SECOND LORD BIRKENHEAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21646, 17 May 1932, Page 4

SECOND LORD BIRKENHEAD

“A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK." “ Drunkenness in this country is a spent force, or, if I may express it more delicately, I should say it is a lost' art.” This was said (says the Wine Trade Review) at the annual dinner of the Licensed Victuallers’ School by the Earl of Birkenhead, in a speech singularly like, in form and candid criticism, many delivered by his late father. As his father's biographer, he said he had no doubt as to what his father would have thought and said about the present Royal Commission on Licensing. The trade was menaced by a " cluster of antagonisms which it had done nothing to deserve. It had been mercilessly exploited to satisfy the fiscal exactions of the State, and had to cope with the posturings of cranks and faddists whose ambition appeared to be to transform England into a larger Dartmoor, without even the diversion of occasional rebellions. — (Laughter.) Mr Snowden’s extra tax on beer had miserably failed, and in commonsense and fairness it should be removed. The Royal Commission suggested that public houses in towns should close at 10 o’clock, • and in the country at 9 o’clock, while they were prepared to allow clubs and restaurants to continue selling champagne to anyone who came in. “I do not believe, lie concluded, “ that a more monstrous or snobbish proposal, or one more calculated to promote class antagonism, has ever been put forward at the public expense.