HABITUAL INTEMPERANCE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 10

HABITUAL INTEMPERANCE.

A COMMITTEE'S REC.OMMENDATIONS.Tho Departmental Committee appointed by tho.British Homo Secretary to inquire into tho operation of tho law rotating to inebriates havo presented thoir report. . They suggest that inebriates should bo allowed voluntarily to enter before a jnstico of tho peace- into a legal obligation to abstain from intoxicants for a specified period, not lees than ono year, and to submit) to guardianship. But if their voluntary submission to this restraint is refused, tho committee recommend that power should bs given to a relative, friend, or guardian to petition a judicial authority fer a compulsory order of gu&rdianship, or for committal to a retreaty and if this order bo granted tho guardian may prescribe the placo of residence, prevent the inebriate leaving it unattended, deprive him of intoxicants, and ■warn sellers oi Qrinlv against supplying him under a wnalty. As for inebriates who havo committed offences against tho law, tho committee recommend an extended discretion to magistrates to send them to a reformatory instead of to prison. "Tho Inebriates Act has now been for nino yoars upon tho Statute book," says "Tho Times," "but wo road in tho report that the total number of porsous committed to reformatories under its provisions has been iejs than 2600, although, during the same period, thoso presumably eligible for such treatment —that is to say, tho offenders who havo been convicted and sentenced for drunkenness in Courts of summary jurisdiction—havo been somewhat in excess of a million and throequarters. It is manifest that proceedings conducted upon this scale can havo no leal influence in restraining intemperance; and that, as far as tho national welfare is concerned, tho Acts might almost as well havo been non-existcrnt. A law which is brought into operation in only one caso out of every 674 of,those which.,would properly bo subject to its provisions is more calculated to add an element of pleasurable excitement to tho pursuit of intoxication than to deter any of thoso who might possibly be restrained by a greater probability of punishment. Tho committee give in dot.iil thoir reasons for recommending that tho State, following tho precedent afforded by the transfer of prisons fronr tho caro of local authorities, should provide accommodation for inebriates; and they estimate that such a course would effeot a saving to tho public of over £10,000 a year upon every 1000 cases under detention. 'Tho committee point out t-Vnt, in any case, treatment by drug's cannot possibly supply tho penal clement which is present in all sentences of inebriates to reformatories, and tbe remark naturally suggests the ' inquiry whether this penal element, to bo of anv uso to society, should not bo brousrht to bear upon tho drunkard at an earlier period of his career. Few changes aro moro curious or moro complete than that which has come over public opinion in this respect, even within tho memories of living persons; and it is now omte likely that, if casual intoxication in public wore treated ns an offence nrninst decency and order, and brought wiuTsonip. certainty under tho ken of tho police, man* of thoso who, under present conditions, lapse into habitual drunkenness, misht bo held back beforo it was too late. The time'seemsto have como for abandoning the system which has hitherto prevailed in this country of practically condoning public drunkenness when it is unattended by riot or manifest disorder. • ■