CARDINAL MANNING ON INTEMPERANCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4895, 29 November 1876, Page 3

CARDINAL MANNING ON INTEMPERANCE.

(Manchester Evening News, August 22.) The question of intemperance was discussed last evening by Cardinal Manning, at Stockport, in a way which cannot fail to command attention. This eminent prelate has long been an advocate of total abstinence, and on every available occasion he has denounced drunkenness in a very emphatic manner. Foremost among the Romanists in England in endeavoring to effect social and ethical reform, the Cardinal boldly declares his belief that no beneficent change in the moral condition of the people can be accomplished until their drinking habits give place to sober customs, and the pleasures of public-houses are exchanged for those of a more refined and elevating order. There can be no doubt that the vice of intemperance is a national bane, and that the efforts of philanthropists and statesmen are renpered nugatory by excessive indulgence in intoxicating liquors. The Cardinal adduced facts to show that intemperance is greatly on the increase, and remarked that every year fresh dangers arose out of the pernicious habit. Not only the .lower classes, but members of the-highest circles are tainted with the vice. “ Young and refined women,” said the Cardinal, “ who, by the pestilent habits of society, went ■ from amusement to amusement, excitement to excitement, formed unseen by their friends and unconsciously to themselves the most confirmed habits of intemperance.” The clergy of the Romish Church have special means of ascertaining the truth on this point, and it cannot be doubted that there are grounds for the allegations brought againt them. Women, too, it is stated, have been largely demoralised since grocers were permitted to sell wines and spirits. It is somewhat startling to learn that the money absorbed in the production of intoxicating drinks exceeds all the capital that is invested in the woollen trade, in the iron trade, and probably in the mines of this country. “At the present time a capital of from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and forty millions is annually expended and turned over in the trade of producing intoxicating drinks.” The Cardinal also went on to say that “Englishmen were the greatest commercial people in the world ; their commercial marine was greater than that of any other nation on the face of the globe, but all the commerce of England, and all the staple of, its commercial wealth, did not reach by a long distance the amount of capital invested in the trade of producing intoxicating drink, which at the present time was wrecking the prosperity of the country.” The necessity of repressing this degrading and ruinous habit has long been fully recognised, and various plans have been suggested of a more or less practicable kind. The Cardinal evidently, thinks that the licensing system has failed to check drunkenness. The first enactment for. the purpose of regulating the sale of intoxicating drink and giving power to justices of the peace to grant or refuse a licence was framed in the reign of Edward the Sixth, but since that date intemperance has increased to an extent which constitutes it a national scandal and reproach. The Cardinal further censures the Government for their participation in the spoils iarising out of the customi but as Parliament is really responsible for the law it would be more just, perhaps, to say that the country itself, and not merely the “Government," should be: regarded as “a sleeping partner in the drink trade.” In Leeds it appears that drunkenness has increased forty per cent, in three years, and whereas there were in 1829 only “fifty thousand places where intoxicating drinks could be' sold,” there are now not less than one hundred and fifty The population of the country, we are told by the Cardinal, has increased eighty per cent., and crime fifty-six per cent. The remedy for the ever-growing evil proposed by Cardinal Manning is analogous to the scheme which has been so long advocated by Sir Wilfred Lawson. Parliament, his Eminence thinks, should “undo what it has done, give to the ratepayers of every city, town, borough, or parish the right by twothirds of a vote to say whether or not they would have public-houses among them.” This is the principle of the Permissive Bill, and the friends of the measure have occasion to rejoice that the Cardinal has long entertained, views identical with their own. It is fortunate that ministers of religion are taking up this subject; and are making praiseworthy efforts to stamp out the vice.