temperance reform clearly defined and separated, the drink question
would be a much easier thing to discuss than it is. Unfortunately
they have got almost indissolubly tangled by reason of the fact that
so many who secretly hold the dogmatic teetotal view will not avow
it frankly, while many others (practically the whole Liberal and
Progressive parties for example) hastily adopt measures which have no
_raison d’etre_ save in this view without thinking seriously about
their nature. If the teetotal enthusiasts would say frankly (as some
but by no means all of them do) that they want absolute and unqualified
Prohibition and only support Local Veto and the much-vaunted Temperance
Policy of the London County Council as steps towards Prohibition--then
at least we should know where we were. But when the _Daily News_ itself
was plainly and publicly challenged by the Rev. Stewart Headlam to
say whether it meant that or not, it pointedly evaded the question.
The fact is, of course that if this policy were frankly explained its
supporters would be snowed under at the next election even more finally
than the supporters of Local Veto were in 1895. So they do not avow it,
but try to get essentially prohibitionist legislation through under
cover of vague phrases like “temperance reform” to which we are all
urged to rally.
Take Local Veto for example. What was the main proposal involved in
Sir William Harcourt’s famous measure. It proposed that every ward
(the smallest area known to English local government) should have the
right by a two-thirds majority to veto all licenses within its area or
by a bare majority to reduce them by one fourth. Now was this measure
intended to lead to Prohibition or was it not? If it was, then the
English people who did not want Prohibition did well to reject it;
but if it was not, and its supporters generally insist that it was
not, whither was it intended to lead. Its obvious effect in practice,
as Mr. Pease has justly pointed out, would be that the rich districts,
where public houses are few and cannot in any sense be regarded as a
social evil, would probably expel them as derogatory to the interests
of property and the “character of the neighbourhood,” while all the
drinking would be concentrated in the worst slum areas, where public
houses, not of the best type, are already dangerously numerous and
crowded, and where prohibition would have no chance whatever. This is
clearly not a temperance reform in any sense of the word. It could
have been framed only in the interests of men who regard alcohol as so
positively a devilish thing that they rejoice at the destruction of any
place defiled by its presence regardless of the ulterior consequences
to temperance itself.
The Temperance Policy of the London County Council is at least as
strong a case in point. What is this much-trumpetted policy? It is
this; that when the County Council has to acquire the license of a
public house in the course of making some street improvement, it
first pays huge compensation to the publican and then abandons the
license, thus practically throwing the ratepayer’s money into the sea.
That is all. In the course of its distinguished career the L.C.C. has
spent more than £300,000 in this wise and beneficent manner.
Now what does the County Council suppose that it is doing? For a
systematic reduction of drink licenses in certain districts there is
doubtless much to be said, though I am inclined to think that the
importance of this as a factor in the temperance problem is grossly
exaggerated. But, if that is to be effected, the whole licensing
system must be brought under review and houses suppressed according
to a well-considered plan. Care would for example be taken that the
worse kind of houses were suppressed and the better retained. The
Council suppresses them on no plan whatever--simply where it happens
to be making a street improvement. The result is, of course, that
the gain to temperance is absolutely nil. A street is to be widened;
the public houses on one side of the street are pulled down, their
licenses purchased and abandoned; those on the other side remain. The
people who used to drink on the one side go over and drink on the
other. The suppressed publican (or the brewer he represents) gets ample
compensation; the unsuppressed publican gets his neighbour’s trade in
addition to his own without paying one farthing for it. And the public?
What does the public get? The satisfaction of knowing that the workman
may have to cross the road in order to refresh himself.
The fact is that the Progressive party, dangerously subject to
intimidation by the Nonconformist chapels, has adopted a policy
entirely meaningless from the standpoint of enlightened temperance,
in obedience to the irrational demands of those who think that the
destruction of any public house must be a righteous act.
Now the same spirit which revealed in the Local Veto Bill and still
shows itself in the County Council policy has been to a great extent
responsible for the opposition encountered by the government’s
Licensing Act. I do not say that this Act could not be fairly
criticised upon other grounds. The terms accorded to the Trade are
certainly high--in my view too high--and of the compensation granted
too much seems likely (in the case of a tied house) to go to the
brewer and too little to the publican. But that is not the ground
chosen by the most vehement enemies of the measure. The ground
explicitly chosen by them is that the publican is an enemy, a wicked
man, whom we ought to punish for his misdeeds. If it were the case
of any other trade, would anybody venture to deny that a man whose
livelihood is taken away by the arbitrary act of the governing powers
through no fault of his own is entitled, whatever be his strict
legal position, to some measure of relief. To which the only answer
vouchsafed by the teetotal faction consists in windy abuse of the
publican as a “vampire.” I think that private monopoly in the Drink
Trade is a great evil; so is private monopoly everywhere else. But
to abuse the man who merely sells what the public demands and the
community instructs him to supply is fanaticism and not statesmanship.
Now if, leaving this foolish cult, whose voting power is by no means
in proportion to the noise it makes, we ask ourselves what kind of
temperance reform sensible reformers really want, we shall not find it
difficult to answer.
First and foremost then we want good liquour and especially good beer.
Everyone who frequents public houses knows how hard this often is to
obtain. Yet beer is our national drink, of which we ought to be proud.
Properly manufactured it does no one any harm, though when made of
chemical “substitutes” instead of sound malt and hops it is as noxious
as any other adulterated concoction. Beer-drinking, within reasonable
limits, and provided the beer be sound liquour, is a national habit
which no wise ruler would attempt to suppress. For it is the best
prophylactic against the inordinate consumption of cheap and bad
spirits which really is a national curse in Scotland and elsewhere.
Secondly we want decent surroundings. It is a most unfortunate thing
that few temperance reformers have any personal acquaintance with
public houses or with alcoholic drinking. For if they had they would
know that a man is much more likely to brutalise himself if he is
compelled to drink “perpendicularly” in a dirty, ugly, and gloomy bar
than if he can sit down comfortably, talk to his friends, play cards
and listen, perhaps, to a little music. That is why another phase of
the L.C.C. “temperance” policy, the refusal of drink licenses to music
halls, is so manifestly absurd. A man who drinks at a music hall, where
he is being amused in other ways, is much less likely to get drunk than
one who drinks in a public house bar (as such bars are now conducted)
where there is nothing to do but to go on drinking. As Mr. Headlam has
excellently expressed it, it would be a great deal better policy to
turn every public house into a music hall than to turn every music
hall into a teetotal institution. The second thing we want then is a
humanised public house.
Thirdly we want to get rid of the private commercial monopoly which
exploits the drink trade, whereby vast fortunes are made at the expense
of the community. These immense profits are the direct result of the
monopoly granted by the community to private traders in return for a
nominal fee. To grant away what is practically public money in this
way is monstrous. It is satisfactory to find that something like High
License is foreshadowed in this year’s Licensing Act. But High License
is not enough.
The sensible remedy is the municipalization of the liquour traffic
which would fulfil all the above conditions. The municipal public
house would refuse to sell any but the best liquors, and it would
supply these with humanising instead of demoralising surroundings. The
profits which the public are entitled to the public would receive.
And let me say here that there is no reason whatever why we should
wait for a municipal monopoly--which means waiting till Doomsday. The
idea that municipal houses must not compete with privately owned ones
rests ultimately upon the mischievous notion already examined that
the drinking of alcohol is in itself an evil thing upon which the
state ought to frown if it cannot actually suppress it. The typical
British workman (whatever “democratic” politicians may say) does not
go into the public house in order to get drunk but in order to refresh
himself. If the municipality gives him better drink under more pleasant
conditions than the publican he will frequent its houses without
demanding that drunkenness shall be either encouraged or connived at.
And the competition of the municipal house will infallibly raise the
standard of those houses that remain in private hands.
Why does not the London County Council abandon its “Settled Temperance
Policy” and go as straight for municipal public houses as it has gone
for municipal trams? The common answer is that the Council has no power
to run public houses; but this is no answer at all. Till this year it
had no power to run steamers on the Thames. But it wanted the power,
it agitated for it, embodied it in its Bills and eventually forced a
Tory House of Commons to concede it. Has it ever asked for power to
run public houses? Not once. Moreover, even as things stand, it could
if it pleased get to work on the right lines instead of on the wrong
ones. Instead of abandoning licenses it could retain them and lease the
new houses to publicans at pretty high ground rents and on stringent
conditions such as would insure that the house should be of the best
type possible under private management. Besides there is Earl Grey’s
Trust, an organisation founded expressly to anticipate most of the
results of municipalism. They could easily have let the Trust take over
the licenses, but they have persistently refused to do so. The fact is
that the London Progressives do not want to municipalise the retail
liquour trade. They do not want to do it, because they dread the power
of the Nonconformist chapel and the forces which find their political
rallying ground in the local P.S.A., forces of which the guiding
principle is not temperance, but a hatred of alcohol _per se_. But
surely it is possible to make a last appeal to the Progressive leaders.
After all they have pricked that bubble once. To their eternal credit
they have defied and bitterly offended the chapels over the education
question, and no very dire consequences have followed. Will they not
take their courage in their hands and defy them on the drink question
also?
“RETRENCHMENT AND REFORM.”
Who could have believed five years ago that we should ever have heard
again, from any quarter more deserving of notice than the foolish and
impotent Cobden Club, the almost forgotten cry of “Peace, Retrenchment
and Reform.” That it has become once more the rallying cry of the
whole Liberal party is significant, as nothing else could be, of the
extent to which that party has moved backwards during the last decade
or so. So far from the Liberal party having been “permeated” with
Socialism since 1885, everything that has happened since then has
tended to weaken the progressive collectivist element in its ranks and
to strengthen the reactionary individualist element. We hear nothing
now of the well-meant if somewhat amateurish attempts at social
reform which were popular with the followers of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain
twenty years ago,--nothing of “ransom” or of “three acres and a cow.”
As little do we hear or see of the Collectivist-Radical ideals of the
early nineties, of which the _Star_ and the old _Daily Chronicle_ were
once such vigorous exponents. Not only do the leaders of Liberalism
care for none of these things, but those who professed such enthusiasm
for them speak of them less and less. Mr. Massingham now-a-days appears
to have eyes and ears for nothing but the diabolical wickedness of
Imperialism. Dr. Clifford, once the rising hope of collectivist
Dissent, is now too busy promoting sectarian anarchism to pay any
perceptible attention to the “condition-of-the-people” question. It
used at one time to be said that Mr. Gladstone’s stupendous authority
made it difficult for the party to become definitely Collectivist
while he led it; but when he retired the new era was to begin. Well,
Mr. Gladstone is dead; but where is the new era? Mr. Gladstone’s
place has been taken by men who have inherited all his obsolete
prejudices--only lacking his abilities; the “left wing” of the Liberal
party on which so many hopes were built is weaker and less disposed
to a forward movement than ever. The consequence is that since 1895
we have seen nothing but Ghosts--ghosts of dead things which everyone
thought to have been nicely nailed down and buried long ago. The South
African War raised the ghost of Gladstone with his anti-imperial bias
and his narrow nationalist philosophy. Then the Education controversy
brought up the ghost of Miall with all the Dissidence of Dissent and
all the Protestantism of the Protestant Religion. Lastly with the
Fiscal Question has come to light the yet older and mouldier ghost of
Cobden from whose shadowy lips issue the once famous formula--“Peace,
Retrenchment and Reform.”
Since this dilapidated Manchester sign-post has now become the
meeting point of all sections of the Liberal party, Radical and Whig,
Imperialist and Little Englander, and since some of the leaders of
Labour and even (strange to say) some of the Socialists are taking up
their places in the shadow, it becomes imperative to ask what meaning
exactly the words are intended to convey. With “Peace” I have dealt
fully already, and have endeavoured to define the Socialist attitude
towards it. But “Retrenchment and Reform” demand further examination.
No surer proof of the utter emptiness of what is called “Liberal
Imperialism” can be advanced than the manner in which its leaders have
joined in the demand for retrenchment. I can understand the position
of those who manfully opposed the South African War; I can understand
the position of those who manfully supported it. Both are honest and
consistent and worthy of all respect. But surely there never was a
meaner spectacle than this of eminent and influential politicians
shouting vigorously with the Mafficking crowd while war is popular,
and then, when the brief season of ultra-patriotic excitement is over,
grumbling and whining when presented with the inevitable bill of costs.
It is equally absurd and unworthy. If we want an Empire, if we want
a strong foreign policy, if we want vigour and efficiency--we must
be prepared to pay for it. If we think the price too high, then, in
heaven’s name, let us be honest and admit that the Little Englanders
were in the right all along. Do not let us court an easy but most
contemptible popularity by swaggering as Imperialists, when what we
really want is all the sweets of Empire but none of the burdens. That
is what “Liberal Imperialism” seems to mean. Indeed Liberal Imperialism
has proved nothing better than a fizzle. Three years ago we thought
that there might be something in it. So far-sighted a reformer as Mr.
Sidney Webb celebrated in a memorable magazine article “Lord Rosebery’s
Exodus from Houndsditch,” expressing the hope then widely entertained
that the Liberal Imperialist movement meant the final laying of
Gladstonian Ghosts and the creation of a Progressive party alive to
the needs of the new time. That hope is at an end. Lord Rosebery and
his retainers have re-entered Hounds ditch with triumphal pomp and
ceremony, and are now distinguishable from their frankly Gladstonian
colleagues only by the greater fluidity of their convictions.
But expenditure on offensive and defensive armaments, though a most
necessary item, is by no means the only item in our national accounts.
We spend a great deal of money on education; we ought to spend more. We
spend a great deal of money on Home Office matters--factory inspectors
and the like; again we ought to spend more. We want to spend money
in a variety of other ways upon the improvement of the condition
of the people. We want Old Age Pensions, we want free meals for
school-children, we want some sort of provision for the unemployed, we
want grants in aid of housing and other forms of local activity. How
are we to get these things and yet retrench. Will not better education
cost money? Will not more efficient factory inspection cost money?
Will not Free Feeding cost money? Does not almost every kind of social
reform mean increased expenditure? It is significant that the demand
for “retrenchment,” which is the Liberal cry in national affairs, is
in local affairs the cry of the “Moderates,” that is of the magnates
and monopolists who wish to exploit the public. But Liberal or Moderate
it is always a reactionary cry. If we are to do our duty by the people,
we cannot retrench.
And indeed why should we want to retrench--we I mean who profess
ourselves Socialists? Our complaint is not that too much of the
national revenue goes into the coffers of the state, but that too
little finds its way thither. Too much of it goes to swell the incomes
and maintain the status of a wealthy class of idle parasites. The more
we can get hold of and use for public purposes the better. And the more
we pile on taxation (always supposing we pile it on in the right place)
the nearer we approach to the Socialist ideal. Retrenchment of public
expenditure and the reduction of taxation to a minimum is essentially
an individualist policy. The socialist policy is to pool the rents and
profits of industry and devote the revenue so obtained to useful public
work.
But, if retrenchment is an inadmissible policy for Socialists, what
about reform? I can only say that I wish all such words as “reform,”
“progress,” “advanced” etc. were at the bottom of the sea. They are
mischievous because they lend colour to the vague idea which exists in
the minds of so many “moderns” that if we keep on moving fast enough
we are sure to be all right. It never seems to occur to people that
something depends on the direction. What I want to know about a man
is not whether he is “progressive” or “advanced” or “modern” or “a
reformer,” but whether he wants to do the same things that I want
to do. If he wants to do the exact opposite the less “advanced” and
“progressive” he is the better. When therefore amiably muddy-minded
people talk about “Reform” all we have to ask them is, “What reform?”
What did Cobden and Gladstone mean by “reform?” What do the present-day
Liberals and Radicals mean by it? One thing is certain; neither has
ever meant social reform--the only kind that seems to me to matter; or,
if the thought of social questions ever crossed their minds at all,
at least neither has ever meant collectivist social reform--the only
kind that in my view can ever be effective. What the Liberals meant and
mean, so far as they now mean anything at all, was and is political
reform and political reform along certain defined lines.
The old Radical programme of political change is worn so threadbare
that it is hardly worth discussing at this time of day. As however,
in the general resurrection of Gladstonian Ghosts, which we are now
witnessing, a very attenuated spectre of the Old Radical-Republican
propaganda of the ’sixties seems disposed to put in an appearance, it
may be worth while to say a word or two about it.
As to Republicanism itself it hardly demands attention in the twentieth
century. No-one except Mr. John M. Robertson even professes to think
it important. The S.D.F., it is true, still puts the abolition of
monarchy in its programme of palliatives, but that I imagine is merely
a comparatively harmless concession to revolutionary tradition.
Doubtless hereditary monarchy is theoretically illogical; but the
time has gone by when men deduced perfect theories of government _a
priori_ from the Social Contract or the Natural Rights of Man. What we
now ask concerning an institution is--does it obstruct the execution
of necessary reforms? Now no one can seriously maintain that the
British Monarchy obstructs anything. The power of the Crown, such
as it is, has, since the accession of the present Sovereign at any
rate, been used almost entirely in the interests of genuine progress.
Hereditary monarchy supplies us on the whole with a very convenient
method of obtaining a representative of the nation who shall not, like
a President, be the nominee of a political party. A great deal of
national veneration and sentiment has grown up round the Throne, and
it would be foolish to waste time in attacking an immensely popular
institution which does no harm and has its decided advantages.
The old outcry against Royal Grants so dear to the heart of Mr. Henry
Labouchere may be similarly dismissed. It was never likely to be
popular with a people averse above all things to the suspicion of
meanness; and it has now become hopelessly obsolete, partly because
of the general collapse of republican sentiment, and partly because
people have begun to realise that it is a little ridiculous to get
violently excited because the King is given a few thousands in return
for certain services, some of which are decidedly important and all
of which the nation really desires him to perform, while we allow
landlords, capitalists and financiers to pocket many hundred times as
much in return for no services whatsoever.
The question of the House of Lords appears at first sight a more
serious one. But, when examined closely its importance is seen to be
much exaggerated. In order to make out a case strong enough to induce
us to turn aside from our more urgent tasks and spend weary years in
agitating for the disestablishment of the Upper House, Radicals must
show that the Lords are in the habit of rejecting measures of great
intrinsic importance to the people at large and really demanded by
them. Can they show this? I think not. The only measure of importance
which the Lords have rejected during the last thirty years has been
the Home Rule Bill, and a subsequent appeal to the people proved
conclusively that the Lords were right in so rejecting it--that the
people of Great Britain were not as a whole really in favour of it, in
fact that there was no such effective demand as there ought clearly to
be before so great a change is made in the constitution of the realm.
Even if the Radicals had the solid democracy at their back (as they
certainly have not and are not in the least likely to have) it would
still take some ten years to disestablish the Lords. On the other hand,
if we have the democracy at our back in support of any particular
reform that we want, it will not take much more than ten weeks to
intimidate or circumvent them. The Lords are too acute and too careful
of their own interests to resist for any length of time measures upon
which Englishmen have once made up their minds firmly. As a matter of
fact the objection to the House of Lords is not a reformer’s objection
but a Liberal partizan’s objection. The existence of the Second
Chamber, as at present constituted, undoubtedly hampers the Liberal
party in its competition with the Tories, because the Tories can get
more drastic measures of reform through the Upper House than they can.
But with us to whom it is a matter of supreme indifference by which
party reforms are carried this consideration need not weigh.