reported from the Chairmen's Panel: That they had appointed Sir Watson Rutherford to act as Chairman of Standing Committee C (in respect of the Territorial Army and Militia Bill).

Report to lie upon the Table.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

In moving the Second Reading of this modest and tentative Measure, I do not think that many words are necessary. My first words must be words of thanks to the members of the round table conference, who, in a short series of meetings, distinguished—if I may say so—by the most admirable good humour and good sense, formulated the recommendations that provide the substance of the Bill. Let me say at once that if any credit can be claimed by the authors of this Measure, it is due to my colleagues, jointly and severally, in that conference. If there is any blame, I hope, and confidently believe, that it will be imputed to me. Our meetings were private, and it was no small assistance and encouragement to us that our deliberations were regularly followed, and indeed accompanied, by public reports in the usual quarters which exhibited every degree and every variety of inaccuracy. We were a little helped also by another matter. It did not escape us, as it does not escape this House, that under the Act of 1915 the Liquor Regulations may be continued by Order in Council for a period of 12 months after the legal termination, if and whenever it is reached, of the War. The Central Control Board has performed its difficult duties with so much patience, so much public spirit, and so much skill and judgment that we all felt, as I fancy the House feels, that its labours ought not to be unduly or unnecessarily prolonged. Our task was—and it now becomes the task of Parliament—to provide if possible a sufficient, a satisfactory, and a more durable alternative. We knew, of course, as everyone who is now present knows, that agreement, and agreement alone, can produce that result, and some of us thought, I hope not rashly or wrongly, that a continuance of the hot weather, if it could be arranged, might posibly be of use towards that end. It is pleasant to think that the Government Whips, with their usual skill, have succeeded in making those arrangements.

I do not think it is necessary that I should enter, at any rate at the present stage, in any detail into the provisions of the Bill. I believe that, contrary to the usual practice, the Bill has been read, and there are even signs that it has in some quarters been understood. I shall not, therefore, trespass upon the time or patience of the House by recapitulating its main provisions. The problem with which we had to deal was the problem of adapting to a time of peace the lessons learned during the period of the War, and the first difficulty was to arrive at some reasonable compromise upon the important question of hours. The proposal contained in the Bill—and I am not saying that it is a cast-iron proposal—consists of three main elements. It provides, first of all, for a maximum number of what are called permitted hours. It provides in the second place, a total period within which that number of hours may be variously allocated. It provides, thirdly, that there shall be a break of at least two hours in the afternoon, and there are suitable variations as between London and the country. Let me recognise at once that anomalies may easily arise if, while we provide a maximum, we abstain from providing a minimum. And it may well be that, when the Bill comes to be considered in Committee, it will be thought right and proper to insert a minimum. I do not pause to enumerate the hours, because I believe that every Member of the House is familiar with the proposal that is made. But I should like to say one word upon the second Clause of the Bill, which has to do with Sunday. The Bill contemplates that licensed premises and clubs shall on Sunday have a maximum of five hours, subject to certain limitations as to the distribution of those hours. With regard to Wales and Monmouthshire, hon. Members are aware that up to the year 1915 Sunday closing operated in Wales, but did not operate in Monmouthshire. In 1915, under Orders of the Central Control Board, there was a certain assimilation between Wales and Monmouthshire. Subject to a very important difference, this Bill proposes to continue that assimilation. The difference is this, that while licensed premises in Wales and in Monmouthshire will, if these proposals stand, be brought under the same Sunday closing law, clubs both in Wales and in Monmouthshire will be under the law which is applicable to England and to Scotland. Whether that proposal is to be persisted in or not must depend, or largely depend, upon the views that may be taken by hon. Members who come from that part of the country.

With regard to Clause 3, which has been called the "Theatre Supper Clause," I hope that we have gone sufficiently far to meet what was undoubtedly a very general demand. The House will observe what we have done. We propose to get rid of the present too narrow definition of restaurant, because experience has shown that it is in fact too narrow. We propose to make the test, upon the question whether the additional latitude granted by Clause 3 may be obtained in any particular case, depend and depend only upon the nature and the user of the premises. So long as the premises are

I pass from that part of the Bill to say a word upon the second part. The Conference was faced with the problem of the powers and the property of the Central Control Board in areas subject to direct control. Partly in England, and partly, to a smaller extent, in Scotland, there are certain areas where the Central Control Board has actually acquired properties of various kinds connected with the licensed trade. If this Bill is to become law, and rapidly to become law, or if any Bill resembling: this Bill is rapidly to become law, some special provision will have to be made for these matters. The scheme of the Bill provides that the Central Control Board is to be abolished. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear! "] I am quite sure that hon. Members are not deficient in gratitude to that Board for its difficult, its protracted and its reluctant labours. It is quite obvious that only a few courses are open to us. The plan contained in the Bill is stamped upon its face as a temporary and transitional plan. Clause 15, Sub-section (1), begins with these words:

I have observed in some newspapers the statement that this Bill continues the bonâ fide traveller, and in other newspapers the statement that it does not. The second statement is correct. The tombstone of the bonâ fide traveller is the third line of the First Schedule. Section 61 of the Act of 1910 is repealed, and with that repeal the bonâ fide traveller disappears. [Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: "Why?"] The bonâ fide traveller is, as I understand, a person who takes a bonâ fide walk, in order to get a malâ fide drink. But he has hitherto had his peculiar activities limited to the Sabbath day. Under this Bill there will be seven Sabbaths in a week. There will be a close time at least every afternoon, and, if we continued the bonâ fide traveller with all his wicked privileges, a man who lived, for example, at Kingston or at Ealing might come up to London to perform his harmless occupation during the day, and he would enjoy in London during every hour of that day the status, and maintain the privileges, of the bonâ fide traveller.

Why not?

I dare say my hon. Friend will ask, why not have free trade In intoxicating liquor at all hours?

Hear, hear! That is the solution.

There may be something to be said for that view, but that is not, at any rate, the view which was taken by the Conference. This Bill, whatever its imperfections may be, does represent a sincere and an honest effort to express what was ascertained to be the highest common measure of agreement. It may be that advanced thinkers like the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) will detect a lack of logical symmetry in its Clauses, and perhaps a want of idealism in its Schedules. He may tell us that the Bill is illogical, inconsistent, incoherent, and indefensible.

You are making my speech.

I make no admission under any one of those heads. But I should like to observe that, in my humble judgment, if and so far as the Bill is illogical, incoherent, inconsistent, and unsymmetrical—

And badly drafted.

;or badly drafted, it is likely, unless all my experience is wrong, to contain the makings of a good and useful Act of Parliament.

I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."

We have had the privilege of listening to a remarkable speech from a remarkable Minister in support of a remarkable Measure, and I was struck with the peroration of the right hon. Gentleman to the effect that, in his opinion, the Measure is incoherent, inconsistent, badly drafted, and all the rest of it, and that, assuming that to be the case, it was still capable of becoming a very useful Act of Parliament. That is the fallacy which underlies so much of the legislation of the present time. I was not surprised when the Attorney-General told us that this was a modest and a tentative Bill. I do not know that that distinguishes it very much from any of the recent measures of the Government. As far as its tentative nature is concerned, it has become a recognised practice of the Government at a very early date after their passage to repeal the Acts which they pass. So far, I see no particular distinction in this particular Measure. The House would be rather disappointed if it thought that the Measure as a whole is of a tentative character, and I was glad when the Attorney-General indicated that the only tentative element is that relating to Clause 5. I do not suppose that he wishes the House to understand that this Clause, and all the other portions of this Measure are to be tentative, and that after this Bill has been tried for a limited time, we are to have another temperance Measure or licensing Measure at another date.

I move the rejection of this Bill, not with the slightest expectation of getting any large volume of support. The House is too tired nowadays to vote against anything. I move it because it is the only method which I can think of of giving expression to the view which I have formed. As one who has taken a keen interest in this subject, and who was once described by right hon. Gentlemen on both Front Benches as the " leader of the opposition to the licensing proposals of the Government of 1908–09," the view which I have formed is that the Measure is based on an utterly wrong conception of the problem with which it has to deal, and that after three years of impatience on the part of a very tolerant public, these concessions are offered to us as a sort of whittling down of the infringement of the liberties of the people which was inaugurated, in the words of the Regulations under which they were made, solely for the purpose of the War, for the production of munitions, the conveyance of munitions and things of that kind. It is a whittling down of all the cant provisions which have emanated since that unfortunate declaration of the Prime Minister in the early days of the War that we were fighting three enemies, of which the greatest and most formidable was drink. If that were true, I take it that we have not won the War yet, and we should not want this Bill.

When I was present in the Abbey on the great occasion of the burial of the unknown warrior, those words of the Prime Minister came back to my ears, and I Wondered why those officials of the United Kingdom Alliance could not carry the coffin on their shoulders in-stead of the sailors and soldiers. We were often told there was no intention on the part of the Government to interfere with the social habits of our people, that those Regulations were not to be in any way part of any temperance policy. Although the War is supposed to have been over for some two and a half years, the date is not yet fixed for peace. When it is, I suppose the Attorney-General will advise the Government, and the official termination of the War will have to synchronise with the passing of this Bill on the lines that were the crowning and coping stones of all the peace negotiations since the Armistice. I object to the title of the Bill and to the spirit which runs through it. There is a phrase in it which always annoys me in connection with these Measures. This is a Bill to amend the law in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquor. That is a most offensive adjective to apply to one of God's greatest gifts. A glass of beer is not intoxicating, or a glass of decent wine, or of whiskey and soda, if it is not during the War period.

When you get too many.

The proper phrase should be alcoholic liquor. Alcoholic liquor is not necessarily intoxicating. You might just as well have a Bill to regulate the meat trade, and call it " A Bill to regulate the trade in nauseating food." If you eat too much meat you make a beast of yourself, and probably would become as great a danger to the community as if you had drunk a dozen bottles of whiskey. I object to the phrase "intoxicating liquor." I take my fair share of liquor I hope, but I do not think I have ever been in this House in an intoxicated condition. Therefore I object to that attitude, but I object to something more throughout the whole Bill. From beginning to end there is a most offensive conjunction between public houses and clubs. The two terms are used as if they were synonymous. I protest, as representing a constituency which contains more workmen's clubs than any other constituency in the United Kingdom. I object to having my workmen constituents' clubs, which are as sacred to them as the Reform Club and the Carlton Club to gentlemen opposite, coupled with public houses. The workman's club is as much his home, his castle as is the club of any gentleman, and I do protest that the regulation of clubs should at least be left to the committees of those institutions subject if you like to notice to the superintendent of local police with power to intervene only if there are complaints as to intemperance.

That is one of the main reasons why I am moving the rejection of this Bill. Under your licensing law you permit police officers at any time to enter licensed premises. I have been present— because the same law applies to some of my clubs in South Hackney—when the police called, and I felt it to be an affront, and an indignity to respectable workmen and their wives, to see police officers going round examining the glasses to see how long it might have been since a glass of beer or stout was served. That is one of my first objections, and when we come to the Committal stage I shall certainly move to exclude clubs from the operation-of this Bill. Speaking generally, my view is that the only thing which the Bill ought to contain is Clause 14. That Clause repeals the Intoxicating Liquor (Temporary Restrictions) Act, 1914, the Defence of the Realm Amendment Act, No. 3, 1915, and any Regulations or Orders made thereunder, and it abolishes the Central Control Board. That is all the Government ought to do and that is what it pledged itself to do.

I will not trouble the House with quotations, but I could read letters from the Prime Minister, from the late Minister without Portfolio (who was then Minister of Munitions), from Home Secretaries and other Ministers, in every one of which they said that all the provisions for regulating the sale of alcoholic liquors were temporary War measures only, and that they would be repealed the moment circumstances permitted repeal. What demand is there for this "modest, tentative" and badly drafted Measure? I have had something to do with the law, but it was with great difficulty that I discovered what some of these Clauses mean. Instead of saying in simple language that as far as the Metropolis is concerned, bonâ fide restaurants can remain open until 12.30, and that any liquor must be supplied before that hour, we find the Bill states in Sub-section (1, a ) of Clause 1 that " nine " shall be read for "eight" and "eleven" for "ten." Then we jump to Clause 3 to find out that the licence holder may put his extra hour at the end of the time instead of in between; and next we go to Clause 5, paragraph ( d ) to learn that nothing can be served in the last half hour. Why could we not have had all this stated in simple language? I know that the learned Attorney-General is wedded to his profession, and I know that in the law things are pretty dull just now. This Bill will be a harvest for the legal profession. There is not a briefless barrister who cannot look forward with hope and joy to this Measure becoming law. The Noble Lady (Viscountess Astor) who represents the Sutton division of Plymouth has not given us the benefit of her presence today. She is always ready to quote statistics of drunkenness. There was a phrase used by the learned Attorney-General to which I will give an answer. The right hon. Gentleman said that the object of this Bill was to enforce, as far as possible, the lessons of the War. Could anything more illogical have been said? During the War we sent from 5,000,000 to 7,000,000 men out of the country and—

I do not wish to interrupt, but that statement conveys the exact opposite of what I said. The word I used was not "enforced" but "adapt."

I will take the word "adapt." It is not very good language, but it is good enough for this Bill. During the War we sent 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 men, including most of the policemen, out of the country. There was nothing but "swipes" to drink. The wonder was that there was any drunkenness at all. There were diarrhœa and blood poisoning and insanity. Fancy going to the War period for statistics as to arrests for drunkenness! There was no drunkenness, and there was no one to arrest people if they had became drunk. What we ought to do is to compare the figures of to-day with the pre-War figures. We have had no arguments as to this aspect of the matter, and unless one of the several leaders of the Opposition can say anything on the subject we shall not hear such arguments. Let us rid our minds of all this canting nonsense about the drink traffic. If every hon. Member of this House had to undergo an examination into his character equal to that which a licensed victualler has to undergo before he gets a licence, there would be many empty benches in this House. I know that my seat would be vacant. The best way to promote temperance is not to harass and embarrass the respectable licensed victualler with all these unnecessary restrictions. The respectable licensed victualler is the best temperance reformer we have got. First, he is a man of good character; next, he knows how much of his liquor can be taken; and, thirdly, he knows that his livelihood and licence depend upon the propriety with which his trade is conducted.

There are other provisions in the Bill that I hate and loathe. There is the Clause laying down conditions as to the distribution of liquor. The poor van-man has to take with him extracts from a day book. Apparently future candidates for the police force will have to possess a knowledge of elementary bookkeeping. The recruit will be asked, "Do you understand single and double entry? "or" Can you check whether a vanman has delivered more or less than the proper quantity of beer? "All that is nonsense; it is out of date. We did not fight for that sort of thing. Are we not grown up? I say with all the vehemence I can command that Coalition Members should not be so frightened of defeat at the General Election, but should let their consciences go for once, and vote as they feel about this Bill. Clause 14 is the only thing that should be in the Bill. I say to the Government that if they must introduce a Licensing Bill, they should put something of use into it. Let them follow the advice of the Lord Chancellor. Let them make the public-house a decent house, a place fit for heroes and their wives to drink in. Have a standardised quality of whiskey and of beer; see that people are not poisoned. Reform the public-house. As to that, I am not at all sure that the learned Attorney-General is not a little sympathetic to the French system and other Continental systems. There are no licensing Regulations there. You can go at any time of the day or night, and get a drink. You sit down with your family, knowing that you are not drinking against time. That is the policy which I would respectfully commend to the learned Attorney-General.

I ask the Government to take a broad view of the whole business, and to say that this is inadequate as a temperance Measure, that it is irritating, complicated in its machinery, and will not do an atom of good to the temperance cause. It certainly will be no good to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Above all it definitely and by Statute classifies the working-man's club as a public-house. Is that what you mean? If so, it is casting an affront and throwing a great indignity on an institution which is. dear to the working man. God knows, the workers have not many opportunities for recreation and for relief from the drab monotony of their lives. The Bill should be withdrawn with the exception of Clause 14, because if it goes forward, the provisions as to minimum hours will have to be radically revised in Committee, and in that event we look like sitting on until October at least. I am as sincerely interested in temperance as anybody else, but I resent this kind of legislation, because it is un-British, it is undignified, and it is unworthy of grownup people. I prefer to give the people of this country the freedom and the right to conduct themselves as decent human beings, in accordance with the reputation we are supposed to have and have had in the past, of being a self-respecting and self-reliant nation.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General on the light and frothy character of the speech in which he moved the Second Reading. I am sure he will not quarrel with me if, in dealing with it, my remarks have more spirit in them and rather less soda. This is a Bill which vitally affects my own constituency. and I am bound, in the interests of my constituents, to put before the House the reasons why they object to this Measure. I first call attention to Part II of the Bill upon which the learned Attorney-General had not very much to say. I wish to point out that Clause 14, Sub-section (2), vests in the Secretary of State as respects property in England, and in the Secretary for Scotland as respects property in Scotland, all properties that are held in the State management districts by the Central Control Board. Clause 15 says:

Will there be compensation?

Compensation is to be given, I understand. Let us go further into the Schedule—

That is the reason which the Central Control Board gave, but Gretna has disappeared years ago. Only the other day did the Minister stand there and announce that the whole of the premises at Gretna were to be disposed of. Those 16,000 navvies for whom these extraordinary measures were taken, which I do not believe were ever necessary, have gone back to their homes long ago, and ever since the War the place has been gradually getting more and more deserted. To whom then do these restrictions apply? They apply to the ordinary citizens of Carlisle and the ordinary countryside folk in the area round about. They are not applicable to any large number of workmen liable to drunkenness, because these do not any longer exist. My constituents feel this very strongly, and their attitude is this. They say, "Put aside altogether the question of whether restrictive measures are necessary or not, but if you treat the rest of England in a particular way, treat us in that way also. Why should you select Carlisle and the area round about for special measures when the reason for it has disappeared years ago?" The learned Attorney-General said this is but a tentative or transitory measure, because at the beginning of Clause 15 it states, "Until Parliament otherwise determines." I thought that every Act of Parliament was "until Parliament otherwise determines," so what is the necessity of putting in those words? Were they put in in the Agriculture Act, or the Housing Act, or in any of the other Measures that have recently been repealed? Parliament has the right to repeal a Measure when it pleases. Those words are put in in this case in order to assuage what the right hon. Gentleman knows will be the just indignation of the inhabitants of the Carlisle area. They do not complain of the restrictions but of the unequal treatment, and this House has always been the tribunal of any of His Majesty's citizens who are unjustly or unfairly treated. We claim that we are being unjustly treated by being put in a different category from the rest of the country. Where is the agitation to come from to have this Clause omitted? Surely only from the Members who represent that part of the country. We are not many, and if we do not raise our voices now and protest most strongly against the imposition of these restrictions by Act of Parliament on our constituents, our chance will have gone. What is the attitude of the Government? They say, "In Carlisle and district we have on our hands a large property, and what are we to do with it? We have not made up our minds, so we are therefore going to carry on for a period just as we were, and in order to facilitate the passing of a Licensing Bill this Session, we are going to enact restrictive Regulations which there is cause for saying are unequal and stronger than are applied to the rest of the country." That will not do. It is easier to put something into an Act of Parliament than to take it out. How do we know that the right hon. Gentleman will be there to right our wrongs in six months' time, or that any other right hon. Gentleman who may succeed him or be at the Home Office, once having got this into an Act of Parliament, will not be keen to keep it there? Then what is our redress? It is merely to question Ministers or to put down a Motion on the Paper, and we know quite well what happens then. We get no chance. Now is our opportunity, and I appeal to the House to assist us in this matter and to see that we are not unfairly treated.

Is it possible that the right hon. Gentleman has not heard of the Disposals Board, that he does not know of the large number of motor lorries and other kinds of property acquired during the War which have been sold, some of it at very good prices? Of course, he knows that, and why should not the same apply to this property, this Government property which was acquired during the War for war purposes? Is there anything more illogical than that the Home Office should carry on business as brewers, or licensed retailers, or managers of bun shops, or tobacconists, or theatrical managers, or owners of music halls, in competition with local interests? Is there anything more absurd than that? Who would have thought a few years ago that it was ever the intention to turn the Home Office into a trading concern of this kind? Hon. Members on the Labour Benches have from time to time made pointed remarks against the danger of monopolies and against the wickedness of putting a monopoly into the hands of a few persons. If ever there was a monopoly, it is here, and it is not restricted to one thing alone, but to pretty well all the recreation, comfort, and refreshment of a city and a large district. Words fail me in dealing with this question, but I recognise that a complaint by itself may not carry so much weight as a complaint with a suggestion at the back of it, so I venture to put forward two alternative suggestions, not in the hope that they will be accepted, but to show at any rate that we have our own views on the matter. In the first place, I suggest that this property should be disposed of as soon as possible, that it should be put upon the market like all the rest of the surplus Government property and sold to the highest bidder. I more than suspect— in fact, I have been credibly informed— that the Home Office have had advantageous offers for large parts of their property in Carlisle and district. Let them not come here and say there are no offers for that property, because I am credibly informed that there are, and very excellent offers too. If they say, " We do not feel inclined to dispose of our property at the moment; we want to wait until a better opportunity occurs," then I claim that the Home Office, like everybody else, should be subject to the laws of this country, that they should not be excused from having to apply for a licence for carrying on their trade—because it is their trade— or for carrying on their entertainment plans. They should be in exactly the same position as any private person. Paragraph (9) in the Third Schedule is a paragraph which cannot be maintained, and if, at any rate, we can secure nothing else, I hope that in Committee that will go by the board. I venture to hope, imperfectly as I have been able to do it, that I have at least been able to draw the attention of the House to a state of affairs which, I am sure, was never contemplated by this House when it first met in 1919, and I venture to appeal to the sense of justice and right of Members of this House not to be placed in the position in which the learned Attorney-General wishes to place us.

I am afraid that in the few minutes during which I shall address the House, hon. Members who may do me the honour of listening to me will not find any light touch, or entertaining gestures, because, unfortunately for me, I am unable to take a humorous view of the drink traffic at all. That is an inherent defect on my part. So I beg the indulgence of the House while I treat this subject from a serious point of view, as I feel compelled to do. First of all, just a word or two on the statistics, for which my hon. Friend below the Gangway (Mr. Bottomley) exhibits such contempt. The statistics are in themselves sufficiently serious, and I should have thought, to anybody who studied the question as a whole, sufficiently condemnatory of any attempt to enlarge the facilities for the consumption of alcoholic liquor in this country. What was the pre-War position, and what is the position in which we find ourselves to-day? The pre-War position was this. In the year 1913 there were 153,112 men and 35,765 women convicted of drunkenness, and the consumption of absolute alcohol in million gallons was 92. In 1918, that terrible record of drunkenness had fallen to 21,853 men and 7,222 women, corresponding at once, and naturally, with the lessened consumption of absolute alcohol in million gallons of 37. Since then there have been relaxations in the hours and in the facilities for the consumption of alcoholic liquor, and there has been, immediately, a corresponding increase in the drunkenness of men and of women. In 1920, the drunkenness of men had increased from the 21,853 in 1918 to no less than 80,518, and, in the case of women, it had increased from 7,222 in 1918 to the alarming figure of 15,245.

Does the right hon. Gentleman ignore the fact that, after 1918' some 6,000,000 men, who had been away, came home?

I do not ignore the fact at all. I will now compare the figure with 1913, with which I first started. It shows quite clearly, to my mind, that in the year 1920 you have a reduction in drunkenness—I will take women alone—from 35,765 to 15,245. What does that show? It shows as clearly as anything can show that if you reduce the facilities you reduce drunkenness. The panacea of my hon. Friend—I am sure he was not quite serious about that—was free trade in drink. If he were at all serious, I ask him to cast his mind back to the time where there was an attempt to have free trade in drink. The whole conditions were perfectly horrible. There were some taverns in London where an advertisement was put over the door, "Drunk for a penny; dead drunk for twopence." The whole conditions were horrible. Free trade in beer was tried, and failed absolutely, and all these restrictions have not been applied by temperance and teetotal fanatics at all. On the contrary, the whole of our restrictive legislation has been built up by Houses of Parliament which contained the very smallest possible percentage of total abstainers. They operated upon the damning facts of the situation. Whether they liked it or not, they were compelled to go on restricting the drink trade. This is my only further comment on the question of the results of alcoholic consumption. Drunkenness is not the end of it. Look at your gaols, your lunatic asylums, your hospitals, the shattering of your homes, the desolation of your children! That is what drunkenness means. That is what undue alcoholic consumption means, and every man in this House knows it, and every woman throughout the country knows it to her bitterness and sorrow.

Perhaps I have to apologise for speaking so earnestly on this matter, but it is a very serious question, and I think the Prime Minister was right when he said we could conquer Germany, Austria, and all those other enemies, but the drink enemy remained entrenched and unshackled. What the country is suffering from in the way of social evils is too few houses and too much drink. One thing I regret about this Bill—and I say it quite frankly and openly at once—is that it seeks to increase the facilities for obtaining alcoholic drink. At any rate, it has one good effect about it. It prevents the rush back to the 1913 conditions, and stabilises, from the statutory point of view, at any rate, for the time being. I welcome the elimination at last of the bonâ fide traveller. I hope that the Members for Wales and Monmouthshire, no matter how much pressure is put upon them, will seek to retain the decision of the Government to keep Monmouthshire within the scope of Sunday closing. The operation of that Act, with all its drawbacks, has been largely beneficial, and I hope the day is not far distant when Sunday legislation may be effected also for England. So with regard to Scotland. Scotland has a licensing restriction Act of its own. I hope that the Scottish Members will, in Committee, so far as they can, see that the powers of this Act are properly adapted to the special characteristics of Scotland.

I make one final appeal upon this matter. I hope this House will realise the spirit in which we are accustomed to deal with these serious questions. I do not object to witticism or any relief of the sort when in serious and heavy business, but I do hope that the proper spirit will pervade hon. Members when we are attempting to deal with this grave and serious problem. Certainly none other but a serious spirit prevails outside in connection with this matter. Turn where you like, what do you find? The matter is one which concerns the commercial and economic future of this country. Our Dominions have gone in the direction of the complete prohibition of alcoholic consumption. Others are going in that direction. The great competitive nation of the United States has taken action which, with all its drawbacks—and I agree they must be many and serious—is to the point, though there is no use people thinking it is a complete success. What has happened there? In face of the commercial and economic competition the men, women and children of the future are stripping themselves free of this terrible handicap to the nation's progress.

And there are 50,000 stills in America!

There is not an American statesman to-day who is not earnest in his desire to promote the social amelioration and elevation of the country in this matter. My point is this: Can we afford, on the economic side, to spend as we did last year, according to the estimate of very careful authorities? One of these, Mr. Wilson, of the United Kingdom Alliance, has never had his statistics seriously challenged. There was £469,700,000 spent on the purchase of alcoholic liquors. I admit that the Chancellor of the Exchequer got £197,00,000 taxation out of that, but can we afford to do it? Of course we cannot afford to spend this money. We cannot afford wasteful expenditure of that kind. The Government is offering further facilities for this consumption of alcohol. I regret it. In so far as the result of this legislation will be towards the further relaxation by extending the hours, and so giving further opportunities to the people of this country for spending more money, creating more drunkards, devastating more homes, I regret it, and also so far as it tends to stabilise the present position I am in support of the Bill.

I have listened with very considerable interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. Everything he has said points to the fact that if he really means what he says on this occasion, he has no other alternative than to go into the Lobby with the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley), and vote for the rejection of this Bill. We are endeavouring to-day to pass a little Bill to deal with a very real and very urgent public grievance. Something has got to be done. Eloquent speeches will not avoid that necessity. We have to devote ourselves, sensibly and reasonably, and with due generosity, to dealing with this problem. The main thing in this Bill is that it abolishes the Liquor Control Board, with automatic and unconstitutional Regulations. It is only a small Bill. Subsequently the wider issues of the licensing question will have to be faced. Legislation is required, but this Bill proposes to confine that legislation to certain specified issues. The recommendations of the Conference to which reference has been made were put forward with a very great measure of agreement.

So far as my recollection goes, there were two points, I think, on which a reservation was made, in which the conference did not consider themselves entitled to arrive at a conclusion. One was with regard to Monmouthshire. The Conference did not recommend the abolition of the bonâ fide traveller. I think I am right in that. I am not betraying unduly any confidence when I mention we were not unanimous as to hours. The question of the hours of opening and closing licensed premises are certain in any case to be a matter of controversy. Any Bill which proposes hours of closing of licensed premises, and Regulations affecting that matter, will be sure to be a matter that will raise controversy and difference of opinion on the subject. On the whole, I take the view that the hours in the Bill are unduly restrictive. There ought to be local elasticity to meet the necessities of the locality. Once that principle is adopted, I think the maximum hours ought to be somewhat greater to give the local authorities that fuller elasticity which may be required in some districts, though not in others.

On the other hand, I was glad to hear that my right hon. and learned Friend had invited the House and the Committee to insert a minimum number of hours; but that is a Committee point, and I will not pursue it further. There is a real case for the bonâ fide traveller, owing to the greater number of people who now move about the country using the roads, and who do not go near the railway refreshment rooms like they used to do some years ago. They do require accommodation and consideration, and I am sure the House will agree that it is a very considerable grievance. I trust the House will decide in Committee that the bonâ fide traveller shall have more consideration. A great deal has been said about Carlisle. I am speaking from recollection on this point, but my impression is that the Conference felt a difficulty in recommending anything but a purely temporary expedient. The question of State control and ownership and the proper method of realising the full value of property which is sold seemed to be outside the terms of reference of the Conference.

We therefore agreed temporarily that those properties should be handed over to some Government body for temporary management. Our recommendation was that they should be carried on under the common law of the land, but I find in the Third Schedule some of the most arbitrary powers of the Liquor Control Board have been preserved and vested in the Home Office and the Secretary for Scotland. I believe that is wrong constitutionally, and I do not think any civil servant should be asked to exercise powers of this kind, and this matter will require very careful examination in Committee. I hope it will not be forgotten that this Bill is going to deprive very considerable areas of the country of certain privileges, and they will not be regulated except in regard to spirits and beer by any Orders of the Government, and the pre-War laws will not prevail in some areas. Those districts will lose considerably some of the liberties they have enjoyed. We shall have to consider how far those grievances are just and how far they can be met by Amendments to this Bill in Committee.

This Measure abolishes the drastic restrictions upon the strength of spirits but it does not deal in the same way with the beer drinker whose case is left out entirely. I think there will be some complaint that it is not proposed to restore the pre-War strength of beer. This is only a little Bill and it does not deal with the improvement of the public house which many of us strongly advocate, and I regret that more is not proposed in this direction. Such as this Bill is, I, at any rate, am prepared to support the Motion for the Second Reading, and so far as it ameliorates grievances and does away with causes of complaint this Measure is good, and I think it should be supported by the trade as well as by the public outside.

My reason for intervening at this stage is that I am associated with Members of this House who are especially interested in temperance, and I think the House, after hearing the views of the hon. and gallant Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton), might desire to hear our point of view as well. Probably the Leader of the House and the Members of the Government will be reinforced in the view that they have been able to strike a golden mean in this matter, although by somewhat different routes we have come to the same conclusion as the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just spoken. We are unable, however, to give unqualified approval to all the proposals in this Measure, but on the other hand, we have come to the conclusion that it is not our duty to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, or indeed, attempt to destroy it during the Committee stage. I think I ought to make it perfectly clear to the House that in making that statement I am only speaking for the temperance group in the House, and not for the great temperance organisations in the country.

So far as I know, nobody either inside or outside this House is at present authorised to speak for those organisations. The Bill has only been printed a few days, and certainly those of us who might act in. co-operation with those bodies have had no opportunity of consultation with them, and for the moment nobody can make any definite or authoritative statement as to what their attitude would be. So far as members of the Temperance Committee of the House of Commons are concerned, their attitude to the Bill is entirely governed by the question of what the scope and purpose of the Measure is intended to be.

If this Bill were brought forward as being a fulfilment of the pledges given before the General Election on behalf of the Government or of the promisee made on more than one occasion, we should receive the provisions of this Bill with the very greatest disappointment. We have been repeatedly told that the Government would introduce a Measure which would secure a proper application to peace conditions of the experience gained during the War in regard to the traffic in drink. This Bill certainly does not carry out those promisee, and it does not introduce those reforms which we consider necessary for that purpose. The experience gained during the War is clear enough to anybody who has followed what actually took place. The Liquor Control Board was set up at an early stage for the purpose of endeavouring to mitigate the evils of intemperance and for the purpose of securing that the full weight of this country should be thrown into the great struggle in which we were then engaged.

From the moment those restrictions began to be operative drunkenness, disorder, and crime began to fall in this country, and in 1918 the convictions for drunkenness were less than they had ever been in the lifetime of any person now living. It is no sufficient answer to say that that took place at a period when a large number of the male population were absent and engaged in the work of the War, because not only did convictions for drunkenness among men fall, but they fell among women in an almost equal proportion. It is also a fact that now in 1921, when all these man have been demobilised for a very considerable time, and when some of these restrictions remain, we have not gone back to the pre-War position. Therefore it is abundantly clear that the lesson of the War is that if we are to secure that complete industrial efficiency which we desire, and if we are to have that comfort and happiness in the homes of the people for which all of us must wish, it is desirable, so far from any curtailment of any existing restrictions, that there should be further legislation in the interests of temperance reform. This Bill does not do that. As I understand it, and I shall be glad to be corrected if I am wrong, the Government do not put this Bill forward as a Measure which completely implements the pledges which they have given with regard to these matters.

The members of the temperance group recognise as much as any body of Members in the House that the Government are face to face with a pressing problem the solution of which cannot be long delayed. It may be subject to the criticism that they have not dealt with it earlier, but that is not a matter which I wish to contest this afternoon. We feel as strongly as any Members of the House that it is quite impossible two and a half years after the Armistice to impose upon the people of this country restrictions which have no Parliamentary sanction. It is, of course, perfectly true that the War is not yet over, but these restrictions were not imposed with any view to phrases about the technical ending of the War. They were restrictions which were intended to enable us to throw our full weight into the struggle, and certainly nearly three years after the struggle it is impossible for anybody to justify the continuance of the present state of things. Therefore, the House is face to face with the fact that it has either to continue these restrictions, which in our view would be absolutely undemocratic, or it has at one sweep to go back to the pre-War conditions which existed before 1914. If we are to make comparison between the conditions laid down in this Bill and the conditions which existed before 1914, we have no hesitation in supporting the provisions in this Measure so far as they go. I desire to say this, because I think it is only fair to the Government that I should say so. For our part, that does not mean merely that we do not propose to-day to oppose the Second Reading. It would be quite unfair to the Government if any group in the House were to-day to be quite willing to let them have the Second Reading and then in Committee engage in continuous criticism and put forward Amendments which, if carried, would wreck the Bill. There are many provisions which we would like materially altered, but we do not propose in Committee either to raise them one by one as we should like if there were more Parliamentary time. I do hope, however, if we act in that way, that we may be able to secure from the Government the assurance that if we ask for the decision of the Committee upon those points to which we attach very special importance that we shall not be held to be acting as though we would like to wreck the Bill.

There is one matter upon which we feel very strongly indeed, and it is quite impossible for us to allow the Committee stage and the Report stage to go through without challenging the provision which enables restaurants, hotels, and clubs to continue the sale of intoxicating liquor for an hour after ordinary licensed premises are closed. That provision, it appears to me, stands outside nearly all the other provisions of the Bill. I understand that it was not a recommendation of the Conference which inquired into this matter. It is a provision which the Government have inserted as a result, no doubt, of representations which have been made to them. If the closing hour for licensed premises in London is 11 o'clock, then under this provision liquor can be served in restaurants, hotels, and clubs up till midnight. In my view, it is a mistake to say that the people of London desire a change of that character. Nothing could be more fallacious. The interest of the average citizen of London is that the streets should be quiet at a reasonably early hour. Some of us, no doubt, are reading the reminiscences of Mr. George R. Sims which are appearing in one of our great London newspapers. Nobody could suggest that Mr. George R. Sims is in general agreement with what are called advanced temperance views, but he shows in the most remarkable manner what a difference there has been in the state of London streets in the late hours of the evening compared with two years ago. Speaking generally, the streets are absolutely safe for men or women, or even children if necessary business calls them out, up to any hour. Can anybody say that that state of things is likely to be continued if this provision is adopted?

Nothing whatever will make it more difficult to reconcile the working people of this country to the restrictions which you have called upon them to bear than if they believe that there is to be one law for the rich and another for the poor. There can be no doubt that the facilities to be given will not be available for the working class. They are facilities for a selected class of the wealthy people of this country, for those in the main who are not the most representative of the wealthy section of the community. I do suggest therefore that it is a matter which may well receive further consideration, and I hope that there will be an opportunity in Committee of reviewing it and that, if it should be found that the sentiment in support of it is not strong, the Government will not insist on passing it through. It is not a matter between the temperance, party and the licensed trade. It is entirely unfair to the ordinary licensed person that he should be compelled to close at a given hour and that then for an hour afterwards it may be open to his customers to go elsewhere and be supplied with drink. It is absolutely unfair to the licensed victualler.

The only other caveat I propose to enter is this. I make no criticism of the general composition of the Conference which considered this matter, for I know it was extremely difficult to arrange that all interests should be represented, but I think it cannot be denied that neither Wales nor Scotland was adequately represented. I am making no suggestion against the hon. Members from those countries who sat on the Conference; my point is that those countries had not sufficient representatives numerically, especially when it is borne in mind that the points of view of Wales and Scotland with regard to this matter are very different from the English point of view. With regard to the Welsh point of view, I believe a statement is to be made by my hon. Friend the chairman of the Welsh party and I will not anticipate that; but speaking now, not as a representative of a group in this House, but as an ex-chairman of the Monmouthshire County Council, as a licensing magistrate in that county, and as one who has spent a quarter of a century there, I would like to say how much I rejoice that at last it is proposed to assimilate the law as to Sunday closing in Wales and Monmouthshire. Those who are interested in social progress and the ordinary development of that county will welcome this change very heartily. In the area in which I am a licensing magistrate we have found that the closing of public houses on Sundays during the War reduced Sunday drunkenness to an absolute minimum, and the continuance of a sober Sunday will be greatly facilitated by this Measure. I regret the Government have found it necessary to weight the Measure with the proposal which allows clubs to sell liquor during certain hours on Sundays, but we of the Temperance Committee consider that that is a matter for the Welsh Members, and our attitude will naturally be affected by the attitude the Welsh Members take up.

Of course, I have no right whatever to speak here authoritatively for any body of Scottish opinion, and the only point I put is this, in view of the fact that licensing conditions in Scotland have been different for many years from those prevailing in England, if the Scottish Members find it necessary to make special representations in Committee or on Report stage, I hope their action will not be taken as an attempt to wreck the Bill. The Bill differentiates insufficiently between the position in Scotland and in England. As I understand it, the Bill proposes to assimilate the hours for sale in the two countries, and I should imagine that in many circles in Scotland that will be held to be a very retrograde step. Before the War the hours of sale in London were 19½ daily, in provincial towns in England 17 hours, and in Scotland only 12. At present the hours for sale in England and Wales are 6½ daily, and the hours in Scotland only 5½. The closing hour in England is 10 o'clock, and the closing hour in Scotland is 9, and I should imagine there will be a grave objection on the part of a large body of opinion in Scotland against imposing the additional hour from 9 to 10 on the Scottish people. When the closing hour in Scotland was 10 the closing hour in England was 11, and that difference of an hour has existed for over a generation; and I do hope—I do not put it higher than that at the moment—that if there is any Scottish feeling on this matter, and the point is discussed in Committee, it will not be held to be a wrecking proposal to put down amendments on the point.

The only additional word I have to say is that we are not treating this Measure' as a temperance Measure. It is not a temperance Measure. There is not a single provision, not one, neither a Clause, nor a Sub-clause, nor a Section, which will facilitate the work of temperance in this country. What the Bill does is to relax restrictions which are in existence at the present time, and to do that can result only in additional drunkenness, disorder, and crime, as all our experience shows. Therefore, if it were to be treated as a temperance Bill it would be impossible to support it; but face to face with the choice of adopting this Measure, with all its disadvantages and all its drawbacks, and the risk on the one hand of maintaining the utterly undemocratic Liquor Control Board Regulations—not sanctioned by Parliament—and on the other hand, the abolition of the Liquor Control Board, and the return to the terrible pre-War hours, we feel that we cannot oppose the Bill. We look forward, however, to the time when this House will pass legislation of a very different character, legislation which will deal drastically with this question, not, indeed, on the lines of imposing on the people restrictions against their will, but in the direction of giving to them in their respective districts the right to deal with liquor control in the way they think best. That is a measure upon which we have set our hearts. We believe, we hope, that it has the approval of the great majority of our fellow countrymen. This Bill to-day has no relation to this great ideal, one way or the other, and we will continue to press for that great measure of reform, and hope that before long it may be carried into law, putting the people in a position to deal with the problem.

When you find an apostle of temperance and a member of the trade going into the same Lobby in support of a Bill it is time for the ordinary man to begin to take care of himself. This Bill is the outcome of a Conference, which, notwithstanding the protests I entered many months ago against the absurdity of allowing either of these parties to deal with the liquor trade, was composed largely—not altogether, but largely—of brewers and tem- perance people. That is a very foolish combination. It is just about as objectionable a mixture as beer and water. They are perfectly good when taken apart, but they are very objectionable when mixed. I can see that the last speaker's mind is penetrated with the unconscious, deep-rooted unfairness—a curious mental twist, if he will excuse my saying so—of that extraordinary body which has grown up in this country to seek righteousness by compulsion. These people do not know what righteousness really is. It is in a man's own bosom, and so is temperance. There is no temperance in compulsion.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) said that he was not going to be amusing in regard to this matter. That is a fault that no one would ever lay to his charge, unless he might be so sub-consciously. He proceeded to thump out some statistics. The hon. Member for Hackney, however, pointed out that all the young men who might be inclined to a little troublesome —as young men who are worth anything generally are, unless they are conscientious objectors, or members of the United Kingdom Alliance—were absent from the country. A far more telling reason than that is the colossal and grotesque cost of what we in Scotland call excisable liquors. They are all excise and very little liquor. The duty in 1914 was 5s. a barrel on good beer; to-day it is 100s. a barrel on swipes. On whisky the duty was then 13s. 9d. a gallon; now it is 75s. That makes a tremendous difference in the consumption, but it brings a colossal and shameful amount to the revenue, and I think it has a great deal to do with the deep-rooted industrial discontent in this country.

We are told that the Germans and the Belgians are working harder than ever they did in their lives. So they are, but they are getting pre-War ale. Hard working, toiling, perspiring men know what it is when they come off, say, a ship, feeling the strain of their work, to go and get refreshment. I remember seeing one of the most prominent teetotallers in this country, after an air raid, go into a hotel and swallow three glasses of brandy, one immediately after the other. When bombs had been dropping near him he felt the nervous shock. The working man, especially when engaged in hard work in a mine, or on a ship, or as; a dock labourer, is always feeling the heavy strain, and it is a crying shame: that he should be given that miserable-compound which is now called ale. The brewer cannot make decent ale at the present prices and at the strength now allowed. There is not a decent glass of stout sold in this country; the only place where you can get it is Ireland. They have a liberty that we have not got. The figures given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles were really vitiated by the absence of the men and also by the colossal increase in cost, which has caused a great deal of discontent.

2.0 P.M.

In the old days we had far less labour trouble. Look at the strikes we have had. They are due to the men being disgruntled, they know not why. I remember the wandering reapers at harvest time. They did not mind what were the wages or what were the hours. As long as the moon shone they would work, as long as they could get a pint of beer. There was no eight hours a day then. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles also gave a quotation which I have given: "Drunk for a penny; blind drunk for twopence." I do not suppose he knows where it comes from, but you will find it in Froude's "History of England." When Dutch William came to this country he shut out the French wines and introduced gin. Then it was sold at a penny a bottle, and it was then that the gin palaces came in, and you had the additional announcement that for threepence you could sleep it off in a straw shed at the back of the premises. There never was any drink problem till then; we were the soberest country in the world before that. It was also pretty well the start of licensing which was; introduced, not for the purpose of putting restrictions upon the people, but purely for purposes of revenue. The well-to-do classes used to drink claret and the working men drank home-brewed ale. In America they drink home-brewed, ale now; you cannot get it anywhere else. An enormous illicit traffic has come into being, and excise officials, police officials, Customs officials, and even the Judiciary are all in it up to the neck. They run a few odd whisky-shop keepers now and again, but what generally happens is that when the inspector comes he tells them that if they do not pay him a handsome sum he will confiscate the liquor and sell it to someone else.

I object to the supposed abolition of the Liquor Control Board. It is not abolished at all, because all the understrappers are passed on to another office. They have tasted blood. Only the other day they appointed a gentleman from the Treasury named Eagles, and immediately the quotation occurred to me, "Where the quarry is, there will the eagles be gathered together." There are plenty of people in this House who believe in nationalisation, and they will say, in regard to nationalising the liquor trade, that we have the machinery for it because the Liquor Control Board still exists. There was a strong movement in 1915 to nationalise the liquor trade, but what would be the result? There would be jobs for everyone, and the whole of the revenue you expect to get from it would soon disappear in the salaries of officials. It would be worse than the telephones. That was done at one place in Canada, and the first thing they did was to appoint 55 inspectors, one for each public-house. The correct thing to do is to keep this Clause as it stands, with this difference, that the whole of the property should be handed over to the Disposal Board as soon as possible, and these young men sent away. One of them came in place of a South African soldier in Carlisle who had lost a limb. He was conducting his business in a most admirable fashion, but he was put out with no compensation except for his wet stock, and a strong young gentleman went to serve in his place.

One can never forgive the Liquor Control Board for its policy. Everyone will remember the terrible epidemic of influenza that we had in this country. Now any doctor who knows his trade will tell you that the one safe remedy for influenza is largo doses of alcohol—very large doses; and the same is true in the case of rattlesnake bite. Whisky is a poison. It is a very slow poison, I admit, but an American gentleman during the Scotch campaign said that if arsenic were put into it 75 per cent. of the Prohibitionists in Scotland would be dead within 48 hours. During the influenza epidemic those who were well enough off to have access to supplies of alcohol were able to keep the heart beating, and in that way many lives were preserved. I lay the deaths of tens of thousands of people at the doors of this set of jacks in office. That is the sort of thing that destroys the common people—the ordinary public. They think their rulers have no sense. Remember the absurd treating Regulations the Liquor Control Board passed. Policemen, judges, counsel and other lawyers spent whole days arguing about them in the middle of the War. I remember the trial of an aeroplane inspector which went on all day. He escaped, of course. I was defending him. He was engaged on important war work, but the whole day was wasted. He took me aside afterwards and asked me, "Is the Government mad? How can we expect to win the War? What does it matter whether I stood my mate a pint of beer? There is no sense in it." I said, "In this part of our country we have a certain kind of monomania." First they chose a Peer who ran racehorses as chairman, who it was thought would be free from the imputation of narrow-mindedness. He had been in Turkey, which is a teetotal country but is addicted to much more objectionable vices.

I wish the Noble Lady the Member for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) had been here, when you think of the tremendous evils of betting on horse racing. She would say, "Look at the homes that are ruined by working men spending every sixpence in betting." She would say, "I plead for the women and children." If you go in for horse racing you can hobnob with the highest in the land, but if it is Mrs. O'Riley going into a public-house, her children being compelled to stay outside, you do not photograph that. That ridiculous Clause in the Children's Act, under which the children have to stand outside in the wet while their parents inside have refreshment, must have been framed by people who had no children and knew nothing about public-houses. It could not have been framed by ordinary specimens of humanity. How would you like it if every time you wanted a whisky and soda your wife said, "Children, leave the room, father is going to have a whisky and soda." Imagine the effect on the children's minds. They would all be saying, "What is this whisky and soda that mother gives to father?" The same thing happens in the public-houses. The children say, "There is some mystery about this," and they make up their minds that they will find their way into a public house at the earliest opportunity. It is, of course, a great pity that people do not all have wine cellars, but we have to deal with common humanity as it stands. All restrictive legislation is absurd and it is demoralising, because it makes people think that, by fulfilling the letter of the law and not the spirit, they can attain righteousness. In Finland you have the great attempt at prohibition. It was always demanded—restriction first and then prohibition—to deprive the Czar of the profit on the vodka. When Finland got its freedom they went in for prohibition, and I am informed by the Professor of English at Helsingfors University that Finland is now in a perfect neurasthenia of drunkenness. Everyone is drunk. Young children and young women of good position may be seen drunk in the streets. It is as though, shocked by the tremendous number of divorce cases, we were to say, "This is intolerable, all the people breaking the seventh Commandment. We will abolish all marriage and then no one can commit adultery. No one could be false to vows he has not taken." In the same way, if you abolish all the so-called facilities—how absurd it is to call them facilities—you simply lead people to do what they did in the early days when they made their own clothes. They will make their own drink—there is no special trouble about it—and they will drink it very raw.

It is no use talking about the American system. The temperance party in America have followed the same policy as in Dundee. They have harassed the drink traffic and made it discreditable, and the result was that the houses were put down largely as political nuisances. Then, of course, the illicit liquor seller took their place. He is still more objectionable, but he has created a vested interest so enormous that nothing will ever displace it. He can make far more money by breaking the law than he could by fulfilling it. The whole of American life is corruption. The only result is enormously to enrich the police. I do not believe in police statistics. At Carlisle the myth was circulated, with enormous newspaper propaganda, by the officials of the Liquor Control Board that a pint of beer handed by a barman across the counter was a means of destruction, whereas if it was handed by a Government official it became a conse- crated draught. The policemen in this district knew well enough that this was a Government public-house which was so well conducted that it was impossible for anyone to get drunk in it, and when a policeman saw a man with all the movements of drunkenness he came to the con-elusion that he was suffering from hallucinations. Policemen want promotion like other people, and they were not so silly as to get these people into trouble. Many people have told me that the Carlisle experiment was one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the public. I know how police statistics are manufactured. I once noticed that there was a very long list of cases, and I asked an official what was the reason of it. He said he wanted his salary raised, but after he got it he would leave the poor beggars alone. During the War there was bound to be less drunkenness. The true measure is to see that the people have proper, sound materialised liquor. The right hon. Member for Peebles talked about crime being less. If you read and observe you will find that the really successful burglar is a total abstainer. He could not do that delicate fine work and be an easygoing drinker. When my hon. Friends opposite visit prisons they will find burglar prisoners who will say: "Yes, sir, I wouldn't have been here but for the drink." When you come to investigate that type of case you will find that in all probability that particular burglar had helped himself from the decanter and that as a result he had gone to sleep in a chair and had been captured. Therefore, he would not have been in prison but for the drink.

One of the things to which I object in this Bill is, that I am not at all sure that it does not give power in Clause 1, Sub-section (2), to the licensing justices to restrict the hours still more. That cannot be tolerated. We all know that licensing justices are sometimes oppressed by the local clergyman or some person of that kind. The hours must de defined. The reasons why the trade are in favour of these short hours is that they find it perfectly easy to make more profit on short hours than on long hours. It would pay the trade to open their houses only from six to eight at night. Then they would be able to get their work done by casual labour at 1s. an hour, and they would cut down all their expenses. This Bill will make sure that there will only be eight hours a day, and the trade will only have to pay one lot of assistants. There must not be any power given to the licensing justices to cut down the hours further. All that this precious Conference has achieved is that the publican shall have his breakfast in bed, and be enabled to get an afternoon's nap. Possibly the difficulties against which he has to struggle make an eight hours' day ample. It may be that the trade are satisfied, but these hours do not take into consideration the man who comes off night-shift. Many a man comes up from the mine or from the docks at seven or eight o'clock in the morning, and he is going home to have a wash, a pipe, a bit of something to eat, and go to bed.

The Liquor Control Board was a War measure, pure and simple, and the datum line ought to be the pre-War conditions. Get rid of the Liquor Control Board first. This keeping of the Liquor Control Board as a sword of Damocles over our heads is really blackmailing legislation. It is a case of saying: "You must take what we give you." Do the temperance party realise that in short hours there is more liability to drunkenness than in longer hours, because if the hours are short a man drinks more heavily? It is the moderate drinker that the temperance party are wanting to get at and not the drunkard, because the drunkard is part of their propaganda. The man who takes too much is the man who will vote for prohibition. It is like the case of a man who makes good resolutions in the New Year and he cannot keep them. The drunkard will not have a chance if we get prohibition. The glorious popular vote which hon. Members opposite talk about has been exercised in Scotland. Areas were given the opportunity of voting simply on no change, restriction, or prohibition. Almost without exception the whole of Scotland voted for no change. They would have voted for increase in many cases if they had had the chance. That shows how the temperance party miscalculate the results. There were plenty of cases of men who signed a requisition for temperance polls who voted no change. You would have 1,000 names on a list, carefully canvassed for by the temperance party, and of the 1,000 who signed only 200 would vote "dry," and 800 would vote for "no change."

Asking for a poll was not pledging yourself to vote for prohibition.

It was understood to be so.

Nothing of the kind.

Yes, it was understood to be so.

Not at all.

In certain places where I and others were successful in getting an appeal to the quarter sessions, and a second poll was held, districts that had voted "dry" voted "wet." They had had time to think about it. The public is against this sort of thing, and the temperance party ought to endeavour to make the trade more respectable, instead of trying to make it worse, in the hope that it will be abolished. In Wales and Monmouthshire, under the Bill, they are to have Sunday closing. I am not concerned with Wales, but I can say this, that in Scotland Sunday closing has meant more whisky drinking, because the whisky is carried home on the Saturday night easily, whereas beer is awkward and bulky. Therefore, as a representative of a country which is interested in whisky manufacture, I welcome Sunday closing in Wales, because we are quite prepared to sell good whisky in Wales.

With respect to clubs, I maintain that the club is the working man's home, and it should be welcomed. If the working men have the ingenuity, the sobriety and the capacity to run them, they should be welcomed and not molested in the way that they are being molested. If you make strict rules in regard to hours, the police who have to administer the rules will, in nine cases out of ten, go in and get drink. What happened in the drink prosecutions under the Liquor Control Board? As a general rule the plain clothes constables who went round to detect men drinking bought half-a-pint of beer with the ratepayer's money, so that they could pose as being bonâ fide customers. Therefore, the constables were engaged in committing the offence that they were sent to detect. One policeman said that he had ordered 44 half-pints of beer one Saturday afternoon. He said that he had not drunk them, and I suggested that in that case the Food Controller ought to prosecute him for wasting food. All these restrictions were popular amongst the police, but once these things were found out, and there was a row about it, the thing had to stop.

That is the sort of stupid nonsense that we had right through with this silly body, the Liquor Control Board. The representatives of the Board, in many cases, were impudent persons. Friends of mine, representing publicans, went up to a sort of star chamber, which tried a man in his absence and sentenced him. This star chamber listened to any gossip that was told by a disappointed policeman or a jealous publican, and they took away men's businesses in the most arbitrary fashion. A friend of mine told me that they were a very impudent lot, and would hardly listen to representations from a respectable solicitor. There is no man fit to be entrusted with arbitrary power over his fellow-men. Therefore I do not think the clubs should be in this at all. You have plenty of means of detecting clubs. If a place is badly conducted members show it in their gait when they come out and the certificates are taken away very soon. Most clubs regulate their hours by the public houses, but let them do it of their own free will. They are the little cases of liberty in a very much tied up trade.

It is only right that whisky should be restored to a pre-War basis. Thirty-five per cent. is not a fair figure. It should be 25 per cent. The foundation of all respectable whisky is malt. When malt whisky is reduced below a strength of 25 per cent. under proof there is a tendency for it to disintegrate, and for the water to become stagnant. It is like stale water which has been standing in a carafe in a railway compartment. The present position of traders is that they get practically the same money for the water as for the whisky. On the whole I think the right line is to pass Clause 14, wiping out the Liquor Control Board. I would like a straight vote on that. I tried for months and months in this House, but could not get it. I would like not only to get rid of the Liquor Control Board, but to get rid of all the Members of the House who vote for it. I protest strongly against the Clause, which has been dealt with, under which the Home Secretary or the Secretary for Scotland is to be entitled to carry on a shebeen. He should not carry on a whisky trade. If he is going to be a publican let him be a publican, and let him be subject to the penalties of a publican and come up before the magistrates once a year to ask for his licence. On the whole the Bill perhaps might be given a Second Reading, but the abolition of the Liquor Control Board is the only Clause which ought to be allowed to reach the Statute Book.

I listened with great interest to the speeches against this Bill, and failed to find in those speeches any trace of useful or constructive proposals for dealing with this question. I have heard a great deal of humorous criticism of the Liquor Control Board, and criticism almost partaking of the nature of denunciation, but I dissent emphatically from that view of the work of that body. I consider that the work of the Control Board, conducted in circumstances of great difficulty, has been done sincerely, impartially, and effectively, and done in such a spirit of disinterested social service that we should be lacking in courtesy if we failed to record our appreciation of its services to the community. Some of the restrictions, no doubt, have proved irritating. I agree that the present position is impossible, but, as the Board is on the eve of being dissolved, it is only due to it that we should register our appreciation of what it has done.

On a point of Order. Is an hon. Member in order in supposing that on the discussion on the Second Reading of this Bill we are entitled to express appreciation of the Liquor Control Board?

That is not a point of Order. The hon. Member is entitled to express his appreciation.

I would like also to express appreciation of the committee which has helped in connection with the undertaking in Carlisle. I dissent from the hon. and gallant Member for North Cumberland (Major Lowther), who said that in Carlisle the desire was that the Liquor Control Board should be abolished and the undertakings in existence in that city should be sold to private enterprise. The advisory committee of the Carlisle under- taking has passed the following resolution:

"Having regard to the improvement in the condition in our district under which every branch of the licensed trade is carried on, and the advantages which have resulted to the public, and the increased sobriety, the Control be asked to urge upon the Government that whatever course is taken on the licensing question generally the system of public management which has proved such a success in our area should be maintained with adequate powers to complete and continue the work."

That committee consists of representatives of almost every interest in the city. The Mayor of Carlisle for the time being is a member, and the work of the Control Board in this city has been supported and approved by every mayor of the city since its operations began. There are two representatives of the City Council, one representative of the Carlisle Watch Committee, four representatives of the Carlisle Licensing Committee, one of the Carlisle Trade and Labour Council, one of the Cumberland Standing Joint Committee, and, in addition to those and others, three women members are appointed representing different shades of political thought and opinion in the city. Having regard to that fact I cannot imagine anyone feeling himself justified in rejecting altogether the opinion expressed in that resolution.

My hon. Friend did not say there were any Members for North Cumberland in the area which is also under State management. Is that committee entirely representative of Carlisle?

I apologise for the omission. I did not want to take up the time of the House by reading the whole list, but there are on that committee one representative of the Cumberland Standing Joint Committee, one of the Cumberland Licensing Committee, one additional representative of the county of Cumberland to be nominated annually by the Board in August.

Are these gentlemen in the habit of going into public-houses and drinking, as, if not, their opinion is of no value?

These people have been appointed on this committee, not by reason of any special knowledge which they may possess on the question of the drink traffic. They have been appointed because of their acknowledged position, and they are people who are respected in the district by reason of their experience in public affairs. Their opinions should have due weight, therefore.

Was it not the definite statement of the Prime Minister that these houses would be sold?

I was not aware that anything of that kind had been said. The Carlisle scheme and its continuance are supported by all shades of local opinion. Successive mayors have supported it, and I value more highly almost than any other opinion the opinion of social workers who are in contact all the time with the women of the city. I beg the House not to underrate the influence of the women electors of the country on this question. The police support the scheme, and the local Press on both sides in politics also supports it. They support the scheme for the reason that, as compared with pre-War times, the streets of the city are orderly, and there is a marked improvement in the general amenities of the place. On the other hand, the Chairman of the Carlisle Advisory Committee, Sir Frederick Chance, one of my predecessors in this House, in a recent report stated that the scheme was neither a miracle nor a failure. In my view, it would be entirely contrary to the great bulk of local opinion in the city should any attempt be made to hand back the scheme to any form of private enterprise. We consider in Carlisle that, should the conditions of this Bill be carried into effect with regard to the transfer of these direct control areas, the Advisory Committee should be continued in being as an indispensable part of the machine in Carlisle. The local committee is thoroughly representative of all sections of the community, and its views are worth the most careful consideration.

On only one occasion did the Central Control Board turn down a recommendation of the local advisory committee. That was on a question of the Sunday opening of public-houses in Carlisle, a question on which the committee divided, and by a majority of one decided to recommend the Central Control Board to re-open the houses on Sundays. The Board declined to give consent in view of the smallness of the majority. It is con- sidered most important that the good relationships which have existed hitherto between the Central Control Board and the advisory committee in Carlisle should be maintained in the form of relationship between the Home Secretary and a similar advisory committee. I am convinced that it is only by the preservation of the local committee that the undertaking can be saved from the results that might accrue from mere State management from an office in Whitehall and from the deadly influence of bureaucratic control of what is really a commercial enterprise. Public opinion in Carlisle is dead against the undertaking reverting to private enterprise. I am very glad to see that Clause 15 provides for the continuance of the services of the advisory committee. The question in Carlisle is not so much whether State ownership shall continue or not. It is directed to the solution of the problem as to what kind of administrative machinery should be set up for carrying on the undertaking.

I wish to impress upon the promoters of the Bill my opinion that it is absolutely necessary that local opinion should be acted upon as far as possible by the Home Office. The success of the scheme and its continued work as a scheme respected by the general public depend on the due fulfilment of this very important-condition. Carlisle will not be comfortably worked under a scheme of State control, from which the city would suffer from any special restriction or exceptional treatment which is not applied to other parts of the country. I hope that when the scheme comes into operation in the city it will be just as easy for working men to establish bonâ fide clubs in Carlisle as it is elsewhere. I hope that steps will be taken to provide such facilities as will prevent overcrowding in the public-houses. There is certain justification for the complaint that, owing to the reduction of public-houses by about 42 per cent., there is on certain nights of the week some overcrowding. This ought to be abolished. Overcrowding increases drinking. The scheme in Carlisle has been a hugh financial success. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I think the figures show it. They are published regularly and show very large profits. If I have a further criticism of this scheme to offer in the most friendly way, it is this—that I think they might be a good deal more generous in subscribing to local charities and objects of that sort.

Is the hon. Gentleman urging that it would be right to. spend the nation's money in subscribing to charities? Surely that would be grossly illegal expenditure?

This body has subscribed small sums to local charities. The amount is about £100 a year, and it is not for me to say whether or not that has been legal expenditure. Subscriptions have been given to the local infirmary and to other objects, but they have amounted to much less than would probably have been subscribed by a local private concern occupying a similar position of monopoly and prosperity. In general comment upon the Bill, I wish to express my very hearty support of the Measure, and I conclude by saying, that if a. compromise even of a temporary nature is really desired, this Bill effects that compromise. Much has been conceded by both sides, and I trust the House will give it a unanimous Second Reading, or if not, at least that it will do so almost unanimously.

I want to voice what is felt in regard to this Measure in the Principality of Wales. The House knows very well how passionately Wales is attached to the temperance cause. We have had Sunday closing in Wales, and we are thankful for the blessings which we have received from that Measure. Wales is on a different footing from other parts of the country in regard to this matter. I may say at once, that I think the majority of the people of Wales, if they had their own way, would prefer to see the war restrictions made permanent. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I am speaking with knowledge in regard to this matter, and that is my conviction. The hon. Members who interject do not know Wales as I do. The majority of the Welsh Members considered this matter last night, and they wish me to say that they intend to support the Second Reading of this Measure on one or two understandings. In the first place, we are very strong that the retention of the restrictions with regard to Sunday closing should extend to Monmouthshire. Only this morning I have had a tremendous amount of correspondence with regard to that, and although this Measure has only been published a few days ago, a large amount of public attention has already been called to the matter. I was very glad to hear the learned Attorney-General saying he would prefer to leave this matter to a great extent to the Members for Wales and the Members for Monmouthshire to decide. [An HON. MEMBER: "The House will decide! "] I think, at any rate, the Attorney-General attaches a good deal of importance to the views of the Welsh and Monmouthshire Members, and, after all, it is they who ought to know best. We want to affirm here strongly that what we really want in Wales is the Bill which we have introduced into this House over and over again, and which has got a Second Beading more than once, but has never been passed into law. We want local veto in Wales, and public opinion there is very strong upon the matter. Some of us would make it the subject of a referendum, because the people are strongly in favour of it, but though we have been in this House asking for it repeatedly, we have been refused such a Measure, because English Members do not understand the position of temperance in Wales. Temperance in Wales is in a position different from that which it occupies in other parts of the country.

We here to-day will accept this Measure, at the same time re-affirming our demand for a Measure of local veto for Wales and Monmouthshire. This Bill does not please us. It does not go far enough for our liking, and we should like to see better restrictions made in regard to children and people under 18 years of age and other matters of that kind. We support this Bill because we look upon it as a compromise, but only as a compromise. During the War the restrictions in force were enforced entirely because of the War, and the War only. We do not deny that, and now that the War is over we have to come to some judgment upon the matter. A round table conference has come to a decision and we think we ought to support it as a compromise, though it does not go so far as we would like to see it go. Possibly some hon. Members may have something to say in regard to the question of Monmouthshire. The correspondence which I have received shows that public opinion in the various parts of the county is strongly in favour of Monmouthshire being included in the Sunday Closing Regulations. They want the Sunday closing in Monmouthshire as far as I can read or find out. I have had a very large number of letters from Newport, Cross Keys, Abergavenny, Pontypool, Monmouth, Chepstow, from the Newport Free Church Council and the Sunday School Union, and a body representing 73 Methodist churches and 19,735 people, and many others, all of whom are supporting this proposal that Monmouthshire should be included for the purposes of Sunday closing. One letter which I have received states that all Monmouthshire would hail with delight the extension of Sunday closing to that county, and the opinion is also expressed that clubs should be placed on the same footing as the public-houses. On that point alone we should carry out the wishes of the people. It is not our own individual opinions that we should carry out, but the wishes of the people who sent us here, and the wish of the people of Wales is to retain, if possible, the old War-time restrictions, but if we cannot do that, to go as little as possible in the direction of the extension of hours.

With regard to the clubs, that is a very sore point. In Wales we have accepted the club under the present system and under this Bill. I do not wish to break the compromise which has been made. I desire to see it go through, but a very sore question arises with regard to allowing clubs to retail drink on Sunday when the public-houses are closed. As a matter of fact, we want a dry Sunday in Wales, and we think in that way we can make a happier land than we have got now. That represents the views of the churches and of all the best elements in Wales. At the present time it is a sore thing with us. It hurts us very much to see clubs open for five hours on Sunday when the public-houses are closed. I know very well the argument which is used with regard to the club being looked upon as a second home. Let it be a second home, but let it have the same restrictions with regard to drink as the public-house. It is a marvellous thing that during the last four or five years these clubs are multiplying in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire. We do not know much about them in my own county, and we do not want to see them. There are other points in connection with the Measure which could be touched upon, but they are Committee points and can be reserved for future dis- cussion. I welcome the provision giving the Licensing Justices power to fix the hours in their areas. They know the requirements of their districts, and they will deal with these matters in the way best suited to the wants of the district. I could say something more with-regard to the question of veto, but this is not a Temperance Bill. I do not look upon it as such. It is merely a Bill to adapt in some way or other, now that D.O.R.A. is coming to an end, the Regulations governing this matter in such a way as will meet the interests of the whole country. I think, considering everything, this is done in a very fair way, and I shall have much pleasure in supporting the Measure, subject to the understanding I have indicated, and I think so also will my colleagues from Wales.

Whatever arguments I might have used in regard to this Measure have been made very much more easy by the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Carr) and his account of his experiences in that abode of bliss and of the immense public spirit and experience of the Advisory Committee. My hon. Friend who spoke last states that he has received enormous correspondence from Monmouthshire, but I fancy he has not received quite as much as I have, and very likely he has not received it from the same point of view. Of course he would not because it is well known that my hon. Friend is a great and staunch teetotaller.

No, he is not.

I withdraw the word "teetotaller." Shall I say a staunch upholder of teetotallism?

Of temperance.

I will not quarrel about a word. I am pointing out that, his views being well known in this matter, those to whom I am referring would not, in these days of expensive postage, think it of any value to use a twopenny stamp in writing to him. I would like to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. W. Carr) who made the point that Carlisle objected to any restriction beyond what other districts had had. That is exactly the position of Monmouthshire. We strongly object to Monmouthshire being put in an inferior position to the rest of the country. We are conceited enough to think we are as good as Englishmen and that we deserve equal treatment, whether we happen to live in Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, or anywhere else. The hon. Member also used the argument of overcrowding, But this Bill opens the clubs on Sunday in Monmouthshire and not the public houses, with the result that every man who is the type of man we do not want will become a member of a club, and you will be overcrowding all these people into the clubs to get drink on Sundays, whereas, if the public-houses were open you would find the overcrowding disappear. Then there is the question of the advisory committees, and we heard from the hon. Member that the public work of the gentlemen on the advisory committee was one which ought to be taken cognisance of and which would give value to their recommendations. They by a majority—it is true only of one, but still a majority—ask that public houses should be opened on Sundays and is there anything absurd in the people of Monmouthshire asking for the same thing?

3.0 P.M.

A portion of my constituency borders on Glamorganshire, and on Sundays we have crowds at a place called Rumney, many of whom come from Wales solely for drinking purposes. We are now going to shift that border to the other side of my constituency, at Chepstow, and also near Ross, on the Herefordshire border, and we shall get the same scenes there. Those scenes are entirely due to the Welsh Sunday closing. It is no use telling me—I hope I am an ordinary common or garden man—that it is wrong to drink on Sunday and right to drink on Monday. There is no earthly sense in saying that because you live in Monmouthshire you may not drink on Sunday, but because you live in Gloucestershire you may. Some people forget that the nation's movements are quite different from what they used to be, and that in these days of motor traffic people do not stay at home on Sundays as they used to do. I happen to live in a county of unrivalled scenery, unrivalled by any county in England, in consequence of which we have enormous crowds of people who come for educative purposes from Wales, from England, from America, and from all over the world, to see wonderful places like Tintern Abbey, Raglan Castle, and other places of historic association in our county; and to tell me that they are not to be allowed, simply because it is Sunday and in Monmouthshire, to get ordinary refreshments, other than tea or coffee, is to tell me a thing which is unthinkable in the 20th century. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hinds) has referred to the question of the churches. I am a student of church history, and I have a certain position in the Church of England in Wales. I take a great interest in church work, and I am convinced of this, that there is universally a lack of attendance at church and a general deploring of the indifference of the man in the street to church services and church work. You are now going to make Sunday more dismal than before, and you may take it from me, as a man who has travelled a good bit, that the more dismal you make Sunday the more empty you make your churches and chapels. What you want to do if you are really going to aid temperance is to see that your public-houses are really decent places, where a man and his family can go, and to see that the stuff that is sold there is really good, and then you may be quite certain, when you make it comfortable, when you make a man able to take his wife and his family, that you will not get the drunkenness that you see at the present time. All you are doing now is to legislate for the drunkard. Everybody agrees that the drunken man is the curse of the country, a curse to himself, to his family, and to the publican, and an infernal nuisance to the ordinary man. If you want to cure him, shut him up; if fines do not meet the case, put him in prison; if putting him in prison does not make him sober, put him in an asylum and keep him there for the rest of his life. Why should the ordinary man, who is not a drunkard, the 99 per cent. who are sober men, be penalised because of one drunken man? I ask this House, when the Bill comes up for the Committee stage, that Monmouthshire may be deleted. We do not want it. The vast majority of people in Monmouthshire do not want it. I am quite prepared myself to have a plebiscite taken if it is possible, and I believe you would find an enormous majority in favour of decent restrictions, but nothing like Sunday closing and making it impossible to get a drink at the ordinary times.

This Bill is frankly a compromise. Some people object because the Sunday Closing Act is extended to Monmouthshire, but, on the other hand, there are very many, like myself, who dislike the Bill as it stands because clubs are net put on the same footing as public-houses. I personally, with the bulk of the Welsh Liberal Members and the bulk of Welsh Members generally, am prepared to give a Second Reading to this Bill as a compromise which, whilst not meeting the views of either section, does provide a fair working basis. My hon. Friend who has just sat down said he thought he spoke for the majority in Monmouthshire, and I am not sure that in the course of his speech he did not say he spoke for the majority of the people of Wales. I have never said that I speak for the majority in any country, or even in any constituency, because it is very difficult to know what the majority is with regard to a particular Measure; but I venture to assert that, as far as the temperance question is concerned, Wales does certainly stand on a very different footing from the rest of the United Kingdom. That fact was recognised by the passing of the Sunday Closing Act for Wales. It was not passed by a Parliament of teetotalers or temperance fanatics. It was passed by a Parliament because that Parliament realised that the people of Wales generally demanded a Measure of that character. We do not say that we like it, or that we do not like it. We merely say that there is sufficient evidence that that is the desire of the people of Wales, and, since that evidence is in existence, it is our duty, as a representative Assembly, to pass a Measure which will meet the wishes expressed by the people.

My hon. Friend said that he would be glad to see the question of Monmouthshire submitted to a plebiscite. I was very glad to hear him say that, because some of us have been asking for some time that the whole question of licensing should be submitted to a plebiscite, not only in Monmouthshire but in the country generally, because if a plebiscite be required with regard to the Sunday Closing Act in Monmouthshire, it must surely also be right in regard to other licensing questions. Therefore, I look forward to the support of the hon. Gentleman for a Measure giving local option. I do not propose to follow my hon. Friend in regard to what he calls the failure of Sunday schools in Wales, or the failure of churches to attract people to Sunday services, but, if his argument be followed to a logical conclusion, I gather that it would necessitate the setting up of a public house next door to every church, so that when people were dismal in church they would be able to turn to the public house to get happy, and then, when they had got sufficiently happy, they would go back to church.

This Bill is frankly a compromise, and as such it will not meet any section of extreme opinion in regard to the licensing question. Therefore, the question with which we are faced is this: Whether it is not better to accept a compromise which includes, as every compromise necessarily does include, many defects, rather than continue what, I think, everybody agrees is at the moment a very unsatisfactory position? We are faced with the fact that the immediate alternative to this Bill is the continuance of the Liquor Control Board. [An HON. MEMBER: " No!"] An hon. Member says " No!" He is the only man of whom I have heard who has discovered another immediate alternative. The immediate, practical alternative is the continuance of the Liquor Control Board, as stated by the Attorney-General to-day, for a period of 12 months from next September at least. There are a large number of Members in this House who think that the Liquor Control Board is an unsatisfactory body. I, for one, have always refused, and I hope I shall always refuse, to suggest that Members who take that attitude are not interested in the temperance movement. On the other hand, with regard to a very large number who gave certain promises to their constituents, that War-time restrictions should be removed, I quite agree that it is unfair to label them as opponents of temperance reform, because they stick to that pledge.

We are faced with the fact that the immediate alternative to a compromise of this character is the continuance of those irritating restrictions for a period of 12 months from the time, which is uncertain, when the War will be declared to be at an end, but certainly it will not be before September of next year. The ultimate alternative is going back to pre-War conditions, and I venture to think that there are very few Members of this House who, in their hearts, would really be prepared to support the return to pre-War conditions, without any limitation of hours, without any restriction of any character, and with all the evils which, admittedly, were attendant upon the position of the Licensing Laws in this country before the War. Those are the alternatives before us, and I venture to suggest that the House would be accepting a very serious responsibility, indeed, if it were to refuse a Bill which is based upon a Report to the Government by a Conference representing Members of every party in the House. I agree that the Members were not authorised to commit their parties in any sense. We were all there as private individuals, but we were there as Members from every party in the House, and we represented every possible interest in this question. We represented the interest of the trade, the temperance reformers and the ordinary public, who are not so much concerned with one side or the other, but who do want to see the licensing question put on a satisfactory-basis; and we represented also the clubs, who are a very powerful influence, and whose legitimate interests, I agree, ought to be safeguarded. A Conference of that character made certain recommendations to the Government. I say, again, all the members of the Conference were not satisfied, but, in the public interest, we agreed to run the risk of the disapproval of the different parties and sections, in order to' arrive at something which would form, at any rate, a temporary, and, as the Attorney-General said, a tentative agreement, which would enable us to relieve the present very unsatisfactory position, and to put something, as everyone must agree something must be put, in its place.

I am quite certain that I am representing the views of that Conference when I say that our deliberations and our results-were greatly facilitated by the fact that the Conference was presided over by the learned Attorney-General. It was his dexterity which enabled us, if I may say so, to sing our Doxology, and to enable us to arrive at something which is now incorporated in this Bill. I do not want to go back to the question of Wales, beyond saying that I feel, what my hon. Friend has said, those of us who are more or less concerned with the temperance movement in Wales do not pretend to be greatly satisfied with this Bill. On the other hand, we do accept it as a compromise at the present time, until the whole question of the licensing laws of the country can be put upon a proper basis. My hon. Friend seems rather to have overlooked the fact that, as things are now, and, in the absence of a Bill of this character, as things will continue for another eighteen months at least, none of his difficulties will be met by a continuance of the restrictions which now exist in Wales and Monmouthshire. At the present time, the bonâ fide traveller who comes over from America to see the beautiful views of Tintern Abbey, is not able to get a drink on a Sunday either in a public-house or a club. Under this Bill, at any rate, he will be able to get a drink in a club in Monmouthshire for five hours on a Sunday.

If he is not a member?

As a guest. I think my hon. Friend is not quite so innocent, either of the rules or practice to imagine that a guest would not be able to get a drink in a club on Sunday; but I find it very difficult to believe that any man who has come all the way from America to inspect the beauties of Tintern Abbey will deprive himself of the opportunity of seeing Tintern Abbey because he is doubtful whether he will be able to get a drink in a public-house on a Sunday or not. As I say, I personally believe that this does represent a fair compromise. My hon. Friend, I know, is very well aware of the conditions which prevailed on the road between Cardiff and Newport in the days before the War-time restrictions were imposed, and the conditions which, I agree, arose out of the Sunday Closing Act in Wales. My hon. Friend certainly would be aware of the conditions which prevailed upon that road. I lived for several months there. It was a positive danger travelling along that road on a Sunday. My hon. Friend used the argument that all you are going to do is to move the evil from Cardiff to Newport, to the Usk Valley, to the other side of Monmouthshire. Is that quite right? Is it quite a fair argument? I do not think so, and for this reason: Glamorganshire includes places like Cardiff, the docks at Barry, etc. Everyone who uses the road between Cardiff and Newport on the Sunday will bear me out, that a very large proportion of people who walk outside Cardiff to drink on the Sunday are sailors, dock labourers, and other people engaged in the ports of Cardiff, Penarth, and Barry. If you look at the map, or know the county, you will find that when you go from the Western to the Eastern border of Monmouth you are not faced with the same conditions at all. You do not get that large mass of the population which gave rise to this undoubted evil in Glamorganshire and Monmouth before the War. I venture to suggest that by extending Sunday closing to Monmouthshire you will not do what my hon. Friend fears, namely, remove the evil from one part of the county to another.

I think I am right in saying that the vast majority, or say a large number— for I do not want to put it higher—of representative bodies in Monmouthshire have asked for an extension of Sunday closing to that place. Monmouthshire has been included in Wales in practically every item of legislation which has been passed for a very considerable number of years. A body like the County Council of Monmouth, I think I am right in saying, has passed a resolution in favour of the extension which this Bill gives in relation to the Sunday Closing Act. Even the Licensing Authority of Monmouth has passed a resolution. There is not one Member of Parliament for Monmouthshire, with the possible exception of my hon. Friend below, who will oppose the Second Reading to-day of this Bill. By saying that, I am not pretending that they commit themselves to support the Bill as it stands. I do think on the whole the Members, even for Monmouthshire, will be prepared to support the Second Reading, not, perhaps, because they like the Bill, but because they do recognise that here is a fair attempt to arrive at a compromise, based on a Conference, which for the first time in the history of temperance legislation, so far as I know, has been enabled to remove this very difficult question from that atmosphere of active controversy by which it has always been surrounded.

The hon. Member who has just sat down has made reference to the county of Monmouth. So far as I and my colleagues are concerned, as Welsh Members I think they agree that we are not going to oppose this Bill. We take it as a compromise. We do not think the suggestion which has been thrown out, that Monmouthshire should be left to be dealt with by the Welsh Members, is fair, equitable, or just. It should be left to this House or Committee to decide, so that there can be no influences brought to bear on the Committee. That will obviate the conclusion of certain Welsh Members who may feel, because they represent a majority in this House, that they in any way represent the majority of opinion in Wales. We are placed in a most invidious and unfortunate position so far as Wales is concerned. We have got this mixed blessing which the hon. Member for Carnarvon has referred to—that is Welsh Sunday Closing. It is a sad illustration of one county being dragged at the heels of 11 counties, the one county of Glamorgan being an industrial county and the 11 others being agricultural counties. The 11 counties consist almost entirely of agricultural opinion. Their sympathies are entirely at variance with the sympathies and feelings of the other people in the other county.

Those of us who know Wales know how organised is the opposition of the chapels to any measure of licence or liquor. It is not sincere. It is by no means sincere The chapels and the churches in Wales enter into political life with a great deal more ardour than they do in any other part of the country. Members of Parliament are bombarded with threats from every organisation as to what they are going to do at the next election unless we vote "dry" or for temperance. I for one am not going to be afraid of anything of that sort. There is too much hypocrisy in Wales in dealing with this matter. I want the House, when this Bill goes to Committee, to be quite definite and to see that Monmouthshire is not included in Wales for the purposes of this Bill. I quite admit what the hon. Gentleman said about scenes along the Cardiff and the Newport road. It is perfectly true. I have seen those scenes myself. Under this Bill my own house and lawn will suffer certain disabilities, and it would be for my own comfort and convenience if Monmouthshire is included in the scope of the Bill. But I have got to think about the people who are to be put to inconvenience—and that is the people of Cardiff. My hon. Friend said that there is not going to be transferred from the eastern border to the western border of Monmouthshire the same sights and scenes which went on at the eastern border Of course you will not transfer them. But what will you have instead? You impose upon a commercial and industrial community conditions which they do not want, and ought not to have. It will tend to make drunkards of men who do not in any way desire to be such.

We are going to oppose for all we are worth the extension of the provisions of the Welsh Bill to Monmouthshire. Knowing, as hon. Friends do know in this House, the miserable conditions and surroundings in which these men of Cardiff and Rhondda live, one realises there is only one outlet for them on the Sunday. It is the char-a-banc or brake party. They do not abuse their privileges or right. It has never been questioned that at Tintern and along the Wye Valley these trippers have ever abused the privilege before the War, except on the borderland. It is assumed, because, with mistaken zeal, what is imposed upon us by purity companies and good government societies is good, that we can take away from a big industrial centre like Cardiff, Glamorgan, and Monmouth the right they have had. There is another thing the Attorney-General had a little bit of fun with the bonâ fide traveller in Wales The only chance he ever had of getting drink—I refer to the man without a cellar, the man who had forgotten to take anything home on a Saturday, the man who possibly had been working very late on Saturday—was by his walk on Sunday. It was his exercise He was entitled to go into a public-house after he had walked a certain distance and get his liquor. Why should he not? You take that away now and a man is not to have it. There is another thing Why should a lot of cranks—and you get them in Wales more than in any other part of the country—I am not speaking: of my particular friends. Wherever you get a large number of cranks on the licensing bench you have no guarantee that you are going to have a maximum number of hours per day, and if I know anything of these people I am sure serious attempts will be made to cut down the hours to the minimum. This opens up a wide field.

With regard to railway travelling we have no provision whatever. There is a very large passenger traffic to all parts of the country, and many of our trains arrive very late. What provision is going to be made for the bonâ fide traveller who arrives after a long journey? How is he going to obtain any refreshments at all? I think such travellers ought to have facilities, even if it is after 11 or 12 o'clock. to obtain a meal and get a drink with it. With regard to the clubs we have had pressure brought to bear upon us to advocate a return to pre-War hours. I am quite agreeable to accept this Bill as it stands, because it gives us the same hours and conditions as the English boroughs, but I want hon. Members to give every possible assistance to the point that the industrial population of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire do not want Monmouthshire brought within the scope of the Welsh restriction, and we desire that we should be permitted to have restored to us the bonâ fide traveller's provision.

I desire to put in a plea for someone who has not been mentioned in this Bill. Hon. Members will generally agree that one of the oldest and most valuable institutions in this country is the wayside inn. If this Bill is carried it means that for those areas which have been open from 10 o'clock in the morning until 10 at night their hours will be cut down, and they will be brought under the same restriction as urban districts. I think the provisions of this Bill, speaking generally, will be welcomed. So far as my experience goes in talking to publicans in the North of England, they are agreed that they should not return to pre-War conditions, and they want the break in the middle of the day. If we turn to the wayside inn different circumstances arise. Mention has been made of the hardships of a railway traveller in a first-class carriage. I take the case of a poor man on the road driving a vehicle with one or two horses. The wayside inn to that man is absolutely indispensable, and there is no hardship on anybody by keeping those places open during the whole of the 10 hours. I hope the Government will see that in all rural districts, the hours shall not be less than 10 or even 12 per day.

In industrial centres public-houses are generally conducted by a manager, barmen and barmaids, but the wayside inn is conducted by a man and his wife, and probably a servant. If you are going to cut off 4 or 5 hours in the middle of the day in such cases, you are going to rob these people of a great part of their revenue. It is not always convenient to arrive at a public-house at 2.30 after walking 4 or 5 miles or driving, and if you do not do so you cannot have a drink. These places are often used as pleasure resorts, and are you going to say that you cannot have a glass of whisky there because someone in London feels that you ought not to have it? In my opinion the wayside inn is an institution which is well worth preserving, and should not be interfered with. I hope those in charge of this Bill will take this matter into consideration. The wayside inn really belongs to the users of the road, and it is a valuable institution which ought to be preserved. We ought not to rob the keepers of those inns of a great portion of their means of livelihood by unduly restricting their hours.

I was a Member of the Conference which considered this question, and I wish to point out that this is not an agreed Measure. I understood the Conference was appointed with a view to drafting a Bill in order that the War-time restrictions might be continued under existing circumstances, and that the Bill was to be an agreed Measure. This is not the first time I have said this. My colleagues on the Conference will remember that at the last meeting I said that unless my views, which I thought were reasonable, were carried out, I should be obliged to oppose this Bill on the Floor of the House. I do not want to vote against the Second Reading, because I hope that the Government will be able to accept certain reasonable Amendments.

Let me make one or two points upon upon which I understood we were agreed, and which have not been carried into effect. There is a question of the hours of opening, 8 hours for the provinces and 9 hours for London. I urged that the hours in the provinces should be between 5.30 and 10.30. The factories close as a rule at 5.30 and if the Bill is carried as it stands, these men must hang about for half-an-hour whereas if the public-houses were open at 5.30 they could go in, have their pint of beer, and then go home. I am speaking of the men in the West Riding, where they are mostly beer drinkers.

As a result of the erection of cinemas, a large number of our people do not now go to the centre of the town, but they go to a cinema nearer home which closes down at about 9.45. Then there is a rush for the public-house, and the result of this is that you make people guzzle down the drink which they want, whereas if they had an extra half hour they need not rush and the man could get away with his wife and family. The Bill emphatically declares that the opening hours shall not be later than 10 in the provinces, with a proviso, of course, that with the consent of the local bench of licensing magistrates the premises may remain open until 10.30. A definite hour should be put into the Bill without any reference to the local bench of licensing magistrates at all. I do not want to complain about them, but I am very much afraid that in matters of this kind they are biased. They are very excellent gentlemen—I am a magistrate myself—but I know what pressure is brought to bear upon them, and I suppose, like Members of Parliament, they yield, and, when they yield, they do a great deal of harm. Therefore, there ought to be something definite in the Act, and it ought not to be left to the local bench of licensing magistrates.

It was perfectly clear to me as a member of that Conference that the right of the bonâ fide traveller was going to be restored, but it is evident from the provisions of the Bill that the bonâ fide traveller is to be done away with entirely. I ask the House to take note, not of the extremists, whether the people concerned in the liquor trade or the temperance organisations, but of the great volume of public opinion outside in the category of moderate drinkers. This is a Bill in which for the first time we are going to incorporate War-time restrictions. My hon. Friend below me (Mr. Raffan), who represents the Temperance party, pointed out that you are going to reduce the hours in London from 19½ to 9, and in the provinces from 17 to 8. Apparently there is a certain section in the House who will not be satisfied even with that reduction. The great point is that you are going to impose restrictions upon the community generally, and particularly upon the working class, because it is the very basis of the Bill that you are dealing with the democracy. I submit that the great bulk of the community are moderate drinkers, and you are going to impose War-time restrictions. I said at that Conference quite frankly, and I repeat it here, that, much as I detest the Central Control Board—within three months of their operations I sought their abolition—I would sooner have the Control Board than this Bill. Whatever this House may think, public opinion did bring some pressure to bear upon the Control Board, and they did from time to time relax the restrictions. You are abolishing the Control Board, and you are making a stronger Control Board in an Act of Parliament. There is no elasticity, and nothing can be done to suit the convenience of the public when once this becomes an Act until you bring in another Act and repeal it. That is the great danger in front of us. I would not trouble if I thought that the elements behind this Bill were in any way reasonable. The teetotal party in this country has wrecked Government after Government.

I claim to know—I do not know whether the claim will be accepted—something about the industrial community of this country. Of course, my hon. Friend (Mr. Hinds) knows more about Wales than I do, but he does not know the industrial community better than I do. I have been among the industrial community of Wales for 30 years, and I tell him quite frankly that what he states does not represent the view of the working folk in Wales generally. When he brings forward statements from So and So, the opinion which he expresses is organised, and in this country it is only the organised opinion that counts in politics. Although this Bill does in a sense relax the war-time restrictions, when the great body of moderate public opinion outside get to know the Bill there will be no mistake about their attitude. Do not let us overlook the fact that this is the preliminary to a bigger Bill, which I suppose they will want to make an agreed Bill, and I do not know where that is going to land us. It is quite clear, however, that the present Bill will be incorporated in that Bill. I understood that in certain localities, where men by reason of their work require to get refreshment, that they would be able to obtain it. This Bill cuts them out completely. The pledge of the Government is not incorporated in the Bill, and I charge them with breaking that pledge made to the Committee. Iron workers, for instance, have not the ghost of a chance of getting a drink when they come off the night shift, and there is not a single provision in the Bill to provide for the miners getting refreshments when they change shifts.

The Bill is not an agreed Bill, and it does not fulfill the pledges that I thought that I had got. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Carr) and myself have been frequently associated in industrial matters, and I am very proud to state that we get on very well, because he is one of those employers who always likes to give reasonable conditions, but I think he overlooked the outstanding fact in connection with the Carlisle experiment. It was an experiment not to meet the views of the people of Carlisle so much as the circumstances created by the great Gretna factory near at hand. Does he know the conditions in Carlisle itself? I was one of those who believed in disinterested management, but, after seeing Carlisle, I have changed my view When I went there to investigate matters for myself, I regret to say that I saw more open drunkenness in the streets of Carlisle during the experiments of the Control Board than I had ever seen before in any other town. I have seen boys and girls out in the streets there drinking from bottles, and anyone who knows anything about Carlisle, where they are supposed to serve refreshments and food, must have changed his views. Some of my colleagues who were members of the Conference tried to make the best of that experiment, but I think they will admit that the conditions which I have described are fairly correct.

I do not like this compact between the trade and the temperance party. I declared on the Commission that I did not represent the Labour party, but that I represented a great volume of public opinion outside which said to both extremists, "A plague upon both your houses!" I submit to the trade that they are on very dangerous ground when they agree with their oponents in this manner. The fundamental fact is that it is because of this compact that the interests of the public are not regarded. It was submitted to me, "How are you to cover the rural areas always in the habit of closing at ten o'clock?" It seems to me very simple. The trade is so well organised that it is possible for them to get together and to come to an agreement to meet the convenience of the local public, and to say in the rural areas, "We shall not open after ten o'clock." They could then take that to court and get the agreement endorsed. Naturally, I do not wish to do anything that is not in reason. I am going to agree to the Second Reading of the Bill, but with great misgiving. Between now and the Committee stage I shall try to rouse public opinion on certain points in the Bill that ought not to be there, and I shall move Amendments on the Committee stage in order to get the Bill something like an agreed Measure.

I should have been content to leave the statement of the Government case where my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General put it at the opening of this Debate, in a speech which was as full of wit and humour as it was of wisdom. If I intervene it is not so much because I have anything new to say as because I think the House may expect to have a few words from me, and I would like, if I may, as briefly as I can, to put the case to them as it appears to me. I am not a teetotaler; I have never associated myself with the teetotal movement. I have always refused to vote for the extreme proposition of the temperance party. On the other hand, I have kept myself equally free from the organisations of the trade. In that, I am one of a great mass of people, and it is in the hands of that middle body of opinion that the settlement of this question must ultimately rest. Any of us who have been long in this House, or who have heard the licensing question discussed outside, know how often progress which was desired by that great middle body of opinion has been delayed by the extremes that lie on the other side.

As a result of the War, not merely during the War but after it, we have been able—having for the moment dropped our old controversies, and approached questions with a new desire for agreement— to settle, or at any rate to advance many questions on which progress was impossible beforehand, or was only made by one party overriding, and voting down the other. Cannot we do and must not we do, as a country, something of the same kind in respect to licensing legislation? I do not suppose that any Member of the House, whatever his view may be of our licensing laws as amended by this Bill, would regard the position as a settlement of the licensing question. For my own part, I have always expressed the greatest sympathy with that school of opinion which believes that the largest step we can make in temperance would be achieved if we could reform the public-house so as to make it a place to which a man need not be ashamed to take his wife and family, and where, sitting with his wife and family among the wives and families of his companions, he would be very slow to disgrace himself publicly. All that we are attempting to do is to secure that minimum which is necessary to meet what I believe is the common agreement of the great majority in this House and the great majority in the country. Is there anybody in this House who wants the Control Board to continue in its present form? Those who think, and there are many, that the Control Board has exercised its control on the whole wisely and well—

No.

The hon. Member need not contradict what is merely a definition of opinion. There are many who think that the Control Board has carried on its duties on the whole wisely and well. Yet, as far as I have listened to the speeches to-day, it is agreed that the Control Board is not a body which ought permanently to be entrusted with the powers it possesses, and that even if those powers should exist they ought to be vested in a different authority, brought directly under the control of Parliament. I do not think anybody wishes the Control Board to continue. What is the alternative? It is either that we should take from the experience of the last few years those restrictions and provisions which we think it desirable to continue, give them statutory authority by a Bill of this kind, and place their administration and control in the hands of a Minister, or that we should revert to pre-War conditions without change. My hon. Friend the Member for Spring-burn (Mr. Macquisten) and one or two others would like to take that course.

That would be the honest course.

My hon. Friend should not make charges of dishonesty.

There are endless passages in the speeches of the Prime Minister, and there are letters in existence in which he promised that the Liquor Control Board restrictions were only for the period of the War; and to introduce a Bill to say that the Liquor Control Board restrictions shall be continued is politically dishonest.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend should think it necessary, or even proper, to use language of that kind. He is mistaken. When the Defence of the Realm (Amendment—No. 3) Bill was passing through the House of Commons, the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) asked why should the Bill continue after the War had ended? The Prime Minister had been arguing that it would be necessary to continue these special war provisions for at least a year after the conclusion of the War, in order to have time for the preparation of a Bill. Then, said my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs, status quo without consideration by Parliament. I am not asking my hon. Friend to say that he agrees with that, but I am asking him not to prefer charges of dishonesty against either the Prime Minister, his colleagues, or many hon. Members of this House, who took the view laid down by the Prime Minister at that time. But that is not all. Let me read a passage from the Manifesto which was issued in November, 1918, by the party now in power. After referring to larger opportunities for education, improved material conditions, and the prevention of degrading standards of employment, it went on:

4.0 P.M.

When I turned aside to defend the Government against charges of breach of faith, I was going to ask whether there is any considerable body of opinion in this country that would really wish to go back to pre-War conditions without any change. [HON, MEMBERS: "NO!"] I do not speak for others. We are all entitled to our own opinion. But for myself I cannot believe that that is the desire of any considerable section of the community. Quite obviously, it is not the desire of those who form the most moderate element in the temperance movement. Is it the desire of the trade? I am sure it is not. The publican, under pre-War conditions, was, I suppose, one of the hardest worked men in the whole country. He worked under great peril to his licence, his fortune, and his occupation, if his house were not properly conducted, and he had to watch over that conduct through excessively long hours. Those hours were not necessary in order to do the trade which was required for the purpose of providing him with his living. He could, and does, do the legitimate trade in shorter hours, while serving the convenience of the public, and greatly relieving the strain to himself and the expense to which he is put in the conduct of his business. Therefore, neither the temperance party nor the trade would desire to revert purely and simply to pre-War conditions. Do the public at large desire it? I think not. I do not believe that the great bulk of the men in this country would desire to go back to the pre-War hours—16, 18, or 19 a day. I do not believe that the great bulk of men resent or dislike the break in the hours, which has probably been one of the most effective instruments in stopping soaking—the kind of drinking which discredits the trade, and which is as injurious to them as it is to the country at large. It might be said that the men were equally divided, but there is now another large element in the electorate. Can anyone doubt that to go back purely and simply to the pre-War conditions would result in a revolt of the great mass of women in this country, who have found that the restrictions, or certain of them, wisely applied, have greatly bettered their conditions and those of their families?

Efforts in the direction of reasonable temperance reform have so often been wrecked by extreme men on one side or the other. Do let us try whether, following the work of this Committee— upon which were representatives of either view, but on which the balance was held by the men of middle opinion, neither interested in the trade nor directly concerned in the temperance movement—do let us see whether the House of Commons, bringing the same good will and the same open mind to the consideration of the question, cannot support, in its main lines at any rate, the compromise at which this Committee arrived, and allow us to proceed with a very moderate Measure, which will prevent us, on the one hand, from reverting to the pre-War conditions, which few people desire to see re-established, and, on the other hand, from being swept into wild and extreme measures which, though they might be voted, would be found here, as in other countries, extremely difficult of enforcement, and which would not respond to the needs and conditions of the people of this country.

A good deal of the Debate has turned not upon the principle of the Bill, but on its local application. Take first the case of Carlisle. I cannot readily conceive—a larger number of public houses having been acquired in a particular area, purely owing to circumstances arising out of the War—that Parliament would under any conditions allow them to revert to private management. I do not think public opinion would tolerate that; and certainly I myself, without saying it is desirable that they should permanently remain under the control of the Secretary of State, which is quite another thing, as at present advised, should not like to see those houses which have been acquired by a public authority put back into the hands of private individuals. I think that would be a retrograde step. But I am very much inclined to agree with the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Carr) that if the hours Regulations proposed in this Bill be made general throughout the country; the controlling authority in the Carlisle area ought to assimilate the hours and conditions in that area to the general hours and conditions of the country. I think the onus of proof, at any rate, would be on the local advisory committee to justify the creation of an exception.

One word more in relation to the question of Monmouth. I occupy a position of great impartiality, verging even on indifference, between the contending parties. There is no principle concerned in whether, for this matter, Monmouthshire is linked with Wales or with England, and certainly that is not the kind of question which I should think of using all the Government force to settle in a particular way. Let it go to the Committee. Let the Committee discuss it, and do that which seems most consonant with public opinion. Of course, you would not ordinarily propose to take a single English county, and associate it with Scotland or Wales, but this particular county has again and again by the legislation of this House been grouped with Wales, instead of with England. That is why we have so grouped it in the Bill. But it ought to be settled in consonance with local opinion, if we can really ascertain what is the local opinion.

These, after all, are Committee points. I ask for a Second Reading, and then a friendly discussion in Committee, so that we may avoid what I think would be little short of a catastrophe —the alternative either of continuing the Control Board as it is, with no statutory authority and no direct Parliamentary control, or of reverting to pre-War conditions with, in my mind, the certainty of a great reaction which might carry us much further than it is wise in the general interests of the people, and having regard to their general habits, for us to go. The middle course in this matter is the wise course, and the course which represents the real opinion of the great mass of electors of this country.

I have listened with every satisfaction to the speech which the right hon. Gentleman has just delivered. It can be said that he has treated us to a very fair and quite accurate summary of the position which this great question presents. I would especially commend to the Attorney-General the concluding observations of the Leader of the House in regard to the spirit in which this Bill should be dealt with' when it goes to Committee. All the speeches have uttered not merely an individual view upon the principle involved, but a representative opinion, and what is really the public need, within reasonable limits, in the various centres represented by hon. Members. The Bill can go to Committee with the assurance that the Government will have due regard to these opinions and will treat in the most broad-minded way the various suggestions that may be made. It is not a Bill of great substance in itself, but that is due to the facts enumerated by the Leader of the House. The fact which faces us is, that War-time experience has so moulded public opinion on this problem that we do not want to to go back to pre-War conditions. This Bill is, therefore, some concession as between the extreme of pre-War times methods and the extreme of present liquor control restrictions.

I accept the Bill, on the whole, as a step in the direction of the quite harmless exercise of personal or individual liberty in respect of social tastes and habits. On the other hand, since the end of the War, we have needlessly continued a number of restrictions which are very irritating and, in some respects, restrictions imposing great inconvenience and hardship upon individuals, without any counter-balancing public advantage. If you cannot get some public advantage from the imposition of restrictions, it is not fair to impose those restrictions. As far as one can judge by contact with one's fellows and from general observation and evidence, there is good ground to congratulate ourselves upon the gradual advance in public tone and social habit on the part of men and women in this country, of all classes, in regard to the use of alcoholic drink. I hope that we shall gradually advance until we reach the stage where every self-respecting man, in fact every man, will come to look upon a state of drunkenness as a vice to be avoided, and as much a vice or a crime as theft itself. It is in that direction of the improvement of individual tastes that the real solution of this problem is to be found. I therefore welcome specially the allusion of my right hon. Friend to that more ideal, more perfect, and more tasteful kind of public-house to which the public could go with every sense of being under no suspicion of doing a wrong thing in the eye of his neighbour.

I do not at all agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Leeds (Captain O'Grady). In respect to the Carlisle experiment as it is termed, one can only speak from the standpoint of one's individual experience. Twice I have visited Carlisle, and I visited on one occasion without companions a number of the houses in Carlisle and tried to see for myself what the system was, and on the whole it appears to me that a very considerable improvement has resulted from that experiment, and therefore the Government is, in my judgment, taking the right line in relation to that experiment by the proposals embodied in this Bill. In construction and the general improvement of surroundings, accommodation, and taste, it seems to me that the Carlisle experiment has been justified, as well as on the ground of finance, and I should hope that in due course the greater success of this experiment will incline the State to extend it, and therefore to assume, as in my judgment, it would be a proper thing to assume, greater State responsibility and obligation for the full ownership and control of the supply of this very necessary and national need.

I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman, who will no doubt be in charge of the Bill in the Committee, the desirability of giving the closest attention to what has been the important question of the, last half-hour. Districts vary very much and the Bill is, I think, proceeding upon right lines in providing for a certain amount of elasticity as between, say, London and provincial centres and also as between one centre and another in different parts of the Kingdom, and that the bodies in whose keeping is the admin- istration of the law should look at the matter from the standpoint of public convenience and desire and not from their own individual standpoint in respect of this problem. I think that there are cases where it is a clear hardship on large bodies of men, perhaps gas workers, chemical workers, men in great railway establishments, employed, as many of them are, in thousands, should be released from their work perhaps on a night shift if they should find the places all closed. While I do not want to beg too much on their behalf I hope that the Bill will be so cast as that the public need will be not merely consulted, but will be met, where it is possible to draft the Bill on those lines.

I agree with the Leader of the House in his emphatic statement as to there being no desire on the part of the working classes or any other section of the community to go back to pre-War hours of opening or closing. Particularly do I say that of the opening hours for many of the great industrial centres public-houses could be found open at half-past five or six o'clock in the morning, waiting to receive people who were going to their work. Work is, in many instances, resumed a little later now as compared with former years, but I think that it would be the greatest blunder, and the greatest disservice to the masses of the workers of this country, again to expose them to the temptation of straying into public-houses at such an early hour in the morning. The other end of the list is extremely important. I have seen cases where excessive drinking or great individual inconvenience has been caused by too early closing at night. I think 9 p.m. or 9.30 p.m. was far too early. Clearly it is seen that 10 o'clock closing on Saturday or Sunday night is much too early. I do not think that any temperance object is secured by withholding at the end of the day the half-hour's time required for the normal and healthy satisfaction of human desires. I hope that that view will be taken by those who have to consider the matter in Committee.

On the question of clubs, I agree almost entirely with the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley). I cannot think that there can be equality at all as between the rich and the poor in relation to this problem if all the workmen's clubs are to be linked up with licensed premises, if they are to be treated in the same way and under the same conditions as the ordinary public-house. It is no answer to say that the system applies to the rich man's club as well. We know that in practice there is a very great difference between the two. I am not putting the difference down to any deliberate practice or to any breach of the law on the part of the rich as compared with the poor, but I say that in the nature of things there is a difference which has come within the experience of us all, and we had better confess that to be a fact. The rich man has a cellar. He has no closing hours. I do not think it is fair to these clubs, which provide for an enormous number of social conveniences and comforts, in addition to the mere supply of drink, to treat them solely as though they were public-houses. I hope we shall continue, at any rate to some degree, the differentiation which the law always observed between the club and the "pub" in pre-War days.

I hope that in the main this Bill will find its way on to the Statute Book as some concession to those millions of people who have felt the irritation of continued restrictions. Not only in this, but in other respects I am sure that we could lessen the restraint put upon the individual without in the slightest degree doing the community any harm.

I wish to express briefly the Scottish viewpoint regarding this Bill. I am not identified with any temperance organisation, nor am I associated with the organisation on the other side, which is possibly the strongest and the wealthiest in the country. I differ from some of the views expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Springburn (Mr. Macquisten), and I respectfully suggest that the House must not consider that he was expressing an opinion at all prevalent in Scotland. If I were to discuss the question of liquor and its quality, I might even differ from the hon. Gentleman. He made a statement that malt whisky was the best in the world, but on that point experts differ. I remember the subject being discussed in one of the largest distilleries in Scotland, and the makers of raw grain whisky maintained that the machinery at their disposal was so perfect, that they could produce a better article than any malt grain distillery in the country. I am not an expert in the subject, and I express no opinion, but I remember this in connection with the matter. It was said that the men in that distillery had a donkey, the skin of which got into a rather dirty condition. A number of small animals were there, which should not have been there, and consideration was being given to the subject of how to rid the animal of the vermin. Various remedies were suggested including tobacco juice and sheep dip, but finally it was decided to apply some of the fusel oil, extracted during the process of manufacturing the whisky. They rubbed the animal with the fusel oil, but next day it was found that it was the unfortunate donkey which was dead and not the animals on its skin. The argument was, that if they were able to extract so much poisonous matter in the process of manufacturing the raw grain whisky, it must be better than the malt whisky. That, however, is apart altogether from the Bill.

I am not sure if I am right in saying that no Licensing Bill has ever been introduced before applying both to England and Scotland. As far as I know, all our Bills hitherto have been independent of the English Bills, and the conditions in the two countries are so different, that I respectfully suggest when matters of this kind are under consideration we should have separate Bills. The conditions appertaining to Scotland are absolutely different, and if this Bill in its present form becomes an Act, at least an extra hour will be put on to the period during which liquor can be sold in Scotland, as compared with the hours in England. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hinds), in an admirable and well-informed speech, made one mistake when he spoke of Wales being unique in the fact that it had Sunday closing. We had Sunday closing in Scotland long before Wales enjoyed it, and no one in Scotland, whether they are interested in the liquor traffic or opposed to it, would ever suggest that we should have opening on Sunday. Those who have enjoyed the privilege of Sunday closing would not readily go back to the old conditions. In reference to the handing over of a certain area to the Secretary for Scotland, I should like to say that, in my judgment, we have never had a more capable, a more sympathetic, or a more energetic Secretary for Scotland than the present holder of the office. My only regret is that the Government, while giving him this additional work, may not give him the added status—and salary—of which he is deserving. A number of us who are Scottish Members reserve the right to propose certain Amendments, but on the general question, as this is a matter that has been agreed to by a Committee whoso judgment we respect, we will give our support to the Second Reading of the Bill.

I listened very attentively to the speech of the Leader of the House, and was in agreement with him when he spoke about a reasonable endeavour on the part of the people to try and improve the position of the public-house and its surroundings. For many years past I have been associated with a small society, which has persistently endeavoured to carry on this good work, of which the Earl of Plymouth is chairman, and with which that venerable statesman, Lord Halsbury, is closely associated. That society, called the True Temperance Society, has endeavoured to get the law altered and has introduced Bills, which have not been passed, in order that the class of house might be radically changed and that the Continental system might be brought into operation. We have not been successful, and I very much regret that that should be the case. With regard to the Conference, there was, as might be expected, a diversity of opinion, and I feel bound to enter a protest with regard to the way in which certain matters have been treated. I protested, and I protest again this afternoon, and, in spite of a little piece of special pleading from the Leader of the House, I raised the question that it was not playing the game to keep these restrictions on as a lever to pass fresh legislation. The Leader of the House pleaded that we should give the Bill a Second Reading and then proceed in Committee to make such alterations as would turn the Bill into something different and would meet objections that were raised. Is there any morality in asking for the passing of a Bill and making a specific statement when you ask that it should be read a Second time, and then departing from it when you get into Committee or on Report, when the position is very different from that in which you were placed on the Second Reading?

I am not proposing to stand for a moment between this Bill and a Second Reading, but I would like to refer to the specific promise which was made from the Treasury Bench when the setting up of the Board of Control was embodied in the Statute. The Prime Minister, on the 29th April, 1915, said: protest, and that is that clubs should be put upon the same basis as public-houses. Proprietary clubs have often been established where the main business is the profit of the proprietor and that profit is derived from the sale of drink. I do not suppose anybody in the House has any sympathy with that kind of thing, but the remedy is not in the licensing, but in altering and strengthening the powers of the Registrar when these clubs come to be registered, or altering the registration, and requiring the rules of the club to be so amended as to make perfectly sure that the club exists as a bonâ fide club, and that anything in the shape of refreshment is merely ancillary to the object for which the club meets. I sincerely hope, in Committee, very considerable alteration will be made to improve the status of clubs. The publican considers that he ought to be on the same footing. I respectfully differ. The man who has a licence to sell to everybody who chooses to come along, is in one position, but a man who joins a fraternity for an entirely different object, and drink is merely an auxiliary, is entitled to say that it is his home for the time being, and he is entitled to have that home treated on a different footing from the public-house.

One observation in regard to the line that is now drawn in the definition of "Metropolis." The word is in the Act of 1910. It has a wider meaning for the purposes of the licensing laws, and it goes back a very considerable time. "Metropolis" means the county of London, or four miles from Charing Cross, whichever is the greater. Nobody can conceivably suggest that to-day, 1921, in view of the alteration the Metropolis has undergone, and the way in which it has been opened out, to what is known as Greater London, that there could be any distinction on that score. I would respectfully suggest to the Committee that a definite radius should be prescribed to meet reasonable requirements, and, therefore, I hope that the Members of the Grand Committee will see that there is that reasonable extension of the area to be treated as the Metropolis for the purposes of the Bill. I hope the Bill may go through. I am sorry to see that the conditions under which it is presented are as they are. But something must be done. I hope that very soon the Government will proceed with a Bill which will permanently overhaul the licensing system, and that they will then take a saner view as to the quality and conditions under which drink is sold, and endeavour to make the licensed house a place free from the reproach that is attached to it to-day.

Of all the liquor Bills I have seen—and I have seen a good many — [ Laughter ] — I mean legislative liquor Bills—this seems to me to be positively the fairest effort to reconcile two totally irreconcilable classes—those who love freedom and those who not only love chains, but insist upon adorning other people with them. I hope the Bill will go through without a Division. In February of last year I moved that the time had come to abolish all the vexatious War-time restrictions upon the sale of liquor. Most of that is done by this Bill, and we shall, I trust, hear no more of them. There were the rules as to the delivery by horse, boy, motor van, prepayment, quantity bought, etc.

Look at Clause 7.

But there are very serious objections to this present Measure which I hope will be removed in Committee. If we can prevail upon the Minister in charge of the Bill to take a favourable view in these respects, it will be advantageous to those of us who want to make a really fair Measure of this Bill. First there is the retention, under another name, of the rules, regulations and powers taken in respect of what is known as the "Carlisle Experiment." The hon. Member for Carlisle said the Control Board had a very difficult task. I remember that upon one occasion Dr. Johnson was asked to admire something because it was difficult. His reply was: "Sir, it is so difficult I wish it were impossible." I feel that about the Control Board. It is all very well for hon. Members to say it is a successful experiment. I speak as a continual traveller to and through Carlisle, where the experiment is detested by the people. I know that it is looked upon as a most unfair interference by the trade, and it is by no means certain that it was a successful experiment. Of course, if you can take property without paying for it, that is bound to make living very much cheaper. If you can appeal from one Court to another at the taxpayers' expense, like the Liquor Control Board did in the case of the Cannon Brewery and not show it in your accounts, it shows a more favourable result. The returns for drunkenness show that there was no improvement in Carlisle as compared with other towns, and I can vouch for this from my own experience in Carlisle late at night—[ Laughter ]—it is possible to be a spectator of an orgy without taking part in it, and I can confirm the statement made by an hon. Member that he had seldom seen more flagrant and open drunkenness than he had seen in that city. Railway travellers have protested over and over again against the Carlisle Regulations It is the meeting-house for many other places, and you can hardly go anywhere without you come to Carlisle. I cannot conceive of a more unsuccessful experiment than that which took place there. Cafes are kept there where you can get an admirable meal very much below the cost price, partly at the expense of the taxpayer.

The Leader of the House was asked why he did not abandon this property and let the State get out of the business. He replied that he did not think public opinion would approve of that course. I think the same public opinion that is going to approve of this Bill would readily approve of the Government cutting oft all its business in Carlisle once and for all. Had the Government done that immediately after the War, when we tried all sorts of nationalising and socialising experiments, the trouble would have been much less than maintaining them for a time in order to arrange for comfortable liquidation. As long as this business is conducted by the Secretary of State, so long will the extreme teetotallers urge that that is the true policy of temperance legislation, and that that should be the line upon which the general liquor legislation should be framed. The Leader of the House indicated that the arrangements made in regard to Carlisle were not to be of a permanent character. If we are to have a further change, I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman does not harden his heart, and do it at once. From my point of view, the sooner it is done the better will be the results.

This is not the occasion for a general disquisition upon the ethics of liquor drinking or drink legislation, neither is it the occasion for a detailed examination of the provisions of the Bill. Nevertheless it may be permissible to refer to one or two respects in which I hope the Bill will be altered in Committee. The first thing I wish to mention is the maximum number of hours mentioned in the first Clause. Many of us think that throughout the country, instead of that being made the maximum, it ought to be the minimum, because where you have licensing justices with the powers preserved to them by this Bill—as long as you have this maximum number of hours of opening—you have no guarantee that they will not reduce the hours to something far below what probably is contemplated by the spirit of the Bill. As regards the metropolitan area, I would only say that I understand that on the whole the case of the supper drinker is saved, though I do not see that there is any similar provision for the poor man who does not live in a great hotel or belong to a club. That is a serious blot on the Bill. The man who wants a sandwich and a glass of beer ought to have provision made for him just as much as the rich man who can have a sumptuous supper at the Savoy or at any other place of that character.

I must say a word on the question of Monmouthshire. It seems to me an undemocratic proceeding by a stroke of the pen to bring Monmouthshire on the same footing as Wales. There has been a long fight on this question. Monmouthshire, a rich and prosperous county, has strenuously protested against being put upon the same footing as Wales in regard to closing on Sunday and Christmas Day. Why cannot they be let alone? It will only excite opposition to what we all think is a fair, moderate and reasonable compromise, if the fanatical Sunday closers and temperance party seize the opportunity in this Bill to deprive Monmouthshire by a stroke of the pen of a position which has been maintained in long and courageous fights, in which I have played a small and I hope a useful part. I hope that that matter will be amended. We might here remember what my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh said in respect of another matter, that, though Wales is so exceedingly temperate, politically and nationally, in practice I do not know any people who enjoy a drink more than the Welsh, and I do not think it is fair that they should capture Monmouthshire in this manner. I have not myself much hope of improvement resulting from the words

The circumstances are totally different and it would be monstrous if you cannot get drinks in clubs at least to the extent to which we have been accustomed. I do not see that anything can be said in favour of that particular proposal. I regret that the bonâ fide traveller is not coming by his own. It does not seem to me to be fair. He has been deprived by the first Schedule of the Bill of a Section of the Act of 1910 which gave him certain privileges, and his deprivation is confirmed by Clause 4 of the Bill. The case of the bonâ fide traveller is an extremely hard one. Let any hon. Member start on a Sunday for a walk and he will find it is practically impossible to get the refreshments which he requires to keep him going for a sufficient length of time to keep him in good health. I hope on some future occasion to have an opportunity of dealing with the points I have raised.

As I have been informed by several Members of the Conference that this Bill is based on an Interim Report only, and that if it goes through as an agreed Measure they will continue their deliberations and report later to the House, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[ Mr. Bottomley. ]

The House divided: Ayes, 6; Noes, 212.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee.