THE PLACE OF THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION IN POLITICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 580, 30 March 1870, Page 2

THE PLACE OF THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION IN POLITICS.

The following paper was read by the Rev Dr Steel at a public conference on the Temperance question, recently held at Sydney: — Social Reform is* a great feature of tbe present age in all civilised communities: " As the rage of party politics has been subsiding, the triumphs of social politics have been extending." Almost all social questions are allied to politics, and just as the political atmosphere is purified, co do the social interests of a people become more manifest. Special legislation has been needed for the relations of buyer and seller, of master and servant, of squatter and free selector. Education, that has so close a bearing upon the social welfare, is discussed in Parliament/and provided for by law;* But even where positive enactments may not be required in the regulation of social questions, negative laws have been imperatively required. Law has interfered- to prevent or punish duelling, to put down- lotteries and gambling-bouses, to

destroy immoral prints and -publications, to I remove nuisances of every, sort— from the filth of the street to the intramural burial of the dead. It has been invoked to protect the freedom of man by punishing piracy and slavery, to uphold the interests of morality, and to defend the sacredness of religion. The temperance question has its legitimate sphere in politics. The sale of liquor is regulated by law. .Houses 7 of entertainment where liquor is sold are required to comply with Acts of Parliament. The grocer is allowed to vend his articles— many of them excisable goods — without any- restriction. There are no special statutes binding him as to time or space, but the vendor of strong drink is surrounded on every side by the circle of Statute Law. This is not because the State wants revenue. That is tbe reason I for taxes on various articles of common consumption, especially luxuries. But the laws requiring a license from the vendor of intoxicating liquors, and fixing the hours of sale, and the accommodation of the premises where these articles are sold — all affirm that their object is to prevent drunkenness, and save society from tbe evil effects of intoxication. Hißtory bears unequivocal testimony to this fact. There is no analogy whatever between the licenses "granted for the public sale of goods by auction and those granted for the sale of drink in pub-lic-houses. The one license is for the sake of revenue, the other is for the sake of morals. In like manner the fiscal duties on goods tbat pass her Majesty's customs are not all imposed merely for revenue. Those imposed on intoxicating liquors have been for the purpose of preventing drunkenness. The arm of legislation on this subject has always been for the improvement of morals, or at least for preventing a greater immorality. One idea pervades all Acts of Parliament upon this I question — that the liquor traffic cannot safely be left without control, and to make that control efficient and suflicient has been the object of legislntive pursuit since legislative interposition began. Drunkenness is a very serious offence against society. It renders its subjects incapable of discharging the duties of citizenship. I am quite aware that men bave often given their votes for members of Parliament while under the influence of drink ; but we do not regard such votes of any moral weight. Drunkenness sometimes renders the incapacity to exercise citizenship complete ; and even when this is not the case there is painful evidence of an unfitness for discharging civil responsibilities. But drunkenness renders its subjects dangerous to society, their relatives, and themselves. A species of " voluntary insanity," aa Seneca termed it; it' makes its subject what Lord Coke termed a drunkard, a " voluntary demon." " The animal passions are inflamed, the moral affections benumbed, the reason disordered, and the will deposed ; and is it marvellous that, as the result, the wives and children of drunkards are maltreated, their own lives shortened, and a train of accidents, assaults, manslaughters, and murders set in ceaseless motion, flitting, spectre-like, but not with spectral insolidity, amid the busy throng of life ?" No right belongs to any man to get into this Btate which is so dangerous to society. Drunkenness increases . the burdens on society. It invariably leads to poverty and crime, disease, and death. The poor have to be. fed and clothed, and, if s children, educated. The criminals have to be seized, imprisoned, tried, and punished. , Hospitals have to be provided for tending the sick, and those " found dead " have to be buried at the public expense. What a vast array of officers and institutions have to be maintained on account of the evils of drunkenness on society ? What a vast increase to the taxes of a country is caused by drunkenness ? In fact, by far the greatest portion of expenditure for the support of pauperism, disease, insanity, and crime arises out of this vice. Society is therefore bound to use all its efforts against this evil. Temperance societies have arisen and wrought their work of benevolence solely for the good of society in reference to this. Thousands have been rescued from misery and saved to social welfare by these societies. Thousands more have been prevented from falling into the temptations by which so many have been ; captivated and ruined. At the present day there is a vast army of total abstainers, all active in propagating their cause and doing good, all active in attacking intemperance by argument and by example. They rally round every man who wishes to reform, and give moral backing to hia reformatory efforts. In one direction this movement is making a wide and most wholesome impression by enlisting the young in Bands of Hope, and training the new generation to grow up without the taste of spirituous liquors, and with a deep-rooted conviction of evil attendant upon the common use of intoxicating drink. But, notwithstanding these reformative efforts, drunkenness continues. There is an active agency affording facilities and temptations to drink. It was so after the great agitation for the freedom of the slave. However many were enlightened on the question of the evil of slavery, there were^ others who wished to hold property in their fellow-men. Law, therefore, gave authority to the views of the majority, and pronounced 'slavery a crime, and forbad its continuance. So. too, with respect to bettingihouseß. Persuasion operates upon some, and slaves them f ro*Ja tlie vortex towards which they' were rushing] -but' legislation ia needed ito take away (temptations, and to prohibit external causes of so-much misery. It is the existence of so many public-houses that occasions so much drunkenness. It has been proved beyond a doubt that in proportion to the facilities for getting drunk — that is, to the number of public-houses— so is the degree of drunkenness and its ' consequent effects of pauperism, crime, insanity, and misery. Every magistrate, clergyman, visitor

of the poor in town and country attest this. Great Britian and all her colonies and America give concurrent testimony to this. The Licensing Act of this colony is singularly bad. It demands no charaoter and no security from tbe publican. It gives no right of objection to residents in the neighbourhood of a proposed public-house. It affords no right of inspection at any hour to the police. It affords no facilities for proceeding against a honse as a nuisance. It protects no church or school from close proximity to a public-house. It requires the smallest possible accommodation to secure a license, and legalises the longest possible hours of sale. It takes no guarantee against adulteration, and allows no obstacles to arise from the proximity of another public-house. Cases have lately transpired where licensee were given, even in Sydney, to individuals who were known to have had booses of illfame, the common resort of prostitutes. Now the cause of temperance has clearly a place in politics to get these evils removed. Law must be brought not only against the drunkard, but against the making of drunkards. This is admitted in the very licensing system. The sources of intemperance are under legal control. They may be further controlled or even suppressed. A well- founded jealousy, no doubt, prevails in this country against legal interference with private dwellings and pursuits. " Every man's house is his castle." But the street and the shop are to be distinguished from places set apart to private life. Trade comes under law. Sometimes, as instanced, certain trades are forbidden. Some are not allowed near to populous towns. Some are permitted to sell certain articles and forbidden to sell others. The butcher may sell meat, but not diseased meat. The grocer may sell sugar, but not sugar and sand — so every public house is by statute restricted from selling to persona drunk or for preventing drunkenness. But tbe restrictions hitherto applied have not proved effective. The evil is in the article sold, and no license law can alter that. The removal of the intoxicating drink is demanded in the interests of morality, and that can only be done by law. The licensing of a place does not limit tho activity of the vendor of strong drink to push his trade. If a licensed victualler push the sale of intoxicating liquors by decorating his shop, introducing paint and gilding, and pretty barmaids and music, and brilliant lights, he increases the temptation to the customers. He cannot tell in each case how much of the article sold will be required to make the buyer drunk. No inspector could measure the ability of the buyer to remain sober. The removal of the article that intoxicates is the most effective remedy that legislation can apply. I am willing to -admit that greater restriction than at present exists would diminish drunkenness ; and along with a few others interested in this reform, I prepared a draft of an Amended Licensing Bill for presentation to Parliament. This has been carefully revised, and is in a state fitted for introduction to Parliament. I hope it may be printed and circulated, and an effort made to get it passed into law. I believe that if members of Parliament would examine and consider that! draft they would find it to promote the welfare of the community — that if the people perused it they would petition in its favour. That draft provided for objections to a license, for a guarantee of character and conduct from the publican, for inspection by police, for shortening hours for punishing adulteration, for preventing dancing saloons, for removal of license, and for promoting the greater sobriety" of the people. It was submitted to the- revision and amendments of friends of our cause of the highest legal standing. The Hon. J. B. Wilson also prepared a bill, which tends in the same direction. But more is needed than such an amendment. Restrictive legislation does not go far enough. The prohibition of the common sale of intoxicating drinks in public-houses is alone sufficient to make a radical reform. This, however, is not to be effected by any mere sumptuary law imposed despotically, but by means of a reformed public opinion, j demanding this protection at the hands of the Legislature. No proper freedom of trade ! would be put in jeopardy by the prohibition j of the common sale of intoxicating liquors — the licence to sell which is only granted for c j year. The penalty of prohibition would not be incurred where the reason for prohibition did not exist. Liberty of trade must be held subject to those interests for which tbe social state is established and valued. The liberty of tha subject must be subject£to the liberty of society to protect itself ; and this it does by a prohibitory law. Take away this right of social self-defence, and what is there left worthy of conservation? The right of the individual to escape from personal danger and suffering is not greater than that of society to do the same. The question then is, shall society continue to suffer by the vice of drunkenness, or shall public-houses for the common sale of intoxicating liquor be prohibited. If society grow more enlightened on this question, and more anxious to secure general sobriety, it will claim more loudly a place for tbe temperance question in the politics of the country, and send representatives to Parliament who will pass a measure for restricting the number^ and permitting the entire prohibition of public-houses in such a form as will most consist with British ideas of liberty and the rights of all tbe people. It will take by law the licensing of public*houses out of the hands of the {magistracy, and submit the. matter to the decision of a fair majority of the people themselves. Finally, the temperance cause has now come to this point that it needs something more than moral suasion and good example ; it needs the legislative removal of facilities for drinking — tbe licensed tempters which now at every corner of the streets, and at frequent intervals on the public roads of the colony, meet the unwary, and prove too strong

for his moral weakness. Laws have been in operation because they regulated a few circumstances only under which the trade was carried on. Let them now permit the removal of the article sold, and similar results will follow as have followed the legislative prohibition of the liquor traffic in other countries. In Norfolk Island, over which our Governor rules, there is a popular veto on the sale of intoxicating liquors, which are kept only in the medicine chest, and rarely used. Drunkenness is unknowD, and happily there is no theft. In this colony this aspect of the temperance question ia rising in importance every year. Judges, lawyers, clergymen, justices of the peace, and philanthropic men, have come to the conviction that something must be done, and many of these are favourable to the new proposal to legalise the appeal to the people themselves, as to their desire for public houses at all, or for how many in any given district. There is a growing conviction that even if this could not be speedily attained— and all will confess that a reformation so radical would only be a work of time— an amendment of the present Licensing Act is imperatively required.