North to South, afflict Ireland with a canker of lawlessness, drunkenness, and debauchery.

sorry to see a principle of legislation adopted with respect to Ireland that might have the effect of leading to such results. Referring to the Petitions which had been presented in favour of the Sunday closing in Ireland, he observed that many of them were from the Wes

head of the family enters a public-house | passed will, from East to West, from on Sundays-the wife, if she does so, soon leaves; but if the houses are closed the drink will be carried home, and wife and children will thus acquire a liking MR. CALLAN opposed the Bill. He for it, which, but for this wretched Bill, thought that what was required was a they never would have had. Another further limitation of hours and not a consequence is likely to follow, the in- total closing on Sundays. As to the crease of houses for the illicit sale of operation of the Forbes-Mackenzie Act liquors; and so many of the most im- in Scotland, a Committee of that House portant social interests of the country are referring to the scenes which took to be sacrificed to the crotchets of the place on Sunday at Glasgow Green and men who bring forward such a measure at Dundee, stated that scenes of the as this. If English Members vote for greatest disorder occurred at those places it, they may rest assured that a similar-and this, too, in a country where SunBill will be introduced for England-day drinking was prohibited. He had and I should like to see their treatment himself been in Glasgow on a Sunday, of it! Practically, however, this is a and the scenes of demoralization which coercion Bill, brought forward by Irish he witnessed on the Green of the city Members to coerce their own country- were of the most disgraceful character, men. Irish Members - patriots who and fully justified the evidence given come from Ireland to denounce coercion before the Committee of the House. If which permits the seizure of arms not such was the effect of the closing of held by licence-have gone to the Go-public-houses in Scotland, he should be vernment and asked for the abolition of those restrictions. The Government has told them they have very greatly reduced the amount of coercion, and hope in a short time to be able to do away with it altogether. Oh, say the patriots, if you do that we shall bring in our coercion Bill, imposing pains and penal-leyan Body. Now, these very persons ties on a great mass of our own honest, were the same petitioners who prayed orderly, and industrious fellow-country- the House to do away with convents and men, and we shall expect you to help us monasteries in England. It was not, to pass it. As to the prevention of therefore, very likely that the arguments drinking, you must not think that there of such petitioners could find much will not be plenty of opportunities of favour with the people of Ireland; and drinking if this Bill is passed-the people he might add that the Members reprewill get liquor on a Sunday from beer-senting the northern counties of Ireland houses of an illicit description. The who supported the measure were also mode of giving licences may be improved the supporters of the proposal to close in favour of Sunday travellers. In my neighbourhood magistrates will not grant seven-days licences, but only sixdays licences. I verily believe that the six-days licences sell more liquor than the holders of seven-days licences, because they distribute their liquor for Sunday consumption through houses which the police cannot enter. The natural consequence of the Bill will be that illicit drink-shops will be opened, the police will have to be employed to arrest persons frequenting them and the keepers, and the magistrates will have to punish the offenders, and a very disagreeable duty indeed it will be to the magistrates. I beseech English Members not to vote for this Bill, which if

monastic institutions in this country. The Dublin Royal Society had also petitioned in favour of the Bill; but he could not help remembering the Society had a large grant from the Government; they had an excellent house, a fine library, and other accommodation, all of which was open on Sundays, and he certainly thought it was inconsistent on their part to support such a Bill as this. He hoped that his hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry would give up his Bill for the present, or send it to a Select Committee, to consider the whole question involved in it, and that next year a new Bill should be introduced, in which permission would be given for public-houses in Ireland to

remain open for a given part of that was established by the Returns which day.

Bill read a second time, and com- mention that in 1861 the public-houses mitted for To-morrow.

mended that they should delay proceeding with the Bill until there should be time to consider it in the country, and ample time had been given for consideration. He (Mr. Dalrymple) need not hesitate to say that he did not expect that the Bill would go much further during the present Session, but he should be very glad if any representative of Her Majesty's Government would express himself favourable to the principle of the Bill, for that would encourage people in Scotland who were interested in it, either to proceed with the Bill or to endeavour to present the proposal in a shape which would be more acceptable to Her Majesty's Government and to that House.

by his hon. Friend the Member for Fifeshire showed that in Edinburgh, between the years 1870 and 1874, there had been a steady increase in the number of female drunkards. The present Scotch law allowed the unrestricted sale of small quantities of liquor, but did not permit it to be consumed on the premises in grocers' shops. This law was, however, constantly violated: the purchase of groceries was in many cases a mere blind, and the proof of this was found in the fact that the grocers said the 6th clause of the present Bill, which provided that intoxicating liquors should only be sold in sealed bottles of a certain size, would destroy the small shops. But it was in the small shops, in many cases, where the evil was principally rife, and these establishments were kept alive by the drinking habits of the people who frequented them. He did not believe. that anybody could desire to maintain MR. ANDERSON said, the hon. establishments of that kind. Certainly Member who had moved the second

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second

time."-(Mr. Dalrymple.)

they should not be maintained as reading of the Bill had told them that grocers' shops, for they were really it had already been under the considerapublic-houses in disguise. The 6th tion of the House. It was, in fact, an clause, to which he had already alluded old friend, and was a fragment of the in connection with the grocers, was re- Bill offered them two years ago by the garded by the promoters as of great hon. Baronet the Member for Fifeshire; importance, because there would be a but it seemed to him that the parts which certain security if they restricted the had been cut out were the best parts of sale of liquors to sealed bottles, and the original Bill, and that those left in limited the sale to what was contained were the worst. The Bill when origiin a bottle, they thought they would nally introduced by the hon. Baronet the strike a blow at the tippling caused by Member for Fifeshire was really a Bill the purchase of small quantities of drink to try a great experiment in Scotland by on the premises. He knew that many introducing the system known as "the Members of the House were in favour Gothenburg plan." That had been of his proposals, but not all to an equal abandoned, and the parts of that Bill extent; but he ventured to claim for the which were left in the present were Bill that it was, at all events, a moderate those dealing with the number of lione. No one could have sat for years in censed houses in any locality, estabthat House without perceiving that the lishing that they should not exceed 1 to House would not consider a Bill on this 500 of inhabitants. It appeared to him subject that was not of a moderate cha- that that was eminently a thing for racter. The reception given to the Per-regulation by the local authorities, and missive Bill showed that the House would not allow existing licences to be dealt with in the manner proposed by that measure. The present Bill, however, had reference only to future licences, and it seemed to him it was a moderate and fair proposal if they abstained from interfering with existing interests. The interest taken in the Bill was shown by the number of Petitions presented in its favour. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, in answer to a deputation on the 2nd of May, recom

that it was not a matter for that House to legislate upon. It might be a good thing for some localities that the number of licensed houses should not exceed 1 to 500 of the population, while in other places the proper proportion would be altogether different. The hon. Member (Mr. Dalrymple) had told them that in Auchtermuchty there was one publichouse to every 72 inhabitants. Nobody would believe that those 72 people kept up the public-house-the real meaning was that it was a centre of a very

imous opinion on the part of the county magistrates and licensing committees of quarter sessions in England that a great evil had accrued to the community in consequence of the grocers' licences. In these days we could not interfere with any vested interests, but a stop ought at all events to be put to an increase in the number of these licences. With reference to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) he might remark that to multiply the number of grocers' licences would increase the strength of the monopoly. He thought some of the clauses good, and hoped the House would give the Bill a second reading.

MR. MARTEN rose to move that the Bill be read a second time that day three months. In the first place, he objected to the Preamble, and proposed

populous part of the country, and the whole of the surrounding district which was not enumerated among the inhabitants contributed to the keeping up of the public-houses. The matter was therefore one for the judgment of the local authorities. The most objectionable portion of the Bill was that which put an end to grocers' licences. The effect of that would be seriously to increase the present monopoly of those grocers having licences-it would make their monopoly more valuable than it was at present. He did not see that there was any great evil in a householder sending to a grocer's shop for what drink was required for the family, for some drink might be required for medicinal purposes, and it would be a great hardship to compel a family to send a servant or one of the children to a public-house to obtain a small amount of alcohol. It was pro-to show that the principle on which it posed to restrict the sale of drink in grocers' shops to a quart bottle; and he (Mr. Anderson) thought it should be restricted to a bottle of some kind, but that a quart bottle was out of the question. He thought there ought to be no selling from the tap in grocers' shops. The clause dealing with that point was the only tolerable clause in the Bill. There was another clause putting a stop to table beer licences, but that provision was contained in a Bill which passed in the course of the present Session, and therefore it was unnecessary. There was therefore only one clause which was good, and that was unnecessary. Another clause had a certain amount of good in it, but not enough to induce him to vote for the second reading of the Bill. The other clauses were entirely wrong, and he must therefore vote against the second reading.

It

SIR HARCOURT JOHNSTONE thought the provisions of the Bill were not such as any reasonable man could object to, though he did not think the House would adopt all of them. would, in his opinion, be exceedingly difficult to fix a rule as to the number of public-houses in proportion to the population, because the needs of different localities very greatly varied. He himself once brought in a Bill based on the same lines as the present; but the figures headduced might be refuted by dexterous manipulation so that he could not stand on that ground any longer. With regard to grocers' licences, there was a unanMr. Anderson

was founded was one which this House ought not to adopt without much further consideration. In the second place, it was not expected that the Bill would pass in the present Session, and he objected to a solemn declaration of a principle which it was not intended to carry into action. In the next place, the Bill did not embody any final or conclusive proposal, but only professed to be a temporary measure. Again, if the Bill related exclusively to Scotland, he should have felt great diffidence in making observations respecting it, especially if the Scotch Members were generally agreed on the principle. But in reality the Preamble was of a general character. It bound the House to contemplate further legislation, and to accept the principle of this particular Bill until some further legislation should be introduced which would deal with the law as to the sale by retail of intoxicating liquors. If there were some particular Amendment to be introduced which the House was satisfied was an expedient thing to be carried on its own merits, without regard to further legislation, then let a Bill founded on a preamble reciting the grievance or particular point of law to be amended be introduced into the House. But they ought not at that time, on a subject which created the greatest difficulty throughout the country, to pass a Bill founded expressly not on the idea of making the present proposal of a final character, but on the principle of encouraging future legislation. Therefore

he objected to the principle on which I rather to decrease drunkenness. When the Bill was founded, according to the there was a number of small publicrecital of the Preamble. Besides, the houses there was this probability-that Bill would introduce into our law a new in going to the one which was in his principle which was open to the greatest immediate neighbourhood, a man would possible objection-in fact, it was only in a measure be under the eye of his another form of the Permissive Bill, for neighbours and acquaintances, and under by two clauses of this Bill the popular the eye of his own family; whereas if a vote was introduced. There was to be system of centralization were carried an application approved of by a ma- out, we should have huge gin palaces jority of the persons rated towards the set up, where he would probably go and relief of the poor within 500 yards of spend a much longer time and indulge the House which was to be licensed; in more drink. He therefore objected and a similar approval had to be ex- to this proposal to establish huge gin pressed in the case of a transfer of a palaces in place of what might be looked licence. What was this but the prin- upon as small clubs. With regard to ciple of the Permissive Bill? The House the argument as to the number of pubhad already repeatedly refused to recog- lic-houses increasing the amount of nize the principle of the Permissive Bill, drunkenness, he had obtained statistics which this measure involved, and he which showed, he maintained, that the protested against the introduction of the effect was rather the reverse. In the principle in one part of the United case of Cambridgeshire, the number of Kingdom in a measure of a fragmentary public-houses was in the proportion of character such as this, when Parliament 1 to 110 of the population, and yet that had declined to apply such a principle county stood nearly at the head of the to other parts of the country. With list in respect of sobriety. In Huntingregard to that portion of the Bill which donshire, the number of public-houses provided that persons living within 500 was in the proportion of 1 to 104 of the yards of a particular point should have population, and yet the number of cases a right to stop a particular trade in that of drunkenness there was only at the locality, he could not see that any suffi- rate of 1 in every 749 of the population. cient ground had been stated for such a On the other hand, the number of pubproposal. Why should the immediate lic-houses in Durham was 1 to 211 of neighbourhood be invested with that the population, yet Durham stood nearly power?-a power practically of saying at the head of the list in respect of whether this or that trade should be drunkenness. It was shown, therefore, carried on in a particular locality. Why conclusively that the number of publicshould one trade be subjected to such a houses tended rather to the decrease of restriction any more than other trades? drunkenness than otherwise. That being There were many other trades which so, he denied that the principle upon were equally or more obnoxious. There which Clause 3 of the Bill rested was were slaughter-houses, chemical works, one which could be sustained. With and other works or trades which were respect to grocers' licences a subject extremely obnoxious to many persons about which there had been a good deal living in their neighbourhood; and why of agitation in the country-all would should not the same restriction apply to agree as to the desirability of checking these? He denied entirely that the drunkenness as far as possible, but we neighbours were the persons who ought differed as to the means of attaining to decide a question of this nature. The that object, and he did not approve of proposal with regard to investing imme- this proposal regarding grocers' licences diate neighbours with such a power was as one of those means. The existence founded on an entirely false principle. of grocers' licences was at the present Then with respect to the proposal to moment the one good thing which selimit the number of public-houses to cured to us the supply of moderately any particular figure, that was founded good liquor. He believed that the pubon the idea that the more public-houses licans sympathized with the desire to we had the greater would be the extent take away the grocers' licences, because of drunkenness. He believed that the it would to that extent affect their profits. case was exactly the reverse, and that The grocers were placed between two the number of public - houses tended fires-the publicans on the one hand, VOL. CCXXX. [THIRD SERIES.]

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