On Tuesday the Bishop of Winchester moved in the House
of Lords that legislative effect should be given to such recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Licensing Laws as were common to the Majority and Minority Reports. Lord Salisbury, who approached the question in his most detached mood, protested against special consideration being shown to a divided Commission, minimised the points of con- tact between the two Reports, deprecated hasty or precipitate legislation, and criticised temperance reformers for striking an arbitrary line of division between the cellared and the cellar. less classes. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who pertinently observed thatif this were the case he wondered why Lord Salis- bury had ever issued a Commission at all, proposed an amend. meat, which was substituted for the Bishop of Winchester's Motion, to the effect that "it is desirable that her Majesty's Government should on an early day lay before Parliament proposals founded on such of the recommendations contained In the final Report of the Royal Commission as are common to both the Minority and the Majority Reports"; but this, after Lord Salisbury had declared it to be practically a vote of want of confidence in the Government, was rejected by a majority of 3 (42 to 45). In our opinion, Lord Salisbury would have been better advised had he confined himself to the very reasonable statement that the present was not a time which this or any Government could choose for embarking on so controversial a subject as temperance legislation, and had refrained from a general attack on restrictive legislation. His speech would not have been out of place in introducing an Act repealing all our Licensing Laws.
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