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It remains to show, which is, we think, not difficult, except to those blinded by interest or prejudice, that it is the duty of the Government to put it down by legislative enactment. The attitude of the Government is not that of mere tolerance of this gigantic evil ; it is the active agent in its creation. It has framed iniquity into a law, and ap^died tlie opiate of its authority to the consciences of men, who will batten on the faults and vices of their fellow-men — human vampires, sucking the very lives out of their victims, extinguishing every spark of manhood or nobility, and changing them in hideous transforma- tion into the likeness of beasts. It autliorizes men, by Act of Parliament, to work out, unmolested, the wreck and ruin, present and eternal, of their fellow-men. * In consideration of the strenuous etfarts being inado in many parts of the eountry to secure the pas3a;^e of the Duukia Acfc, wc have thought it not inexpedient to present the following argument in favour of the still more complete suppression of the traffic by its total prohibition. — Ed. S. KoKE, PUHLIHUEU, KlNci STREET KasT, ToKONTO. The plea for this guilty complicity in the traffic of souls, is that the revenue, forsuoth, would suffer by its suppression. " The excise is fattened with the rich result Of all this riot. The ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents. Touched by the Midas finger of the State, Bleed gold for Parliament to vote away. Drink and be mad, then, 'ti.s your country bids ; Gloriously drunk — obey the important call : Her cause demands the assistance of your throats. Ye all can swallow, and she sisks no more." In the first place, it is a mistaken notion, as has been abundantly shown, that the bud;.fet of the country is aided by the liquor traffic. Although the revenue derived from the excise and customs' duty on licpior is large, when we consider the immense contra account, representing the cost of the pauperism and of the repression of crime caused by the traffic, as well as the perversion of capital from productive industries, there will be found ,tn enormous balance of loss, instead of gain. The Rev. John Wesley puts this very clearly in a letter addressed to the Right Hon. Wm. Pitt, dated Sept. 6, 1784 The excise on spirits, that year, amounted to £20,000. " But have not the spirits distilled," he says, "cost 20,000 lives of his Majesty's liege subjects ? Is not, then, the blood of these men vilely bartered for £20,000— not to say anything of the enormous wickedness which has been occasioned thereby, and not to suppose that these poor wretches had any souls ? But to consider money alone, is the King a gainer or an immense loser? To say nothing of millions of quarters of corn destroyed, which, if exported, would add more tlian £20,000 to the revenue, be it considered dead men fay no ta,ves ; so that by the death of 20,000 persons yearly (and this computation is far under the mark) the revenue loses far more than it gains." This was also shown from the fact that when, in consequence of Father Mathews' temperance labours in Ireland, the revenue from liquors fell off £300,000, that, from the taxable increase of 3 the corafortg and luxuries of the people it advanced £390,000, showing a clear gain of £90,000 in the revenue, besides the immense reduction in pauperism, crime, and disease. Hut even if it were not so ; supposing that the revenue of tlie country must suffer, better a thousand-fold that it should than that the exchequer of the country should be replenished with this price of blood— the blood of souls— like the wretclied gain of Judas— every accursed coin of which is smeared with blood. It is the duty of the GovernTuent to extend the yEgis of its protection over the people, to shield them from injury or wrong ; but, by licensing the liiiuor traffic, it plies them with temptations to crime, and then punishes them for its commission ; it makes a profit out of their unhallowed passion for strong drink, and then inflicts its penalties for the indulgence of that passion. The opponents of prohibition triumphantly ask if its advocates expect to make men moral by Act of Parliament ?— that being, it is assumed, the very climax of absurdity. Although prohibition may not make men moral, it may, at least, remove the tempta- tions to immorality. It can cast the stigma of disgrace and illegality on the sale of liquor, instead of endorsing the practice by declaring its legality. Licensing the evil is certainly not the way of preventing, but rather of perpetuating, it. Experience has shown that the restriction of the traffic is always followed by a decrease in crime, a diminution of poverty, and an increase of the other and profitable branches of trade. For it is the vicious peculiarity of the liquor traffic that it is not governed, as other legitimate branches of commerce are, by the ordinary laws of supply and demand, but that it creates an unnatural and unhealthy demand for itself, stimulating and increasing the appetite to which it ministers, which, when the facilities for its indulgence are removed, dies away of itself. It may be true, as the opponents of prohibition assert, that if a man chooses to get drunk, he will do so, even in spite of prohibition. But few men deliberately choose to get drunk ; l)ut are overcome before they are aware. They dally with temptation till the appetite has acquired such a tyranny, that in the presence of liquor, or even where tliere is a probability of obtaininjr it. they lose all control oi their appetites, and many voluntarily seek protection there- from, even within the walls of an asylum or a prison. We are met at the outset with a remonstrance ajrainst the injury that would be done to the vested rights of the trade by legal prohibition. It is true that vast sums are invested in this business. The great brewers and distillers have grown enor- mously rich by the manufacture, and have entrenched themselves m the strength which the influence of great riches gives. But is their private interest to stand in the way of the welfare of the nation ? By long immunity the traffic has grown to enormous magnitude and increased the difficulty of its suppression. But its very magnitude has also increased the necessity for that step, and if the problem be earnestly grappled with it may be solved.' It were better and cheaper a thousand-fold to buy out the entire liquor interest, and thus deliver the land from this curse and crime, rather than let it groan beneath its burden for years to come. Doubtless, the diversion of so much capital to other and more useful industries would cause temporary confusion, as did the repeal of the corn-laws, the disendowment of the Irish Church, and other sweeping reforms, but it would also be attended witii great and permanent benefit that would far out- weigh any transient disadvantage. We are met, at every attempt to suppress the traffic, by an out- cry against the aneonstitiUiormlity of legal prohibition. We are told that it is an invasion of the liberty of tlie subject— of his sacred rights as a free-born Briton. But no man has the right to injure his neighbour, either with or without his consent; and whoever engages as a principal or accessory in the liquor traffic is guilty of an offence against society, and especially of a grievous wrong against the victims of that traffic. The fact that no one has the natural right to sell this death-dealing poison is implied in the Government license system, which arbitrarily confers the legal privilege— the moral right it cannot give-- on a certain limited number for a certain sum of money. I 5 I and may as justly, nay, much more Justly, withhold that privi- lege from all than grant it to any. The law will not allow any one to sell tainted or unwholesome food, and the wilful adulteration of food renders the perpetrators of thelc.Tence amenable to severe legal penalties. In many places, too,;no druggist may sell poisons without tlie authority of a medi- cal certificate, and no one thinks these wholesome restrictions unconstitutional. Wliy, then, should the prohiliition of tlie sale of those pernicious beverages, whicli jMjison more men and women in a week than all the adulterated food and noxious drugs in the country in an entire year, be considered unconstitutional ? No man may carry his theory of personal liberty to such an extent as to injure the health or property, or to destroy the comfort, of his neighbour. He may not carry on an offensive or deleterious trade near the habitation of man, nor pollute the air or water, whicli are common to all. In this class of public nuisances Blackstone includes " all disorderly inns or ale-houses, gaming-houses," and places ot still viler resort. See also the same general views enunciated in Mill's celebrated "Essay on Liberty," although its distinguished author is o])posed to legal prohibition. " Yet," says the Kev. Albert Barnes, " tliere is no property wdiich so certainly and so uniformly works evil in a community as that employed in the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks." " If penal legislation," writes Pierpont, " be justified in any case, why not in this ? If it be penal to kill your neighbour with a bullet, why should it not be penal to kill him with the bowl ? If it be penal to take away life by poison which does it work in six hours, why not penal to do so by one which takes six years for its deadly operation ? Arsenic takes away animal life merely, while alcohol gives not only ten times tlie amount of animal agony, but also destroys the soul, sajiping all moral feeling, quenching all intellectual liglit. Therefore," he says, " I ask a more severe punishment for that crime which works the moral and immortal ruin, than for that whose touch overturns a mere tenement of clay." Yet, with a ;>liuiii}r inconsistency, tlio (Jovernnient, whose function is surely not le.-s the prevention of crime, where that is possible, than its puni.shmeiit, will authorize the manufiicture and sale of that, the le«;itinmte und inse])uriil)le consequents of which it relentlessly punishes. Does it not thus become accessory to the act— aider and al)ottor in the crime — acri:'>surii(s jiartivcps crhnmia i' In the I'nwince of Ontario, the law does regard the liquor dealer as resi.onsible for the result of the traffic ; and if any disastrous conscipjences accrue from the sale of licpior, lie may be amerced in a jieavy fine, liut much more is any Government moially responsible for the resulting evils, which, for pultry ])elf, will legalize a tralHc injurious to the best interests of society, wliich supplies the stimulant that nerves the assassin's arm and kindles the incen- diary's torch, and then inflicts the extreme penalty for arson or nmrder. " How can they justly," says J)r. Edgar, of Uelfast, " condemn a poor wretch to be hanged for a crime committed in the raging of drunkenness to which they have themselves ministered ?" Thus (Miristian England protects in her midst a legalized Thuggism a thousand times more atrocious and destructive than that of India; thus she nurses in her l>o,som a viper that with its envenomed fangs poisons the whole body politic; thus she cherishes a tratllc wliich, like the unrenewed heart of man, is evil, and only evil, and that continually ; a trafHc that every year sends (;(l,()()() victims, reeling ^uld staggering, into the presence ot their Maker; wliich "'.sends 10,0()U raving maniacs or drivelling idiots to the lunatic asylums ; which maddens about 400 a year with such ungovern- able frenzy as to kill with heartless ferocity as many innocent victims, and (500 more to kill themselves ; which keeps an army of .100,000 conscripts of crime in the prisons of the land, and creates a vast and dangerous host of paupers, thieves, and prosti- tutes ; which destroys, in loss from disease, wasted industry, perverted capital, and abridgement of human life, not less than' £300,000,000 a year; and which brings into the public exchequer a paltry £20,000,000 of unhallowed gain. 4 H i Kvei) the paj,'an ^'ovorriiiiont of ('Iiina puts to shame our so-called Chrimtiaii le^'islalion. They, in lolly .scorn, rel'iisc to make mereliandise of tlu! vices of the people, and endeavour, as far as they can, to suppress the opium trade, wliich, dreadful as it is, does not produc(! a tithe of the vice and crime caused by the li(pior tratlic, fostered and |)rotect(Ml by enli.^:ht(MU)d, Chris- tian i^foverniuents, as if it were the vtsry p;dladiiiiii of tlir- iiiitinii. The constitutionality of the le;,'al jtrohibition of the li(pioi trallic has been asserted, time after time, by tin; Iiinhest lej^isla- tive and judicial authorities in the land. .S|)eakin^f even of private vices, thai illustrious commentator on tlic laws of Kn<,'land, Sir Wm. Ulackstone, says : " Let a man be ever so abandoned in his princi[)le.s, or vicious in his practice, jjroviiled he keep his wickedness to himself, and does not offend a<,'ainst the rules of pul)lie decency, he is out of the reach of liuman laws; l)Ut if he make his vices public, though they be such a.s seem principally to affect himself, as drunkenness and the like, they then become, by the bad example they .set, of pernicious etl'ect to society, and therelbre it is then the Inisines.'^ <»f hunuui laws to correct them." Much more is this the case when he becomes the active agent in di.sseminatiug a virulent evil aniontr all classes of the community. Similar is the view taken by that eminent jurist, Vattel, who exclaims : " Let (Jovernment haaish from the SUite whatever is fitted only to r,i uptthe morals of the people." A century and a-quarter ago, in the celebrated debate (»n the Gin Act, when the distillers flooded London witu their poisonous liquors, drunkards lay in heaps in the streets, and the Govern- ment was defied by the mob, the r>islioi) of Oxford thus addressed the House of Lords : " Poisons, my lords, of all kinds ought to be confined to the apothecary's shop, where the master's character, and even his bread, depends upon his not administering too great a dose to any person whatever. Will you, then, commit the care of dispensing this poison to every ale-house keeper in the kingdom — I may say, to every man in the kingdom who is willing to pay lialf-a-crown to the justices and twenty shillings a year to the r.overiimcnt for a license f V/ill yo»i enable them to dispense this poison iit so ehea]) a rati! that a ])onr thou^'htless creature may get drunk for threepence, and may ])un;liase imme- diate death for a sliilling? . . . The increase of the sale of distilled spirits," he continued, " and the propagation of all kinds of wickedness are the same. ... It has been found by experience that nutlnng can nstrrmi tlii- people from hnyin;! these lujuoTH hid mch laivs M.y hinder them from heimj Hold" On the same occasion, Lord Chesterfield truthfully remarked : "Luxury, my lords, is to be taxed, but vice prohibited, let the diihcuilty of the law be what it will. None, my lords, ever heard, in any nation, of a tax upon theft or adultery, because a tax implies a license for the use of that which is taxed to all who are willing to pay for it. Wbuld not such a tax l)e wicked and scandalous ? ... It appears to me that the number of distillers should be no argument in their favour, for I never heard that a tax against theft was repealed or delayed because thieves were numerous. It appears to me, my lords, that really if so formidable a body are confederate against the virtue or the lives of their fellow-citizens, it is time to put an end and to interpose while it is yet in our power to stop the destruction. If their liquors are so delicious that the people are tempted to their own destruction, let us at least, my lords, secure them from their fatal draught by hurstimj the vials that contain them. Let us crush at once these artists in human slaughter, who have recon- ciled their countrymen to sickness and ruin, and spread over the pitfalls of debauchery such a bait as cannot l)e resisted." Lord Hervey, on the same occasion, said : " Almost everv legislator in the world, my lords, from whatever original he derived his authority, has exerted it in the prohibition of such foods as tended to injure the health and destroy the vii/our of the 'people for whom he designed his institutions. The prohibition of those commodities which are in&'.rumental to vice is not only dictated by poliqy, but by nature ; for even the Indians have been able to discover that distilled spirits are pernicious to society, and that the use. of them can only be hindered by i \i ij 'prohihiting the sale. For this resison, my IdmIs, tliey luive petit iomnl tlmt none of this delicious poison slioiiM be imported from Mritiiin : tliey liiive desired us to confine this fountain of wickedness and misery to our own country, without pourinj,' upon tliem those inuuchitions of debauchery by which we uro ourselves overtlowed." At n later date, 1704, Stei)h('n Hales, D.l)., f'lerk of the Closet to H.IMI. the then Prince of Wales, wrote as follows : "Now, since it is found, by loiio experience, extremely dillicult for the tmhappy habitual dram drinkers to extricate themselves from this i)revailiii«,' vice, so much the more it becomes the duty of the governors of the nation to withhold from them so irresistible a temptation." In more recent times, that distinguished jurist, Lord Brougham, hag thus expressed his opinion on the constitu- tionality of prohiltition : " Jntemperance," he says, "is the comnion enemy. The philanthropist has no more sacred duty than to mitigate, if he cannot remove, this enormous evil. Tii« lawgiver is iuipLU-atively bound to lend his aid, when it appears manifest that no palliatives can avail. Certainly we have the example of the United States to prove that repression is practic- able, and their experience to guide us toward it." Mr. Stansfield, the late Finance Secretary of Her Majesty's Government, said at Bristol, " that it was the intention of Mr. Gladstone's ministry, at the earliest possible period, to deal in a bold and comprehensive manner with the licensing system, in order to check and diminish the facilities and the temjttations to drink." Mr. Gladstone himself, in the debate on the Sunday Closing I'.ill, stigmatized the drinking habits of Great Britain as "one of the greatest scandals, disgraces, and misfortunes of the country." In the same debate, Mr. Thomas Hughes said the House should not go against the religious and respectable portion of the community in their demand for the restriction of the traffic, and in favour of the drunken and dissolute, by leaving it unrestrained. 10 Few, if 'iny, moral or social opinions, in the history of reform, . have made more rapid progress tiian that of the consUtutionality' of the legal prohibition of the liquor traflic. This is especially shown by tlie division list on the Permissive Bill of xMay 12th, 18(59, as compared witii that of 1804. ()]i the former occasion! the ayes were oidy 40, while tiie nays were 2!.)7, leavin-^ a majority against the 15ill of 257. On the last division, the Tyes were!)4; the nays 200, leaving a majority aguiiist the I'.ill of only I0(i ; being a diminution of the hostile miijority of 151. The votes by the memliers for Ireland and Wales in" favour of the Bill were thirty-two, against it only twenty-two; being a majority of ten in i'avour of ihe measure. In 1SG7, there were ;:5,;j:57 petitions m favijur o^' the Bill ; in 1868,4,000; in 18(>!), 0,413, with 85l),915 signatures, and only two petitions, with 5,595 signatures, against it. This righteous demand of the nation for protection against the greate,sL curse which blasts the community shall continue to wax louder and louder, till any Government that will refuse this just request shall be swept from ollice by a whinwind of the peoi)le's wrath. ^» ti The beneliceiit results that have accrued from even partial iind transient restrictions of the liipior traffic give a hopeful augury of the very great benetit wiiich would result from its entire suppression. Dr. Lees, in his argument for jirohibition, enumerates many of these examples. During a temporary stoppage of distillation in 1812-13, crime decreased one-sixth. In consequence of Father Mathew's success in Ireland, crime was reduced to the extent of one-third, as compared with preceding years, and one-half as compared >vith succeeding years. In the city of Dublin, the number of prisoners, in 1840, was reduced from 13{> to 23, or five-sixth's. Over one hundred cells were empty, and one prison was shut up. in five years, 1835-39, during which there were 59,7V0,892 gallons of si)irits consumed, there were 64,520 cases of serious crime and 59 executions for murder. 11 During' five years, 1840-4-4, in which the consmiiptioii tell to .''{3,760,525 gallons, tlie cases of crime Fell to 47,027, and execu- tions for murder to 2 1. Even an increase in the duty of a coujjle of shillings per gallon reduces tiie amount of crime by restricting the traffic in liquor. In 1854, with the duty at .'is. 4d. and 4s., and a consumption of 8,440,734 gallons, there were 73,733 ca.se3 of imprisonment. In 1855, with a duty of 4s., Gs., and Gs. 2d., and a consumption of G,228,85(> gallons, or 2,211,818 less than the previous year, the number of imprisonments was 54,431. a decrease of 19,302. The Forbes-Mackenzie Act in Scotland, as the late Lord I'rovost of Edinburgh, Duncan McLaren, i...., shown, re- duced Sunday offences in Edinburgh 75 per cent. ; emptied the cells of the prison ; and postponed the necessity of a new gaol, thereby saving the city £12,000 ; and in Scotland at large reduced the consumption of spirits 957,830 gallons, or one-seventh of the whole, while crime decreased in the same proportion. In the cities the proportion is higher still ; in Edinburgh, the prisoners in the gaol decreased in two years from 650 to 318 ; less than one-half, while the Sunday commitments decrease. 1 from 278 to 43, or less than one-sixth. In Greenock, the ari'ests were reduced in one year, after the passage of the Act, from ."),II62 to 751 ; less than one-fourth. It is, however, in the United States of America that the experiment of legal prohibition of the liquor traffic has been carried out on the largest scale, and with tlie most satisfactoiy results. An immense body of concurient testimony demon- strates its efficiency beyond the most sanguine expectations of its friend.s. Governor Dutton writes, some nunitlis after its inauguration : " It has completely swept the pernicious traffic, as a business, from the State. An open groggery cannot l)e found ; I have not seen a drunken person here since the tirst of xVugust." Governor Morrill says: "In ten days every tavern in the town where I reside was closed. In two years all the li(|Uor rec^uired for medicinal and mechanical purpo.ses cost only $198. For twenty years before, the annual expenditure was not less than «8,000 or $10,000." 12 The Hon. Neal Dow says : " At the beginning of tlie year the number of open rum shops in the city of I'ortland was from 300 to 400, the receipts of wliich, at §53.00 a day, a low estimate, would Ije §270,000. Now there is not one. Many rum shops were converted to other Ijranche.s of trade. The following is the result of ten months' operation of the law : — 1851. 1852. Decrease. Committed to Almshouse 252 .. 14G .. 10(5 " " House of Correction 415 .. 10 .. 30 Outdoor Aid to Families 135 . . HO . . 45 Indictments at District Court 17 . . 1 .. 10 Commitments to (^aol 279 . 63 . . 210 The following are extracts from an interesting letter from Hon. Neal Dow to the Chairman of a Parliamentary Commission of the Canadian Legislature appointed to intpiire into the working of the prohibitory law in Maine. He says : " Under tlie opera- tion of the law, pauperism and crime diminished wonderfully. In some of our towns pauperism ceased entirely. In others the gaols were literally tenautless, and in all of tliem the number of prisoners greatly diminished. Tlie wholesale licpior trade was utterly destroyed without a single prosecution. . In 185G, another party came into power, and the Maine Law was repealed. In five months, that party was swept out of power, amid the scorn and execrations of the people. Only one person of the entire legislature who voted for the repeal of the Maine Law was re-elected : " Of that repeal of the law, Lord Brougham says : " Pauperism and crime, which under the prohi- bitory law had been reduced to an incredibly small amount, soon renewed their devastations ; the public voice was raised loudly against the license plan, and the repealing Act was, without opposition, itself repealed." A tragical incident occurred in connection with the repeal of the law. A Mr. Harwood, clerk of the court to which an appeal was made against tiie law, was a reformed drunkard, lie felt that the maintenance of the law was his only safety. He adjured the judges to close the liquor bars, and he should be saved. " Your decision," he said, wioli prophetic forecast, "is f '18 13 with me a matter of life and death." " Amidst the most painful suspense," says Dr. Lees, who tells the story, " the eij,'ht judges took their seats. The vote of five of their number was handed to the clerk to be entered : We declare the law void, ilow did that clerk feel at that terrible moment ? As a man feels who has to write his own death-warrant. Then the last hope of a noble heart ^ thus seen that every restriction of the litiuor traflic 14 has been attended witli corresponding moral, social, and financial benefit, and in all cases proportionate, to the extent of the restric- tion. The i)eople of Ciinada have the sacred rij^ht to be delivered from that awliil scourge wliich is desolating the entire community and preying upon tlie very vitals of the nation. Let them arise in tlie miijcsty of their might and demand, in tones whicli those tliat make the laws sluill understand, the repeal of those statutes wliicli grant foi' filtliy lucre the ]irivileg(! of making men 'oeggars, ruilians, and rogues; whicli sends tliem to perdition according to law, and ruins hotly, soul, and estate under tlie authority of an Act ji rarlianient. Such a rax pojnili will be indeed the mi: JM, and like His resistless Word, shall not Ite unfuiiilled. As the glorious sun-god, Apollo, of old smote with his arrows ol' light the abominable mud-born ]»ytlions of tlie abyss, so let righteous Law, " which hath V cY birthplace in the very besom of Cod Himself," rise in her sacivd majesty and hurl her bolts of wiath at this hydra-headed beast Intemperance, till it is banished Irom the face of the earth forever • If TOKON'JU; (;rAIU)l;>N oM'ICt IlilNT.