HL Deb 21 June 1927 vol 67 cc811-58

Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading—namely, That this Bill be read a second time this day six months—moved on Tuesday, May 24.

LORD LAMINGTON

My Lords, the least satisfactory part of this debate so far as it has gone is that no reference has been made to the great improvement that has taken place as regards the increasing sobriety of the people of this country. The question is whether the drink trade should be carried on under the system under which hitherto great progress has been made or whether new and drastic changes should be put into force. In his speech introducing this Bill the right rev. Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool did not, I think, bring forward a single argument to show that any increase in sobriety was likely to result from the passing of this measure. I am not going into all the proposals of this Bill. My noble friend Lord Banbury of Southam made a general survey of it and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sumner, very thoroughly criticised it. The two chief points with which I wish to deal are the so-called options and the question of organisation.

As regards the no-licence option, that would entail a form of prohibition. It may be said to be a modified form, but it may not be so modified as at first sight would seem to be the case. It is very obvious that if all the different areas which have the right of determining under what system the drink trade should be carried on adopted no-licence resolutions there could be no supply of liquor to households from any outside area. The right rev. Prelate argued that if one area went "dry," that is to say voted for the no-licence resolution, comparatively well-to-do people could have spiritous liquor brought to their houses and put into their cellars while the poor man would be unable to obtain alcoholic refreshment. That, of course, is a very severe criticism of any system of no- licence. To my mind it would be grossly unfair. But if all the areas adopted no-licence resolutions, then not even the wealthy man could get any alcoholic drink. In that sense it would be a great improvement if the whole country went "dry," rather than that there should be a mongrel state of affairs as this Bill presupposes.

One would have thought by this time that Prohibition, that is no-licence, could have no advocates. In no part of the world where it has been tried has it been successful. It has not been successful in the United States, many of the Provinces of Canada have given up Prohibition, and Norway has given it up. There is no instance where Prohibition has proved a successful method of dealing with the drink question. My noble friend the Duke of Montrose did bring forward as an illustration the Isle of Arran, where he said at one time very disgraceful scenes of drunkenness occurred on fair days and on days when excursionists visited the district. He said that on part of the Isle of Arran going "dry" these scenes disappeared. My comment on that is that the police must have been a very inefficient force to have allowed these scenes of drunkenness to go on in the way he described. He brought forward another instance, that of the burgh of Kirkintilloch, where he said there were fewer arrests for drunkenness after the burgh went "dry." It is hardly a fair comparison because in 1921, which was within the period he referred to, money was very plentiful and people no doubt indulged more freely than they did when there came the time of depression through which we have been passing.

It is, however, to the method by which these proposals are to be put in force that I am most strongly opposed. The right rev. Prelate, in introducing the measure, said they were going to have a second preference to prevent a decision being made by a real minority of voters. He went on to say:— If we exclude that option [the option of no-licence], we shall certainly obtain an amount of support in the country very much greater than the Bill has already secured. But, if we exclude that option, we shall also lose the support of many temperance societies and we should incur the active hostility of a few who would at once join the trade in opposing us. I desire to assure your Lordships that this is not to us a question of tactics. We say that if you are really going in for local option, that is to say, if you set out to bring a free movement of public opinion and responsibility to bear upon this question, you have no right to rule out an opinion that is firmly held, whether rightly or wrongly, by a very considerable number of people, just because other people happen to dislike it. But by the system of voting proposed in the Bill, as my noble friend Lord Ban-bury of Southam pointed out in his speech, you may have a majority of people who want to carry on the present system ruled out by two other factions who are bitterly opposed to each other. I call that political log-rolling of the worst description. The Memorandum of the Bill says that no drastic alteration in the existing licensing system is possible under the Bill without a direct mandate from the inhabitants of the area concerned. If exactly the reverse is the case it would be political gerrymandering.

How any right rev. Prelate can justify his conscience and describe the Bill as an honest and free attempt to deal with the drink question I cannot understand. My noble friend Viscount Astor, in the course of his speech, referred to the alteration in public opinion regarding gladiatorial contests and the question of slavery. I do not think it was a very apt illustration to use in discussing the question before us. What I would rather use as a comparison is the time of the Inquisition, when people for the good of their souls were burned, maimed and tortured. I should be very sorry to be brought before an Inquisition with the right rev. Prelate as Grand Inquisitor, for I am quite sure that, if he can describe this measure as an honest attempt to deal with the drink question, he might accuse me of anything and I should be very soon burned. As I am taking a strong line in regard to this Bill, may I be permitted to say by way of personal explanation that I am not acquainted so far as I know with a single brewer or distiller, that I do not hold a share in any brewery company, and that I have not the slightest interest in the carrying on of the drink trade. I might go further and say that I am almost a teetotaller and that I believe I am the better for it. I am, however, opposed to this cheap form of philanthropy, which proposes to do good to one person at the expense of another, which is rather the fashion of the day.

I would like to make further reference to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and I hope I may be permitted to congratulate him upon it, because I thought his speech really a very frank pronouncement of his own views in regard to this matter, and particularly in relation to disinterested management—I do not think I am misinterpreting him—rather than to no-licence or Prohibition. I am not in the slightest degree opposed in principle to disinterested management. It may be within the knowledge of the House that a Committee has reported upon the working of one pre-eminent example of State control over the licensing system, at Carlisle. The system has been thoroughly examined in that locality, and I do not think that it can be shown that the Committee reported in favour of it. Let me take one quotation from paragraph 4 of their Report. This is what they say:— Whether this form of management is in fact disinterested is open to question, and was questioned by much of the evidence which we heard. It was urged that any system of management of public-houses must aim at conducting its business on a commercially remunerative basis; if it undertakes the supply of intoxicating liquor it must be with a view to making a profit on that supply, and to this extent it must necessarily be interested. That is the Committee's view regarding disinterested management, which is, of course, the main object of the Carlisle experiment. The aim is that those who serve liquor should have no personal interest in selling more than is actually demanded by the public.

As regards drunkenness, the Committee report in these terms:— A comparison of the records of convictions for drunkenness in different towns is of doubtful value owing to the variation of conditions as between one town and another, but so far as this comparison can be made, it does not appear that any greater reduction of the number of convictions for drunkenness has been achieved through recent years in Carlisle than has been achieved in many other cities and towns. In other words, there has been no definite improvement in regard to drunkenness in the Carlisle area. As regards the extension of the system of disinterested management, the Committee state:— We are not satisfied that a case has been established for the extension of the schemes to any other particular area or place. It must be remembered that the Carlisle experiment has been carried out under the most favourable conditions for testing it. As the Report says:— The schemes occupy a specially favoured position; they enjoy a monopoly, and are also, in the respects to which we have referred, outside and above the provisions of the ordinary Licensing Law. This is a reference to the fact that they can extend their premises at will without asking permission from any authority; and, as they are not under police supervision, can have dances and other forms of entertainment without making application to the magistrates.

Since the system is under test at Carlisle you probably have the best men employed to administer it and they are naturally on their mettle to make it a great success. Accordingly, I do not think that there is anything to warrant the supposition that the general adoption of this system will be of great benefit. If the noble Viscount were to introduce a Bill dealing strictly with disinterested management, I for one would most carefully examine it and, if possible, support it if it could be proved likely to have beneficial results; but so far not a single atom of evidence has been given to show that it is likely to have such results, and I do not think that we are justified in passing this measure for the purpose of introducing disinterested management, still less a system of no-licence

I was much impressed by the noble Viscount's speech. The main point of his attack against the present system was that those engaged in brewing or distilling must be desirous of doing all they could to sell their goods. That was quite a sound argument to employ, but I would say in answer that I believe the public conscience has been awakened and those who wish to sell their goods desire to do so without inflicting harm upon anybody in the land. Take the example of racing. The noble Viscount owns race horses, is a great supporter of the turf and a very good sportsman. Racing is more or less dependent, directly or indirectly, upon betting among the public. I do not think anybody would gainsay for a moment that the evil of betting is probably as great as, if not greater than, the evil of drinking in this country. But I would no more accuse the noble Viscount of being in favour of betting or of inducing people to bet than I would accuse those who supply drink of encouraging drunkenness. Betting, especially when the totalisator is introduced, will become more and more the mainstay of racing in this country, and I see no difference whatsoever between the position of those who own race horses and are good sportsmen and those who wish to contribute to the welfare of this country in the quite proper form of supplying drink containing alcohol.

There is one other point that I should like to make in reply to the noble Viscount and the right rev. Prelate, who suggested that the Church temperance societies were strong supporters of this measure. It happens that not long ago I was at a meeting attended by numerous clergy of all denominations who were strongly opposed to this Bill, and I can only imagine, since the trade are accused of having extreme methods of propaganda for their own benefit, that these societies also must impose very great pressure upon the dignitaries of the Church, and the dignitaries of the Church, with the exception of the right rev. Prelate, the Bishop of Durham, have not always had the courage to put them on one side. My experience has been that I have found many of the clergy who do not approve of these measures.

Before I sit down I should like to recall the reference in the Report of the Carlisle Committee to the fact that many brewing firms are desirous of making improvements with a view to increasing the respectability of the public-houses. The Report goes on to mention that there is extraordinary opposition to that policy in many cases by justices of the peace. That happens to be the policy of the society of which I am president and which is always bitterly assailed by Lord Astor and his friends. The policy of the True Temperance Society is to improve the surroundings, so that those who wish, with perfect propriety, to go to public-houses and have refreshments and to be accompanied by their wives and families, may do so. I earnestly hope that this House will give no support to the measure before it, which those who support it have entirely failed to show will do an iota of good for temperance reform. I am confident that if we take watchful care of the present system, and adapt it to changing conditions, we shall do far better service than by adopting the rash legislation of those who hold extreme views.

LORD PARMOOR

My Lords, those with whom I am associated in this House will most certainly support the Second Reading of the Bill which is now before us, and I wish to state shortly the reasons why we propose to do so. I admit that I was astonished to hear Lord Lamington say, as I understood him to say, that owing to the effect of the 1904 Act no further temperance reform was required. I know that he has taken great interest in these matters, but I should like upon that, in the first instance, to quote the words of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sumner, in which, although he disagreed from this Bill, he said:— I think we are all at one in desiring to see the great improvement in temperance which has taken place in our time continued to a greater and greater extent. My noble friend Lord Dawson of Penn also said on the same Bill, when it was introduced by the late Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Burge, that it was common ground that the consumption of alcohol in this country was too great, and that the expenditure upon it was too large. He did not, of course, accept the provisions of the Bill itself—he voted against the Bill—but I should have thought that there was common agreement, whatever may be the opinion as to this Bill, that further temperance reform was urgently required in this country.

As to the expense to which the noble Lord, Lord Dawson of Penn, referred, it amounts to £300,000,000 a year, which is equal to the whole earnings of industry in this country for a period of six weeks, and in fact is a sum as large as that which we are now paying in the form of War Debt. The two together amount to no less than the equivalent of twelve weeks of the total earning capacity of the country at the present time. I think that is a monstrous amount to be spent. I am one of those who, from some personal experience—I hope that the right rev. Prelate will express again the views which he expressed last time—thinks that, particularly in the poorer homes, infinite ruin and wreckage is brought about by the extent to which there is intemperance, and consistent intemperance, at the present time.

I am quite aware of what Lord Lamington said with regard to the 1904 Act, but I should like to say this: I have been concerned throughout in the administration of that Act in the own County of Buckingham, and that Act has practically done a very large part of the work which it was intended to do. The intention of it was to get rid of redundant public-houses. That is one side, of course, of temperance reform, but it is only one side. It leaves a large part of the question entirely untouched, and indeed not intended to be touched, by the provisions of that Act. There is one feature of that Act to which I shall draw a little more attention later. That is the compensation or insurance. The amount and the principle have long ago been settled. They were settled in a case in which I was interested, by a decision of Mr. Justice Kennedy, so that apart now from compensation inquiries there is practical agreement in every case, both with regard to the compensation to be paid to the owner of the premises and the apportionment to the licensee particularly affected.

But what was said about that Bill, and what I think has been suggested about this Bill—namely, that the owner of licensed premises would be adversely affected—has turned out to be wholly inaccurate. The whole effect of that measure has been to enable brewers and brewing companies to get rid, on favourable terms, of that portion of their property which was least remunerative. In that way they have really rid themselves of uneconomic expenditure without in any way affecting their general business. I doubt if any one interested in the brewing trade will get up in this House and say that the compensation under that Bill has been otherwise than very favourable to the interests of brewers and licensees. This Bill, of course, is framed on the principle of popular local control. I am not one of those who think it is necessary at this time of day to discuss the question between freedom and sobriety—it has been discussed by the right rev. Prelate more than once—but I want to say this, that I do not think any one is free unless he is sober, and that if there is one interference with what I might call reasonable liberty it is the extent of drunkenness which still prevails in this country.

When we come to popular local control, which is what I want to deal with in regard to this Bill, we have three alternatives—no-licence, no-change and what is called disinterested management. I think if you have local option at all you must have, as one branch of it, no-licence. Personally, as I have said more than once in this House, I am not a Prohibitionist, but if you are to have local option, and I think local option is right, then the persons interested in the locality ought to have an opportunity of voting for no-licence if they desire it, and that is a matter which I think is of the essence of the Bill. If any one says that the possibility of Prohibition in a locality where those interested in the locality wish it is to condemn a Bill of this kind, then he will exercise his opinion and vote against it, but I say, on the other hand, that if you are to have a workable, practical system of local option, such as this Bill proposes, you must have at least three alternatives—namely, no-change, no-licence and disinterested management. I do not propose to follow Lord Lamington in his criticisms of the United States and Canada. It is a very long story and there is very great difference of opinion. I do not myself agree with those who think that Prohibition has failed, although, as I have said, I am not a Prohibitionist, but it would be a long way outside my present province to follow the noble Lord into that field.

We have, however, a case near at home and I must say that the admirable speech of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, on the effect of local control in Scotland should be read and studied by everyone. He expresses his view that it has been a great success, he gives statistics which appear to me to show completely that his view is right, and then he points out that there are two weak points, both of which are avoided in the Bill now before us. On the one hand, he states that the areas in Scotland are too small and, on the other hand, he states that it is a great mistake, if you once vote in a district for a no-licence resolution, that you should allow the question of private ownership to spring up again on a future occasion. He says that leads to corruption, to constant speculative canvassing and to all the ills which one would hope in a successful temperance reform might be allayed once and for all. In this Bill those two points have been met. You have a much larger area and you have the result that, where a no-licence resolution has once been voted, there can be no reopening of the question as regards private interests in the future.

The speech about which I want particularly to say a word or two, because it is one which I think requires answering, is that of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sumner. After going into the provisions of the Bill, he said this: … I think your Lordships ought not to be asked to give a Second Reading to a measure unless you are satisfied that the machinery will work. Then he gave reasons why he thought the machinery would not work. I should like to explain why I take quite a contrary view, both on the question of the working of the machinery and on what I might call the justice of the compensation clauses. I am glad to see the noble Viscount in his place, because I think his contribution was a very valuable one, though it was critical of the Bill, and I would like to convince him, if I could, both that the Bill is workable and that the basis of the compensation is fair. So far as compensation is concerned, the Scottish measure is far less generous than the Bill now before the House. In the Scottish Bill a period of eight years was given after which no compensation was provided; in this Bill fifteen years are given and during those fifteen years the measure of compensation is laid down at successive periods of time.

As regards this Bill not being workable, the noble Viscount, Lord Sumner, criticised the financial aspect of the Bill in the first instance, particularly as regards the Central Fund and the central authority. Now what is there unworkable as regards the Central Fund and the central authority? The Central Fund is raised under perfectly clear conditions by what is called a levy, as in the Act of 1904, on the owners of the licensed properties and, in addition, any income that is derived under disinterested management or from the sale of properties no longer required by the managers will go into the Central Fund. That must be perfectly clear and of course it is perfectly workable. Practically similar provisions have been found perfectly adequate in the 1904 Act, but the finance of this Act is simpler than in the 1904 Act.

There is one point on which I am bound to admit that I should have thought the noble Viscount would have taken a different view. There is a provision in this Bill that if ultimately the funds available for compensation are not sufficient they should come from a public source. I do not believe that that is in the least likely to arise. What I do say, as a thorough advocate of fair compensation whenever private property is dealt with, is that, if such an occasion should arise, it is fair that the burden should be placed upon a public source and that the individual should have the compensation to which he is entitled. After all, you must come to a decision between the two and, if the occasion arises when there has to be a decision between the two, I find myself of a different view to the noble Viscount because I think that, in order that compensation may be assured as has been promised, it is right, if there should be a deficiency, to come upon the national funds in order that that deficiency may be made good. That is on the the general principle that wherever you introduce legislation for a national benefit which affects private interests those interests ought to have full and fair compensation.

Now let me come to the method of compensation. I think the noble Viscount exaggerated the difficulties and hardly appreciated the extent of the compensation. The compensation as laid down in this Bill is not only the compensation as laid down in the 1904 Act but is in accordance with the principle that has been adopted ever since matters of this kind have been brought for decision before arbitrators. There is nothing new in this Bill as regards compensation, nothing which has not been recognised as just and fair in a large number of cases. I referred just now to a case decided by Mr. Justice Kennedy. That case has been accepted from that day to this as giving the proper method of compensation. The same principle has been adopted in this Bill. You have the same principle applied to the brewers in the case of a tied house. There they are to have compensation for the loss to their business as brewers, and there is the compensation to be paid to the licensee for being deprived of a business which otherwise he might have carried on. In every case where it has ever been suggested that in a licensed house arbitration compensation should be payable, it is provided for in this Bill. If that is not so and the Bill goes further, and it can be pointed out that the measure of compensation here is less than what has been accepted and adopted in a large number of cases, I would vote for amendment in that direction, but I do not believe that is so. The Bill has been very carefully framed and appears to me to give the most ample measure of compensation.

And there is another factor. I do not think the noble Viscount, Lord Sumner, dealt particularly with it, but to my mind it is very important. No one can suggest that the holder of a licence under our English law has anything like what has been called a freehold property in the licence. That is impossible; but if you have anything less than what I call a freehold property of that kind, then in the matter of compensation you have to consider the period or term in reference to which the compensation should be assessed. That means, in the ordinary case, compensation for the difference between the leasehold and the freehold. It is an every-day matter of our compensation law. In this case fifteen years have been taken. I should myself regard that as extremely generous. In Scotland the period was only eight years, and I know of no case in my experience—which is rather large in compensation cases—in which it has been suggested that in assessing compensation for property to which a licence is attached a longer period than fifteen years should be taken. It is just the same in all rating cases. I have had hundreds of rating cases affecting tied houses and licensed property. You never deal with a licence as though it had a perpetual freehold value. I say without hesitation that fifteen years is not only a fair, but a generous, period.

As regards the property of the licensee, he, I understand, is to get three years purchase. You never give more than three years purchase of a business of that kind. I never knew a case in which more was suggested or given. And surely, if you are to have popular local control, it is wise of the promoters of this Bill to put the question of compensation beyond all doubt or discussion. But if it could be shown that in any respect the interests of any person affected had not been properly considered I should vote in that respect for the amendment, although the question does not arise at this time. Assuming, as I do, that the Bill is workable, and you have shown how the funds can be procured, assuming that all private interests are fully compensated, surely this Bill might go forward as a great step in advance in the cause of temperance. I might claim the support of the noble Lord, Lord Lamington, upon one point. The Bill gives disinterested management as one of the alternatives. He said just now that if it were only disinterested management he would be in favour of it.

EARL RUSSELL

He said he would consider it.

LORD LAMINGTON

I said, if I knew of an instance of its being successfully worked. Therefore I moved for the Southborough Committee to be appointed.

LORD PARMOOR

I should think the noble Lord would be very well contented that the Report of that Committee was made. It is a Report which seems to me to show conclusively the benefits of disinterested management at Carlisle, although the natural and necessary proviso is added that the experiment has not yet gone on long enough to enable a final determination to be made. I believe that you will find in disinterested management the real solution of the temperance question, and that the way to introduce it is by way of local option. I do not think there is any other practical way, because this is one of those points in which, if we are to succeed at all, we must succeed through our method of local self-government. On the general questions, some of which have been touched upon, I do not desire to dwell, because I believe that everyone is convinced of the need of reform, that the pathway to reform is to be found in this Bill, and that there is ample provision against any private interest being unjustly treated. We on this Bench will certainly support its Second Reading.

LORD DAWSON OF PENN

My Lords, it is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Parmoor, said, that on a previous occasion I shared the almost universal opinion of this House that the consumption of drink in this country is too great, and that the amount of money spent upon it is too large. But it does not follow that the right remedy is to pursue these well-worn paths which have been in existence in this country since the early 'eighties. Local option, in some form or another, has been before Parliament since the days when Sir Wilfrid Lawson added to the gaiety of the House of Commons, and that fact alone would, I suggest, create doubt in our minds, for what was suitable for the last century is very unlikely to be suitable for the times of to-day.

The most drastic provision in this Bill is the option of prohibition. It is not a provision that is necessary to the fabric of the Bill, and therefore I think we are right in assuming that it is there because it is in consonance with the views of the promoters. The reason has already been given. It is put into the Bill in order to secure the support of the left wing, the militant party of the extreme temperance party. There is no secret about it. They have admitted that unless the option of prohibition had been put into the Bill it would not have had the support of the temperance party as a whole. That alone would make me cautious. Prohibition pre-supposes that fermented liquors can be banished from civilised society. It pre-supposes that alcohol is in itself bad, that it is a poison, as one right rev. Prelate called it. Another blessed it with the name of narcotic. But at any rate it pre-supposes that alcohol is the accursed thing: otherwise it is illogical to support prohibition. I submit that as long as this option of prohibition remains part of this Bill it is the dominating issue to be decided by your Lordships' House.

I will not stop to inquire into the administrative part of the Bill. Listening, as one always does, to the intellectual treat of a speech from the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sumner, it seemed to me that when he had finished his speech the administrative part of the Bill was left in tatters on the floor of your Lordships' House. I will come to the provision of this Bill determining that a local community shall have the power of saying what Citizen A and Citizen B shall drink. And more than that, having decided that there shall be no drink in that area, not even is the option given to them to go back to private management if they find they have made a mistake. I maintain that that is a most tyrannical procedure. It is so tyrannical that it will never receive the support of the public conscience to such an extent as will ensure its success. It will carry with it determination on the part of the community to defeat it, and defeated it will be. We have some experience of what Sunday prohibition leads to. If your Lordships will go and see you will find that on Sunday mornings charabanc parties start off to the nearest "wet" area, and if the people are situated too far away to join those charabanc parties they store up alcohol during the week in the rooms of one of them and they have a "jolly" on the Sunday. In other words you see taking place exactly what takes place on the other side of the Atlantic and that is that what would have been the occasional drink is converted into an occasion for thinking. Inevitably, if you apply tyrannical measures on personal liberty, that Will be the effect which you will bring about.

Is it at all likely that fermented liquors can be banished from civilised countries? I very much doubt it. I have never seen any evidence that it is possible. To begin with, consider how readily fermented liquors can be made. There is hardly a substance in any community that you cannot pitch into a pot and it will turn out alcohol—potatoes, pineapples, anything you like—and there is no country where it is not ready to hand. It will not be pure liquor, but it is liquor, and in all parts of the world advantage is taken of this fact. My next point is this. Consider how far back in antiquity fermented liquors go. They go further back than any historical record will give us. Take beer itself. In the form of barley wine it came into existence centuries before the Christian era. Pliny gives 195 varieties of alcohol. The result is that alcohol in one form or another has become part and parcel of the fabric of the lives of civilised people.

Take our own country. From time immemorial liquor has been connected with our feastings, our foregatherings, our frolics and our fun. It has been part of our national life. It has been shown over and over again that you cannot draw out of a people something which has been woven into their fabric for generations, nay centuries, æons I would almost say. Why, when they were trying to decide where to put a new house, one of the first things the monks inquired was whether the water was of the right quality to brew and I believe that is one of the reasons why the beer at Cambridge is so good. Turning from beer to wine I ask your Lordships to imagine what Italy, Spain and Portugal would be without their vineyards. It is almost impossible to think of those countries without all that wine and the gathering of the grapes has meant to them. Wine has become part of their history and will remain part of their history.

So intimately attached is wine to national life that in the course of history it has become one of the emblems of the Christian faith. Are those to be swept away, because that assuredly is what prohibition means if it means anything that is logical? I confess to a wonderment that anybody can think that it is possible to withdraw fermented liquors from the lives of civilised people. Certainly no experiment up to now has reached such a stage as to make one think there is the slightest chance of it. It may be too soon to say whether Prohibition can be successful or not, but I venture to think that we ought to be very cautious indeed before we touch it in any way whatever. Whatever virtues it may have produced, what else has it produced in countries where it has been adopted? It has brought about illicit stills, smuggling, all the illegalities of boot-legging, and certainly in some of the countries, in which it has been tried, as I can testify from personal observation and from my own inquiries, it has produced more drinking amongst the young than existed before its adoption, and not only in one sex but in both. That is true, not only in the British Empire but outside it. It has produced a contempt for the law. This very last New Year's Day there was in one newspaper two accounts side by side of New Year celebrations. One account was of the celebration round St. Paul's, in which there was no mention of alcohol at all in describing the jollifications. The other account, quite near to the first, was a despatch describing New Year's Eve in a Prohibition country. A detailed account was there given of the innumerable people who drank intoxicating liquor under the ægis of the law.

Let us take a fresh view of this question. Let us get away from the stale threadbare cries of local option and prohibition. Is this country with all its vast political experience so bereft of political knowledge, so bereft of resource, that it cannot think of something different to what has been on the stocks since the early eighties of last century? Is it necessary for us with our far greater political experience to follow the example of countries with immature political knowledge? I think everybody to whatever Party he belongs agrees that temperance reform is needed and what I suggest is that the whole question should be approached freshly, that we should ask ourselves by careful inquiry why it is—as I will show your Lordships it is—that there is this steady improvement in temperance in this country, an improvement that is going on at an accelerated rate.

Let us inquire what are the causes why we are becoming more temperate and then take those causes and foster and promote them in a rational way. I believe that without any external duress—which is the curse of this Bill and which is so hostile to the spirit of this nation—and by common agreement, without interfering with the prejudged ideas of this Party or that, but by fostering the causes which we know are increasing temperance in this country to-day, we would get a result in ten years that we would not get in a generation by any other means. There is this danger. When you have had a reform on the stocks for too great a length of time there is a very serious danger that the reformers become the greatest obstacle to reform. I would point out that thought, like commerce, is apt to get its vested interests and reformers are apt to get their intellectually vested interests. That is why I plead for a new and fresh approach to this serious and difficult question.

I now come to the question: Is it true that we are becoming more temperate? I noted a very grudging assent on the part of the right rev. Prelate who introduced this Bill to the fact that we are becoming a more sober people. He did agree that there is ample evidence that we are less drunken. It is easy enough for anybody to see without any kind of urging from any member of your Lordships' House. You have only to go to the theatres, the cinemas or to bank holiday parties, and you will find that the amount of actual drunkenness is extraordinarily little. You will see far less drunkenness in this country than you will in the Prohibition countries on the other side of the Atlantic. That has been my personal observation. I will go further. I have never seen in recent years drunkenness of so terrible a character in this country as I have seen in Prohibition countries, where you see people poisoned and looking more like death than life. There is ample evidence, therefore, whether you go to restaurants or places of amusement or holiday resorts, that actual drinking, as evidenced by the external habits of the people, is not increasing.

I will go further than that and I will give you what, in fact, I have put before your Lordships' House on previous occasions but which I do not hesitate to repeat now. I will take the evidence of disease. I will pass over that lightly, because there is really nothing to be said except that the evidence of disease due to alcohol shows a remarkable and steady improvement, so much so that provisions which we had to make in hospitals years ago we have found it no longer necessary to make. Some of the alcoholic diseases are approaching the vanishing point. But I am not content with that. I think we have got to show more than that. There can be a great deal of harmful drinking in the country without actual drunkenness and without actual disease. I am entirely with those who say that there is too much drinking still and that we ought to set to work to hasten the improvement towards greater temperance. I think, however, I can give your Lordships some encouraging figures. I was impressed with them when I got to the end of the inquiry which I made.

Let me take an important section of the community, that large section of people of moderate means who gather in popular restaurants which have a full licence. On a previous occasion I ventured to offer to take a right rev. Prelate to visit these restaurants so that we might see for ourselves how remarkably little the people drank there. Taking these big restaurants, which have an average entry per diem of 10,000, sometimes amounting to 40,000 in one day, there is a feature common to all the people who go there and that is that they are people of small means. You can see in them the commercial classes, the workmen and the artisans with their womenfolk sitting there listening to music and smoking their pipes, and you will have a feeling of actual surprise that there is so little stimulant to be seen on the tables. I went there many times before I went into a statistical inquiry, and that statistical inquiry was so complete that the authorities who own these places were able to tell me what every single customer at these houses had drunk in the course of the days I liked to select—and I was left to select my own days.

When you come to add up the total what does it amount to? Seventy-five per cent. of the people congregated in these great restaurants drank no alcohol at all. Of the twenty-five per cent. who did drink no fewer than three-quarters were drinking either light wine or beer and only one-quarter whisky or port. I venture to think that this is a very striking testimony to the progress of temperance and real sobriety. These figures were got out three years ago and I made it my business, as this debate was coming on, to make inquiry as to whether the figures had become better or worse. The answer was that in one of these two huge restaurants to which I am referring the percentage of those who took alcohol had gone down from twenty-five per cent. to seventeen per cent. and in the other it had gone down to seven per cent.

I will give you another example. I think it would be wise, if I may make a suggestion to your Lordships, in all investigations as to the progress or not of sobriety, to make a division between persons over thirty-five years of age and those under thirty-five. After thirty-five a person's habits are formed. If you have become a drinker by then you will very likely go on. What really matters to this country is what the people who are under thirty-five are doing. I adopted that method in my next inquiry and I went amongst the clerk class. This is what I found. If I took the clerks over forty I found that twenty-one per cent. were abstainers. If I took those under forty I found that forty per cent. were abstainers. That is quite in keeping with my own observations. The clerk class in this great City, especially the younger ones, drink remarkably little. There are good reasons for that which I hope to give directly.

Then go to the Army and ask any of the people who are responsible for the young soldiers what is going on. Take the men at Aldershot. They go through their heavy drills in the morning, about 11.30 or 12 o'clock they are left free, and they go off helter skelter to the canteen. I am told that five out of six of them go to the dry canteen and that only an infinitesimal number go to the wet canteen, and that those who go to the dry canteen always ask for something sweet, showing that for the young sugar is a very good substitute for alcohol. I have not asked one Commanding Officer only about this: I went to several of my friends in the Army and asked them to tell me whether what I have told you represented the true state of affairs. They said: "Absolutely. The young soldier does not drink. You have only to look at him. Look at the magnificent upstanding figure he is." I was at Aldershot only last Sunday and I was impressed by these examples of young humanity. And take business. I have made a point during the last few weeks of questioning a number of my business friends on the point of drinking over business. It is quite true that drinking over business is far, far too much the rule and it is an excessively damaging form of drink because it involves drinking on an empty stomach. It is like the cocktail in that respect. But it is going out, and it is far, far less frequent than it once was.

Now I come to a new inquiry, which I found very difficult, but the result of which. I hope will be of some interest to you. I realised that in the inquiries I had made I had not got down to what I may call the unskilled labour class, so I set to work with some coadjutors well skilled in finding out what people do drink. I may tell you that in any big hospital we get to know what answers mean, whether they really mean yes or no, pretty quickly. It is a thing we are trained in. Altogether we went through the records of something between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred people of the unskilled labour class. The results were very striking. They were much better than I expected. I took the figures and handed them over to an actuarial friend and asked him to make something out of them. I think it is quite possible they are better than perhaps a larger number might show. I am very anxious not to overstate the case.

I took those people, and I divided them into abstainers, temperate people and imperfectly temperate people. I was then confronted with the difficulty of finding the threshhold of the temperate class. I thought I would be severe, and I think the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, will agree that I was severe when I chose the figure 2 as a basis. By the figure 2 I mean to denote two things. I took the standard of a pint of beer or one glass of whisky, as it is known in that district—I do not mean a full glass, but a portion of whisky. That standard would enable a man to take two pints of beer and no whisky or two whiskies and no beer or one whisky and one pint of beer. I think your Lordships will agree that, in view of the strength of that class and the amount of muscular work that they do—not that alcohol helps muscularity; quite the reverse, but they are able to throw it off when they take it and we have to make allowance for past habits—this figure is a fairly severe criterion to take. At any rate I took that figure, and here is the result.

Taking people under thirty-five, and adding together the temperate people and the abstainers, they amounted to 90 per cent., while the imperfectly temperate accounted for ten per cent. Now look at the change when you come to people over thirty-five. Here the temperate people and the abstainers came to 71.5 per cent. and the imperfectly abstaining people to 28.5 per cent.; or, taking the abstaining people alone, those under thirty-five accounted for 51 per cent. and those over thirty-five for only 22.5 per cent. I know that it may be said that these people grow into drinking and that this is why you get less temperance after the age of thirty-five. I can assure your Lordships that this is a complete fallacy. People do not become drunken or intemperate when they have acquired temperate habits up to the age of thirty-five. It is comparatively rare for intemperance to break out after that age except under the stress of circumstances quite outside our present consideration.

I submit to your Lordships that these facts do give food for thought. I suggest that they show that our people are becoming steadily more sober in their attitude towards alcohol, and not only are they becoming more sober but it is really an outrage to call this country a non-sober country. It is not true. We five, broadly speaking, a sober country, and we have been so before. In Elizabethan days we were a sober country and in the days of the early Charles and under Cromwell we were a sober people. It was not until the days of James II, when wine was replaced by spirits and people began to drink wine out of bottles instead of drinking it out of barrels, and the corkscrew was invented—which was not until the end of the seventeenth century—that we began to drink too much. We became a drunken people in the eighteenth century because politics interfered with the whole business, increased the duty on French wines as against the very strong Portuguese wines and encouraged the distilling of spirits rather than the drinking of healthy wine and beer. I venture to think that these facts provide food for thought and that it is worth while inquiring why it is that our people are becoming steadily more moderate in what they drink, especially the young. If we do inquire, we may finds means whereby we can foster and promote that temperance still further.

I ask myself what is the reason for this diminution in drinking. It is often said that it is only because of restricted hours and high prices. I agree that restricted hours have promoted temperance, and I would support a continued restriction of hours provided that it were made uniform in one district as against another. The present drawback may be discovered by going into any district in the suburbs of this City where the closing hour is eleven o'clock, for instance, as compared with ten o'clock in the neighbouring district. You will see people—on account of that curious, innate psychological tendency which says that if there is a chance of getting round a law one must do it—tumbling along from the early closing area to the district that closes an hour later. I agree that restriction of hours is a very valuable measure and I would like to see it increased.

As for prices, I believe that they have no influence worth talking about. Take the man who drinks too much. Does he stop drinking because he has not money? No, he makes his wife go without. Drink has such a hold on him that he is not going to stop on account of price. And, as far as prices are concerned, look at the cinemas. There is plenty of money for them; there is plenty of money for motor cars and for trips into the country, and there is plenty of money for dress; and it is a good thing that it should be so. I venture to say that what has produced the change is, for one thing, better houses. Directly you get better houses you get improvement in drinking. Another cause is the widening of taste. People have a much wider taste and more things to occupy their interest, whether it be the theatre or the cinema or the public library. Another cause is the love of fresh air, the constant desire to be out in the country. Then there is the growing companionship of women and men. This makes for temperance.

But more than anything else I attribute it to the culture of fitness which is now appealing to all classes. There is a great desire deep down in all our people to be fit. The women, through becoming more athletic owing to their more sensible clothing, have created a desire for physical fitness and achievement, and that is a very strong cause in making people fit and making them desire to keep fit. Education is beginning to tell them that if they want to be fit they must be moderate in their drinking and their eating and regulate their lives in a sensible way.

Therein I think you have the key to what can be done at comparatively small cost without external coercion of any kind. Take advantage of these forces, foster them by education, go on improving your houses and improving opportunities for games and outdoor sports for those who are less well placed than others, and I am perfectly sure that in the course of ten years, especially if health lectures are carried on throughout the country—not by fanatics who are always preaching the evil of this or that, but by those who will teach the people, the meaning of health, the value of open air and open windows, and what the advantages and disadvantages of alcohol really are, so that people will take alcohol when it is good for them and avoid it when it is bad for them—if efforts like that were carried on for ten years you could appeal to the conviction and the hearts of the people and I venture to think that you would get far greater success in any campaign of temperance than through the provisions of a Bill such as that which is before your Lordships' House to-day.

EARL BUXTON

My Lords, we have listened with the greatest possible interest to the speech of the noble Lord who has just spoken, and we are glad to have his authority—the greatest that could be afforded us—for the view that temperance is on the increase in this country. But, if he will allow me to say so, I do not think that his speech was altogether germane to the Bill that we now have before us. I do not see that the fact that there is increased temperance in this country in any way cuts across, or ought to stand in the way of, popular opinion being allowed its voice in reference to the control of that traffic. I do not intend to keep your Lordships more than a few minutes, but I should like to say a few words in reference to the Bill, and I am speaking, I think I may say, for at all events the larger number of those with whom I usually act. As a Party we have always been in favour of local option, and indeed I recall that something like fifty-five Years ago the Liberal Government introduced the first Local Option Bill, which, unfortunately, through the opposition of the more extreme temperance people, did not become law. If it had been passed, by this time we should have had all that we desire in this respect. But the Local Option Bills which we have so far discussed in this House, with the exception of the predecessor of this Bill, have been confined to three options—namely, the option of leaving the matter as it stands, the option of reducing licences, and the option of closing all public-houses.

This Bill, like its predecessor, proposes a new option—an option designated as "reorganisation." It really means disinterested management under public control. I for one am very much in favour of that option taking the place of the option of reduction, in spite of the somewhat discouraging Report of Lord Southborough, and I think it is a better option than the old option of which we have previously had the choice. I am sorry that the right rev. Prelate in charge of the Bill is not present, because I would have liked, in the first instance, to point out to him that the word "reorganisation," which is the second option, is not a word which is known—it has to be voted on—by the electors, and I think that some word much more suitable, and from which the ordinary elector will know what he is voting for, ought to be chosen. It is perfectly true that every elector is supposed to know every Act of Parliament that is passed, but the bulk of the electors will not have read the Bill and will not know what reorganisation means. If the right rev. Prelate were here I would suggest that either "State management" or "disinterested management" should be substituted for "reorganisation."

From what I have said I should be inclined to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill on the ground that it is carrying out a system of local option, and that it is intended, to use the words of the right rev. Prelate himself, to confer upon the inhabitants of local areas the right and responsibility of deciding how and to what extent liquor should be manufactured and distributed in their area. That is the main provision of the Bill. But I am bound to say that in detail, and in many matters, this Bill does not carry out the opportunity of public control and public opinion, and so far as I am concerned there are various objections to the Bill, with which I will venture to trouble your Lordships, which will make it difficult for us to vote for the passage of the Bill, unless its promoters are prepared to leave these matters to be discussed and decided upon their merits when the Bill comes before Committee. The right rev. Prelate professes that this Bill gives a free choice to responsible opinion in regard to three options, but that is not so at all. The weight is thrown greatly against the present system and in favour of the other two options, and I think the Bill as it stands is very unfair as regards the three options.

The Memorandum of the Bill states:— The Bill gives to the inhabitants of large areas. … the right of deciding periodically whether they are to have no change from the present system of commercial competitive ownership of the liquor trade, or whether the trade is to be reorganised under a system of public control. … or whether the sale of intoxicants is to be abolished. But that is not so at all. It has already been pointed out, and this is very much of the essence of the Bill, that if after the three years there is a poll, and of that poll 55 per cent. of those who vote are in favour of no-licence, or if a majority are in favour of reorganisation, then whatever may be the views of the electors subsequently, however they may change their minds or be dissatisfied with reorganisation or total abolition, they will have no opportunity, from then until the Day of Judgment, of altering their decision. That seems to me to be really an outrage on the principle of giving the public an opportunity of deciding in this matter, and to be contrary to the Memorandum of the Bill and to what the Bishop himself has informed us. Analysing that, it practically comes to this, that if there is an electorate of 50,000—many of them are much larger than that—and 65 per cent. go to the poll, which is a fairly high percentage for these elections, that will mean 32,500 votes, and 55 per cent. of that will mean 18,500 voters or 30 per cent. of the whole electors. Is it fair that owing to the mere chance vote of 30 per cent. of the whole electorate accepting prohibition the electors themselves at no subsequent time, whatever may have occurred in the interval, will be allowed to reverse their verdict?

The same applies, only more so, in regard to the question of reorganisation, because in that case it is not only majority of the original vote but also the transferred vote as well which counts, and it might well happen that half the voters might have voted for continuing as things were and a quarter for reorganisation and a quarter for no-licence, and yet reorganisation would be carried against the wishes of the majority. It seems to me that this is a matter which requires consideration in Committee, and I trust that the right rev. Prelate in charge of the Bill will see his way to make some change in that matter. He stated that there were difficulties, and no doubt there might be, in returning from a prohibition or reorganisation system to one continuing the present system, but in the very interesting speech which the Duke of Montrose made on the first day the noble Duke told us that a considerable proportion of the places in Scotland which had voted for prohibition had now gone back from "dry" to "wet," and there had been no difficulty. Difficulties not having arisen in Scotland, I do not see why they should arise here on the same matter.

Another thing which seems to me to throw the balance against the present system in an unfair way is that if either prohibition or reorganisation has been twice passed by a majority, an interval of eight years must elapse before the question can again be put to the constituency, whereas in the case of the present system being passed twice, four years applies to that instead of eight years. I do not again understand why they are not put on terms of equality. Then there is the question of the transferable vote, which is intended, no doubt, to give a double vote against the present system and in favour either of the option of prohibition or the option of reorganisation. It seems to me that on a matter of this kind, in the first place, the percentage of electors ought to be very high before it is brought into force at all and, secondly, that their votes ought to be in every case original votes and not transferred votes. There is one very curious clause, Clause 8, which says that polls are not to be taken in July, August or September. I do not know what the object of that is. As a matter of fact those who are likely to be away in summer are more likely to be teetotallers than to be those who use the public-houses. That clause requires some explanation. There is also the fact that the licences will have a term of fifteen years and that at the end of the fifteen years they are to fall into the category of annual licences and the licensing authorities can suppress them as they like. Therefore, in spite of the fact that on three occasions the electors may have voted in favour of the retention of the present system, after the end of fifteen years it will be in the power of the licensing justices to bring it to an end and to have total prohibition.

There is another point, to which my noble friend Lord Parmoor referred, the question of compensation. The right rev. Prelate said it was obviously fair that there should be such compensation for taking over public-houses, and the Memmorandum speaks of it in these words:— The Bill extends to the members of the licensed trade the principle of contributory insurance against certain definite risks, which has been already applied compulsorily to large classes of the community in other schemes. That surely has no bearing upon the present proposal. Those schemes were schemes for sickness and unemployment insurance. In the first place, the persons involved do not bear the whole of the cost and, in the second place, they obtain a very large benefit from the insurance to which they have contributed In many cases they obtain very much more than they have paid and in other cases they gain a great advantage from it. That is not so here. The "obviously fair" proposal of which the right rev. Prelate speaks, for compensation is in this Bill at all events no compensation at all in the ordinary sense of the word. It is much nearer to confiscation. Not that I am objecting to the particular proposal of fifteen years, for I rather agree with my noble friend behind me that a limit is a good thing. But I do not think it is fair to argue on the Bill, while you are limiting it to fifteen years, that you are also compensating these persons. The whole of the compensation comes out of their pockets.

The right rev. Prelate objected to the word "nationalisation." He said his Bill was not nationalisation because the trade was not really under public control. If noble Lords will look at the Bill they will see that this Board of Management is directly under the Government, that the Chairman and members are appointed by the Secretary of State, that he prescribes all their duties and their salaries, and that they have to report to Parliament. In that sense it is nationalisation. He compares his proposals to the Port of London Authority and the water companies. The comparison is not a correct one because they are not under Government control in any sense and because the shareholders received their full value, while in this case there will be no compensation at all.

It is rather misleading also to suggest, as the right rev. Prelate did the other day—I regret I am criticising what he said in his absence but it is not my fault—that this form of compensation which is now to be given is only carrying on the compensation which originally came into force in 1904 under Lord Balfour's Act. That compensation, as noble Lords will remember, was given in this way. The licensing justices were enabled to reduce the licences at their will. If they did so those whose licences were reduced were to receive something in the nature of compensation and this compensation was supplied by other existing members of the trade. They had a quid pro quo in that matter because, so far as the existing houses were reduced, those who were left alone obtained a greater trade, and were able to make a larger profit and to contribute to this compensation. In present circumstances that cannot occur at all. The levy on the trade is greatly increased. There is no possibility of them within the fifteen years recouping themselves in the slightest degree. If the various districts continue as they are at present then they continue in the same numbers, there is no reduction and therefore no recouping of that sort. If, as is likely and as those in favour of the Bill think, there is a considerable number of districts which accept reorganisation or abolition, then in those cases they are abolished, their licences disappear and they have to be compensated at once. There is therefore no comparison between the provisions of the Act of 1904 and the proposals under this Bill.

There are two questions I would like to ask the supporters of the Bill, questions which were raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Sumner, on May 24 and to which we have not yet had an answer. He pointed out that one of two things may happen in regard to this question of compensation. Supposing the public voting does not alter the present system in any of the districts, or in very few of them, then there will be a very large fund, possibly £30,000,000, which will be accumulated in the fifteen years. It will not have been paid over to the trade. He wanted to know, as there was nothing in the Bill on the point, what would become of the money. Is it to be paid back to those who paid it in anticipation of conditions which have not come about, or is it to be paid over to the national Exchequer? He pointed out, too, that the other alternative was that a considerable number of these districts would vote for abolition or reorganisation. In that case the funds at the disposal of the Board of Management will be greatly depleted. What is to be done in regard to them? It is not clear from the Bill at all what is to happen about this compensation if the Fund is so depleted that there will not be enough compensation forthcoming. Is it quite clear that the taxpayer is called upon to pay that? That is not clear from the Bill. It is a very important point and one which wants to be made clearer.

I am sorry to have detained your Lordships, but I wish to make it clear that many of us are in this position. We are strongly in favour of local option in principle. We should like to see it carried out so long as it is carried out in accordance with full and free public opinion on each occasion. My criticisms have been directed to show that this Bill in some respects does not give that fair opportunity for enabling the public to choose between the various options, and, so far as that goes, I think the Bill is not a good one. But I trust that the right rev. Prelate in charge of the Bill will give us an undertaking, which is what I am asking for, that the points to which I refer, which do not affect the principle of the Bill, will receive due consideration with an open mind. That being so, with some doubt I am bound to say, I shall vote for the Bill, on the understanding that in the Committee stage we shall be able to take our own line with regard to the various Amendments.

THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM

My Lords, the Enabling Act has had the effect of withdrawing from the consideration of this House the ecclesiastical business which in former years used to attract, and naturally attract, the attention of the Bishops, and it is comparatively rare now that questions come before this House on which it would be useful for a member of the Episcopal Bench to intrude a speech. But your Lordships will, I think, agree that such a subject as that which is raised by this Bill is precisely one of those rare occasions on which a member of the Episcopal Bench might not unfitly venture to offer an opinion. For, as we have been reminded by every advocate of the Bill, this question of intemperance, which the Bill aspires to reduce, goes very deeply into the well-being of our society, and must be a matter of the most anxious consideration to every patriotic man.

I have thought it worth while therefore to come up from my diocese to attend this debate and to intrude what will be a short speech upon your Lordships, not because I have any doubt whatever as to what the decision of your Lordships will be, but because I think it extremely unfortunate that a delusive unanimity should mark the Episcopal Bench, and that the impression should be conveyed to the public—an impression which is certainly false—that the general opinion of the Church of England is behind this Bill. It ought not to be necessary for me to insist that the supporters of this Bill have no monopoly of concern for the public morality, and that, if we oppose this Bill, we do so, not because we are in any degree unconscious of the gravity of the issues which it raises, or yet because we are apathetic on it, but because we do really believe that the passing of a Bill of this kind would prejudice, and not promote, the growth of temperance among our people.

Into the details of the Bill I shall not take occasion to enter, partly because of the speech of the noble Earl who has just spoken, and whom I might without offence, I think, call the Balaam of the debate, for he rose and I think he concluded with an indication that he would vote for the Second Reading, but all the interval between the beginning and end of his speech was engaged in the most destructive criticism of the Bill that I have yet, listened to. My objections to the Bill and to all Bills of the kind go deeper than matters of detail, and I shall content myself with indicating as briefly as I can to your Lordships what they are. I may in passing be allowed to observe that it is perhaps regrettable that the same issue should be so frequently raised in the House, for indeed the time and the trouble bestowed upon these abortive Bills might be bestowed with great advantage in other directions. And it argues but little appreciation of the consistency of your Lordships that a Bill of this character should be introduced so soon after the rejection by an overwhelming majority of a Bill of essentially the same character. But, of course, we all know that much must be conceded to the fretful impatience of reforming zeal which could not be tolerated in the process of normal politics.

I ask, have any new circumstances emerged since your Lordships rejected the kindred Bill, almost the identical Bill, which my lamented friend the late Bishop of Oxford introduced into this House? The only circumstances of which I have any cognisance both tell against the Bill, for the interval has disclosed the deepening failure of Prohibition in America, and this Bill enshrines, confessedly enshrines, the Prohibition principle; and we have had the opportunity of observing the working of the recent Act in Scotland, which has affected materially the composition of this Bill, and I think pace the noble Duke (the Duke of Montrose) the general verdict from Scotland is that the working of the Act has not justified the hopes of those who passed it.

Your Lordships will have in your recollection the speech which the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, addressed to this House. It was impressive by its evident sincerity, but surely I may without offence say that it disclosed much prejudice and some confusion of mind. He dwelt at length on the evil effects of the trade in alcohol on society itself, and he instanced particularly its influence on the Press. I would ask your Lordships to observe that that kind of influence of an organised interest on the Press is no isolated phenomenon. In my own profession we are familiar with an expression which is known on the Continent, la bonne presec, which means the clericalist or professional Press of the Catholic Church. Will you suppress the Church because clericalist zealots exploit its name and fame unfairly? The influence of the trade on the Press is no doubt very great, and I am quite prepared to believe that it is in many respects very unfortunate. I invite your Lordships to analyse that influence. It may be considered under two aspects, for partly it is the influence of numerous organised and persistent advertisers, and in part it is the influence of an alarmed and organised and vigilant interest, which is defending its rights.

Now, the influence of advertisement is legitimate, it is necessary, and it is not wholly unwholesome. No doubt advertisement is one of the most unpleasant features of our commercial society, but it is indispensible to the convenience of consumers and to the process of industry. And, after all, when we come to consider these advertisements, for my part I cannot draw a moral distinction between the degraded seductiveness of the whisky advertisements on the one hand, and the bald mendacity of those announcements of a teetotal beverage which looks like beer, smells like beer, tastes like beer, and is not beer. Advertisements are devices provided very often by bad taste for the allurement of what is very often a deplorable popular appetite. The other kind of influence on the Press, the influence of alarmed and vigilant interests that are attacked can only be remedied in one way and that is by treating the trade in alcohol as, what it certainly is, a legitimate, honourable and, within due limits, beneficent industry. There will only be an end of organised and unscrupulous defence when there is an end of organised and unscrupulous attack. Brewers, distillers and publicans are just ordinary men, influenced by the same motives and amenable to the same influences as other men. When the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, speaks of a publican or brewer he always brings to my mind the proverbial saying among the American Colonials about the Red Indians—"The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

The right rev. Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, who introduced this Bill, is honourably distinguished from most champions of the Bill by his frank admission that it does include the principle of prohibition. Local option with the choice of no-licence is certainly nothing less, and when my right rev. friend the Bishop of London tells us he is not a Prohibitionist anti yet advocates a Bill which includes no-licence I must take leave with all respect to tell him he is using language in a very peculiar way. The area in which the principle is applied is no doubt in the Bill strictly limited, but it is the same principle none the less. This Bench is occupied by men who are professedly moralists. Is it seriously argued that the character of a principle is determined by the extent of its application? The very limited area for prohibition in this Bill is an additional argument against it; for what happens? It adds a practical disadvantage to a moral disability.

These three options represent three distinctive policies for dealing with this matter. First there is the present system of regulated private management; then there is the system illustrated at Carlisle, which really is a direct or indirect State monopoly; and there is thirdly a system conspicuous in America of Prohibition by State suppression of all sale within the area. I object to a national issue affecting the habits of the community, and therefore telling powerfully on the contentment of the people and the stability of the State, being determined by a method devised for settling the petty local concerns of Little Pedlington. Apart from this—and I ask your Lordships to pay attention to this point—I deprecate a local handling of the problem of supply precisely when the demand is becoming increasingly divorced from locality. The notable and quickly increasing development of motoring has the effect of dispersing the demand for alcoholic beverages far and wide over the country. Those who vote for a no-licence resolution in their own district will not in many cases be affected by the consequences of their vote. They will be, as individuals, getting as much drink as they want elsewhere, while, as voters, they refuse other motorists the drink that they desire to obtain in the no-licence areas.

This measure, I submit, is a superfluous measure. The remarkable and impressive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dawson, is within your Lordships recent recollection. He has demonstrated as far as in these matters demonstration is possible that we are marching rapidly towards temperance. Why, then, have this dubious experiment when we are moving towards an end that is so desirable? The nation is becoming more temperate quickly and there are reasons for thinking, even apart from those which Lord Dawson indicated, that the consumption of alcoholic liquor will be more intelligently correlated with men's habits and occupations in the future than in the past. This is pre-eminently an age of machinery and machinery cannot be safely handled by men of intemperate habits. No sane man would handle machinery when he is in a condition which I have heard described as "half seas over." In these days motoring makes for sobriety. "No alcohol when on duty" is a sound rule for all chauffeurs and drivers to observe, not because alcohol is intrinsically and universally bad, but because it is as unfavourable to good driving as heavy meals are to the student, or smoking to the athlete. Interests multiply as education extends and increases. Drunkenness is the habit of the vacant minded and the desperate remedy of the chronically bored. No doubt there is another kind of drunkenness, the tragic drunkenness of individuals, but that is morbid. We have all known in the course of our experience individuals who come under this category. But that tragedy of individual drunkenness must be dealt with otherwise than by legislation of this kind.

The only drunkenness which we can contemplate in legislation of this kind is a drunkenness which it is possible to remove, the causes of which are well known and are removable. The causes ate known and are rapidly being removed. Improve your system of licensing by all means. Restrain your reforming cranks at all hazards. Destroy by every means in your power the evil social conditions which are the fruitful causes of drunkenness and then leave well alone. Have confidence in the good sense of free and intelligent citizens and do not insult their self-respect by imposing shackles on their legitimate liberty which they cannot but resent and resist. I will sum up my speech, which perhaps has been of too great a length. The Bill is open to seven objections, every one of which in my judgment ought to justify its rejection. It is false in principle. It is obsolete in method. It is unsound in finance. It is unequal in its working. It is unfavourable to any improvement of the existing houses. It destroys a method of reducing superfluous houses which is demonstrably working well. It must be, by its recurrent and frequent votes, socially disturbing in its effect. Therefore, with full confidence in your Lordships' wisdom, I press for the rejection of the Bill by a decisive majority.

THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON

My Lords, after the extremely eloquent speech of my colleague on this Bench it is a difficult thing to stand up and say that in spite of all his eloquence I ask your Lordships to support the Bill. Why is it that when we come into this House and you look on this Bench you see sensible, reasonable people, but that when we come forward—not quite unanimously, we have always got the Bishop of Durham against us on most points—we are looked upon as fanatics and narrow-minded people? I believe the reason is the difference of our experience. It is true that the Bishop of Durham has a certain amount of experience, but it is only those of us who have lived for years in the midst of places like Bethnal Green who really understand the difficulty of this question. You will notice that when some of your Lordships have descended from the Olympian heights of the House of Lords and have gone into the matter themselves they have again and again entirely changed their point of view. For instance, I do not suppose any man was looked upon as a more sane man of the world than the late Lord Peel. He went into this matter in a way which not many of your Lordships have had the opportunity of doing, and he turned round and became a far stronger temperance man—I was going to use the word teetotaller—than I am myself. He was changed by experience and knowledge of the facts. Another man, a quite remarkable man—who, thank God, is still alive—Earl Rosebery, made one of the most touching remarks about the trade. He said that unless the State got a stranglehold on the trade the trade would strangle the nation.

After all we have heard in this debate the fact remains that Viscount Astor's assertion has never been refuted by anybody, that is, that £2,000,000 a year are spent on propaganda by the trade and that £150,000 a year are spent upon helping the election of those who will vote for them. That is not because of any iniquity on the part of these men—many of them are personal friends of mine—but simply because of the system of the private ownership of the drink trade. During my twenty-five years experience in this House the trade has not supported a single proposal for reform which has ever been brought before your Lordships. I remember standing here when my noble friend Lord Salisbury was presenting a Bill to deal with a very simple matter, the matter of Sunday closing and of reducing hours from six to three. That was afterwards carried out, but the trade sent deputations to the Government of the day begging them not to do such a dreadful thing. So it was with the Children's Bill. Every improvement we have suggested has been opposed with all its force by the trade.

Therefore, in answering the Bishop of Durham—I am sorry he has left the House because I should have liked to answer him in his presence—when he talks about appealing to the people, I should like to know exactly what is meant by appealing to the people. They have never had a chance up to now. It was a Labour leader, the late Mr. Burt, who said "You talk a great deal about the working man having his own cellar, but for Heaven's sake do at some time give him the key of it." The working man has never been given the key of his own cellar and has never been given the chance of saying whether he would have it or not. My noble friend Lord Dawson of Penn asked us to bring fresh minds to this matter. The whole object of this Bill is to bring forward a fresh idea. It is not bringing in a mere proposal for prohibition. It is not simply bringing in an old idea, but bringing a really fresh mind to this subject. May I answer some of the Bishop of Durham's assertions? I put them down as he made them. Are you quite certain that on the other side of the Atlantic they have made a gigantic mistake? You go over there and see, as I have seen in the last few weeks, Ford's works with a thousand motor-cars which have brought the workmen there with their fur coats and every kind of prosperity. Ask the real people in the midst of industry whether it has done such harm to the industry of that country.

I was surprised at my noble friend Lord Sumner rather pushing aside the inefficiency argument. As a patriotic Englishman I look with the greatest possible alarm on our industries failing while those over the water were never so full of prosperity because the working man goes to his work sober on the Monday. What we hear about the little silly fools with flasks in their hip pockets does not matter in the least. It is a mere straw on the surface. What matters is what is going on among the working people. That is what matters to the nation. Our industries are not flourishing as they ought to be. After going right through America from end to end, as I did for no less than six weeks, I look with considerable alarm upon a nation that spends £316,000,000 yearly on drink continuing to compete with a "dry" country. Only the other day I accompanied a deputation to the Prime Minister, who was told that one of our firms competing with America had been compelled, not from any moral motive but with the sheer desire to keep alive, to make a rule that 15,000 of their employees must be teetotallers if they were to continue to be employed, as they could not compete with firms across the water if they drank at all. That is one of the things we have to consider.

The Bishop of Durham referred to the speech of the Duke of Montrose. I read in the OFFICIAL REPORT the noble Duke's speech and the Duke of Montrose spoke of the good the Bill would do in Scotland. He referred to some places—I cannot myself pronounce the names—and said that the one mistake was that they had not got disinterested management. I would like to say in reference to a suggestion of unfairness, that the Bishop of Liverpool is one of the fairest-minded men. If it can be pointed out to him when he comes to reply that anything that he has proposed is unfair you may be perfectly certain he will alter that. He is not at all a narrow-minded teetotaller. He is not one of our temperance cohorts. He is a man who has come from outside, from a schoolmaster's life, and is most anxious to make a perfectly fair proposal.

Now I come to my noble friend Lord Dawson of Penn, to whom I am very grateful for his kindness to all my poor clergy in their troubles and difficulties. I quite agree with the noble Lord that things have improved immensely, but who has produced that improvement? We had 19½ hours of opening of public-houses in London, and we now have nine hours. That makes all the difference, yet a noble Lord actually proposes to change the hours and, instead of 4,500,000 people having 10 o'clock closing and 200,000 having 11 o'clock closing, to reverse those figures for the sake of symmetry. We have to fight that kind of proposal every year to keep the earlier hours in London, because the trade is on the other side all the time. I proved to your Lordships not long ago how great a difference the change in the hours has made. The children get an hour more in bed, and the wives get more of their husband's wages, since there is a whole hour less to spend in drinking. This suggestion to put the hours back fills every clergyman in London to-day with horror. In a sense this was making people sober by Act of Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Dawson, spoke about recreation. I have spent my life in trying to find means of providing a happy, healthy life for young children, but this does not really touch the root of the question. Why are our young people more sober? Because of the efforts of bands of hope and other bodies for the last thirty years. But that does not touch the main question of helping those who are determined to drink and who cannot stand up against the tremendous temptation of superabundant public-houses. I fear that I have had time to say very little, and in view of what has been said by the Government it is probable that we shall not pass this Bill on this occasion, but I do feel that these discussions educate public opinion and that some day we shall get people to see the question from the point of view of the parish priest of thirty years standing and to understand this incubus upon the life of the nation. I do not believe that we shall ever get rid of it until we get rid of private ownership and have some other management of the drink trade. Some day I believe that by this means we shall see England, not only free but also sober.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)

My Lords, the right rev. Prelate, the Bishop of Liverpool, who introduced this Bill and whom I am sorry not to see in his place to-day, and the noble Lords who have supported him, have rightly laid stress upon the necessity and desirability of progress in the Licensing Laws which will bring those laws up to date and in accord with the needs of the population. The Government are heartily in concurrence with the wishes by which the supporters of this Bill have been actuated. They recognise that the Bill is the outcome of earnest and sincere thought and study and is in every way an important and serious contribution to this subject. But, while we are no less desirous of judicious reform in temperance matters than the supporters of this Bill, we cannot at the present time give our consent to this measure or to any other measure that re-opens the complicated and controversial questions connected with amendment of the Licensing Laws. Your Lordships will have seen the Report of the Southborough Committee on Disinterested Management which has just been published and lies upon the Table. It has been in the hands of the Government only for a very short time. As your Lordships know there are other matters connected with the Licensing Laws that are not dealt with in that Report, and it will be found necessary to consider them before this Government or any Government can be in a position to give a final pronouncement upon the subject.

At the same time, though I do not wish to repeat what was said by my noble friend Lord Desborough the other day, I may perhaps be permitted to offer one or two observations upon the actual terms of the Bill as it stands and to point out some of the difficulties that seem to present themselves in considering it. As your Lordships are aware, the Bill consists of three main points: it proposes to establish a system of local option, it alters the present system of compensation for loss of licence, and it proposes to set up by degrees a system of public management throughout the country. But your Lordships will know from the discussion on the Temperance (Wales) Bill that was introduced by my noble friend opposite, Lord Clwyd, the other day that the Government are not persuaded, in spite of the eloquent speech of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, that the example of local option in Scotland is sufficiently satisfactory to commit them to the extension of the principle elsewhere, and I do not think that this debate, so far as it has proceeded, or a careful study of the proposals of this Bill would lead us to alter that view without very much more careful inquiry and examination.

Having said this, I do not think it is necessary for me to deal at any great length with the proposals as they stand. They have been touched upon at some length by my noble friend opposite, Lord Buxton, and the right rev. Prelate, the Bishop of Durham, has said that if the Bill went to Committee he would deal in a very drastic manner with its proposals. But I should like to say a word on the question of compensation. It appears to me that the present proposed solution is a compromise between those who consider that no compensation should be paid to licensees at all and those who believe that some compensation at least should be given them for the withdrawal of their licences. Although I am bound to say that I admire the ingenuity with which the framers of this Bill have endeavoured to meet this dilemma, I should regret it if the present proposal ever became the law of the land.

To put it briefly, the compensation scheme of this Bill says to the licensee that he may be deprived of his licence at any time. If he is deprived of it after fifteen years he will get no compensation at all, and if within fifteen years he may get some compensation, which diminishes as time goes on. Is not that saying to the licence-holder that, if he is a wise man, he will squeeze all the profit that he can out of his business while he has time to do so? Noble Lords may say that this is what he does already, but I am not sure that this is so. If the licensee is compelled by this sword of Damocles hanging over his head to squeeze everything that he can out of his business, there will be no money left to him for carrying out a scheme of improved public-houses or similar experiments, or any means of dealing with the situation that is described in part of the Southborough Committee's Report.

I should like to raise one point that I have not heard mentioned to-night on the question of improved public-houses as they are described in the Southborough Report. As I understand the promoters of this Bill, they do not desire improved public-houses managed by private enterprise. Their view is that in any area where an improved public-house system may be introduced under a local option scheme those improved houses must be entirely under public management, somewhat on the lines of the Carlisle scheme. As regards that point I need not again quote the words of the Southborough Report which were quoted by Lord Des-borough the other day. After the view which the Southborough Committee have expressed so carefully it would be impossible at the present stage to rule out other means of improving public-houses than by public management.

I feel sure that there is a great deal of progress to be made by private enterprise in the improvement of public houses, and I think that that is a view which is shared by the Southborough Committee. I would refer your Lordships to paragraph 60, where they say: We are of opinion that the improved and enlarged public-house which caters for a food trade as well as for the sale of drink is a development in the direction of progress, and we think it desirable that applications for improvement and enlarge- ment of premises for this purpose …. should be given very favourable consideration. I need not develop that paragraph further, but I would also draw your Lordships' attention to paragraph 54, which refers to the evidence of persons who have had direct experience, and practical experience, in the management of improved public-houses on private lines. It is the evidence given by Mrs. Ernest Sotham and Miss Edith Neville, on behalf of the Association for the Promotion of Restaurant Public-Houses in Poor Districts, which was initiated by Mrs. Ernest Sotham, who during the War had a great deal of experience in canteens.

Her idea was to apply the same principle of canteens, as run during the War, to public-houses in poor districts. She was assisted in this by a great number of persons who cannot be accused of being interested in the sale of drink in any way, including the late Bishop of Winchester, Dr. Talbot, and many others bearing well-known names. They got a public-house in Clerkenwell, and Mrs. Sotham ran it herself. The public-house began to sell food, and as a result of the new management a large food trade was built up, and the Association derived quite a fair profit from it. Objection is taken to this scheme—perhaps in some ways an objection which can be upheld, although I do not think it is destructive of the scheme altogether—that it is all very well to have restaurant public-houses, but the only result is that you change your clientèle—that people who want only drink will go to other public-houses. I think that is certainly not entirely the case. Mrs. Sotham told me herself that a large number of people who used to come only for drink came there now and spent a good deal of their money on food, and also I believe on mineral waters, and that they brought their families with them, and that the whole place was entirely changed. I feel sure that this system, if developed, would produce most favourable results, and I think if your Lordships will look at paragraph 54 you will see that Mr. Giffard, the Chairman of Barclay, Perkins and Company, has expressed a view that in the majority of public-houses cheap and properly cooked food, attractively served, is very rarely forthcoming. The evidence which he gave goes to show that Mrs. Sotham's Association is proceeding on the right lines.

For my own part I cannot see why in this country the habit of what is known as the café system is so little followed. I do not see why it should not be adopted here as in other countries. In no country that I have ever lived in—except in Russia a good many years ago—does one see so much evidence of places where nothing but drink is sold. You have only to go into any village, or small or large town in France, or Germany, or Italy or Spain, to see people of all classes sitting at restaurant tables out of doors, if it is fine, with their families, listening to music, or reading the papers, or playing dominoes, and taking refreshments, and the refreshments are mineral waters, or coffee or syrup, or something of that kind, quite as often as beer or wine. I do not see why the same system, to which nobody can possibly object, should not be introduced into this country. I feel sure that if it were, and if we had the system of improved public-houses, it would do a great deal to solve the difficulties which this Bill attempts to solve. I therefore do agree with what was said by Lord Dawson of Penn and by the Bishop of Durham, that temperance is more likely to be promoted by public opinion than by legislation, and that the way to deal with it is not to bring in drastic Bills like this Bill, which may antagonise a large section of the population, but to work gradually as is being done—that you are far more likely to get a sober England by means of example and education than you are by legislation, however well meant that legislation may be.

LORD MESTON

My Lords, the series of interesting and very often ingenious speeches to which we have listened during two evenings, against this Bill, have at least one common feature. They present sufficient divergence, they differ in many of their outlooks, but they are united in sedulously refusing to face, or even to admit, the real living, burning issue with which this Bill attempts to deal. We have had, both on the previous evening and to-night, many of the old crusted arguments which have done duty ever since local option became a political conception. We have had the same belittling of a social evil which is going on and flourishing under the eyes of every one of us. There has been the same raising up and skilful destruction of financial bogies which do not appear in the Bill itself. There have been attacks on minor details of the Bill which would have been thoroughly appropriate in Committee stage, if the opponents of the Bill ever meant it to reach the Committee stage, but which at the present time are inappropriate and to some extent vexatious, because they tend to hide from us the real issues which we are now being asked to determine.

We have also had a number of the old familiar catch-words. We have been told again that in some way we were interfering between the working man and his beer. The Bill does not interfere between the working man and his beer. What it does do is to give the working man, and what is more important his wife, an opportunity of saying and judging whether he is going to be forced to drink his beer in the present unhappy, sordid surroundings, or whether he shall be able to drink it in comfort and decency, or in the last extreme do without it and take to something else. We have had all along the same reliance upon the old comforting clichés and a determination to leave ill alone. It is just here, in the recognition of this evil, in the failure to realise the necessity for solving this problem, that we have had among the opponents of the Bill, with a few exceptions, something very like a conspiracy of silence.

The problem that is before this House is a very simple one. It is this, that a large number of men in this country and unfortunately, as statistics show, an increasing number of women are addicted habitually to the excessive use of alcohol. That is not denied nor ate the disastrous consequences of the habit denied, disastrous to the happiness of thousands of homes, disastrous to our national physique and efficiency and morale, and disastrous also to our efficiency as a great industrial nation. When the Bill sets out to combat disastrous consequences of that sort, it is pitiful and a little unworthy that it should be opposed on some of the grounds to which we have listened. We have been told again and again during the debate that the evil of alcoholism is remedying itself. It is true that the worst, the most obvious and most degrading demonstrations of alcoholism are abating, that we as a nation are more orderly in our use, or abuse, of alcohol than we were twenty years ago. Is that in itself a reason for refusing to accelerate the rate of reform at a time when reform in this respect is probably more urgent and imperative than at any other time in our history?

The argument that a social evil tends by itself to disappear—is that an argument which the opponents of the Bill would carry into other fields? I am almost tempted to ask if they would apply it to trade unionism, but, as it is of the first importance to keep this great question out of the realm of Party partisanship, let me put a less controversial analogy. Suppose the House was asked to legislate upon some great question of sanitation. Would they argue that it was unnecessary because we were far cleaner than our forefathers, because we used more soap and bathed more freely? If they used that argument, they would be taking the same line as they are taking to-night in refusing to accelerate a measure of reform which is essential to the well-being of the people and in stigmatising it as undesirable and unnecessary. Are the premisses of this type of argument sound? Is it true, in spite of all we have heard, that alcoholism is a disappearing factor in our national life? It is true there has been a great reduction in the consumption of alcohol and in public drunkenness during recent years. The reasons for that have been discussed and explained in full detail. Among them I do not think it is possible to overrate the fact that the Government of the country itself has taken a hand in the interests of temperance in making the liquor weaker and its price higher.

A fact that strikes most of us, who study the statistics and are reasonably familiar with some of the local areas where drunkenness has prevailed from time immemorial, is that the impetus given to the temperance movement by the War is to some extent now fading and that alcoholism is in some respects on the increase and on the increase in new, dangerous and insidious forms. It is also true that we still spend £300,000,000 of our national wealth on alcoholic liquors. There is some indication, too, that when that return of prosperity we hope for begins to come, temperance will lose much of the ground it has acquired during the recent years since the War. Surely these are facts which do not justify any one in describing this measure as premature or untimely, or in setting up arguments based on temporary fluctuations of a habit which, as has been said, is as ancient as our race.

From this argument the opponents of the Bill have turned to rending local option. It is a very remarkable thing that some of those who have been most eloquent against local option are equally insistent in warning us from time to time in other measures against the dangers of central bureaucracy and are constantly invoking the independence of local opinion. They surely cannot have it both ways. If the local authorities are going to be entrusted with the growing burdens that the State thrusts upon them in the operations of enlightened decentralisation, surely they must also be trusted with looking after the decencies of life and with safeguarding public order in the way which this Bill proposes. Why make local option an exception? Surely it is for one reason and for one reason only—that you are afraid of it. You are afraid of it in this way: if a local area takes its courage in both hands and refuses to tolerate any more the often very unsatisfactory methods of our Licensing Law, refuses to tolerate, for instance, the existence of ten public houses in a village street where three are more than ample and takes a hand in making life for the people in its area more tolerable in all respects, there is a danger that this example will spread and that instead of one Carlisle in this country you will have scores of Carlisles up and down the country, and the nation will awaken to its power of dealing with social diseases. That is the fear behind this outcry against local option. It is good that we should see from time to time how unworthy this driving force often is.

The final point to which I would invite your Lordships' attention is one which I do not think it is possible to overstress. We are rapidly approaching the point at which this nation has to choose between the interests of the liquor trade and other interests, particularly those of the textile and manufacturing industries of England. England has during recent years lost some measure of its predominance in those great manufacturing industries and it has to fight every inch of its way to avoid further retrogression. In that fight it has to throw overboard ruthlessly and relentlessly every handicap that stands in its way. One of the most prominent of those handicaps is alcoholism. It is no use talking about oar personal feelings, about whether we are at our best under the genial stimulus of port or at our best under the colder stimulus of barley water. We have actual physiological facts tabulated for us in the Reports published by the Medical Research Department and they tell us without hesitation or reservation that for any form of sustained labour, whether mental or manual, alcohol is a deterrent. It is just that fraction that alcohol absorbs in the efficiency of our manufacturing worth that may turn the scale between our holding our own in the fierce competition of to-day or falling back for ever into the second rank.

As regards Prohibition, I have nothing that I can say. I do not think that any of us know enough about Prohibition to offer any dogmatic and categorical opinions. This we do know, that the American manufacturers, the great leaders of industry, in America, have welcomed it, probably as a pis oiler, but they have welcomed it, because it has enabled them to give better wages to their workmen, and to get better work from their workmen. On the last evening on which this Bill was being debated I was somewhat surprised to hear from a noble Lord opposite an expression of something approaching to contemptuous treatment of this particular argument. He said: "Is this the sort of thing that is going to appeal to the working men, or the employers of working men in this country?" Why not? Is it not the experience of those men who endorse the restriction of the supply of liquor in America that they are able to give their workmen a higher standard of living, that they are able to produce higher efficiency in manufacture, and thereby in both senses increase the national wealth of the country? Can we afford to ignore that experience? In this country the argument between drink and efficiency has been with us for many years. In the past it has seemed to be of relatively little importance. To-day it is growing more and more important with every year and every month that passes. It has reached a position of paramount importance in our national and industrial life. On that ground, if on no other, I cannot conceive that any thinking member of your Lordships' House would refuse to give this Bill a Second Reading.

VISCOUNT ASTOR

My Lords, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned.

Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Viscount Astor.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

House adjourned at a quarter past seven o'clock.