164 individuals of that population, young and old, was monstrous, and he could only hope that some remedy might be devised for such a state of things. English gentlemen had no idea of the enormous consumption of spirits in Scotland. He rather agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose, that if they could do nothing else in this matter than adopt the open system of granting licences by the Excise, it would be more preferable than the system which at present existed, which was that every grocer's shop was open for the sale of various other articles besides those of grocery. They sold bread, and they were allowed licences for the sale of spirits. Now, this had a double effect. It infringed upon the rights of the fair trader in the article of bread, because, while the honest baker sold his bread at the market price, the grocer undersold him. But how did he make up the difference? Why, by selling at the same time that which was the bane of his countrymen-ardent spirits. It was to that system that he traced much of the demoralisation of his countrymen and of his country. It was in those grocers' shops that the servant girls first learned to taste spirits, and in which the youth of the country acquired their early taste for them; and, he said again, he would rather see the gin palaces of London established at the corner of every street in Glasgow and Edinburgh, than that this system of the sale of spirits at grocers' shops should be continued. If the sale of spirits were confined to public-houses, the lads and young women would be seen going into them, and a sense of shame would make them desist; or, if they resorted to them, the brand of infamy would be stamped upon them. Whereas at present they went surreptitiously into these grocers' shops, where they acquired a taste for raw spirits, which grew upon them, so that they went on from vice to vice, till it finally ended in their irretrievable ruin. He had been told by those who were old enough to know the fact, that the time was when beer was the general article of consumption with the people of Scotland; but he feared that if every facility were given for setting up beer shops it would fail, from the simple fact that the people would not resort to them to drink it. He thought it their duty to trace the means by which the consumption of spirits could be controlled; and if it could not be controlled, that it should at least be made more public than it was at present. The hon. Member for Montrose had very

properly stated that one great means of inducing the people in large cities to forego public-houses was to afford to them sources of public amusement, where they might spend some portion of their leisure. He did not believe that there was a finer public park in Europe than in Edinburgh, to which the people might resort; but if his hon. Friend really wished to give the people these useful resorts, he must not be too parsimonious with the public purse. The people of Scotland would be most happy to establish museums, and render them accessible to the public, provided means were afforded for that purpose. But, if they were required to furnish amusements for the people, it must be at the public expense. He would entreat the House, as they had arrived very nearly at one point in opinion, to let the Bill be read a second time. By doing so they would commit themselves only to this principle, namely, that the consumption of spirits in Scotland was great, and ought to be diminished.

MR. OSWALD admitted that the consumption of spirits in Scotland was very great, and ought to be diminished; but it was because he did not think that any legislative measure could effect the diminution desired, that he arose to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Montrose. They were told in the preamble of the Bill that the number of public-houses in Scotland was excessive, and ought to be diminished. Now, if ever there was a case of putting the horse behind the cart it was this. The preamble alleged that, because drunkenness existed in Scotland, the public-houses in that country necessarily caused that drunkenness. They could not extinguish the love of ardent spirits by any act of that House; and he took the liberty of saying that this Bill was a piece of the purest humbug that he had seen in all his existence. Now, what did they propose to do by this Bill? They proposed to appoint a committee of justices of the peace, who were to put an end to the consumption of whisky in Scotland. English Members did not exactly know what justices of the peace were in Scotland. He had a great respect for that learned body (of which he was a member), but he must confess that they had very little business to do, except looking after poachers; they very seldom attended to any other business but that. It was a thing next to impossible to get a respectable working assemblage of justices of the peace at the quarter-sessions in Scotland.

He was speaking of Ayrshire. The result | been carried away by a feeling of patriotic would be, that if the House passed this enthusiasm. He had been many years in Bill, they would just establish a committee that House, and had seen many attempts of jobbers who would act in the most arbi- of amateur or volunteer legislation, but trary manner, and be constantly subject to they had all been unsuccessful. This, he the imputation of partiality, whether they believed, was an attempt of that character, acted rightly or wrongly. What had they and he therefore protested against it. If done with the burghs? In Ayrshire there the Government thought this was a meawas something like five royal burghs, and sure that ought to be supported, he was they would be represented in the proposed sorry they did not take it out of the hands committee in the proportion of about five of the hon. Gentleman the Member for to twenty. Was that fair? They were Peeblesshire. If they did not take it out were very much mistaken if they thought of his hands, he (Mr. Oswald) wished the the people in Scotland would submit to hon. Member for Peeblesshire had waited such a proposition. The appointment of until he could have brought it in himself the proposed committee would take away from the other (the Government) side of the very means by which the putting down the House. Yesterday there was a meetof public-houses could be most effectually ing of twenty-eight Scotch Members, inaccomplished. A committee, such as was cluding the Lord Advocate and the hon. proposed, would deprive local experience Member for Montrose, and a majority of of its due weight. The local knowledge sixteen to twelve was against the Bill. of one justice of the peace would have no This was an effort to browbeat and humiavail against the decision of ten other jus- liate the inhabitants of the large towns of tices, who would be found to be entirely Scotland. ignorant of the matters submitted to them. He would venture a prophecy on this matter-this Bill would not diminish the number of drunkards in Scotland by so much as one; its only effect would be to give a monopoly to the existing public-houses. If this Bill were passed, the licensing system in Scotland, which was already bad enough, would become a gigantic and intolerable job, from beginning to end. One of the most ardent supporters of this Bill-the hon. Member for Peeblesshire (Mr. F. Mackenzie)-admitted that he approved of only one clause in this Bill of twenty-six clauses. It would seem that the Bill was about to be referred to a Select Committee, with the view of its entire reconstruction; but was that the way in which the House of Commons ought to do business? Was the House going to delegate the whole of its functions to a Select Committee? He regretted the course which Her Majesty's Government had adopted with reference to this measure. He thought it was a matter of such importance that they ought to have taken it into their own hands. He extremely regretted that pressure of public business would deprive the people of Scotland of the active co-operation of the right hon. Member for Perth (Mr. F. Maule), whose talents, industry, and conciliatory conduct had gained for him the love and esteem of every Scotch Member in that House, of whatever shade of politics. He (Mr. Oswald) did not know whether he had said too much. Perhaps he had, but he had Mr. Oswald

MR. MACGREGOR regretted that a single Member of the Government could be found to give his support to such a Bill as this, objectionable as it was in principle, and at variance with every sound commercial maxim. For his own part, he believed it would be utterly ineffectual as a remedy for the drunkenness which prevailed in Scotland, and that Parliament would never be able by legislation of that sort to make the people of Scotland less drunken or more moral than they now were. In his opinion, the only real mode of correcting the evil was to adopt a general system of education. Although a great deal had been said about the drunkenness which existed in Glasgow, he believed that by far the greater portion of it was to be found among the Irish in that town, or in those other portions of Scotland where the operation of the poor-law had been carried out with the greatest oppression. Instead of this Bill, therefore, he would recommend the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry into the general moral condition of the Scottish people.

MR. CUMMING BRUCE said, his countrymen appeared to him to be placed in a most unfortunate predicament. For while every one allowed that a great, serious, and crying evil existed in Scotland, and that the demoralising and brutalising vice of drunkenness was increasing there; it was now urged that legislation-amateur or volunteer legislation, as his hon. Friend (Mr. Oswald) termed it—would be produc

Glasgow had been attributed by Mr. Sheriff Alison to this one cause of drunkenness alone; and he (Mr. C. Bruce) emphatically denied that legislation would not be productive of good effects. He trusted, then, that the House would agree to the second reading of the Bill, in order that it might go upstairs to a Select Committee, with power to take evidence upon the whole question. He had not the least doubt that the result of such a step would be, that a good Bill would come down to them.

tive of no beneficial results. But it was not in that spirit that the House of Commons had taken up and legislated upon the hours of labours in factories and employment in coal mines. It was an indisputable fact that all the great and praiseworthy efforts which had of late years been made in Scotland for the spread of education and the social improvement of the people, had been rendered utterly abortive and powerless by the prevalence of this vice of drunkenness. That was a fact which might be regarded as pretty well established, upon consulting the returns MR. COWAN regretted that the vice of which related to the convictions for serious drunkenness prevailed so greatly in Scotoffences in Scotland. Mr. Sheriff Alison land, and among his own constituents. He had devoted considerable attention to this would be willing to support any measure subject, and he (Mr. C. Bruce) had it upon calculated to remedy this state of things; that gentleman's authority, that in the but after the best consideration he had year 1841 the educated criminals commit- been able to give to the subject, and notted for serious crimes in Scotland amount- withstanding the good motives and intened to 2,834, whilst the commitments of tions of the promoters of the Bill, he uneducated criminals numbered 696- could not bring himself to the belief that the proportion of educated to uneducated it was one calculated in the least degree to criminals being in the ratio of four to effect the object in view. He admitted one. If, therefore, they were to wait that the congregation of low public-houses until the spread of education supplied the in Scotland had been a great evil to Scotmeans of checking the evil, he feared they land; at the same time he did not conceive would have to wait a very long time. The that by authorising the justices to delegate House might rest assured that the in- to a small committee a summary power to crease of committals for serious crimes in diminish the number of licences, was the Scotland had gone on in a much faster mode of remedying the evil. He would ratio than the increase of the population submit that it was better to grant licences of that country; and the most competent than to encourage low unlicensed houses, authorities ascribed that increase to the to form, as it were, secret nests of little demoralising habit of drunkenness. The clubs of drunkards, as would unquestionably commitments in 1824 amounted to 1802; be the case if the regular public-houses were in 1830 to 2,329; in 1840 to 3,872; and put down. Paradoxical as it might seem, in 1848 to within a fraction of 5,000. But he held that, as the means of the poorer in that long interval the population had classes were diminished, so did their inincreased by some hundreds of thousands dulgence in intoxicating liquor increase; only. If the House resolved to go into for he apprehended that the state of the such a general inquiry as that which was dregs of the population in our towns prorecommended by the hon. Member for duced a kind of despair which prompted Montrose (Mr. Hume), of course the Com- them to sacrifice everything for the gratifimittee would come down with a large blue cation of their depraved appetites. book; but it would be treated as most of Edinburgh, forty years ago, New Year's the blue books were treated in that House. day was kept as a day of dissipation and It would be scarcely looked at, and any drunkenness; and on one occasion, in practical legislation upon the subject would 1812, a frightful riot was got up on the be indefinitely postposed. All who were 1st of January in that year by a knot of acquainted with the extent to which the young men under the influence of ardent vice of drunkenness was carried in Scot- spirits, and in consequence of which three land would think his hon. Friend (Mr. of them suffered on the scaffold. There F. Mackenzie) deserving of the gratitude was, however, a great difference now in and thanks of the country for giving this the habits of the people. For several House the opportunity of going into Com-years past, New Year's day had been mittee to consider of a practical and effi- made a universal holyday, and he was cient remedy for the evil. Two-thirds of glad to bear out what his hon. Friend the the crime and one-half the pauperism of Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) had

In

said as to the benefits resulting from giving inducements to the people to assemble together in order to visit places of interest and amusement. All the objects of attraction in Edinburgh had been visited by tens of thousands of working men with their wives and families, and not the slightest injury had resulted to any one of those places of recreation. He regretted that Government had not taken the subject of this Bill into their own hands.

SIR JOHN HOPE would support the second reading of the Bill, though he believed nothing would come of it unless the Lord Advocate took charge of it in Committee.

who considered himself aggrieved by the decision of those magistrates had no appeal at all; and it would open the door to a system of favouritism and jobbing which would be most objectionable. There was not one Scotch Member to whom he had spoken who did not pronounce that the Bill was utterly impracticable. No one was more sensible than he was as to the evils of drunkenness; but he objected to this Bill because he believed it would be totally inefficient to remedy those evils.

MR. FORBES MACKENZIE said, his intention was, if the Bill were read a second time, to move that it be then referred to a Select Committee, which should have power to send for persons, papers, and records. In that case the Bill would be kept before the House, might be altered in the Committee, and thus, when it came down to the House, they might hope to have legislation upon the subject in the course of the year. On the other hand, if they did not take that course, but appointed a Select Committee to institute a gen

some hon. Members, the only end would be the production of a fruitless report, and an indefinite postponement of legislation.

VISCOUNT MELGUND believed that this scheme of legislation was wholly vicious in principle; and, far from curing the evils complained of, would only increase those which at present existed.

The LORD ADVOCATE said, no one connected with Scotland could doubt that the Bill proposed to remedy, to a certain extent, a very great evil in that country. Whatever might have been the improvement in the morals of the Scotch people of late years-and it was great-it was, nevertheless, true that drunkenness was the crying and scandalous vice of the country. No man who was at all ac-eral inquiry, as had been recommended by quainted with the state of crime there, could fail to see that if the amount of drunkenness could be diminished even to a very small extent, the result would at once be apparent in the diminished amount of crime. And it was because he was unwilling to throw an obstacle in the way of any measure that was designed to effect a beneficial result, that he should vote for MR. BOUVERIE said, that not one of the second reading of the present Bill; the hon. Gentlemen who had spoken in though if he were asked to give his sup-favour of the second reading, had adduced port to the details, he must say that he a single word of argument in support of the would not undertake to do so. The sub- Bill. Several had said that they did not ject was a very important one; and he approve of the details of the measure, and preferred sending the Bill to a Committee yet they asked the House to affirm it by upstairs, because he thought a more effec- voting for the second reading. tual measure would be thereby obtained than by referring the whole question to a general Committee of Inquiry. The Bill dealt only with the licensing system; and whilst he did not anticipate any benefit from a mere change of that system, he did hope much good from a thorough revision of it.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question.'

The House divided:-Ayes 123; Noes 67: Majority 56.

Main Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read 2°.

ENFRANCHISEMENT OF COPYHOLDS

BILL.

Order for Second Reading, read.
MR. AGLIONBY moved the Second
Reading of this Bill.

MR. ELLIOT objected to the principle of the Bill, as well as to the details by which that principle was to be carried out. It was proposed by it to change the whole system of licensing, and to place the power MR. HODGSON would suggest that the of giving licences in the hands of justices second reading should be postponed for a selected by the Court of Quarter Sessions, week. The provisions were of a compliwho were to fix the exact number of public-cated nature, and the Bill had been in the houses in the county. This was an entirely hands of Members only about twenty-four arbitrary power; in point of fact, a man hours. He had been requested to send

Mr. Cowan