§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
§ THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP)My Lords. I think it will he for the general convenience of your Lordships' House if I say a few words on the Motion to go into Committee on this Bill. I am happy to state that the general atmosphere of benevolence which pervaded this House when 1473 we discussed the Second Reading of the Bill has proved sufficiently potent to enable us to look forward to its passage through Committee by general agreement. Amendments have been put down by the noble Marquess on the Front Bench opposite, by the noble Earl below the Gangway, and by myself, the cumulative effect of which will be, I hope, to produce a Bill which will not be objected to in any quarter of your Lordships' House. These Amendments, it is only fair to say, should be taken as a whole. They are to some extent, if not interdependent, at any rate dependent upon one another, and they affect several of those subjects on which we were unable to come to an agreement when the Bill was before your Lordships' House last session. They affect the time limit, the areas which will be polled, the proportions which are necessary in order to carry a resolution, and also the regulation of clubs. The general agreement which I hope we reach with regard to these Amendments does not, I fear, extend to the Amendment which is on the Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Courtney, but which we shall be able to discuss when we come to it. Meanwhile it only remains for me to say that, while I suppose neither on the one side nor on the other should we say that we were satisfied that the Bill is the ideal Bill which, had we individual and sole responsibility, we would have wished to promote, it does on the whole represent a general agreement; and on behalf of His Majesty's Government I should like to express my thanks to noble Lords opposite for their willingness to come to this general agreement this afternoon.
§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, we are very grateful on this side of tine House for the kind words which the noble Earl opposite has addressed to us, but I am afraid that I cannot accept altogether the praise which he has been good enough to bestow upon us. He said that this will be a Bill passed with the general approval of your Lordships' House. Now, my Lords, I do not think that that is a full and accurate statement of the case. We do not approve of this Bill; we never have approved of it, and we do not approve of it now, and we can undertake no responsibility for it whatever. We do not share with the noble Earl opposite the view that 1474 it is part of the duty of the State to give powers to a locality to decide whether or not people should be allowed to drink in that locality. We have always been opposed to that view. We consider it an infringement of liberty. At the same time we had to consider from the very beginning whether we would assent in principle to the Bill which is now before your Lordships, and we had to consider all the circumstances of the case, among others that there appeared to be a general wish on the part of the people of Scotland that such a Bill should be passed. That we were always conscious of, and there were other circumstances of a general character which made us come to the conclusion that it would be our duty to accept the principle of the Bill; and once having come to that conclusion we did it, as I venture to think, without reserve and with absolute loyalty to the principle of local option which it contains.
Indeed, we had to complain over and over again that His Majesty's Government did not carry their own principle far enough if it was to be adopted at all. In particular we pointed out that the limiting option as it stands in the Bill was a most indefensible proposal looked at from a local option point of view, because what you practically told the people of Scotland in each locality was that they must either decide that licences should be diminished by a quarter of their number or not at all. There was to be no half-way measure between 25 per cent. and nothing. That, we thought, was a very truncated form of local option in respect of a limiting resolution, and we did our best to induce the Government to change that provision, but, as your Lordships are well aware, they absolutely refused to co-operate with us in that endeavour. In the same way with regard to disinterested management. We considered that a Local Options Bill which precluded the people of Scotland from determining in favour of disinterested management was, not complete, and that you had no right whatever to say to the people of Scotland, "You are to be allowed to have this, that, and the other, but the one thing you may possibly want, disinterested management, you are not to be allowed to have." In all these respects we thought that the Government were not really consistent with their own principles and the principle in the Bill. But it was perfectly clear that, however much your 1475 Lordships might desire the principle of disinterested management to be inserted in the Bill, it was not in your power to carry it, and therefore we have thought it right not to insist any longer upon that particular proposal.
In one very important matter we have, I am glad to say, induced the Government to improve the provisions of their Bill in the matter of local option. There is great danger, as the Bill stands at this moment, that when a poll is taken there will be no real certainty that you have got the wishes of the electorate, because a comparatively small poll might determine the particular option to be adopted, whether a limiting option, or a total veto option, or nothing at all. I am greatly obliged to the noble Earl opposite and his colleagues, that in that respect they have made a substantial and important concession, because they have agreed to the raising of the percentage of the electors who must form the majority in order to make the option effective. Where you have 35 per cent. of the electors voting in the majority, there no doubt, if the option is to be carried, you either must have an overwhelming majority or at any rate you must have a very large poll, and in either ease you may be said to have really got at what is the actual opinion of the electors—not merely a technical opinion carried by a relatively few number of votes among an indifferent population, but a real opinion carried by a very large number of votes among an electorate who really desire that that option should be adopted. That is a very important provision which, in consequence of the efforts of your Lordships' House, the Government have consented to insert in the Bill.
Having, as I say, done our best loyally to co-operate in the principle of local option which the Bill contains, we then set ourselves to work to mitigate as far as we could the inevitable hardships which might fall upon individuals through the operation of the Bill, and the first thing we desired to do was to insert a scheme of insurance by which any unfortunate publican who, through no fault of his own, was arbitrarily deprived of the means of getting his livelihood., would still have something to fall back upon. Honestly, I do not believe the Government differed from us in the advantage of that proposal. They used language which leads me to 1476 suppose that in their hearts they entirely agreed that such a safeguard for the individuals affected by the operation of the Bill was in the highest degree called for. When we broke off in the last session of Parliament my noble friend who leads the Opposition invited the Government in the interval which would elapse before the matter would be again before your Lordships to consider whether they could not co-operate with us in constructing a scheme of insurance which would really be suitable. We never pretended that the scheme of insurance which we put forward was necessarily perfect. It is almost impossible for an Opposition to construct a scheme of insurance, a thing of that detail depending upon so many facts which can only be obtained through official sources, which would really be watertight, and we never pretended that our scheme was necessarily perfect. We asked the Government to help us, for we knew that they really agreed with us in their hearts; but they have not stretched forth a finger in all these months which have elapsed and have not in any way helped us to solve this problem. I know that His Majesty's Government have been busy on other matters, but I cannot think that the Scottish Office has been over-weighted. I cannot believe that in that particular Department there was not abundant time and opportunity to think out a reasonable scheme of insurance. But nothing has been done, and now the Bill comes before us again with the Government possessing a hopelessly unformed mind as to how the insurance scheme should be carried out.
I do not feel that we could usefully embark once more upon what may be called an amateur insurance scheme from this side of the House, and therefore we have not thought it well to press it any longer upon your Lordships; but we have done our best, notwithstanding, to induce the Government to mitigate in some degree the hardship which may be thrown on individuals, and in particular they have been good enough to agree to an extension of the time limit. That is a very important matter, because it does give the wretched man who may be threatened time between now and the period when the Bill comes into operation to turn round and make provision for the evil day which may be coming upon him; and if lie is fortunate enough to find an insurance system of a voluntary kind in operation, 1477 which I believe there is in Scotland, under which he may take shelter, he is much more likely to get reasonable terms from that insurance company if he has eight years in which to pay his premiums than if he had only the miserable period which the Government provide in this Bill. Therefore that is a very substantial matter which we have, by the efforts of your Lordships' House, gained on behalf of those who may be put in these very adverse circumstances by the operation of the Bill.
There are only two other matters which the noble Earl mentioned. There is a provision as to clubs and a provision as to areas, which tie noble Earl himself proposes to move. He has been good enough to consult us upon both of these Amendments, and in respect of the Amendment concerning clubs I can say that those of us who sit on this Bench are quite prepared to support that Amendment. We do think that if the Bill is to provide that public-houses in Scotland are not to open before ten o'clock in the morning, it is quite indefensible that clubs, which compete with the public-houses, and which in many cases, I am afraid, are to be placed under a greater condemnation than the public-houses in matters of intemperance, should be enabled to open before the hour at which public-houses are allowed to open and so defeat the policy of the Bill and be unfair to the competing publicans. We therefore think that this is a very reasonable and proper provision. Then there is, lastly, the Amendment as to the areas. Upon that I cannot congratulate the Government on the result of their efforts. It is a matter which is relatively small, and which I do not think it would be proper at this particular moment for me to discuss. I cannot say that we can take any responsibility for the area Amendment. As far as it goes it is an improvement upon the Bill as it stands. The 25,000 instead of the 10,000 is certainly an improvement. That was one of the Amendments which your Lordships pressed on the Government last session, and which, I think owing to some misunderstanding, they did not accept. The other small Amendment, as regards the attachment of particular wards to adjoining wards, is an Amendment dealt out with so niggardly a hand as to be, I am afraid, of comparatively little value, but such as it is we welcome it as a step in the direction we urged upon your Lord- 1478 ships. On the whole, therefore, while we cannot accept any responsibility for the Bill as it stands, or, indeed, for the Bill as it will stand when amended, yet we are glad that by the efforts of your Lordships' House and with the assistance of His Majesty's Government we have been able to mitigate some of the evil provisions in the Bill and make it a better Act of Parliament than it otherwise would have been.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, on this Motion I should like to say a few words, although the point has been alluded to in the short discussion which has taken place this afternoon. I should say first how entirely I share the satisfaction which has been expressed on both sides of the House that an arrangement has been arrived at, even if that arrangement, like many other compromises, is not completely satisfactory to the advanced wing, at all events, of those who represent the two sections of opinion on this subject. The point which I desire to say a word upon is the inability which the Government have found to allowing the principle of disinterested management to find a place among the alternative local options which are given to the inhabitants of a particular district. I do not stand here as an uncompromising advocate of disinterested management of licensed premises as a completely satisfactory arrangement, or one which has yet proved to be practically effective to the extent that many of us had exected and would have desired. But this is quite certain, that the principle will only be reached as a satisfactory one for any area as the outcome of experiment made in other areas. It is one of the admitted modes of bringing about good results on behalf of moderation in temperance. It is one of the modes of doing that which has not yet had an opportunity of full trial, and it can only obtain that opportunity if experiments are allowed in different places.
Now when a Bill is being drawn up which is going to allow to the inhabitants of an area the right to judge for themselves as to the manner in which the liquor traffic shall there be conducted—I am very far, indeed, from saying that I should wish to give a special advantage or privilege or lead in the direction of the principle of disinterested management—but to say 1479 that the principle is one which must be ruled out from the possible options to be exercised by the inhabitants seems to me to be running counter to the opinion of the wisest and most thoughtful amongst temperance reformers both in England and in Scotland. We are certain that there is, while many temperance reformers and many who represent the trade in this matter object to it extremely, a growing opinion on the part of thoughtful people that opportunities ought to be allowed for this experiment to be made. Therefore I cannot help regretting exceedingly that it has been found impossible to allow this opportunity, even if it were to he very little exercised, to be open to those who will have to exercise an option under this Bill. To rule it out now seems to me to be a petty way rather of dealing with a great question. If we are going to allow the opportunity of local option at all, then let those who are going to exercise it, who will many of them be shrewd and thoughtful and deliberate people, have this among other opportunities open to them. I do not go a bit further than that. I am sure of this, that the experiments which have been tried during recent years have shown that in many places disinterested management does work well, and would work much better if it were the result of a vote by those who were exercising a local option. Therefore I regret that it has not been found possible to make that part of the arrangement arrived at.
But having said that, I am not going to urge that for that reason the Bill in its present form is unworthy of acceptance. I am one of those who are generally thankful to take what we can get out of a measure, and therefore I cordially support the Bill in the form which it will, I hope, have attained when it has passed through Committee, with the repeated expression of a regret that it is not made more thorough and more perfect by the retention of this additional option of trying something the advantage of which will only be proved when it is experimented upon in a good many places.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNMy Lords, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has expressed so ably the opinions which I believe are entertained among those who are specially connected with Scotland in your Lordships' House that it is necessary 1480 only for me to add a word. The noble Earl went a little too far, as the noble Marquess said, when he stated that this was a Bill of which we approved. Of course, we do not approve of the Bill. We have said that from the first, and our reason for accepting a Bill containing the principle of local option is that the Scottish Members have voted for it for a considerable number of years. For that reason I believe many of your Lordships felt that you ought not to interpose an absolute veto to the Bill. This is called a Local Option Bill, but, as the most rev. Primate pointed out, it limits the option. It says to persons residing in a certain district, "You may vote as to how the liquor traffic is to be managed in your district, but you are only to vote upon such issues as we choose to put before you"; and disinterested management is an option which has been peremptorily ruled out of the Bill. There is another objection to the Bill which we on this side, in the considerations in private which have taken place, have agreed to waive. I refer to the provision that if you have a reduction at all it must be 25 per cent. Speaking for myself individually, I should have preferred that the question as to the size of the reduction should be left to the Licensing Court. The Government, however, are very strongly against giving the Licensing Court that authority in the matter, and we do not think that our objection is one which your Lordships ought to insist upon. Then with regard to areas, if we had wished to upset the Bill in an indirect manner we should have left the wards standing in the Bill as originally drawn, because it was evident to everybody that a ward simpliciter was an area which could not possibly be worked in a great many cases. As the noble Marquess said, the change which is proposed is a very slight change in the direction of the Amendment which your Lordships put in the Bill, and which I venture still to think is a better one than the one which the Government propose to insert. At the same time I do not think it is a thing on which your Lordships ought to insist.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly.
§ [The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
1481§ 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 from the first day of June nineteen hundred and twelve.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 6, leave out ("live") and insert ("eight").—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ 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 found by the local authority to have been duly signed, 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 questions 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
§ (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, 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.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 18, leave out ("three-fifths") from subsection (3) (a) and insert ("fifty-five per cent."), and leave out ("in number").— (The Earl of Camperdown.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
1482
§
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 20, leave out ("thirty") from subsection (3) (a) and insert ("thirty-five").—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 2, leave out ("thirty") from subsection (3) (b) and insert ("thirty-five").—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH moved to omit from subsection (4) the words "but if a no-licence resolution be not carried, 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," and to insert the words in his Amendment.
§ The noble Lord said: The general benevolence which the noble Earl, the First Commissioner of Works, has mentioned as dominating the discussions on this Bill does not appear to have been extended to the small Amendment which I have put on the Paper, an Amendment which, when the Bill was before us last, appeared to command general support. I confess I am at a loss to understand how it is that the noble Earl in charge of the Bill objects to this Amendment. Is is very simple in character. Under the Bill as it stands three options are given to the voter. He has power to vote for no licence and power to vote for a reduction of licences; and if the votes are not sufficient to carry the no-licence resolution then all the votes go to the reduction resolution. I propose that the voter shall have power to indicate on his ballot paper how his votes shall be disposed of if the first vote does not turn out to be effectual. The Amendment gives the voter the power of doing what under the scheme of the Bill is done for him, whether he wishes it or not. I can conceive that there are people up and down Scotland who may be ready to vote, for no licence at all, but who do not care to trouble themselves about the notion of the reduction of licences. That is the attitude of a great many persons who are interested in this question and who say, "We want to get rid of the traffic altogether, but we are not going to take any action in respect of its alteration"; and, of course, they are entitled to that 1483 opinion as much as anybody else is entitled to hold a different one. The possible effect of the action of the Government is that those who want to have no licence at all, if there is not a sufficient number to carry their proposition, will not take any part in the scheme. I confess that I am at a loss to understand the objection which is raised to my Amendment, and I shall listen with some curiosity to the explanation of the noble Earl.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 14, leave out from ("poll") to the end of the subsection, and insert ("An elector in giving his vote—
"If on a scrutiny it is found that no resolution has been carried in accordance with the conditions above prescribed, the no-licence resolution shall be deemed to have been negatived and the papers marked (1) against such resolution shall be examined and transferred in accordance with the preferences, if any, expressed upon them to the resolution marked (2) on such papers; and if, after this transfer, the limiting resolution is found not to have been carried, the no-change resolution shall be deemed to be carried.").—(Lord Courtney of Penwith.)
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPThere is, I think, one quite obvious reason why this Amendment, to which His Majesty's Government offered comparatively small opposition when this Bill was last, before your Lordships, should be strenuously resisted on this occasion. When we reached the discussion of this Amendment, on the occasion when the House was last in Committee on this Bill, your Lordships had already inserted an option with regard to disinterested management. Therefore the reason for putting in this transferable vote as suggested by the noble Lord was in so far greater, because there were four options before the voter. It was in that way more reasonable to give him a transferable vote rather than adhere to the scheme in the Bill, by which, on a system of checks and balances, votes might in certain circumstances be transferred from one to another option. As your Lordships know, the scheme of the Bill is that there are three options before the voter, either that things should remain stationary, that there should be no licence at all, or that there should be a reduction. Those who vote for the complete abolition of 1484 licences have their votes transferred to the reduction of licences, supposing there is not a sufficient majority to carry the total abolition. That, I think, is a perfectly watertight, self-contained scheme, which will be readily intelligible to all the voters who take part. Therefore we venture to hope that your Lordships will adhere to the scheme in the Bill.
§ The MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEThis Amendment seems to us a very reasonable one. Lord Courtney's proposal came before us last year. We then supported it, and, as the noble Earl in charge of the Bill said a moment ago, it encountered very little opposition from noble Lords opposite. It seemed to us perfectly reasonable that so far as possible we should provide in the Bill that a vote given for a particular option should not be wasted if that particular option should not find favour with the electors. I do not think that the argument of the noble Earl, which was, I understand, to the effect that the complete disappearance of disinterested management diminished the necessity for this extra amount of elasticity, was a very convincing one. The argument which convinces me much more is one of a different description. As the House is aware, there has been a great deal of informal discussion as to the details in this Bill during the last few days, and we have, not without considerable difficulty and not without a good deal of give and take on each side, arrived at something like a general agreement as to the manner in which the Bill might be amended. I must say that, in the face of that agreement and in the face of the objection of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill, I should be slow to support the importation of any fresh scheme of Amendments, and for that reason alone I should be disposed to discourage the noble Lord from pressing his Amendment on the House.
§ LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITHIn the circumstances I shall, of course, not press my Amendment, but I must utter one word of wonderment at the stolidity that prevents its acceptance.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause 2, as amended, agreed.
§ Clauses 3 to 5 agreed to.
1485§ Structural alterations.
§ 6. As from the passing of this Act, and until the first day of June nineteen hundred and seventeen, it shall not be competent for a licensing court to order any structural alterations of licensed premises under section forty-two, subsection (3), of the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Amendment to Clause 6 is to bring that clause into conformity with Clause 1 as amended by your Lordships this afternoon.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 26, leave out ("seventeen") and insert ("twenty").—(The marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 7 agreed to.
§ Clause 8:
§ Amendment of law relating to clubs.
§ 8.—(1) Section seventy-eight, subsection (1), of the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903 (hereinafter in this section referred to as "the Act of 1903"), shall be amended (a) by substituting the words any the names and addresses of the members" for the words "and the names of the members"; (b) by substituting the words "two members either of the licensing court or of the court of appeal for the county within which such premises are situate, or one member of each of such courts not being the same member, or, where such premises are situate within a burgh, either by two justices of the peace who for the time being are members of the court of appeal from the burgh licensing; court or by two magistrates of the burgh, or by one justice, as aforesaid, and one magistrate," for the words "two justices of the peace for the county within which such premises are situate, or, where such premises are situate within a burgh, either by two justices of the peace, as aforesaid, or by two magistrates of the burgh, or by one justice and one magistrate"; and (c) by adding the words "(1) any such justice of the peace or magistrate may, within ten days front the date on which he signed the certificate, withdraw his name front the certificate granted by him; and (2)," after the words "Provided that."
§ (2) Section seventy-nine, subsection (2), of the Act of 1903 shall be amended by including amongst those persons who may lodge objections to the grant or renewal of the certificate of registration the procurator fiscal and any person, or the agent of any person, owning or occupying property in the neighbourhood of the club, and by substituting the word "twenty-one" for the word "ten."
§ (3) Section seventy-nine, subsection (4), of the Act of 1903 shall have effect as if the power conferred thereby on the sheriff (to award expenses against the unsuccessful party where objection has been taken to the grant or renewal of a certificate) included the like power where a summary complaint has been lodged.
1486§ (4) Any person or council competent under the Act of 1903 to lodge objections to the grant or renewal of a certificate of registration may, within twenty-one days of the receipt of the notice of application for the grant or renewal of a certificate, lodge with the registrar objections to such grant or renewal of the certificate on one or more of the following grounds, and that in addition to the grounds specified in section eighty-one of the Act of 1903:—
- (a) That the premises are, or the situation thereof is, not suitable or convenient for the purpose of a club; or that there is a drinking-bar or other part of the premises mainly or exclusively used for the consumption of exciseable liquors; or
- (b) That the club is to be used mainly as a drinking club; or
- (c) That the owner of the premises, when the same are not owned by the club or the immediate lessor of the premises, or the officials and committee of management, or governing body, or the manager, or a servant employed in or by the club have, or has, or will have, a personal interest in the purchase by the club or in the sale in the club of exciseable liquors, or in the profits arising therefrom; or
- (d) That poisons are habitually admitted or supplied as members without an interval of at least two weeks between their nomination and election as ordinary members or for a subscription of a merely nominal amount; or
- (e) That the officials and committee of management or governing body or the members are persons of bad character or who follow no lawful occupation and have no lawful means of subsistence; or
- (f) That the club has been or will be used as a resort of criminals or persons of bad character; or
- (g) That men or women of bad fame assemble in or frequent the club.
§ (5) Section eighty-nine of the Act of 1903 shall be read as if the words "an application with the accompanying documents specified in section seventy-eight, subsection (1), of the Act of 1903, any one of" were substituted for the words "an application for registration."
§ (6) This section shall take effect as from the passing of this Act.
§ EARL BEAUCHAMP moved, after paragraph (g) of subsection (4), to add "or (h) That exciseable liquors are sold or supplied for consumption on or off the premises between the hours of two in the morning and ten in the morning."
§ The noble Earl said: This Amendment is connected with the grounds upon which the persons concerned—that is to say, the chief constable or a person acting on behalf of the town council or parish council—may lodge an objection against the grant or renewal of a certificate of registration to a club. There are already a number of 1487 grounds specified in Section 81 of the Licensing Act, 1903, and what I move to insert on this occasion is an additional ground of objection which may be taken against the renewal of such a licence. It has been represented that the good effect of the restrictions in this Bill on the sale of intoxicants in public-houses might be nullified unless a somewhat similar restriction was placed upon clubs, and it is for that reason that we propose to put in this Amendment. I have been able to see a list of clubs which in one of the large cities of Scotland do supply drink at an early hour of the morning, and I have very little doubt that the passage of this Amendment will do a good deal to prevent the sale of intoxicants during the hours in question.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 30, after ("club") insert ("or (h) That exciseable liquors are sold or supplied for consumption on or off the premises between the hours of two in the morning and ten in the morning").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
§ LORD CHANNINGWhen this Bill was before your Lordships' House last session I had the honour of submitting on behalf of the Corporation of Glasgow their request to have larger powers for dealing with this evil. The Amendment which I then moved did not commend itself to your Lordships. But I wish to express, on behalf of those associated with me then, our gratefulness to the noble Earl and to the House for agreeing upon this Amendment which the noble Earl has just moved, and which does give to the authorities in Scotland some extension, at any rate, of their powers to enable them to indirectly check this serious mischief.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clauses 9 to 14 agreed to.
§ Clause 15:
§ Definitions.
§ 15. The several words and expressions used in this Act shall unless otherwise provided or unless there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction have the same respective meanings as in the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903:
§
Provided that in this Act—
Area" means—
Burgh" means a royal, parliamentary, or police burgh:
County" means a county exclusive of any burgh or part of a burgh comprised therein:
Certificate" means any certificate for the sale by retail of exciseable liquors granted in terms of or under the provisions of the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903: Provided that for the period during which a no-licence resolution is in force in any area, no dealer's licence for the sale of exciseable liquor by wholesale shall be granted therein by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise or by any officer of Customs and Excise, except to brewers of beer for sale, distillers, rectifiers, or compounders of spirits, makers of sweets, or wholesale dealers in spirits, wine, beer, or sweets for premises for which similar licences have been taken out for twelve months before the date of the poll, including any reconstruction of, addition to, or extension of such premises on the same or an adjoining site, and any premises in substitution for such premises from which the holder of the licence removes without the production of a certificate authorising, such sale from the licensing court; which certificate shall be applied for, granted, confirmed, transferred, and renewed in the same manner as though it were a certificate authorising such sale by retail; and provided, further, that subject to the variation of conditions prescribed by this Act the form of certificate for an inn and hotel or for a restaurant granted under section three of this Act shall be, respectively, the first and second form prescribed by the Sixth Schedule of the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903:
Elector" means, in the case of—
The expression "grant" when used in relation to a certificate includes the grant of a certificate by way of renewal or transfer:
Local authority" means in the ease of—
No-change resolution" means a resolution that the powers and discretion of the licensing court in regard to the grant of certificates or otherwise shall remain unchanged, and in section two as applied to a further poll in any area where a limiting resolution is in force means a continuance resolution.
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPAll my Amendments to Clause 15 should be read together. Their effect in the first place, to restore the figure of 25,000 as the limit of population under which a burgh will form a single area for the purpose of the Bill. Those of your Lordships who are interested in the subject will remember that that was the limit which was offered, and I think accepted by His Majesty's Government on the last occasion. The second effect will he to allow town councils and burghs to join, if they think proper, small wards to contiguous wards in order to form an area for the purposes of the Act. The first Amendment in paragraph (a) of the definition of "area" is really consequential to the extension of the time limit. The effect of extending the time limit is to make the year 1920 the first year in which a poll can be taken, by which time the census of 1911 will be very much out of date; and it was felt desirable that the population should be ascertained at the date when the local option part of the Bill comes into operation with a greater degree of accuracy than the figures of 1911 would afford. Therefore, we provide that the population shall be "as ascertained in the year 1919 for the purposes of this Act in manner approved by the Secretary for Scotland," which in practice means that the Secretary for Scotland will be guided by the figures provided by the Registrar-General at the date specified.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 11 line 5, leave out from ("thereof") to ("is") in line 6, and insert ("as ascertained in
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the year nineteen hundred and nineteen for the purposes of this Act in manner approved by the Secretary for Scotland").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 6, leave out ("ten") and insert ("twenty-live").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 7, after ("burgh") insert ("unless, where the population of any ward of such burgh as so ascertained is less than four thousand, the town council by resolution passed on or before the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty, determine that such ward shall for the purposes of this Act be combined with a ward contiguous thereto") and after ("and") insert ("(b)").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNThe only objection I have to this Amendment is that it is such a very little one. If the noble Earl could have hardened his heart and enlarged the figure of 4,000 into 12,000 it would have given me a great deal of satisfaction. But apparently he is obdurate, and I suppose I must be content with this small crumb of comfort.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThe next two Amendments are merely to bring this clause into conformity with Clause 1 and the extension of the time limit agreed to by your Lordships in that clause.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 17, leave out ("sixteen") and insert ("nineteen").—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 21, leave out ("seventeen") and insert ("twenty").—(the Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
§ Remaining clause and schedules agreed to.
§ The Report of Amendments to be received To-morrow, and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 143.)