LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL ON LOCAL OPTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9030, 17 April 1888, Page 6

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL ON LOCAL OPTION.

Addressing a crowded meeting lately } n the North of England, Lord Randolph Churchill said : " I must give ycu my own ideas very briefly on the subject of the reform of the liquor laws. I have no official responsibility of any sort or kind, bufc I have had great and peculiar opportunities of ascertaining what I may well believe to be the general prevailing tendency and disposition of the mind of the Tory party j n Parliament and in the country, and though possibly here and there I may go a little beyond it, still I don't think I should be very far out. (Applause.) My own view of thg liquor laws is this, that they are intimately connected with the question of local g O . vernment. (Hear, hear.) Constitute in your rural districts, as you have in your city districts, a popular representative government, and I think you may hand over to them very large powers for regulating the drink traffic in their districts. Ido not advocate it on moral grounds, because it would not be my business to do soothers can do so better than I ; my advocacy is on economic grounds. There can be no doubt that an enormous amount of the crime in the United Kingdom springs from the unrestricted sale of drink. I was talking the other day to a police magistrate in a very crowded part of London, a practical man of the world, for whose opinion I have the highest respect, and he told me that at least twothirds of all the crime that* came before him arose from the unrestricted sale of drink • what I may call the fatal facility of recourse to the public-house and the ginshop. Well, what is the effect of that? The effect of that is, that you have to maintain a large criminal population in your prisons, which is an immense burden to the community, because the population of your prisons is utterly unremunerative Not only do they bring you in nothing, but if that population was not in the prisons, if they were not a criminal population, they would be active workers, contributing to the welfare of the community, so that the expenditure is a double one. It is the expenditure involved in their useless maintenance, of the loss which the community sustains from their labour not bein» available for the good of the community (cheers) ; therefore any legislation which would diminish, as I believe sensible temperance legislation would, the criminal population, would really bo legislation of a highly economical character. But I have got to put another question still more important. The amount of money the British people spend on drink yearly is something enormous. I forget the exact amount, bus it certainly is some scores of millions. Now imagine if by some reasonable, wise legislation , we could diminish the facility of recourse to the public-house and gin-shop, what a very large proportion of these scores of millions would be diverted from the liquor trade and would flow over to other trades and industries. (Cheers.) All trades would benefit; more food would be purchased and better kinds of food ; more clothing would be purchased, and better kinds of clothing ; more furniture would be purchased, and better kinds of furniture; more education would be given to children, and better kind of education. In every way in which money could bediverted from expenditure on the liquor trade, the other trades of the country would benefit. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, in these days of bad trade and hard times, we cannot, if we are wise, afford to neglect any means which may justly and legitimately stimulate the trade and industry of Britain."