THE LICENSING BILL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3057, 30 November 1908, Page 5

THE LICENSING BILL.

CABLE NEWSUnited Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyrim:*,

LORD ST. ALDWYN'S SUGGESTION. LONDON, November 27. The Primate (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Earl of Halsbury, ex-Lord Chancellor, in the House of Lords, supported the suggestion made by Lord St. Aldwyn yesterday with reference to the Licensing Bill. Lord Rosebery asked both parties to co-operate in carrying the suggestion into effect. (Lord St. Aldwyn suggested that the Government or Dr. Ingram, Bishop of London, should introduce a new Bill embodying thirty clauses for promoting temperance. He was, he said, confident that the House of Lords would pass it. THE DIVISION. Received November 25 8 p.m. LONDON, November 28. Dr. Ingram states that the Archbishop of Canterbury is willing if the Government will permit to introduce a new Licensing Bill embodying the temperance proposals in the last Bill. Lord Loreburn, while admitting that the Government's Bill is dead, declared that it was a victory for "the trade" over the community—a victory for wrong over right. Nevertheless the time would come when the State would resume the power to review licenses unfettered by any vested interest. The Licensing Bill was rejected by 272 votes to 96. The majority was composed exclusively of Unionists, while the minority included two archbishops, eleven bishops, Lords Balfour of Burleigh, Carlisle. Delaware, Esher, Falmouth. Lytton and Milne, and nine other Unionists. Referring to the Licensing Bill in the course of a speech at Leeds last month, Mr Asquith "nailed his j colours to the mast." He said: — "Ladies and gentlemen, I was toll by not a few of those who consider themselves well-equipped political prophets, en the morning after the introduction of the Licensing Bill, that I had ruined the fortune's of the Liberal party for ft generation to come. (Cries of ( No, no.'). I confess I never took the pessimistic -view. 1 always felt convinced that there would be a storm. (Laughter). 1 do not think that even our imagination in its most creative moment? ever pictured a scene such as the Peckh&m election, but still it did r.ot require very much either of fancy or of political insight to know that there would be a storm. When you go tilting with all the forces of a Government and a Parliamentary majority against the greatest and in some ways the richest, and ceratainly the best politically organised, of all the great interests in this country, you are apt to be reminded by experience that resolutions are not made with rosewater. That we foresaw and - that ™e deliberately resolved to tace. (Prolonged cheers). Why? Beause something infinitely higher, and greater, and more permanent than the fortunes 'of any particular Government or any particular party were at stake. Because this is the chance—the beat chance and the only chance—that has been effecivelj! offered in our timee, of rescuing the people of this country from the heaviest and most demoralising yoke that has been aid upon their shoulders. (Prolonged cheers). We put out hands to the plough, and whatever may be our fortunes we are not going to turn back. (Cheers).''