30  lEypenmental  legislation
the  extinction  of  the  trade  of  publicans  and  liquor
dealers  generally  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  Now,
that  is  an  experiment,  because  it  is  exceedingly
doubtful  whether  the  population  would  tolerate
such  an  interference  with  their  habits,  when  the
meaning  of  the  Act  came  home  to  them.  The
information  which  we  can  draw  from  Maine,  or
other  places  where  prohibition  of  the  traffic  has
existed,  is  most  conflicting  in  itself,  and  remote  in
analogy.  Accordingly,  I  should  much  like  to  see
the  prohibition  of  the  public  sale  of  liquor  tried  in
several  large  English  boroughs  and  districts,  provided ­
  that  the  necessary  Act  for  the  purpose  could
be  carried  without  stopping  all  other  legislation  on
the  subject.
Within  the  last  twelve  months  Sir  Wilfrid
Lawson  and  his  followers  have  had  the  excellent
good  sense  to  drop  the  Permissive  Bill,  and  proceed,
by  way  of  Parliamentary  resolution,  in  favour  of
“  local  option.”  I  really  do  not  know  exactly  what
is  meant  by  “  local  option.”  Perhaps  the  Alliance
itself  does  not  know  ;  the  wisest  course  would  be
not  to  know—that  is,  to  leave  a  latitude  of  meaning.
In  any  case  they  have  changed  their  policy.  For
year  after  year,  for  nearly  the  average  length  of  a
generation,  it  was  the  eleven  clauses  and  one
schedule  of  the  Permissive  Prohibitory  Liquor
Bill,  pure  and  simple.  Now  it  is  “  local  option.”
Even  if  “  local  option  ”  mean  option  of  prohibition, ­
  a  resolution  is  a  more  tentative  method  of