COMMONS INTERLUDE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18992, 17 April 1936, Page 12

COMMONS INTERLUDE

BEER VERSUS MILK LICENSING LAW DEBATE LADY ASTOR'S TILT LONDON, March 9. There was an uiuisiiiilly large attendance for a Friday when the House, today discussed Mr. Gledhill's toil to amend the licensing laws. The fact _' is explained by the persistent popularity of such debates. The subject is expected to provide abundance of fun, but members on this occasion had to be content with very small beer. Even Mr. A: B. Herbert let his fancy be sicklied o'er with the. pale cast of Parliamentary responsibility. Commander Bower won the first laugh from an eager. House by. a complaint of the "low; moaning noises" with which Lady Astor had accompanied Mr. Gledhill's speech, and proceeded to a horrid speculation of what would be his fate if lie "drank the amount of milk which i.ady Astor does." Thereafter came a jeremiad over drunkenness from Dr. Salter, and a protest from Mr. Russell that rural districts did not want any extension of hours. MR. HERBERT'S GIBES Mr. A. P. Herbert then made his much-expected and rather disappointing intervention. He chaffed total abstainers on their solicitude for barmaids and their lack of interest in the workers in temperance hotels. He gibed at the attack on beer and the exaltation of milk. Beer did not have to be boiled before it was fit to drink.

in spite of the dangers of milk, nobody thought of calling it a tuberculosis bevelage. The multiplication of undesirable clubs, he proceeded to argue, was duo to the wiping out of public houses and the general maladministration of the licensing justices. Then camo a gibe at the recent Royal Commission. "I used to think 1 was a. humorous writer till I read its report," and he gave examples to prove that nobody could take that document fieriousiy. Finally, Air. Herbert • exhorted the House to remember what happened wh&i he laid an information against it for its drinking habits. Members did not then say that there should be more control, but with horse, foot and the AttorneyGeneral they defended their freedom, and the court decided that access to refreshment at all times was essential to the business of the House.

Lady Astor replied to this by calling Mr. Herbert "tha playboy of the drink world," and then delievered a diatribe against the brewing trade with incidental assaults on the press. Colonel Gretton, having made a brief defence of the brewers, testified that the bill proceeded not from them, but from the genuine clubs. GOVERNMENT ATTITUDE

Sir John Simon then announced fchs Government decision to deal with bogus clubs in a bill next session. He objected 'to the scheme of extended hours pro. posed in the bill because it would rathei increase than abolish anomalies. Discre. lion according to local circumstances was preferable to a formal but sham urntormity. ' v* As to bogus clubs, however, he held that it was high time to deal with them. In the present state of the law any person with 5s could start a, club and the only form of regulation, to strike the club off the register, was of no practical use because it could be started again imrtfediately. This was a particular compartment ot the licensing problem, which could lie dealt with by itself. The Government would do so next year, but he put in the caveat that the task was' much more difficult than it appeared.'