The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-11-08 00:00:00

"LOCAL OPTION."

The Times of Wednesday said :—" Yesterday, at the
temperance breakfast given in Edinburgh in honour of
Sir Wilfrid Lawson, M.P., the hon. baronet said he
did not know whether they had read the article in The
Times a few days after their great Alliance meeting in
London. The Times admitted their whole Case. It
said that what they wanted was 'to give the working
inople the same power of protection from the
dangerous facility of the publichouse which is already
enjoyed by the upper and middle classes.' That was,
in a single sentence, what he had said in a hundred
speeches, and that was in The Times newspaper, the
leading paper, which declared not only that, but that
this demand came mainly from the working men them.
selves. Was there anybody who thought they were
not getting on when they read such an article as that
to which he had referred?'

The Tiin..ee of Wednesday also published the following
letter :

Sir,—l was much pleased to find in your leading
article of the 23rd ult. how clearly you point out that
the demand for giving the working classes the same
power of protection from the troublesome vicinity of a
publichouae which is already substantially possessed
by the middle and upper asses springs almost en-
tirely trom the working menhemselves.
This very clear statement of the case in your in-
fluential journal will, I hope, help to render the upper
classes more ready than they have hitherto been to
trust their poorer fellow'countrymen with a power
which they themselves already substantially possess.
Bat the object of ray asking you to insert this letter
is my desire, if possible, to reassure those somewhat
timid politicians who still shudder at the name of
"the Permissive Bill." You say that in a speech of
mi e I declared that had the "local option" resolu-
tion been carried in the House of Commons last
March, I should forthwith have brought in my Bill as
the practical expression of its meaning. What I
really was careful to say was that some Bill would
naturally have followed the passing of such a resolu-
tion, but that it need not necessarily have been con-
structed on the same lines as my original Permissive
Bill. If you refer to the debate of March 11 on the
"local option" resolution you will find that I spoke in
exactly the same sense.
As to the agitation out of doors, with which you
seem to be not altogether satisfied, it is not, so far as I
understand it, carried on for the promotion of any
particular form of Bill, but it Is designed to procure
from Parliament a recognition of the working man's
right, along with his superiors, to what you so appro-
priately call " protection " from the publichouse. The
"local option" resolution, to quote your own words
again, "gives in outline" the legislation which is re-
quired.
One word more. You seem to have been some-
what disconcerted at having found me in Cumberland
lately "advocating the claims of men who are not
banded with me in favour of the Permissive Bill."
Allow me to at to that the men to whom you refer are
supporters of the "local-option" resolution, to which
I have aheady referred. That fact gives me all the
assurance which I need that they are liberal enough to
trust their fellow-countrymen with the power of pro-
tecting themselves against the common enemy.—
Yours obediently, WILFRID LAWSON.

November 4.