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Inadequate housing is not the
only shadow of social life in Scotland. Drunkenness has long been a social
evil of very grave magnitude. The poverty, squalor, vice, and crime of the
slum districts of the large towns are largely traceable to this evil. Rut
the drink demon lurks in every corner of the land and among all classes, and
its shadow is a blot on the fair name of Scotland. Men and even women, boys
and even girls, staggering along the streets, shouting, using foul language,
quarrelling and fighting, are too common sights—an outrage on public
decency, a disgrace to themselves and their country. There has, happily,
been a gradual improvement in the general attitude towards this vice. In all
classes drunkenness is now regarded as a degradation of both the individual
and society. The excess in drinking at dinner parties and other social
functions, characteristic of the eighteenth century and even the early
nineteenth, is no longer tolerated. The upper classes, which so long set a
flagrantly bad example to the lower in this respect, have learned better.
What our grandfathers and great-grandfathers called drinking under the table
has gone out of fashion. The drinking bout, in which former generations
habitually indulged, is out of date. The public taste no longer provides the
atmosphere in which the drinking songs of Burns found their natural
expression. Even genius would fail to evoke a genuine response to the
glorification of toping and topers. To every self-respecting person
drunkenness is simply a form of beastliness. Its injurious physical effects
are widely recognised and more and more emphasised by medical men,
philanthropists, employers of labour, and the working classes themselves.
Health statistics reveal it as a potent cause of disease and degeneration.
The criminal statistics prove conclusively that it is one of the most
fertile causes of crime, and that sobriety is the best adjunct of
law-abiding. Its baneful economic effects are equally appreciated. It is
responsible for a great deal of inefficiency and absence from work.
According to the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee, if the habit of
excessive drinking were eradicated, three-fourths of the distress, poverty,
and deterioration in the nation would disappear along with it. The tendency
of such facts has been to excite a widespread sense of the gravity of the
evil, to discredit the old excessive drinking habit, and to beget a strong
public sense of the virtue of temperance, and the necessity of temperance
reform on moral, physical, and economic grounds.
Temperance legislation, in
its mildest form, in Scotland may be said to date from the Home-Drummond Act
of 1828, which conferred on Justices of the Peace in counties and
Magistrates in burghs the granting of certificates for the sale of liquor,
with appeal to Quarter Sessions, and enacted penalties for breach of
certificate. Twenty-five years later (1853) the Forbes Mackenzie Act reduced
the hours of sale (8 a.m. to 11 p.m.), closed the public-houses on Sundays,
prohibited the sale of drink in tollhouses situated within six miles of a
licensed house, and restricted the licensed grocer to selling drink for
consumption off the premises only. Subsequent legislation augmented the
power of police supervision, restricted the granting of new licenses,
empowered the Magistrates in burghs of less than 50,000 inhabitants to fix
the closing hoar at 10 p.m., prohibited the sale to children under 14, with
certain exceptions, and dealt with the inebriate class.
In 1896 a Royal Commission
was appointed to review the operation of the licensing laws. It reported in
1899, but failed to come to an unanimous decision, and the Act of 1903
incorporated a large proportion of the recommendations of both the Majority
and the Minority Reports. It consolidated the licensing laws, adding new
provisions and superseding old ones, and sought to check, by penalising more
severely, immoderate drinking. It constituted a Licensing Court in burghs of
4,000 and over, and in counties, or districts of counties, as the County
Council might determine. In burghs the Licensing Court consists of the
Magistrates, in counties of members of the County Council and Justices of
the Peace in equal proportions, the number of members varying with the
population of the county. In both burghs and counties there is a Court of
Appeal. Certificates are granted for a year or six months, and are
renewable. Rut new certificates are subject to certain conditions as to the
character of the applicant and the suitability of the premises for the
purpose. Objection may be taken to the granting or renewal of a certificate
by interested parties, and if the objection is sustained, the certificate
shall not be granted or renewed. Breaches of certificate are punishable by
fine, and involve liability to the forfeiture of the certificate. A third
offence entails such forfeiture, in addition to an increased fine.
Shebeening, or selling liquor in unlicensed premises, is punishable by heavy
penalties, and persons found drinking on such premises are liable to a fine.
Hawking exciseable liquors is also a punishable offence, and the prohibition
to sell drink by a licensed grocer to be consumed on the premises is made
more stringent. Disorderly conduct on licensed premises is punishable by
fine, and drunkenness by fine or imprisonment, whilst it is illegal to sell
liquor for a period of three years to those convicted four times for
drunkenness. The authorities in the large towns were empowered to close the
public-houses at 10 p.m. During the war the hours were drastically reduced
by special legislation, still in force, with very beneficial results.
This legislation was due in
part to the growing influence of the temperance movement in Scotland. This
movement may be said to have started in 1825 with the agitation, on the part
of the Scottish brewers, against the use of " ardent spirits," which
contributed to the passing of the Home-Drummond Act in 1828. In the year
following the passing of this Act, Mr Dunlop formed the Greenock Temperance
Society. The Glasgow and West of Scotland Temperance Society, in whose
formation William Collins, the bookseller, took an active part, followed
within a couple of months. Other pioneers were Stewart Morris, Robert
Kettle, Robert Smith, Professor James Miller, Dr A. Wallace, and Dr Thomas
Guthrie. In 1844 the Scottish Temperance League was founded at Falkirk on
the total abstinence principle, and, by means of agitation by paid agents
and publication, lias carried on an active crusade against intemperance
during the last three-quarters of a century. By and bye the churches took up
the question by means of their Temperance Committees, and other
associations, such as the Independent Order of Good Templars, the
Independent Order of Rechabites, the Scottish Temperance and Permissive Bill
Association, the Scottish Band of Hope, widened the movement, which has long
been a force to be reckoned with in both political and social life.
A large section of the
public, though not adhering to the principle of total abstinence professed
by these societies, sympathises with their efforts to combat the drink evil,
and it was due to the pressure of public opinion that the Scottish
Temperance Act of 1913 was placed on the Statute Book. A time limit of seven
years was fixed before the principle of local option could be put in
operation, and it was not till the autumn of 1920 that the voting took place
in all burgh and county areas in Scotland. It was not strictly a question
between prohibition and non-prohibition, for the electors were given the
choice of three alternatives—no change, no license, and the limitation of
licenses. Practically, however, it proved to be a trial of strength between
no change and no license, since the number of voters who preferred
limitation was comparatively small. Judged by areas, those in favour of no
change were in an overwhelming majority—504 out of a total of 580. For
limitation the number was 85, for no license 47, or, deducting Dornoch,
which subsequently, in a second vote, reversed its decision and voted no
change, 46. Judged by the numbers voting, the majority was far less
formidable, the total vote for no license being equal to nearly two-thirds
of the total vote for no change. Moreover, for the carrying of any
alternative it was essential, first, that thirty-five per cent, of the total
voters on the roll in any given area should take part in the vote, and,
second, that fifty-five per cent, of those voting should record their votes
in its favour before no license could be carried. If a simple majority had
been the test, the proportion of areas in favour of no license would have
been considerably larger.
Counting by individual votes,
the result sufficiently shows that widespread dissatisfaction with the
present system prevails. Nor can the substantial majority in favour of no
change be interpreted as a vote against reform. It only shows that a large
number of voters regarded the alternative, no license, as an impracticable
one, and the vote for no change thus did not necessarily imply that no
change was in itself desirable. The extreme temperance party in insisting so
uncompromisingly on no license, as the only cure for the evil, has itself to
blame, to a certain extent at least, for its defeat.
Meanwhile the problem of
drunkenness remains with us. Whilst the temperance party is closing its
ranks for a fresh assault in due time, moderate people have suggested
various expedients, such as a system of rationing, the substitution of the
restaurant for the dram-shop, the elimination of self-interest by the
nationalisation or municipalisation of the trade. The trade itself has
drafted a bill for the reform of the public-house. The Bill is at least an
evidence of the conviction, on its part, of the necessity of reform in the
national interest. The chairman of the trade, however, can hardly be said to
have made friends for the proposed measure by attacking the churches for the
stand they have made in favour of local option. Surely this is a social as
well as a political question, and the tragic effects of the drink evil with
which every minister, elder, and member of the churches makes acquaintance,
in greater or less degree, afford reason enough for organised action to
counter it, though there may be difference of opinion as to methods.
Connected with drunkenness is
sexual impurity, with the resultant evils of illegitimacy, divorce,
prostitution, venereal disease, and relative crime. Bad housing, which
renders decent family life an impossibility in the overcrowded areas of the
towns, runs a neck-and-neck race with excessive drinking in nurturing this
vice. In Scotland the percentage of illegitimate children has varied during
the last sixty years from about 7 per cent, to 10 per cent. In 1855 it was
7.88, 10.27 in 1866, 6.21 in 1003. Since then it has averaged about 7.0. It
has varied with the district, being highest in the counties of Banff, Elgin,
and Wigtown, where in 1014 it was respectively 14.51, 14.27, and 13.41.
In the county of Dumbarton it
was as low as 4.49. It was larger in the eastern districts, with a more
extensively arable soil, than in the western. In the principal towns the
highest was 9.79 in Edinburgh, the lowest 3.96 in Govan and Coatbridge.
Taking Scotland as a whole the percentage of 7.29 compares unfavourably with
England with 4.3, Wales with 5.4, and Ireland with 2.8. This unfavourable
position is probably due to some extent to the fact that the law of Scotland
rightly legitimates children born before marriage, should the parties
afterward marry. The housing of unmarried farm servants of both sexes on the
"bothy" system is another source of illegitimacy. Illegitimacy is, however,
not a gauge of the extent of sexual immorality. In the towns, where the
percentage of illegitimacy is generally less than in the counties, sexual
immorality is far more prevalent in virtue of the fact not only that the
opportunity of gratifying it is far more abundant, but the means of
preventing pregnancy are more easily available.
Prostitution is one of the
saddest features of town life. One cause of it is the bad housing of
overcrowded areas, which makes a decent home environment for the girls of
the family impossible, and predisposes them to become the prey of the
seducer. Another is the inadequate earnings of working girls in many
occupations. Alcoholism is an invariable concomitant as well as a cause. In
Scotland establishments for this purpose are illegal, and the police are
active in the crusade against them. The employment of women police, started
during the war, is a step in the right direction. But prostitution in itself
is not a crime. Known prostitutes can only be arrested if found importuning,
and proof in the case of immoral houses is not easy. Whilst concerted
prostitution is liable to prosecution, the individual prostitute who lives
apart may practice her low vocation with impunity. Fines and imprisonment
are not adequate deterrents, and the task of either reforming the prostitute
or providing her with a new start in life is a very difficult one. The
rescue home is at most but a palliative of what is an inveterate social
disease, and the hope of anything like an effective remedy lies in the
betterment of the social conditions that tend to feed this social malady,
especially of home life and family upbringing in the poor quarters of our
cities, though the evil is by no means confined to any one class.
Among the evils inseparable
from this \ice is the widespread propagation of venereal disease, which
first appeared in Scotland at the close of the fifteenth century. According
to the evidence of the late Sir W. Osier, given in the Report of the
Commission, which was appointed in 1918 to investigate the subject, and
reported in 1916, " the number of persons who have been infected with
syphilis, acquired or congenital, cannot fall below 10 per cent, in the
large cities, and the percentage affected with gonorrhoea must greatly
exceed this proportion." Resides the horrible physical suffering and misery
caused by the disease in its worst forms, the economic loss is very serious.
It unfits its victims permanently, or for longer or shorter periods, for
work. In the Navy in 1912, for instance, with a strength of 119,540 men, it
was responsible for a total loss of 209,210 days. In the case of the home
Army with a strength of 107,582 men, the loss in days was 216,445. In the
case of the civil population, for which exact statistics are not available,
the Commissioners were of opinion that the loss would be found to be "
extremely large," the civil population not having, at the date of the
Report, the easy access to the best modern treatment provided for the Navy
and Army. According to the same evidence, the disease is the cause of an
enormous loss of child life and of a large proportion of sterility among men
and women, and consequently materially contributes to the declining birth
rate. It is responsible for more than half the percentage of blindness in
children. Its ravages among the forces at home and abroad during the war
were appalling. It can only be described as a plague, and the statistics
constitute a terrible indictment of the demoralising effect of military
service on the morals of hundreds of thousands of our young manhood. It
undoubtedly constitutes a grave national danger, to eradicate which the most
resolute measures are urgently needed. The Commissioners recommend that
infectious venereal disease should form a bar to marriage, and that, if
acquired after marriage, it should be a valid ground for divorce. They
emphasise the necessity for the judicious and timely education of the young
in the subject, and the extension of free medical and hospital treatment for
those afflicted with the disease. The latter recommendation has been put in
force by the Local Government Board, which, in October 1916, issued an Order
requiring Iocal Authorities to prepare schemes for the prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment of venereal disease. Under this Order free
treatment is provided to all persons suffering from any form of this
disease. Special agencies of a voluntary character, like the Alliance of
Honour, are also engaged in educating public opinion and combating the evil
by means of religious and educational influences.
Divorce is an all too
frequent result of sexual immorality. In proportion to population the
percentage of divorces for adultery or desertion remained practically
stationary for a considerable period before the war. The percentage was one
divorce for every 170 marriages. The cases tried do not, however, represent
the actual amount of misconduct of this kind, since casual cases of adultery
are often condoned by the aggrieved party. Irregular marriages far more
frequently end in divorce than regular, and those of young persons than
those of couples of more mature age. The war has unfortunately led to a
marked increase of these cases in both England and Scotland, and the
increasing evidence of this unsound condition of family life is very
disquieting. Little wonder that it has been the subject of unfavourable
comment by some of the Judges, like Lord Sands, whose special duties bring
them into touch with this form of social wreckage.
Another social evil which has
become alarmingly prevalent is gambling,—the result partly of the lure of
the excitement inherent in transactions which have the element of hazard,
partly of the desire to make money by fictitious means. Of its extent the
Report of the House of Lords Committee in 1902 bears explicit evidence.
Betting, the Committee reported, is much more widespread, especially among
the working classes, than it used to be. The increase has mostly taken place
during the last thirty or forty years, and is due in large measure to the
growing popularity of certain sports, cheap communication by post and
telegraph, the rise of the popular press, and the decay of the spirit of
thrift. Statistics of prosecutions for offences against the Betting and
Gaming Acts confirm the conclusion of the Lords' Committee. In 1014 the
number of convictions on this ground in Scotland was 764, whilst
statisticians have estimated the present number of bookmakers in the United
Kingdom at 30,000, compared with 20 at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. A large number of crimes of dishonesty and of bankruptcies h due to
losses through gambling. The amount of space devoted in the newspapers to
betting news is another indication of what has become a sort of mania. It is
only necessary to observe the eager hunt for the evening papers, with their
detailed reports of horse racing or football matches, to realise that a
large proportion of their readers are mercenarily interested in these, above
all other items. It is rampant among all classes, but especially among the
working classes, who stand to lose a large part of their earnings in its
pursuit. Since the war it is said to have greatly spread among women
workers. According to Mr Arthur Henderson, " gambling is a greater foe to
labour than all the forces of capitalism." Other Labour leaders have spoken
to the same effect, and its injurious tendency has been emphasised by
competent representatives of other classes. Besides the material loss,
betting has lowered legitimate sport, with the exception of cricket and
Rugby football, which have escaped the contagion, into a scramble for gain.
Other forms of gambling, like card playing, are also all too prevalent,
though games of chance, like roulette, are illegal, and in Scotland the law
against these and also lotteries is strictly enforced. The Stock Exchange is
likewise too much dominated by the gambling spirit in the form of
transactions which cannot be called genuine buying and selling, but are mere
manipulations for gain at the expense of somebody else.
The physique of the nation,
as tested by the medical examination of recruits during the year November
1917-Oetober 1918, leaves much to be desired. Of every nine men of military
age examined in Great Britain, three only were perfectly fit; two were able
to undergo physical exertion which does not involve severe strain; three
were fit for only a very moderate degree of exertion, and one was a chronic
invalid. In the case of the industrial areas of Scotland physical condition
was found to depend less on industrial than social conditions, such as
housing and feeding. A very large number was graded low, not because of
actual disease, but because of disability arising from some physical defect
which was preventable. A general feature was the large number of low graded
men in unproductive occupations, such as clerks and grocers. Another was the
disappointing physique of boys. Again, the percentage was higher for
artisans, agricultural workers, and miners than for factory workers. The
Report brings out the urgency of social reform and the importance of
physical training in schools, and of healthy recreation in the hours of
relaxation from work, which are far too apt to be devoted to unhealthy
pastimes, such as habitual attendance at picture houses and football matches
in place of regular participation in outdoor games. |
