The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-05-05 00:00:00

THE LONDON PRESS ON THE LOCAL
OPTION DEBATE.

The Times says :—" Sir Wilfrid Lawson must be
satisfied for the present with the reception he has
gained for his resolution in favour of local option.
The announcement of Sir W. Harcourt that the
Government accept the principle of the resolution and
will take the respJnsibility of giving effect to it, has
put the whole question on an entirely new level. The
thing, it is now certain, will be done ; local option in
some form or other will be granted; the time and the
manner alone remain to be determined. His success
is thus a good deal less real than it might appear at
first sight. The consent he has obtained has been
given to his words, and to his words only. His elastic
resolutions has been accepted, and it has been already
stretched and twisted into a form as different as
possible from that which he intended it to bear. He
has asked for local option, and he is to have it, but in
such a shape and under such conditions that the fulfil.
ment of the promise of the Government will leave him
almost as far as ever from the real object he has been
struggling for."
The Standard is of opinion that the discussion, on the
whole, was not adequate; the adoption of the prin-
ciple by the Government availing, apparently, to
prevent members from following its detailed working.
The Ministerial plan, being unknown, is assumed to be
satisfactory. It can only be hoped that it will satisfy
at once the enthusiasts of the temperance cause and
the champions of sound principles in politics. What
is obvious now is that, by making its success dependent
on the passing of the general scheme for reforming
local government, the Government obtain much.
needed leverage for that item in their programme,
while by the promise of satisfying the desires of the
local optiopists they have secured the goodwill of the
frien is of the movement.

The Daily News sees many difficulties in the way of
the Government by accepting Sir Wilfrid Lawson's
resolution. Probably in practilal legislation we shall
never get to that boundary .line of compromise between
the rights of communities and the rights of indi•
viduals which would satisfy a speculative thinker.
Wheeever localities have in their own hands the
control of the liquor traffic, it is likely that we shall
see local option manifesting itself in various forms of
expression. Time and experience must be trusted to
remove anomalies and soften the harshness of contrast,
and perhaps even to commend something like a
common principle of action.

The Morning Post remarks that Mr. Gladstone is
nothing if not flexible. In 1880 he voted against the
local option resolution, because .he did not like to
commit the Government to the support of an abstract
principle. That principle has in reality no more of the
concrete about it now than it had then; but the Prime
Minigter finds himself able to vote for it because, with
prophetic eye, he foresees in the distant future a
time when the state of public business will allow the
Government to relieve Sir Wilfred Lawson, and intro-
duced a local option measure of their own.
The Daily nlegraph contests the right of a majority
to attempt to reclaim their intemperate fellow-citizens
by tyrannical restrictions upon the comfort and con-
venience of the temperate. There is the less excuse
for a renewal of these endeavours to make men virtuou3
by Act of Parliament, because signs are not wanting
that the English people are finding out for themselves
"the more excellent way." They are inventing the
very virtue that ill-advised projectors of legislation
shrive to force upon t them. Already the diminution of
the drink traffic has begun to threaten seriously the
revenue of the Excise; and there is more reason than
ever for leaving the work of national reformation in
the hands of the nation itself. It is the most inoppor-
tune of moments for any fresh experiment in the
direction of morality-compelling legislation; and it
would be matter for regret if such an experiment were
to be precipitately tried.