§ Mr. STEEL-MAITLANDasked the Home Secretary whether he can state the convictions for drunkenness for men and for women, respectively, in the city of Birmingham for the first quarter of each of the years 1914 and 1915?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe figures desired are: For 1914, 911 males and 121 females; for 1915, 373 males and 78 males. It is necessary, however, to exercise extreme caution in drawing any deduction from these figures. Convictions are never by 1293W themselves a safe indication of the amount of drunkenness, and would be specially misleading in the present circumstances. To take another offence as an illustration, it could not be suggested that motor cars are habitually driven at a slower speed than last year because there are less prosecutions for exceeding the speed limit.