Yesterday week Sir Wilfrid Lawson brought in his resolution in
favour of giving the householders of any licensing district a " local option," permitting them to restrain the multiplication of public-houses in that district ; but he was not very definite on the extent to which he desired the option to be carried, and himself evidently regarded his resolution as only another form of the Permissive Bill. He got, however, 134 votes for his reso- lution, while 248 voted against him; majority, 118. Lord Harting- ton and Mr. Gladstone both spoke of the resolution as one to which they could not give their support, while Lord Hartington thought it his duty to vote against it. The truth is that " local option" in the abstract, without defining how far it should go and what it should determine, is not a plan, but the merest " anticipation sketch-estimate " of a plan, for settling the licensing question ; and when the views as to the mode in which it ought to be worked out differ so widely as those of Mr. Forster differ from those of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, it is quite obvious that further de- finition is of the very essence of the issue.
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