Sober by Act of Parliament

by Fred A. McKenzie

What were the teetotalers doing all this time? Where was the United Kingdom Alliance? Where were the hundred and one other bodies that had been clamouring for years for reform? Here was a Ministry that had been bold enough to risk office in order to promote temperance; surely it had a right to look to the temperance party for cordial support! If it looked, however, it looked in vain, for the influence of the teetotalers was worse than thrown away in this struggle. The United Kingdom Alliance was so busy promoting petitions in favour of a Permissive Bill which every one knew had no chance of success, that it had no energy to spare for helping on the Government. It officially announced that its attitude was one of “friendly neutrality”; and when the secretary of the Alliance was urged by the Leeds Mercury to support the Bill, he replied that “it (the drink trade) ought not to be sanctioned by law, nor tolerated within the range of Christian civilisation”.

No more suicidal policy, no course more fatal to the promotion of temperance in our land, could possibly have been taken. At a time when every publican and every brewer was seeking the destruction of the Government on account of its attitude to the drink question, the Alliance was content to be “friendly neutral”! By their almost inexplicable conduct, the leaders of that body helped to delay temperance legislation for a quarter of a century, and created a deep distrust of teetotalers in the minds of most politicians. If they had actively thrown themselves into the breach, had used all their forces to support the Ministry, had been content to drop for a few months the plan of bringing forward a measure which they knew Parliament would certainly reject,—then Mr. Bruce and his colleagues might have been encouraged to proceed, and the liquor traffic in England would by this time have been cut down to a fraction of its old proportions.

Mr. Caine recently claimed that the temperance party rather supported than opposed the Government at this crisis; and that, in fact, “practically, their only friends and supporters in the constituencies were the teetotalers”. No one denies that many individual abstainers, as, for instance, Mr. Caine himself, were active in helping on the measure; but the temperance party as a whole was not. The month after the Bill was abandoned, Mr. Bruce publicly charged Sir Wilfrid Lawson, in the House of Commons, with having hindered and greatly diminished its chance of success by the course he had taken. While the Bill was still before the country, and while its fate was trembling in the balance, many prominent abstainers opposed it bitterly, and spoke and wrote against it. Professor Newman, in answer to a request from Mr. S. Morley, that he and his friends of the Alliance would not refuse an instalment because they did not get all they wanted, replied: “The United Kingdom Alliance cannot postpone its action for ten years.... Its (the Bill’s) good points will not help us; they are not things which we asked; its evil points will damage us extremely. Hence if we fail to induce Mr. Bruce to withdraw his astonishing innovations of principle, I certainly do not guarantee that our friends will refrain from total opposition.”

Mr. Raper, a leading temperance speaker, at a meeting in the Manchester Town Hall, held under the auspices of the United Kingdom Alliance, said: “It is strange that a man of such a powerful intellect as the Home Secretary should be so remarkably defective in observation of a logical kind. I have not seen a greater wonder this quarter of a century than I did when I saw this able man standing for two hours and ten minutes giving forth grand principles and then cutting them to pieces—making statements which he followed up with nothing.”

To judge from the speeches of Dr. F. R. Lees, who is considered by many the premier writer on total abstinence, one would think that the Bill had been framed by a committee of Burton brewers. “Give no unwise and blind support to the proposition of the Government,” he said. “I do not think that the Bill, as a practical Bill, is worth discussing in detail.... It is a wholesome and righteous principle, that of public control over the liquor traffic; but you are denied your claim, it is postponed for ten years, while the existing generation of victims shall perish, and a new generation shall take their place.”

Why rake up all these old mistakes? it may be asked. Why not forget the past? The answer is plain. The old matter must be borne in mind, not in order to belittle and denounce the men who made the mistakes, but so that the reformers of the present may learn from the blunders of their predecessors, and not again wreck the ship because it is only sailing towards port with a couple of sails instead of a full rig.

Mr. Chamberlain’s Plan.—In 1876 some stir was made by Mr. Chamberlain advocating an adoption of the Gothenburg system in England. The Birmingham Town Council expressed its approval of the plan; and on 13th March, 1877, Mr. Chamberlain brought forward a resolution in the House of Commons: “That it is desirable to empower the Town Councils of boroughs, under the Municipal Corporation Acts, to acquire compulsorily, on payment of fair compensation, the existing interests in the retail sale of intoxicating drinks within their respective boroughs; and thereafter, if they see fit, to carry on the trade for the convenience of the inhabitants, but so that no individual shall have any interest in nor derive any profit from the sale”.

This motion was supported by Sir Wilfrid Lawson and his allies; but was rejected by a large majority, 103 voting against and only 51 in its favour.

Mr. Ritchie’s Local Government Bill.—In 1888, when the Local Government Bill was introduced by the Unionist Government, it contained clauses providing that the whole of the licensing of public-houses should be handed over to the County Councils; and that, in addition to the powers now held by the magistrates, the Councils should have authority to close the houses on Sunday, Good Friday and Christmas Day, either altogether or for part of the day, to alter the hour of closing at night, and to increase the licensing fees not more than 20 per cent. There were two great limits to the proposed power of the Councils. The first gave the magistrates power to prevent the renewal of a licence on proof that the holder was guilty of illegal conduct. The second limit was the provision that when the Councils refused the renewal of a licence for any other cause than the fault of the holder, the latter should be entitled to compensation. Such compensation was to be assessed on “the basis of the difference (if any) between the value of the licensed premises immediately before the passing of this Act and the value which such premises would have then borne if the licence had then determined”. The compensation was to be divided between the persons interested in the premises, either by agreement among themselves, by arbitration, or, finally, by the County Court. The cost of the compensation was to be borne ordinarily by the licensing division of the county in which the house was situated; or sometimes, under exceptional circumstances, by the whole county.

The temperance party, although on the whole preferring ad hoc Boards, would gladly have accepted the proposals, but for the compensation clauses. Over these a hot fight was made, and innumerable meetings were held all over the country against them. The licensed victuallers were at first also inclined to oppose the measure; but they soon realised that it would be on the whole a great gain to them. As Mr. Ritchie, the father of the Bill, pointed out to a deputation, “We practically give you a vested interest by the Bill”. But the opposition to the objectionable clauses was too strong; and in June Mr. W. H. Smith announced, for the Government, that the whole of the licensing section would be withdrawn.