139 were milk shops, 102 shops of general small dealers, 93 sweet shops, and 104 tobacco shops. Therefore, just half the number of shops said to be open on Sunday at Birkenhead would naturally fall under a schedule of exemptions. I think it is true, therefore, to say, that when the case of the small trader is pleaded against any further restrictions upon Sunday trading, we must qualify it by undoubted facts of this kind.

Then, if I may, I would like to say a word based on what has passed under my own notice. Most of us who speak from this bench have had peculiar opportunities of entering closely into the habits of the poorest of the people, and I cannot help thinking that this matter is one which at bottom really turns upon whether or not we can wisely regulate,

from time to time, the habits of our

eggs and other perishable things which might reasonably be supposed to meet the actual needs of people living in that locality, but also crockery, hardware, new and second-hand clothes, bales of cloth, nails, machinery, bicycles, clocks and watches, as well as dogs, hens, birds, and pets of all kinds. This very heterogeneous market had naturally attracted round it persons who came with various kinds of amusements. I will not say there were many of these, but they that in this neighbourhood, owing to undoubtedly were there. I am told strenuous efforts on the part of the local authority, the character of these markets has been improved to a great extent, which used to take place has been put and much of the gambling and betting down. At the same time it would have been possible, so far as I could see yesterday, not only to buy the usual little articles sold by cheap jacks, but also to have your weight taken and a shy at a

There were also other accomcocoanut. paniments more of the nature of a fair. People were moving about the streets very thickly, and were content, at any rate in the early part of the morning, to be amused. It seems to be the habit to spend Sunday morning in this way. The crowds, good natured and good tempered, move up and down in order to be amused by the auctioneers, who naturally make them the butt of their observations. It is a matter of habit. This is just as much the thing to do in some of these localities as it is at the seaside the thing to do to walk about on the promenade on the Sunday. But the best of the working men and lads who are members of clubs and other Church organisations in the district tell us that it would be no hardship whatever to stop the greater part of this Sunday traffic. I attach the greatest value to this particular evidence, because it comes from those who frequent these fairs and are accustomed to purchase things there. When you ask them they tell you that even the Sunday shave is not a real necessity, and that if it were stopped men would certainly get shaved on Saturday night.

poorer classes. The President of the Local Government Board, the Right Hon. John Burns, was quoted as saying that gentle pressure ought to be put upon the working classes in this matter. Surely if there is one thing which Parliament is not only competent but even called upon to do, it is wisely and gently to regulate those habits into which large masses of our people may fall, by which, without intending it, they may either impair the high standard of reverence which belongs to this country, or be, in their several localities, a nuisance to their neighbours. This question is largely a question of the habits of the people. There can be no doubt that a large amount of unnecessary trading is carried on on Sunday. It has become the habit, in certain localities, for the people to do their shopping on the Lord's Day, and they have fallen into the habit simply because it has been allowed; and the reason it has been allowed is that the legislation on the subject is so antiquated, and the fines imposed so small, that it is impossible to put an effectual stop to it. This Sunday trading threatens to do infinite harm to the social and religious life of many of our people in our largest cities. Take Whitechapel. I was in Petticoat Lane only yesterday, and had a look round among the hawkers and shopkeepers. In the few streets through which I had to pass I saw not only bread, meat, poultry, fish, oysters, vegetables, The Lord Bishop of Wakefield.

I do not wish to say very much on the religious side of the question-a plea which always receives in this House the great respect, consideration, and sympathy

no sympathy with measures of pure restriction. I do not believe that, directly or actively, religion can be promoted by Act of Parliament, but there are certain hindrances to moral and social improvement on the part of our people which Parliament should remove, and I think this great increase in Sunday trading is one of those hindrances. The only possible quiet time for the very poor in our cities is on a Sunday, and to have this taken away through the great increase in Sunday trading is a serious hardship to them.

which it should receive. I, for one, have a great convenience to motorists and cyclists and all people using the highway. I do not know whether the noble Lord has considered the question of exempting them in any legislation to be brought in. Uniformity is desirable if you can get it, but I do not think you should press for too much uniformity in this matter. The right rev. Prelate, if he were motoring from one church to another to deliver one of his eloquent sermons, would, I think, be greatly annoyed if he had to stop on the roadside between two towns and found that he could not get the necessary material to repair a tire or obtain petrol for his engine. There will have to be many exceptions in a Bill of this kind.

This is a small piece of social reform which we ask Parliament to take up, but behind it are to be found two great streams of influence-the jealousy of our workers to preserve one day's rest in seven, and the conscience of the religious, thinking people of the country. Unless the question is taken up soon it is one of those increasing evils which will get a great hold upon us and will become more and more difficult to be tackled. I trust, therefore, that your Lordships will favourably receive the Motion which has been placed before you by the noble Lord opposite.

LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, although I agree with the principle of the Resolution and with what has been said by the right rev. Prelate, I think the Resolution as it stands may be misunderstood outside as meaning more than perhaps is advisable at the present moment. There are several kinds of hardships that were not in the minds of the Committees. Take the Port of Southampton, for instance. Everybody knows how irregular ships are in arrival, and that vessels expected on Saturday frequently do not come in till Sunday. This naturally involves a great deal of Sunday labour and great inconvenience to many engaged in shipping who are unable to obtain what they want on the Saturday; and in a place like Southampton the local authority ought to have power to exempt that particular locality. Then there is another kind of trader who does a very large business on Sunday -the small man on the main roads who repairs bicycles and sells petrol and material for repairing tyres for motor

cars.

These repairing shops have become

Though I do not disagree in the least with the principle contained in the Motion, I feel that something ought to be said on behalf of the small trader, whose existence is always a precarious one, and who is not in a position to defend himself in the same way as the larger trader. The small streets in the East End and in our large towns contain a great number of these shops, run by traders whose only chance of making ends meet is by keeping open when their larger competitors are closed. These traders should not be overlooked, and I would ask Lord Avebury when he introduces his Bill not to overlook the shops which are so essential for the convenience of motorists and cyclists. There are between 250,000 and 300,000 cyclists on the roads on a Sunday, and to deprive them of the facilities they at present enjoy by closing the shops of the traders to whom I have referred would be a great injustice.

THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND: My Lords, the speech we have just heard is a good illustration of the misunderstanding there is with regard to a measure of this kind. The noble Lord who has just sat down asked us to consider the case of ports and of ships coming in late. We took a great deal of evidence on that subject. How, I ask, are the men who work in the docks affected by the closing of shops on Sunday? Their requirements, when a ship comes in late, would be for refreshments, and refreshments are expressly excluded by the recommendations of the Committee. There is no reason why, because a ship comes in late, a docker should have power

to buy crockery on a Sunday; and there- | creasing, and the evidence we had was fore if you exempt a few classes of shops that the shopkeepers who opened on you meet that objection altogether. I Sunday in many cases were very unventure to say there is no real force in the willing to do so but were compelled by shipping argument. There is no diffi- competition. Thus Sunday trading goes culty whatever in making exemptions on spreading. which will remove all injustice in that direction.

you will have to legislate rather against bad Jews than against good Jews. There is a large proportion of Jews who do without doubt keep their Sabbath, and it is possible to make out a good case for those persons being allowed to trade on Sunday; but once you allow Jews generally to trade on Sunday it will be very difficult to discriminate between those Jews who had kept their own Sabbath and those who had not. The suggestion of the Chief Rabbi that all Jews should be allowed to trade on Sunday morning, while Christians should not, seems to me to be a very dangerous one, for legislation on those lines could only have the result of making the Jews unpopular.

was

I would offer one more reason why a little delay would be a good thing. My noble friend no doubt remembers that in the Speech from the Throne there a promise of legislation in the direction of an amendment of the licensing laws, and Sunday closing will undoubtedly be considered in the course of the debates on that Bill. Reference has been made by the noble Lord to the condition of the question at this moment in Paris, where great discontent has been caused by the operation of the law. I confess I have often wished that there was in this country some institute to which one could refer when social reforms of this kind were asked for, in order to see the way similar laws had worked in other countries. That would be of the greatest value, and if this matter is delayed for the present I hope the noble Lord will be able to provide some information as to whether or not the movement has met with popular favour in France.

No reference has yet been made to the fact that yesterday was set apart by the Bishop of London in order that the question of Sunday observance should be considered in the churches of

his diocese. I listened myself to an admirable sermon in the course of the morning on the subject, but I could not help feeling that it did not really get one very much further. I think we are all of us agreed on the principle of this legislation, but it is when we come to the practical application of the principle that we meet with difficulties. Earl Beauchamp.

Before the Committee of last year was appointed I was full of the courage of ignorance. I believed it to be perfectly possible to frame a Bill which would meet everybody's wishes and avoid all difficulty. But I must now confess, having sat upon the Committee of last year, that the problem is a great deal more difficult and perhaps not quite ripe for solution at the present time; and I cannot help thinking that the lines on which legislation should proceed will become more clear if no hasty step is taken now.

*THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I confess to a good deal of disappointment in listening When the noble Earl rose I was glad to to the speech which we have just heard. think that we were to hear, on the part of the Government, something from one who, as a member of the Committee, had had exceptional opportunity of being conversant with the whole subject.

But as the noble Earl's speech proceeded and he deprecated, not only immediate legislation, but legislation within any period that we can reasonably contemplate, I turned to the Report itself. I notice in the Report of the Committee's proceedings that the noble Earl himself moved the insertion of these words—

"The Committee do not consider that the words of any particular Bill come within their terms of reference, but they recommend strongly that legislation, subject to such modifications in the existing law as may be necessary, should be initiated in general accordance with the increasing feeling against Sunday trading in this country, and with the following principles "the principles being then set out seriatim.

The noble Earl's advocacy apparently convinced his colleagues on the Committee, for the Motion was adopted, and the words form part of the final Report.

to learn that the noble Earl, speaking I am therefore disappointed and pained is a different person from the noble Eart on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the record of whose successful proposal is enshrined in the Blue-book before us.

The noble Earl stated that His Majesty's Government desired that this Resolution should be withdrawn, and the ground he based that on was that no immediate urgency had been proved. I do