. If it were to be brought into force during the time limit when you are taking away one licence and putting it into the hands of a disinterested management company, then I think compensation should be paid.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am much obliged to the noble Lord, because I did not think from the terms of the Amendment that it was perfectly clear. The point I should venture to put to the noble Lord is this. I am not sure that that would he accepted by a large number of those who are interested in the question at the present time. We can all of us understand the position of those who say that if drink is a bad thing in itself and should be reduced as much as possible, compensation is unnecessary, but it drink is to be allowed and even encouraged in another form then it is not fair to those who hitherto have been engaged in the trade not to give them compensation when you merely substitute one form of administration for another.
There are two further criticisms of the noble Lord's Amendment to which I should like to direct his attention. One is that—although I do not suppose he meant it—the form of the Amendment would, I think, sweep away hotels. The other is this. What would happen supposing there was no disinterested management company formed to carry on the scheme? The area would then become a no-licence area altogether, as I understand the noble Lord's Amendment, and there would be no liquor obtainable of any sort or kind, although the disinterested management resolution had been carried. The only way in which it would be rescued from being a no-licence area would be that a number of people interested in the drink trade would come forward in order to secure what profit they could. But that really brings one to the other criticism to which I have already referred—that is, the insecurity of the finance, which I think is one of the chief criticisms to be made of the scheme of the noble Marquess opposite. He has already heard, in a way which I am afraid must be somewhat disconcerting to him, that it is

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not welcome to those who are interested in disinterested management in this country, and the result of it will probably be very small indeed. It is doubtful whether under the Amendment as proposed by the noble Marquess we should have a very much larger or much more extended system of disinterested management than we have to-day. Indeed, I have seen criticism of the noble Marquess's Amendment go so far as to say that he even puts difficulties in the way of disinterested management, for this reason—that whereas it is comparatively easy for a disinterested management company to get a licence now from a Court, because there is a natural sympathy in everybody's mind with the idea of disinterested management, the noble Marquess in future wishes the system of having a poll, and a successful poll, to be gone through before there is any large extension of this disinterested management scheme.
There is, perhaps, one other point in the Amendment of the noble Marquess upon which I am not quite sure that I clearly understand his intentions. That is the point of how far it is to be compulsory. The noble Marquess, as I understand, is prepared to throw very great responsibility and power in this matter into the hands of the Court. He proposes that if a disinterested management resolution is carried the Court may, if it thinks fit, go so far as to grant a monopoly of disinterested management. I gather that that is so, although I am not quite sure; but it would also be possible for the Court to satisfy the requirement by granting disinterested management in one single case and no more. That seems to me to be directly opposite to the intention of the Bill. The Bill is to give power in this matter rather to the voters themselves, and to transfer to them the powers which are now exercised by the Licensing Court. The noble Marquess wishes, on the other hand, to go in the direction of giving the Licensing Court the power of saying that all or none, with the exception of a single licence in their area, shall be given to the people who are interested in disinterested management. That gives them very large and very great powers, and it also puts upon the Court a further and very great responsibility, because the noble Marquess asks the Court to say what they think is a reasonable compensation which should be paid.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Not what reasonable compensation should be paid, but what the disinterested management company can afford. We shall have an opportunity later of discussing the question of compensation. I did not complicate my speech by going into that, because it would hardly have been in order. We shall have an opportunity later of discussing the whole question of insurance, and on that I shall have something to say, but I should be sorry that the noble Earl should think that I am of opinion that the disinterested company will, as a matter of absolute equity and justice, be able to provide all that is due for the relief of the dispossessed publican. They can only be asked to give as much as they can afford.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: But does not that lead us to the very difficult position in which we are in England to-day with regard to licensing, that the reduction of licences is limited by the amount of money which there is at the disposal of the Court for compensation? That is the position in which t he noble Marquess, as I understand, proposes to put the Licensing Court?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I can assure the noble Earl that is not so.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The Licensing Court, as I understand from the noble Marquess, is to say what amount of compensation can be paid by the disinterested management company, and of course the amount which can be paid depends upon the amount of money which the company have got. That is exactly the position which has crippled and hindered and prevented the reduction of licences in England. It is limited by exactly the same point—that is, tire amount of the compensation fund.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I should not admit for a moment that the English Act has been hampered. It has worked extremely well. The noble Earl is quite wrong in thinking that anything I have proposed or suggested would be a parallel to the English Act. I wish it were. I think that the English Act is on a much sounder basis. What we propose is that the electors and the licensing authority between them should have complete freedom of action, but in so far as the disinterested management companies can afford to pay something let them pay it.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: What the noble 3arquess has said does not shake my conviction that he is closely approaching the position in England in which the amount of compensation is limited by the amount of money available for compensation. That has affected temperance reformers in this country because they have not been able to reduce as many licences as they would like to have done, owing to there not being enough money in the compensation fund, and that is the principle which it seems to me the noble Marquess does introduce by saying in his Amendment that the compensation which is to be paid, and which, of course, is quite separate from the point of compulsory insurance, must depend on the amount of money at the disposal and in the possession of the disinterested management company.
Now let me refer to the question of how far, under the scheme of the noble Marquess, he is likely to secure that capital which is necessary for the successful working of the scheme. It was only this morning, curiously enough, that I received a letter from the liquidator of one of the noble Earl's Public-house Trust companies which had been started in Worcestershire, and which, unfortunately, had not succeeded. The consequence was a recourse to voluntary liquidation. That shows that disinterested management is not always or not necessarily successful, and if the Bill passes even with the Amendment suggested by the noble Marquess I want to point out how unlikely it is that people will come forward with money. They will have no such monopoly as that which those who are experts in disinterested management declare to be necessary. But supposing they raise a sum of £12,000—of course, these figures are purely hypothetical but it makes the position easier—and spend something like £10,000 in buying up licences and in paying compensation, while reserving £2,000 for working expenses and rent and so on. On that £12,000 they are entitled under both schemes to take 4 per cent—£480 a year. They then have to raise a reserve fund if they can, which is ultimately not to exceed the amount of their capital. But quite apart from the schemes of the noble Earl, Lord Camper-down, which we shall discuss later, and which throw very heavy burdens indeed on them, surely the position of these companies is very unsound. It is quite possible that at the end of three years a no-licence resolution may be carried.
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During three years these disinterested management companies will have had to raise £480 a year, and also attempt to get something like a reserve fund equal to the amount of their capital. If they do not get that within the three years there is always the possibility of a no-licence resolution being carried, which would sweep away altogether the funds of the company and leave them with no more than their £2,000 or £3,000 which they had managed to accumulate as a reserve fund with which to meet their debentures or their share capital of £12,000. It is only when you come to the practical working of a scheme of this kind that your Lordships will see how difficult it is really to get a satisfactory measure. The point of the area to which the funds are to be devoted has already been touched upon by the noble Earl below the Gangway. I think all experts in disinterested management agree with the noble Earl that the system by which the drunkard is a public benefactor of a limited area, the local area, is thoroughly unsound. That is the scheme of the noble Marquess—that the man who drinks most contributes most to the benefit of his immediate locality.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That may be the best thing he has done in his life.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I agree it may be the best thing he has ever done, but it does not seem to me the best principle on which to go. I have purposely abstained from referring to the further burdens which will be put upon the disinterested management companies by Lord Camperdown's later Amendment, although it seemed to me to be of a very serious kind and to go far towards making the scheme of the noble Marquess opposite one which is unlikely to meet with success. I can only end by repeating that there is really little except the practical difficulty of a good scheme being formed which prevents His Majesty's Government from agreeing to an Amendment being put into the Bill dealing with this subject. Meanwhile we must confine ourselves to the point of hoping that the disinterested management companies may, under a voluntary system and without being brought into a State system, meet with more success in the future than has been the case in the past or is likely to be the case if either of the schemes suggested by the noble Lords opposite is put into this Bill.
LORD LAMINGTON: The criticism of the noble Earl opposite has been directed rather against the Amendment of the noble Marquess on the Front Bench than against the Amendment of Lord Balfour of Burleigh. As I understood, at the commencement of his criticism he based his opposition to disinterested management chiefly on the ground of the difficulty about the monopolistic basis. On that point I think the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who laid it down as almost a necessity that disinterested management should have a monopoly in any given district, was unduly pessimistic in this respect. Public-house Trusts have been carried on successfully, and I cannot see why it should not be possible under the terms of this Bill for disinterested management to be likewise successful. There are several Public-house Trust companies established in Scotland, with one of which I am connected. The noble Marquess was rather dubious as to the success that had attended their operations so far. I can say, in the case of every Trust, that they have either accumulated reserves or else given very fair sums to specific objects in their respective districts. Again, the object of the Trusts—the promoting of the sale of food rather than that of liquor—has been eminently successful, because whereas, to start with, they obtained very little revenue from the sale of food, the revenue from the sale of food now amounts to about 33 per cent. of their total sales. Lord Lytton criticised the suggestion of having a limited number of disinterested management houses. He said that it would prove a failure if you went on that system. But it is not only the Trust
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house itself that does a great deal for the promotion of temperance; it has such an influence on the other houses in the neighbourhood that they have to conform as much as they can to the system of management which has been adopted by the. Trust public-house. I mean they have to enlarge their premises and give facilities for eating so as to be able to compete with the Trust houses. Lord Lytton denied that there was any successful competition on the part of these Trust public-houses. I can only say that Scottish experience is distinctly the opposite. I agree with Lord Lytton in saying that any fund to be given to public purposes should be applied to national objects, and not for the benefit of the immediate locality in which the profits arise; otherwise it is likely that what has been found to be the case in Sweden would happen in this country, that people who were inclined to drink would think they were benefiting their immediate locality by the consumption of liquor. I therefore heartily support the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Balfour, on the distinct understanding that any surplus funds that are accumulated shall be given for national and not for local purposes.
House resumed, and to be again in Committee To-morrow.

LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 172.)
House adjourned at five minutes before Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.