BISHOP BROMBY'S LECTURE ON INTEMPERANCE AND THE LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3214, 1 June 1871, Page 2

BISHOP BROMBY'S LECTURE ON INTEMPERANCE AND THE LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES.

Chapter 11. Social Reformers. — But my hearers are not all teetotallers, yet they long to repress an acknowledged social evil. Philanthrophy, charity, society, religion, all demanded that some remedy shall be found. Prisons for our malefactors, asylums for our mad, reformatories for our ragged boys and girls, are expensive break-waters against the swelling social tide that threatens to engulf us. We had hoped for the gradual triumph of moral remedies, such as education and the improved rocroationß of tho people. But the influence of all such remedies, even if we had them in far greater perfection, are necessarily slow in operation. Meanwhile, souls are perishing and thousands are sinking into despair. There is a cry gone forth at home, and its echoes are reverberating here, " come to their rescue," and for one I dare not turn a deaf ear to that cry. The legislature has been asked by some to grant a permissive measure of prohibition, and the legislature replies, ' 'you hare already a law which regulates the sale of intoxicating drinks." "Yes," but our philanthropist answers, " if that law is proved to succeed in any locality we are contented ; but where it fails, give to that locality powor, by a Permissive Prohibitory Bill, to forbid the sales of these driNks, if the greater majority of its inhabitants wish to exercise it." To my mind, tho request is founded upon true abstract principles both of reason and political economy, and must bo simply viewed as a question of social expediency. The licensing system is itself a system of restriction, and if that degree of restriction already sanctioned by law, for any reason, has failed, then consistency justifies, nay demands, that such restriction shall be carried still further. This would be our position, and it seems a strong one — ' If the traffic in intoxicating liquors be already so restricted as to be harmloss, we have nothing more to aay. But if you, the legislature, fail to make it so, we hold you responsible for the failure. Either see to it that those, whom you trust with the power of issuing licenses, shall do their duty ; or else givo to the ratepayers of that locality, if they wish it, the powor of ridding themselves of tho evil altogether.' For my part, I would not advocate so extreme a measure, unless every effort to amend and enforce tho restrictive principle of tho licensing system shall fail, for I admit that, as a general axiom, self-aontrol is better than abstinence. As a rule, I hold it to be a cowardly thing to run away from tho temptatations of the world. Let us first grapple with the known abuses of the present system ; and if they prove to be icsuperable, than the personal inconveniences, be they what they may, of the Permissive Bill are preferable to soul- destroying evils of intemperance. What I now maintain is, that the liberties of the few may bo and ought to bo sacrificed to the interests of the many. Mr Ewart's Library Act already affirms the principle. The consent of two-thirds of the population at home in any borough can levy a small tax of a penny in tho pound for the support of a free and popular library. I should not object, to see the same principle applied in this colony for the same purpose, and then extended to the support of public schools j and, if necessary, when other means have failed, to tho radical suppression of this vice, which, more than any other vice, is the source of a nations suffering and shame. I own that the rights even of a minority should not bo ruthlessly sacrificed to a dominant majority, but when tho good of the whole is clearly at stake, and tho minority is small, a minority that probably includes the Vdryclaeßwboare tho tempters and the tempted, in a wide-sproad and desolating social sin, then, in that case, tho very conditions upon which society rests, demand that the few must not be permitted to overpower tho many. The tyranny of a majority is bad enough, but the tyranny of a minority is worse. lam not now arguing in favor of adopting the Permissive Bill, but I am simply defending the principles upon which its supporters rest. Those principles are nothing more than an extension of the principles of the Licensing Act, which tho legislature already recognisos. A can now forbid B opening a publichouse, and planting a possible nuisance near his door. The Permissive Bill gives tho power to a groat many A's to forbid a great many Bs planting possible nuisances near them, or, in other words, to extend and to facilitate the working of the restrictive priuciples of an act already in operation, but most difficult to put into actual practice. " Help us," say the advocates of the Permissive Bill, "to apply your own Licensing Act, or allow the localities, where the failure is most conspicuous, and souls are perishing from the failure, to tako summary measures, which are the same in prinoiple, but more certain in operation." It is a mistake to assume that the teetallers are tho only portion of tho public that favor the Permissive Bill. There are others, and those an increasing body, who are scandalised by a great national ! evil, and think that they recognise in this ! measure an honest attempt by a legal enforcement of public sentiment, honestly aroused, to put it down. If this measure attempted to repress publichouses, or permitted teetotallers, or any other class of men, to do so by Act of Parliament, contrary to public sentiment, they would oppose it as a tyrannioal measure. But they support it upon the ground that, when it becomes law, it does no more than permit local electors to decide for themselves, a question in which they, and they alone, have a personal and most painful interest. They maintain that it is the duty of oivil Government to promote tho general welfure by suppressing the direct provocatives to vice and immorality, and without going with the teetotalers, and condemning alcoholic drink absolutely as a poison, they think that it should bosuppressed like strychnine andarscnic. Leaving as doubtful tho witness of science and experience iv regard to the absolute injuriousness of beer and cider, they think that it is tho duty of tho legislature, as it is its constant practice, to bo guided by tho simple question, "where lies tho balance of public good and evil ? The official theory is, that tho liquor traffic is already so regulated and restricted as to bo harmless. To this they oppose the ovidonce of undisputed facts. The official theory is, that this bill is an invasion of tho popular rights. To this argument, they reply that if tho majority in any town or district choose to support the liquor trade with all its conveniences, and all its attendant evils, there is nothing in this bill to prevent them. Moreover, if the experiment fail in any locality, the example will not bo followed olsowhero, aud the evil will carry its own remedy. Popular objections. — Now thoro are ono or two popular objections urged against the Permissive .Bill which I should like jou dispassionately and more closely to examine. Tho first is this, that, to protect some men from an excess which hurts thorn, it forbids tho moderate man his glass of beor, which benefits him. But, assuming that it does benefit him, do not tho very first principles of Christianity demnnd self-sacrifice for the benefit of our fellow men? If so, tho question really resolves itself into this, why should not Christian men bo allowed by law to band together, and say, " what is our right wo are willing to forego for tho good of othors ?" It is not the drunken, nor tho selfish, that ask for this permission. It is a combination of men, and chiefly the working men, who know aud see

the desperate evils of intemperance among their brethren, and who, in order to avoid an unquestioaable evil, are willing to forego for their sakes a doubtful good. A second objection is this, that if the legislature prohibits, by statute, the sale of intoxicating liquors, it will only encourage the growth of sly grog-shops. I answer that until the drinking habits of the working community are improved, such, a result is both possible and likely, but that the temptation to eacbarage them will diminish every year as those habits improve. And I answer further thafc if no law is to be made for the government of men on the ground that it may be broken, then every law should at once, for consistency's sake, be removed from our statute-books j and, moreover, as with other laws, so with this, it is the duty of the legislature to take measures for repressing, by suitable penalties, all violations of its own laws. Thirdly : It has bees argued that it is an interference with the rights of individual liberty, but, when examined, the argument will be found to resolve itself into an ad captandum cry. If ifc means anything, it means free trade in the traffic of noxious oommoditie*, but such liberty is already for» I bidden by law. It is said, " why do you demand an interference with this particular industry ?" The answer is clear, because the law has already done so, and it justifies the interference by a maxim, well known to lawyers — salus populi maxima lex. Whenever an industry is prejudicial to public health, or to public morality, or to public prosperity, the State has a right, and has never hesitated to exercise it, to interfere. If any industry entices to moral evil ; if it engenders crime or impairs the national resources ; if it re* fcards progress or ruins other industries, then the law has as much right to suppress it as much as gaming hells and impure literature, or to banish it beyond the limits of men's dwelling places as they would noisome graveyards or unsavory manufactories. Fourthly : It has been argued that the Permissive Bill will be unequal in its operation, and partake of the odious nature of class legislation. It forbids the working man from enjoying hio glass of beor, but permits the rich man to feast his friends with Burgundy. To this objection, I reply that almost all acts of legislation are apt to be a little one-sided, and that, as a working man is not prohibited by the Permissive Bill from brewing at home, the one-sidedness is more apparent than real ; and if the one-sidedness wei'e much greater than it is, it must not be weighed in the balance against the blessings which would be showered down upon a land where peace and prosperity followed in the train of temperance. Nor yet dcea it pry into auy man's home, whether rich or poor. For here let ifc be rsmembered that the Permissive Bill does not ask for the prohibition of the use nor even of the sale of intoxicating liquors, but only of the traffic. Its advocates say thafc neither buyers nor sellers, as the licensing system is now administered, aro to be trusted. As soon as any township or district is allowed to apply the Permissive Bill, and traffic on the part of men, interested in the increase of drunkenness, is forbidden, then the legislature may step in and pass what other bill it chooses for the re* gulation of tho sale of alcoholic drinks through any agency whatsoever, so long as the vendor had no personal interest or gain in their aalo or adulteration, and the public morality bo not endangered, ne quid deirimenti respuiliccß. If I understand the Maine law right, the importation of wine or spirits or beer is not forbidden, even under its strictest operation. Families, who choose, can receive packages for domestic use, and the minority are not therefore, after all, oppressed by a dictatorial m&« jority. Now, on the other hand, does it appear that this liberty is found to defeat the great end aimed at, which is simply the prohibition of traffio, if General Neal Dow's witness is to be believed, who (according to "Fraser's Magazine") tells us " tho Maine law has suppressed impure houses, cleared out the nests of rascality, made the worst streets in Portland respectable and safe, emptied the gaols, and reduced pauperism almost to zero." Can London bear converse witness in favor of the existing licensing system ? To say nothing of impure houseß and nests of rascality, and gaols and bedlams full to overflowing, the workhouses in the metropolis are for ever enlarging their borders, and yet crying out for more expansion, until the figure in this year of grace roaches 30,000 decrepit and houseless indoor paupers, besides 100,000 outdoor men, that might bo able-bodied producers but for the sad and degraded vice of intemperance. Look at this picture and look at that, and tell me whether the Licensing Beer Act of 1830, apart from the accident of its miserable administration, did not pronounce its own condemnation when it wroto for its motto on every bar and every taproom, " to be drunk on the premises." English Convocation. — And even if ifc be admitted that all the witness whioh comes over to us across the Atlantic is not unequivocal, and allowing for all exaggerations on both sides (which indeed may be left to balance each other), we have the result of experience in tho United Kingdom. The English Convocation, " a short time since, nominated a very able and dispassionate commission" of enquiry. Their report shows that, in the province of Canterbury alone, 1500 parishes, representing an aggregate population of a quarter of & million, are placed by the influence of large landed proprietors under the provisions contemplated by the Permissive Bill. So palpable and valuable are the results, witnessed in tho improved morality and social character of the people, thafc, in view of the evidence produced, the commission distinctly recommends that, in any future revision of the licensing law, contemplated by Parliament, permission shall be given to all other districts to adopt the same rule. I think that great credit is due fco Convocation for its labors. Other subjects may be more exciting j man is naturally a pugnacious animal. It is easier to arouse enthusiasm in matters of party struggle. "Soul-destroying" is seldom used by some men in crusades against moral evil, but is abundantly employed in matters of polemical controversy. Efforts to check too much ritualism, or too much freedom of thought, bavo never failed to arouse the most violent feelings on either side j but I hail with delight the direction of the Church of England's zeal towards a question whioh involves the temporal and eternal welfare of millions, who lie squalid, hopeless, perishing, while we are disputing about the meaning of a difficult text, or the legality of an ecclesiastical tippet. There was a voice which once spoke on earth, and were it heard afresh in this our day, I fancy that the some indignant words would fall upon our astonished ears, "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." Ye men who want something upon which to expend thafc energy which is vow directed to internecine strife, setting church against church, and brother agair.st brother ; instead of " biting and devouring each other," corno and unite your forces and your zeal against a common foe, whioh is baffling nil your powers and mocking all your strife. National Revenue. — Convocation has not overlooked the moral achievements of teetotalism. All praise to its glorious labors. In every town and village at home the names of ile leaders are to be held in honor. But, indeed, they have had an uphill work and to fight an unequal battle. I fear that their triumphs are greatly disproportionate to their zeal and to the merits of their cause. . " Where ftre wo to-day ?" says their most indomitable ohumpion with something of touching sadness. " Defeated on all aides, the enemy victorious and rampant everywhere. More intoxicating l.qnors manufactured and drunk than ever before. Why is this ?' That i$ indeed a practical question, and if we could find an answer to it now I maintain thafc we should bo tho greatest benefactors of the AngloSaxon race. I fear that one answer is — that so many live and thrive upon the trade of aunisfceriug poison to soul and body, and the legislature looks on with folded hands. Nero fiddled while the capital burned, which must have been an allegory. The legislature derives large immediate revenues from the traffic, and though ten times, nay, and fifty times a larger revenue would accrue from the suppression of

this trade, in the improvement of national morality, in the multiplication of little capitals, tbafc true Eource of a nations wealth, in tho increased productive power of the population, in the diminution of police and impoverishment of gaols, in the lessening of a number of rickety children and deserted wives, in the power of our Boys' Homes and Girls' Reformatories to accomplish the noble task vi Inch ihey undertake, in the spread of neighborly peace and family love, and national progress, and universal content, in the enlarged means for the spread of the Gospel and the ministrations of religion — though these are the true Bources of a nations rcvouue, aloe! they are too imponderable to effect the doctrines of ephemeral Governments, too distant to outweigh the filthy lucre that accrues from the sale of a publican's licence. If any Government can control intemperance, it ought to do 80 ; but one thing it ought not to do, and that is — to hesitate, from fear of the revenue. If it lost in revenue, it would gain in virtue and happiness. But it cannot losa. What is abandoned will rapidly return in other and fuller channels. The dispenser of drams may lose ; but the clotbier, the grocer, the baker, the furniture dealer, would gain, and the proof would soon be seen in comfortable dwellings, within wellclothed families would sit round the wellBtored table, with plump and happy faces. And how much wo lid be saved more directly to tho State ? Mr R. Gladstone, brother of the Premier, bears this witness before Mr Villiers's committee, "We are now obliged (at Liverpool) to maintain a police force of something like 900 strong, and to pay from the borough funds something like £100,00,0 for the erection of a new gaol ; and I contend that we should not have to incur anything like so largo an expense on account of tho police force, nor to erect this new gigantic gaol, were ifc not for the increased publichouses and beer shops. I believe that they are the eource of all the mischief ; and if my proposal to reduce them one half by a high licence duty were acted on, one-half this number of police would be ample for every possible emergency that would occur. As it is, the most extraordinary exertions are now (he adds) being made to induce people to become drunkards." And this is an old story, your Excellency, and many of my hoarers will call to ming the satirical lines of Cowper : — " The excise is fattened with a rich result, Of all this riot. The ten thousand casks, For ever dribbling out their base contents, Touched by the Midas fingers of the State, Bleed gold, for Parliament to vote away. Drink and be mad then, 'tis your country bids ; Gloriously drunk — obey the important "call ! Her cauee demands the assistance of your throats. Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more." (Laughter). Yet all this traditional legislation of ours has been one long miserable failure. It was so when we could put a drunkard in the stocks for his fiVat offence, and crop his ears for a second in the good times that are past. With modern fines, its failure is only the more conspicuous. They who learn the hißtory of our little Arabs, or enquire of the authorities of our gaols, and asylums, and reformatories all tell us that something must bo done. "The vice of drunkenness" says , Chancellor Eaikes, " has been encouraged and fostered by repealed Acts of Parliament." He had seen its effects spread like a blight all through the country ; and villages which formerly werelike thecreation of romance, so beautiful wore they, had become the scene of every evil. But you will say that intemperance has greatly declined, at least in Tasmania; the truth of the statement is indisputable, but the : inference from it is not bo reliable, Let the ; tide of prosperity tura upon us, and I fear . that with the existing facilities to indulgence, ] the same tide will sweep away every safeguard ! which religion and philanthi'ophy have been i industriously erecting. What right have we < for thinking ourselves better or safer than ; our more prosperous neighbors ? Open then your ears to the testimony of the Chief Justices of Victoria and New South Wales. " I Eay advisedly that in nine cases out of ten," Bays the former, " intoxication or tho ; public-house was directly or indirectly i the cause. Nothing, but the impossibility I of the supply, will ever fit the minds of these unhappy victims to be the recipients of any- ' thing better than now fills them, either in ( intellect, morals, or taste. Until this (the ' mudbank of drunkenness) has been removed, ( the soil beneath will never be reached, and the water distributed over its surface will ! either be diluted into superficial elimo above ' it, or pass on without having added to its < purification or culture." Sir A. Stephen, in : Bumming up a case, remarked, " that every \ case, hitherto tried at these assizes, has had its origin in drink. If there were no such ! thing, the Criminal Court might close." On ' another occasion ho says, "one assize after ! another passes by, exhibiting drunkenness to ■ the public view with its dreadful train of , evile, and man laments them for a moment ; ! but what effectually is done? While the j means for such indulgence are accessible, and I the indulgence itself is not thought wrong, < Buch atrocities will continue in this colony to , the end of time. I would suggest solemnly to those who hear me, whether it is not the duty (unless what I say is oil a fable), as it ' is certainly the intere»t of every man, what- 1 ever his station or employment in life, to ' direct his most serious attention to the facts here laid before him." Moral Failure. — These weighty remarks seem to point to legis- j lative suppression, but our legislators, until ' aroused by public opinion, will kindly advise i us to put faith in moral means, in those of i persuasion rather than coercion. Ad d bo we do ) in dealing with tho majority of men ; but, in ! this great work, we have to deal with thoso \ who lie beyond the reach of moral suasion, as i well as with human nature naturally depraved. < "Build a church," says the Governor of the Edinburgh prison, " and a Penitentiary in every street, with all their multiform nppliances for good ; and at the same time, allow a dram ! Bhop to bo opened every second or third door, 1 with all its means and nppliances towards vice i and crime ; and the result will be that, cc- , conded by the inherent depravity of our nature, criminals of all sorts will be produced, ' much faster than they can be reclaimed." We ( have in the midst of us, I know, and lam < truly thankful for them, Ragged Schools, i Penitentiaries, and Reformatories, yot as the ; famous scribbler of " Tho Times" newspaper, "S. G. 0.," has observed, " though they have 1 done much, each in its own way, yet all they ] have done is as a mere drop to tho ocean of sin, which yet ebbs and flows unassailed." ] Then he adds these weighty words, " the great points of attack should be the feeding ( sources of these places." His Lordship hay- ] ing here given a quotation from Professor : Huxley, continued : Meanwhile, as purely re- ; medial measures, our moral instruments have been found powerless to remove the deeplyseated cancer. Good tea and coffee rooms, cottage allotments and night-schools, workmen's clubs, and social gatherings for the promotion of kindly intercourse between different social ranks ; healthy dwellings a?d pennybanks, all these efforts of non-legislative benevolence will have had their full play, as soon as, and not before the legislature has bound this anti-eocial demon with its chains. Then, above all, education will have a fair field at last, yet not the sham education which is confined to the mechanical arts of reading and writing, not the compulsory education which lays hold of tho offspring of a hundred vagrants, ond seeks to convert them into a more useful chattel of labor. Never was there proposed a more impotent and empyrical remedy against the seductions of intemperance fehan that. The three R's will pro ?o but the withes that bound Samson's more than Herculean limbs. The education on which alone we may rely, must be religious and practical ; one which, while it extends to the heart a3 well as to the mind, at tho same time " shall embrace tho encouragement of a love of homo and homo enjoyments, as the natural and proper counteraction of the seductions of the public house, and the general dissemination among the people of sound information as to tho actual effects of our drinking habits upon

heir moral, social, and physical condition." All other education, leaving out tlio sanctions of roligion on the one hand and the practical work of life on the other, is in its very ossence defective, and will prove hut a flimsy barrier against the multiplied enticements of sin. Even the most enlightened education, education in its highest sense, wido in its scope, and practical in its bearings, will have no chance, while the facilities and temptations to vicious indulgence are so many.