THE LORDS' COMMITTEE ON INTEMPERANCE. T HE Report of the Lords'
Committee on Intemperance natu- rally seems to us a very discreet one. It makes, on the whole, the same suggestion that we have supported,—the suggestion to try cautiously, and perhaps with certain modifi- cations, the great experiment which Birmingham has offered to try, certainly by far the largest and most promising experi- ment amongst the many which do not empower the majority to deprive the minority of their natural and reasonable discre- tion,—and for the rest, it relies for improvement, in the present condition of things, solely on a considerable increase in the licence duties, a further restriction of hours, and a more stringent system of revising the grant and renewal of licences. Sir Wilfrid Lawson's general principle receives no sanction at all from their Lordships' recommendations, indeed they steadfastly oppose the principle of the Permissive Bill, and oppose it on the right grounds, the grounds of justice. In other words, the Lords' Committee, after their exceed- ingly careful investigation, have not adopted at all the principle of a "local option" for particular districts, but have declared their belief that the best chance for the diminution of intoxication depends on the careful regu- lation and restriction of opportunities, and especially on so conducting the traffic in drink as to give the managers of that traffic no personal interest in the quantity of alcohol sold, and every motive for supplying those who wish it with harm- less substitutes for alcohol, without making them suffer in any other way by the substitution. We sincerely rejoice that the Lords have reported in this sense. The Publicans, indeed, will see in the suggested limitation of hours, and the con- siderable increase in the licence duties, a most dangerous attack on their often menaced privileges. But the publicans, who were excited to madness by Lord Aberdare's very mild reforms, do not deserve much consideration ; and to us, we confess, no feature of the whole question is of greater interest than the one incidentally referred to as one of the chief advantages of the Gothenburg system,—namely, the effect which that system would have in extinguishing the political influence of the publicans at elections. There is nothing in our existing electoral system, nor in any democratic electoral system, which is open to more just criticism than the special influence which it necessarily lends to the parti- cular class who keep open places of public resort. When it happens, as it does happen, of course, at present, that these persons are necessarily identified in a greater or less degree with the encouragement of intemperate habits, and the guar- dianship of a very profitable monopoly depending on these habits for its lucrativeness, the result necessarily is that the political influence thus exerted is sure to be of a coarse, and likely to be of a thoroughly unwholesome character. To separate the political influence necessarily exerted by the managers of places of public resort, from any sinister elements of this kind, seems to us a matter of the highest importance. And there is another advantage involved in any form of the Gothenburg scheme, or of Mr. Chamberlain's equivalent for it,—that it could hardly be carried out without condition- ing that the refreshments sold in these officially-managed restaurants must be paid for on the spot with ready money. Much of the injurious influence gained by publicans over elec- tors is due to the control they acquire over the customers who are in their debt. If the municipalities take over the refreshment-rooms, it would be absolutely essential in the interests at once of morality and of the municipal revenue, to put an end to the credit system altogether. And thus anything like a sinister influence on the part of the managers of these places of public resort would disappear at once. The influence of ability and conviction, as well, of course, as of character, must remain. But such influence as that, is rather wholesome than injurious, no matter on which side of party questions it may be exerted. Could we but once exclude the exercise of an interested and undue influence, weighted by the authority of a creditor over a debtor, we should have politics purer, as well as private life more temperate, than before.
One of the most interesting features in the Report of the Lords' Committee is the evidence produced that drunken- ness appears to vary, up to a certain point, in direct proportion to climate. In some very remarkable statis- tical tables, compiled by Messrs. Dendy and Poynting, and quoted by the Lords' Committee in their Report, the drunkenness of the North is shown to be much greater, in proportion to population, than the drunken- ness of the South, and the drunkenness of the North- ern towns much greater even than the drunkenness of the Northern counties, though even the Northern counties show a larger amount of drunkenness than the great Southern towns. The same conclusion is confirmed by the vast amount of drunkenness in Norway and Sweden before the Gothenburg system was tried in the latter country. No doubt, too, Messrs. Dendy's and Poynting's conclusion that "the great coal-fields seem to coincide with the most drunken districts" would confirm the same impression that a life led under physically depressing circumstances, such as that of the coal - mines, increases immensely the temptation to drunkenness. No doubt, both physical cold and physical gloom are among the most potent of the influences tending to habits of intoxication. The greater tendency to drunkenness in the North of England has often been mistakenly attributed to the higher rate of wages ; but the Lords' Committee have shown that though concurrently with the rise in the rate of wages, much more money has been spent on stimulants, yet there has been a far greater increase of expenditure on whole- some or harmless food than even on drink, so that we are not at all justified in assuming that the increase in the consump- tion of alcohol due to better wages means any increase in drunkenness. It only means an increase in expenditure on all the luxuries of the poor,—much more on tea and sugar, than on beer and spirits. . Thus between 1840 and 1876 the quantity of malt consumed per head increased from rather more than a bushel and a half to two bushels, but in the same time the consumption of tea per head advanced from rather under a pound and a quarter to four pounds and a half, and the consumption of sugar per head was more than trebled. It seems clear, then, that though the consumption of alcohol has increased greatly with the rise of wages, it has not increased at anything like the same rate as the consumption of wholesome luxuries. Curiously enough, too, there seems to be evidence that in Liverpool at least, in the two years of most remarkable prosperity,—the years 1872 and 1873, —there was a decided decrease of drunkenness, simultaneously with a great increase in the demand for labour and the rate of wages. Hence, it would appear that while the consumption of all the luxuries of the poor tends to increase with their resources, and while the consumption of stimulants is known to vary in different localities in direct proportion to the cold and gloom of the climate or of the conditions of labour, yet a point may be reached where increasing prosperity, instead of tending to greater drunkenness, rather gives a stimulus to the feeling of self-respect and, perhaps, to the virtue of frugality.
On the whole, we should say that the careful investigation of the subject by the Lords' Committee brings out very strongly the extremely circumstantial character of the tempta- tions to drink. Climatic temptations, and temptations due to the physical gloom of men's daily occupation, are the strongest of all. Then come those which arise out of alluring circum- stances. It would seem that in many places the drunkenness varies almost inversely as the number of licensed houses ; but this is because the attractiveness of the light and rooms, and the comfort of the accommodation, provided in the large gin- palaces, are so much greater than the attractiveness and corn-
fort of the smaller public-houses. Finally, much depends on very strict regulation during the days and hours of leisure.
Taking all these cireuinstances together, we think the Lords' Committee are right in recommending that such experiments as Birmingham, through Mr. Chamberlain, proposed to make, however difficult and dangerous, from some points of view, they may be, should be cautiously tried. The hopefulness of the experiment is shown not only by the fact that Sweden has now adopted something like the Gothenburg system for every town exceeding 5,000 in population, except one, and in nineteen other towns of smaller population, but by the prior consideration that this is the only mode in which it is possible to provide the poor with comfortable places of public resort, without subjecting them to special temptation to drink intoxicating drinks. If the managers of the places of public resort gain nothing more by the sale of alcohol than by the sale of tea or coffee,—if they are simply the agents of the muni- cipality, anxious to discharge a public trust creditably, and to place the finances of the locality in a sound condition,—they will, of course, have every motive for discouraging drunkenness, and earning a good repute for the places under their control. No doubt, dangers of another kind will be great. It will be im- possible to place so enormous a patronage in the hands of any municipality without stimulating a great many corrupt motives, and giving a great deal of power to the local authorities to ad-
vance their private ends by the distribution of the minor-appointments. Mr. Lowe's objection to the creation of these vast
public machineries is, no doubt, far the most serious. Still, as the Lords' Committee very justly say, "If the risks are considerable, so are the expected advantages. And when great communities, deeply sensible of the miseries caused by intemperance, witnesses of the crime and pauperism which directly spring from it, conscious of the contamination to
which their younger citizens are exposed are will- ing, at their own cost and hazard, to grapple with the diffi- culty, and undertake their own purification," "it would seem somewhat hard that the Legislature should refuse to create for them the necessary machinery, or to entrust them with the requisite powers."
Previous page
