bahahaha
17 March 1923
Last week the House of Commons passed by an overwhelming majority the Second Reading of a Bill to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor to persons under eighteen, for "consumption on the premises". Sillier Bills may have been introduced in the Commons, but none sillier can have attained a Second Reading. It will perhaps serve to complicate the lives of licensed victuallers--in itself regarded by some as a worthy object--but as far as "social" results are concerned, there will certainly be none.
The Bill professes to deal solely with the "problem" of injurious drinking by boys and girls under eighteen in public-houses at their own expense. But no evidence was adduced to show that any such problem exists or is ever likely to exist. The only figure quoted by Lady Astor in support of the Bill showed that in a town of 22,000 inhabitants there is, on the average, one conviction for drunkenness per annum of a boy or girl between the ages of sixteen to twenty-one. It is fairly safe to say that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the convicted person is over eighteen. So it comes to this: that this Bill may possibly prevent in such a town one conviction for drunkenness per century.
Last week the House of Commons passed by an overwhelming majority the Second Reading of a Bill to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor to persons under eighteen, for "consumption on the premises". Sillier Bills may have been introduced in the Commons, but none sillier can have attained a Second Reading. It will perhaps serve to complicate the lives of licensed victuallers--in itself regarded by some as a worthy object--but as far as "social" results are concerned, there will certainly be none.
The Bill professes to deal solely with the "problem" of injurious drinking by boys and girls under eighteen in public-houses at their own expense. But no evidence was adduced to show that any such problem exists or is ever likely to exist. The only figure quoted by Lady Astor in support of the Bill showed that in a town of 22,000 inhabitants there is, on the average, one conviction for drunkenness per annum of a boy or girl between the ages of sixteen to twenty-one. It is fairly safe to say that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the convicted person is over eighteen. So it comes to this: that this Bill may possibly prevent in such a town one conviction for drunkenness per century.