The national prohibitionist. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1907-1911, 1908-03-05
THE NATIONAL PRoHIBITIoNIsT
BRITISH BREWERS FRANTIC
Liberal Party Presents Bill to Make Liquor
Business Pay for its Own Destruction
From Press CdbleS]

lor OF the eXchequer, eXpounded the licensing Dill
in the House of Commons last night before an
assemblage that crowded the chamber to over
flowing. All the members seats were occupied
and every gallery was full. The peers gallery
was thronged with members of the upper house,
among them being such temperance champions
as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Viscount Peel
and Lord Lytton. The section reserved for wo-
men packed Altogether the scene was one
of the most impressive witnessed in the House OF
Commons in recent years.
Mr.. Asquith rose brilliantly to the occasion.
His speech was mastery in it's handling of facts
and invested difficult subject with an eloquence
that stirred the house to repeated shouts of APP
plause. What he unfolded was a scheme to COM
pei the liquor trade of England and Wales SO far
as property in licenses is concerned, to pay for
its own abolition.
Robbery" cried ex-Prme Minister Balfour.
"Wholesale robberyr' echoed the brewery men,
bers.
you propose to throw 10000 license holders
into the street," shouted the angry Tories, but
Mr.. Asquth and relentless pressed on,
extorting admiration even from those who seemed
to itch to take him by the throat.
If the speech produced remarkable scenes in
the House of Commons it has caused sensation
outside, amounting to a political blizzard. The
Tory newspapers, led by the Daily Telegraph,
rage against the bill and declare that it will carry
the government down to ignomnious defeat In
columns of interviews the brewers assert that if
the bill becomes law the trade will be bankrupted
and that 100000 shareholders, among them large
numbers of Widows spinsters and clergymen, will
be left penniless. They declare further that prop
erty will be destroyed which now pays hundreds
of thousands of pounds annually in taxes, that
liquor drinking will be driven into corners, that
clubs will take the place of pubs" that more
drinking than ever before will take place in homes
and that temperance will not be promoted at all.
Mr. Asquith, the leaders of the temperance
movement, the labor members of Parliament and
practically the whole Liberal party regard these
outbursts as entirely unusti6ed They declare that
due weight will be given to the rightful claims of
the license holders and that the cause of temper
ance will be UNNECESSARILY advanced.
The bill provides for the suppression of
third of all licenses in England and Wales within
fourteen years, the trade supplying the funds
necessary to pay reasonable amount for these.
This means the disappearance of about $4,000
saloons Moreover, when the fourteen years are
UP the monopoly value in all the other licenses
passes to the state without any compensation
whatever to the holders. Therefore licensees per-
mitted to remain in business must not only pay
for the licenses gradually suppressed but must
provide sinking fund and create sum equiva-
lent to their own license values, which will dis
appear at the end of the time limit.
Me- ~ -.