WILL THE LICENSING BILL PROMOTE SOBRIETY?

THE arguments and statements which Mr. Pratt repeats in the April number of this Review in support of his contention that restrictive legislation with regard to the sale of drink will not promote sobriety and is, therefore, worthless and unnecessary, have so often been adduced and refuted during the last seventy-five years that it would be waste of time and space to notice them again were it not that on the one hand people's memories are short, and on the other multitudes of young citizens who have no knowledge of old and threadbare controversies are continually reaching manhood and positions of responsibility and influence, and some of them might be misled if this re-statement of exploded fallacies remained unchallenged.

Mr. Pratt is a whole-hearted defender of the liquor trade and those who are engaged in it, and the article in question is only part of a propaganda which he has most industriously carried on for some time. In common with the whole of that somewhat curious band who while claiming to be temperance reformers are vigorous opponents of any proposals which aim at restricting opportunities for selling and obtaining drink, he contrives to so diagnose the trouble with which we have to cope as to bring himself to the conclusion that all the evil is due to anything and everything but public-houses and other licensed places, and the facilities and temptations they provide for obtaining the cause and source of the mischief.

No competent student of the many social problems which confront us will contend that there is any one panacea for them all. They are so complex and interwoven that it is seldom, if ever, possible to thoroughly disentangle every cause and effect, so constantly do these act and react upon each other. Consequently, those of us who regard the drinking evil as the greatest cause of social misery and degradation, and believe that temperance reform lies at the root and would be the most important aid of all other reforms, need not stay to dispute that there are insane inebriates, dipsomaniacs, alcoholic degenerates and others, to whom Mr. Pratt refers, whose trouble is mainly traceable to mental, moral, or physical defects. Nevertheless, we do maintain that the struggle of these frail, feeble,

and deficient ones against the tendencies to which their natural weaknesses render them peculiarly liable to succumb, is rendered vastly harder and more hopeless by the multiplication of temptations and facilities which hurry them along the path of excess to ultimate destruction.

It is also true that the intemperance of some others is largely due to trouble, misfortune, and unsatisfactory surroundings. But, even in these cases, the number who are what and as they are because their parents or themselves or others were or are intemperate, is enormously larger than defenders of the liquor trade will ever admit and than social investigators are likely to discover, unless they have personally known these people and their families for a very long time. The number who drink because they are poor is small compared with the number whose poverty is due to drinking and their irregularity, unreliability, and incompetence resulting therefrom. A considerable proportion of those who are badly housed spend more on drink than would house them well. Such instances as the following abound. They are selected from a large number given by Mr. G. R. Sims, in his recent book, the Black Stain :

Here is the story of a home I visited. The man's wages at the lowest were 248. 6d. a week, but it was proved that in the first week in August he earned as much as 31. 14s.

Yet at that date the condition of the children was terrible. They were ragged, dirty, filthy, and verminous. One boy aged eight had on a shirt which was as black as a newly-blackened boot. The bed-clothing for the six children consisted of some old clothes and a piece of carpet. The body of a child a year and a half old was alive with vermin. It was shown that the man was a heavy drinker, and that the woman spent all the money she got from him in betting. So awful was the home that when it was described in the police court the magistrate ordered its contents to be burned in the interest of the public health.

Here is a home in which the earnings are 31. a week. The father is a teetotaller, the mother an habitual drunkard. On an income of 31. a week the house was left in an infamous condition, the children were almost nude, and ravenous for food. Their mother had pawned everything in the place, and left her five children naked and starving.

Here the room is let to a young man of twenty-five and his wife, who has a baby at the breast. On the Saturday night the young man returned at midnight drunk. He had 17. in his pocket. He had earned by his last spell of work, which commenced on Saturday morning, 178. His total earnings for the week amounted to about 31. 17s. But he had paid no rent, and out of his earnings all that he had given his wife was 1d. On the Sunday, when the landlady came to the rescue, the poor woman was ravenous for food.

Here is the home of a man who had been in one situation for twenty-five years, and was earning on an average 21. a week. He occupied this 'home' with three sons and four daughters. The only bed-covering for the whole family was one quilt. Some of the children had bits of rags on. Two were naked. The younger children had not been washed for weeks. The whole family were found sitting on the floor amid unspeakable surroundings.

Another case. Father can earn 358., mother can earn 30s. Both skilled workers. Two rooms. No bedding, no furniture. A baby in a terrible condition; the children all indescribably filthy and verminous.

Here is a home in which a short time ago the mother died. The husband earned 21. a week. The children had suffered all the agonies of privation through the inability of the unhappy mother to get her husband to part with sufficient money to buy food. On the night that the woman lay dead in the house the eldest daughter, a girl of fifteen, fled into the street and sought refuge in the house of a neighbour to escape a foul wrong attempted in the room where lay the dead body of her mother.

Mr. Sims is dealing almost exclusively with cases of neglect of and cruelty to children, and he says: The hellish tortures which have been inflicted in the few years during which a record has been kept on over a million little children in this our England are chiefly due to alcoholism in the home.'

Mr. Pratt quotes Dr. Branthwaite, the Government Inspector under the Inebriates Act. This is what he said on this subject in his Report for 1906:

None of the mothers who have been sent to the reformatories, when sober have exhibited the least tendency to cruelty, or desire to neglect their children. On the contrary, regret for the injury they have caused, and anxiety for the welfare of their offspring, are constantly evident. None of these women would be cruel were they not drunken.

When we are told that the Licensing Bill will not diminish drinking, we cannot refrain from asking, in the name of all that is reasonable and businesslike-Then why do the brewers oppose it? Breweries exist to produce beer, and if there be as much beer consumed as before they will do as large a business. Why, then, this talk about the ruin of the investor and threats of increasing the price? It is all so extraordinarily confusing and inconsistent. If there is to be no diminution in drinking it will not be necessary to raise the price of beer, and certainly half the employees in breweries will not have to be dismissed, as Mr. Barclay and Mr. Boulter have been declaring will be the case. On the other hand, even if less were sold and the price were raised, the investor would be protected. We cannot have at one and the same time no decrease in consumption, a higher price for beer, and ruined brewery shareholders. Mr. Pratt and his friends must really make up their minds which it is to be.

It has always been a stock argument of opponents of licensing reform that a reduction in the number of public-houses, shortening the hours of sale, and closing on Sundays would and does increase drinking by causing it to prevail in shebeens, private houses, and clubs. Mr. Pratt repeats the old story, but he produces no evidence to support it. The Sunday Closing Acts which are in operation in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were each in turn, after they had been

passed, attacked in this way. Before they were passed it was contended that secret, private, and illicit drinking would be encouraged, and after they were passed it was alleged that these evils had resulted. So persistent were these assertions that eventually in each case a Royal Commission or a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the operation of the Act. In every case the Act was declared to have been extremely beneficial, and no relaxation of any of the restrictions in any way or to any degree whatever was recommended. On the contrary, suggestions were made for increasing the stringency and more effectively enforcing the provisions of the law.

A remarkable fact in connection with these Acts is that, although they have now been in operation for periods varying from twentyfive to fifty-five years, no member of Parliament representing the country in which any of these Acts is in force has been found, during the whole of that time, who would rise in his place in the House of Commons and move the repeal of the Act. To-day, no member for Scotland, Ireland, or Wales will move the repeal of the Sunday Closing Act which applies to his country. The opinion of the people who live under them, and know the benefits which have accrued and do now accrue from those Acts, is overwhelmingly in their favour. That simple and all-important fact-the result of actual knowledge and practical experience is worth infinitely more than all the imaginings and casuistry of oft-refuted critics and opponents. So far as the people of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales are concerned, the question is settled. They are not prepared to reopen the subject. Everything that it is now alleged will follow further restriction here was predicted with regard to these measures in these countries, and experience speedily proved that the fears and allegations were baseless.

No one will deny that clubs are a real difficulty and danger. The clauses in the Bill with regard to them must receive the most careful attention of Parliament, especially with a view to preventing the undue development of new ones. To substitute drinking clubs for public-houses would undoubtedly be a retrograde step. But when it is said that this will be the result of the Bill it is usually clear that exaggerated language is being used. Many of the statements which have been made in this connection are obviously absurd. For instance, when Lord Avebury, who is generally accurate and careful, speaking at the meeting which was held at the Cannon Street Hotel on the 19th of March to protest against the Bill, said that the Bill will license several clubs for every public house that it will shut,' he allowed his excitement to run away with his judgment. No reasonable and unprejudiced person can look at the distribution of licensed premises and notice the extent to which they abound in old market towns and villages and in the old parts of other towns without realising and admitting that an enormous reduction in their number is extremely desirable, and can be carried much further than the Bill

proposes to go without rendering it at all difficult for anyone to get any reasonable accommodation and refreshment he may desire.

West Ham has one 'on' licence to every 1,400 people; Bootle has one to every 1,175; Middlesbrough one to every 933; Croydon one to every 800; London (excluding the City) one to every 700. No one suggests that there are not abundant facilities for obtaining drink in these great industrial, commercial, and residential places. No inconvenience, no difficulty, exists. Indeed, there are parts of these towns where the number of licensed houses is excessive and a considerable reduction might be made with great advantage to the locality. But such towns as Hanley, Ipswich, West Bromwich, Portsmouth, Southampton, Wolverhampton, Chester, Norwich, Yarmouth, and Dudley have from four to seven times as many 'on' licences in proportion to population. Taken together Dudley, Yarmouth, and Norwich have more than five times as many in proportion to population as Middlesbrough, Bootle, and West Ham. Clearly, there is scope for a sweeping reduction there and in similar places.

What is the position as to clubs? Are they five times as numerous in Middlesbrough, Bootle, and West Ham as in Dudley, Yarmouth, and Norwich? Certainly not: they are rather less numerous in proportion to population. In fact, if the ten county boroughs which in proportion to population have the smallest number of' on 'licences be compared with the same number of those which have the most 'on' licences, it will be found that there are more clubs in proportion to population in the group of towns where public-houses are most numerous than there are in the group where public-houses are fewest. The comparative scarcity or abundance of public-houses is not the key to the prevalence or otherwise of clubs. It must be sought elsewhere.

It should be remembered that it is the brewer who supplies, encourages, and often finances clubs, and it was the brewers and their friends who, when the 1902 Act was before the House of Commons, successfully opposed proposals for strengthening the provisions of that Bill in the direction of giving greater control over clubs. The truth

is, the club is a good customer of the brewer, and anything Mr. Pratt has to say as to the desirability of preventing the undue growth of clubs can be most usefully addressed to the directors of brewing companies.

In passing, it may be pointed out that when Mr. Pratt, criticising the reduction scheme of the Bill, says, 'The idea of fixing the number of licensed houses according to population, and ignoring the element of day population, market people, holiday-makers, and other nonresident but possibly thirsty persons, is not only delusive, but may be directly provocative of serious trouble,' the reply is, the Bill does not ignore this element. It is Mr. Pratt who ignores or has failed