LIQUOR TRADE

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 15 August 1929, Page 9

LIQUOR TRADE

BRITISH INQUIRY.

COMMISSION SET UP. LONG TASK ATI RA D. (British Official Wireleso.j Received 12.10 p.m. to-day. RUGBY, Aug. 14. The highly controversial liquor question Is to he the subject of an examination by a Royal Commission in accordance with the promise made in the Speech from the Throne after 'the present Labour Government had taken office. The Rt. Hon. J. R. Cly'nes, Home Secretary, announced recently that Lord) AmiulJree, formerly Sir William MacKenzie, would act' as chairman of the commission. Loire! Aniullreo is one of the foremost experts on industrial arbitration and history, and on the law relating to liquor licensing. The names of the ten members' of the com mission are now announced. The liquor inter- . ests will be represented by Thomas Skin-ray, president of the Brewers’ Society, and John Morgan, chairman of the national council of Retail Liquor Trndb. The Temperance Association on the commission will be the Revd. Henry Carter, secretary of the Temperance Council of the Christian Churches, and Arthur Sherwel, who has written much on the. liquor trade. The other six in embens: iucliicio t/vro p'roirrrirLerrb trade unionists, Sir Edwin Stockton, who is the Manchester Merchant Club secretary, Mr Bryson, chairman of the Birmingham Licensing Bench, and Mrs Barton, secretary of the Co-op. 'Women’s Guild. These, six members constitute the central balancing body beI tween the temperance interests oil the one hands and the liquor interests on the other hand, having regard to the importance of question involved and 1 magnitude of interests concerned. It is understood that ten more members will be appointed, representing ail sides ol the opinion to reinforce this central balancing body. The inclusion of a medical representative, is also advocated in some quarters. The terms of reference of the commission are, however, to inquire into the working of the. laws relating to the supply and sale of intoxicating liquors, and into the social and economic aspects of the question, and to examine and report on the proposals which may bo made for amending the law in England and Wales, in the public interest.

The medical aspect of tho question is therefore, hardly within the scope of the inquiry. No members of Parliament will sit on the commission, it being; heldl that they might be subjected to pressure by the electors. 'The inquiry is expected to last as long as two or three years. It wilt be for the commissioners to decide whether they shall, visit the United States to see prohibition in practise.