A great meeting of protest against the Government Licensing Bill,
organised by the Anglican and Free Churches and numerous Temperance associations, and attended by twelve thousand persons, was held last Saturday in the Albert Hall. Lord Peel, who occupied the chair, after contrasting the views of compensation entertained by hie minority Report and. the Government, dismissed the notion of a twenty years' time-limit as intolerable. The time for improving the Bill, he added, was not yet passed, and he hoped that in Committee the House of Commons would rise to the occasion and be influenced by the feeling of the country as expressed in such meetings as this. Mr. John Morley, the Bishop of Kensing- ton, Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, Mr. T. W. Russell, the Rev. F. B. Meyer, and Dr. Clifford also spoke, and a resolution was unanimously carried condemning the Government Bill, on the four grounds that it interfered with the administrative powers of the Licensing Justices, created a permanent vested interest in annual licenses, rendered impossible any adequate reduction of licensed houses, and prevented effective control by the public over the liquor traffic.
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