PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
mwimmi
TEEN C.O. 882
6
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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or fancied, or chose to fancy, were the proposals of Government; and one very remarkable thing, at least to me it appears remarkable, is that some of our most violent opposers chance to be gentlemen well known to us all, who quite recently attempted to do us the honour of joining us at this Council Board, and who, by the bidding of the electors, were only allowed to proceed as far as its entrance. Now, it is necessarily rather embarrassing for their successful rivals to find themselves sitting in this Council listening for the first time to an exposition of policy, which before it has been made, and therefore, necessarily, before it has been understood, has been condemned by energetic gentlemen who have recently been candidates for elections in which the Honourable Members concerned have succeeded; and my only regret is that the electorate is not large enough to admit those gentlemen to be here also, at any rate for one day, so that I might have had an opportunity of personally explaining to them some of the more egregious errors into which unfortunately they have been detrayed. My friend, Mr. Francis Beven, from the heights of Olympus (laughter) - somewhere in the neighbourhood of Veyangoda -recently blessed & speech of Dr. Fernando. He said it was a very remarkable speech. I am personally very much attached to Mr. Beven, and have a great regard and respect for him, though I do not always have the good fortune to agree with him, but on this occasion I am absolutely in accordance with his opinion. I think the speech reported in the Ceylon Independent of February 27, 1912, as made by Dr. Fernando to the Low- country Products Association, was a very remarkable speech, but perhaps not quite in the sense in which Mr. Beven would have us take that remark. Dr. Fernando began by the following statement. He protested against
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the remarkable statement that the proposals of Government with refer- cnce to the excise reforms have not yet been formulated, and that the sugges- tions of the Excise Commissioners did not amount to the policy of Government.
Well, Sir, I have wasted my breath if during the last half hour I have not been able to convince Honourable Members that until this day there never has been published an authoritative statement of what Government actually proposed. Dr. Fernando then goes on strongly to advocate local option. I am sorry to say I am unable to agree with him, for reasons which I will state. In most parts of the country I think it cannot be doubted that if local option were granted, it would never be exercised at all. In some parts of the country, if it were granted-and local option would have to be allowed to cut both ways—I am inclined to fear that it might lead to a multiplication of taverns by those who like a large number of shops in their neighbourhood, but if that were not so, where it was exercised there would always be the danger of it being exercised tyranically by a small and energetic and articulate body of people, wholly ignoring the general wishes of the people concerned. There is also another danger, and that is that local option would be found an extremely useful instrument in the hands of those persons who were making a direct or indirect profit out of the illicit sales, and who wished to perpetuate that profit. In either case the immediate results would be, in my opinion, to stimulate the illicit traffic instead of to regulate it, and to release it from the stricter control and super- vision which would be ensured by what we propose to-day. Now, Mr. Ellis, in his report on this question, wrote as follows on the subject of local option :-
Suggestions have been made that the principle of local option should be introduced with reference to the establishment of taverns. If the results of local option were to diminish the existing number of taverns, the results can hardly fail to be disastrous. It has been shown that such a decrease has already been the cause of much mischief. The adoption of this policy was the result of representations made with the very best intentions by clergymen and advocates of total prohibition. The success of their efforts must have been hailed with delight by the illicit sellers--the only persons who profited by it.
It is singular to find persons holding such extremely opposite views united in support of any measure, but it was undoubtedly the illicit seller who took the correct view of the situation. The experiment has totally failed to produce any of the anticipated results, except those which he (the illicit seller) hoped for.
The proper amount of revenue has not been recovered, while there has been a great development in the facilities for obtaining a constant supply of liquor, and, in consequence, an increase in the habits of intemper-
ance.
Government, it will be seen, has already attempted to do what, it is hoped, will be achieved by local option. The experiment was made, and it failed; and it was
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proved to frustrate the very ends which those who most sincerely desired to restrict the consumption of intoxicants in this Colony had at heart. There is a paragraph I should wish to read that is taken from the Report of the Indian Excise Commission of 1905-1906, which deals with this question of local option, and which, I think, deserves the serious consideration of all those who are interested in the subject:-
"A point upon which temperance advocates have laid more stress than on any other is the grant of local option.
but it would appear Action in this
"Its advocates do not explain the term that local option is probibition in its more rational form. direction has never been taken in England, nor did the Royal Commission on the Liquor Licensing Laws recommend that it should be attempted. Where it has been tried in America the best temperance opinion is doubtful of its entire efficacy.
The conditions of India are peculiarly unsuited to the adoption of any such system. To quote the Government of India's despatch, No. 29, of 1890: A system of local option would throw the whole administration into confusion, and would in some places create an intolerable class tyranny which might have very serious political effects. We doubt greatly whether a Sikh community would quietly submit to the total prohibi- tion of liquor by a Muhammadan majority, and we believe that in some tracts local option would lead to indefinite multiplication of liquor shops
any system of local option presupposes the existence of a highy developed system of local or municipal institutions to which representatives are elected by the mass of people, and in which all conflicting interests command their due share of attention. No such system exists in India ' "-
or, I may add, in Ceylon.
"The Committee of the Temperance Federation of Calcutta, in a letter written as recently as April 7, 1908, state frankly that after full consideration of the question they can name, even at Calcutta itself, no registry of voters qualified to decide the questions at issue.
It may, therefore, be taken as settled that, whether it is itself a desirable measure or not, local option as understood in America is no more possible in India in 1906 than it was in 1890."
I would ask Honourable Members to ponder those words, which apply very aptly to our own situation here. Those who have asked for local option so insistently have not, so far as I am aware, ventured to place before us any machinery whereby that local option can be dealt with. I shall have a few more words to say on the subject of local option in connection with two memoranda which have reached me during the last few days from the Low-country Products Association and the Chilaw Asso- ciation; but I leave the matter for the moment, merely reminding Honourable Members that local option could not be confined to certain areas; that it would have to be universal; that it would have to cut both ways; and that even those who most sincerely desire to see the number of taverns diminished, mistakenly thinking that thereby the amount of drinking would be necessarily diminished, would be doomed probably to bitter disappointment if their desires with regard to local option were to be approved. Now, pursuing my remarks with regard to the speech of Dr. Fer- I should like to say absolutely and nando, I next come to the question of taverns. emphatically, and to insist upon the statement, that Government does not propose to establish a single additional tavern in any part of this Colony for revenue purposes. (Applause.) The sole object we have in view is to meet the legitimate demand, and thereby to discourage and prevent illegitimate sales and consumption. The point which I venture to think most of our critics miss is that the existence of a tavern does not necessarily imply an increased consumption. It does mean that what con- sumption there is may be more efficiently and more properly supervised than is the case when the consumption takes place, not in a licensed tavern, but in an illicit place of sale. It is urged by those who advocate temperance that the establishment of taverns will mean increased consumption. They fail to realise, I think, that many localities where to-day there are no taverns are only too well known to be mere whited sepulchres; and they again ignore, and persistently ignore, the illicit trade, which is the real crux of the whole situation. Their allies are those who have a direct pecuniary interest in the purveying of liquor, licit or illicit, and who make a profit, direct or indirect, from illicit sales; and I would submit with the greatest respect to those who trace too close a connection between the existence of taverns and the existence of a supply, that they are really living in a fool's paradise; whereas