PERMISSIVE BILL.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3252, 15 July 1871, Page 2

PERMISSIVE BILL.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE INDEPENDENT,

Sir — That three successive articles on the Permissive Bill havo appeared in the three Wellington journals on three successive days is a rather remarkable fact. It shows that light is beginning to dawn even on editorial chairs. It is not six weeks ago since the "Advertiser" contemptuously denied that public houses -were the great parents of crime, and challenged me to name a single house in Wellington deserving such an imputation. This morning I read in his editorial columns that while "we look with horror and disgust at the customs of our ancestors, our's is the day of public house drinking. That the number of drinking dens in the colony is simply enormous, and that legislative action is necessary to check their multiplication and reduce their number. Intemperance is the crying sin of the age, and it is gradually and insidiously undermining the most saored Bocial relations of society." Why, sir, for paying these very things a few weeks ago I was denounced by your contemporary as a fanatic and a fool. Are those qualities infectious, and has ho caught the disease ? How over, I will not be hard upon him. I do sincerely rejoice that the press is beginning to open its eyeß to the of the frightful evils which the drinking habits of the day are entailing upon us. I only regret that its conductors should etill persist in denouncing the only remedy for the evil which has any where been attended with success — the Permissive Bill. Can they devise any better ? If they cannot, why not give this a trial ? Their argument is that it will fail. Suppose it does ; shall we be any the worse for having tried it ? Can the evil be greater than it ib at present ? Can there be any harm in trying whether tho Permissive Bill will lessen it ? Try any other bill if you like, but at all events try something. We offer you tluß ; if you have nothing better you must either try it or leave things as they are. Do tell us, Dear Messieurs Editors, what you propose in tho place of it. You have admitted that something must be done j what is your " something ?" Tho arguments against the Permissive Bill in the three articles referred to are of the very feeblost sort, and very good specimens of the kind usually resorted to by the opponents of the measure. They consist of bold and unsupported assertions 5 old exploded fallacies ; and calling tho supporters of the measure bard and contemptuous names. I will just glance at one or two instances of each. Tho " Evening Post" saya that " never was there a more complete and disastrous failure" than the Forbes M'Kenzie Act in Scotlaud, which closed the public houses on Sundays. The "Post" gives Jno authority for tho fact ; ho simply expects us to believe his assertion without a tittle of proof. Now what is the fact ? Lord Claud Hamilton lately told a Loudon audience that he was living in Edinburgh when that act was put in force. The City Council had just determined to expend twelve thousand pounds (£12,000) in building new cells in tho gaol to accommodate the increasing number of persons committed for drunkenness and crimes arising out of it. Tho act came in force, and so immediate was tho decrease of these crimes that they put tho mo ney in their pocket and never enlarged fchegaol. Further, before this law which the " Post" denounces as " a complete and disastrous failure 1 ' was in force in Glasgow, the convictions for Sunday druukenncss for the three preceding years, were 1525 ; 1239 j 1218. The year it came into operation they fell off to 464 ; the next to 481 ; and tho next 421 ; and this in tho face of a rapidly increasing population. In Edinburgh, in 1852, the number was 401 ; in 1853, 333. When the law camo into force they fell off at once to 176 ; next year to 52 ; next 43 j next 47 ; next 42 ; and next 33. Was this a complete and disastrous failure ; or did it prove that {the act, extremely limited in operation as it was, was attended with a most remarkable success ? Again both tho " Post" and " Weekly Mail," whose article is reprinted by you, assert most positively that the attempt to work tho Permissive principle in America has utterly fuiled, and been attended with consequences far worse than tho old drinking system. Again no proof is offered, except in tho " Mail" an extract from some anonymous correspondent who, wo are told, wrote some years ago : Now what say our most recent and reliable authorities ? I could give you pages if space permitted. I will only take two or three, Dr Lees, who haß lately spent a year in the United States studying the question, assorts " that nowhere has he seen the prohibitory law introduced except with marked success. That in his travels of 20,000 miles lie came to places where it waa in force, where drunkenness was absolutely unknown, crime a theme of tho past, and hardly any pauperism or taxes. That at Portland, in Maine, a seaport with 35,000 inhabitants, the worst specimen of tho working of tho law, ho found in tho city gaol no prisoners in one wing, and only eight in the other, most -for infringements of the liquor law or petty larceny." Surely if the proof of the pudding be in the eating, empty gao^ a:id workhouses ought to settle the question. Again, Mr Mundella, the well-known shipbuilder and M P., who hns just returned from a similar tour, admits (against previous prejudices), that ho found tho same state of facts as recorded by Dr Lees, and Mr Eustace Smith, the member for Tynemouth, writes, " After a lengthened toiir in America last autumn, I came to tho conclusion that it was my duty to support a Permissive Bill in England, and I said in my lecture in Boston and Baltimore, that it was doing a great and beneficial work in the moral and Bocial regeneration of tho people." Theso < aro all respectable authorities, and their expe- \ rienco is of the present day ; shall we beliove them, or tho " Evening Post" and " Weekly Mail," when tho latter tell us that the prohibitory law in America baa resulted in sly grog selling, general demoralization, and hypoorisy ? I think these are fair specimens of the loud unsupported assertions which the opponents of tho bill aro content to give us instead of proof. I will now give you a specimen of the old exploded fallacies, by which thoy strive to bolster up the publican's cause. (< People," thoy tell us " will not be made sober by act of Parliament." Perhaps ; but at all evonts wo have it before our eyes that they can bo made drunk by act of Parliament. The frightful multiplication of " drinking dona" which tho " Advertiser" now admit* must bo put down, has been caused by act of Parliament. If they are to be put down, as he now advises, it must be by act of Parliament. But how absurd is the ns.'ertion tint people cannot be made sober by act of Parliament! They cannot be made houcst by act of Parliament; but does that prevent our making law 3to deter them from stealing, forging, embezzling, and selling by false weights and measures ? At all events, let us be consistent ; if we cannot make men sober by act of Parliament, why do we now try to do it ? Why have we put under act of Parliament the whole drinking trade, from the still and tho vat, to tho hotol and the " drinking den ?" And what is it when we fiuo tho drunkard, and lock him up ? is it not trying " to make him sober by act of Parliament ?" Tho thing is this. All your acts of Parliament passed hitherto have been to eneourago, establish, regulate, and legalise drinking shops. No wonder they do not succeed in stopping drunkenness. The two things are quite incompatible Tho Permissive Bill proposes simply to discourage, extinguish, and reduco their number. Because tho liconsing law failed to do what it never was adapted to do, why should tho Permissive Bill fail in doing what it is expressly framed and adapted to do ? Another favorite fallacy is that tho Permissive Bill is an iutcrforonco with " private" liberty. Considering that it only proposes to deal with " public" houses, tho very ttrin might suggest the fallacy. But thero are two liberties to be considered — the liberty of the man who wants public houses, regardless of the evil^they inflict on tho community, and tho liberty of the man who object to public houses because he suffers by the iufliolloa of

the evil. Why is the liberty of the former to be preferred to the liberty of the latter ,• and particularly when, as under the Permissive Bill, it is the liberty of one-third that is preferred to the liberty of the two-thirds ? The argument of consistency here, also, again applies. If it be tyranny to interfere with " private liberty" by shutting up the bouse of call, why does the existing law interfere with my " private liberty," neither allowing me to distil, brew, sell, or drink, but under such regulations and such limitations, and subject to such penalties, fines, and lockings-up as it thinks proper? Where is my "private" liberty when " his Worshup" gives me forty shillings fine, or a week on the roads forgetting merry at the Pig and Whistle ? And is not the tyranny double, first to establish the Pig and Whistle by law, and then to punish me for doing what if I, and other " ohirpy fellows,'* did not do, the Pig and Whistle would have to put up its shutters ? You will not allow me to drink as much as I think good for me j and you will not allow tho landlord to sell me as much as he thinks good for me. Where is my private liberty, and where is the landlords ? And yet with a law like this in force, you, Messrs Editors, say that to give the people the power of closing unnecessary publichouses is " the grossest interference with private liberty." Such are specimens of the assertions and the fallacies of the editorial opponents of the bill. Now about their calling names. Their favorite name is " fanatics." It waa the term applied to those who objected to the debaucheries of the Court of Charles the 2nd. It was that which the slaveholders bestowed on Brougham, Lushington, Wilberforce, Stephen, and Bus. ton. It is a convenient nickname ; the more so as not one in twonty can tell you what it means. Daniel O'Connell made a fisherwoman furious by calling her a " hypothenuse." However, nicknames will not frightea us. Nearly all great social reforms have been effected by enthusiasts and fanatics, and I am glad that our opponents recognise this qualification in us. Our fanaticism consists in believing, as the "Advertiser" believes, that there are too many public-houses, aud that there ought to be fewer j but he does not see his way to attain this desirable end, and we think we do. We are fanatical enough to think that it might bo accomplished if the power now vested in the justices of the peace who have suffered the evil to grow up were transferred to the hands of the people themselves, who are crying out for a remedy for the evil, just as other local powers are — powers of road making, school establishing, and so forth. For this wild creed we are called fanatics. Better call us hypothenuses at once, and have us "to the lantern." But does thiß name-calling prove anything ? If we are fanatics, is it any less true that the drinking habits of the day are, as tho "Advertiser" says, " the crying sin of the age ?" If we are fanatics, is it any less true that the present law encourages the evil ? If the Permissive Bill is a remedy, why should it not be tried because offered by fanatical hands ? I again ask, can you who call ub fanatics devise anything better ? If you can, do. And please to remember that calling names > is a game that two can play at, and in a causo like this I rather think we could hit quite aa hard as our opponents if we chose. I see in a London paper, of immense circulation and not a Permissive Bill organ, the publican is thus described : — " Tho Bungs, as they are called, are bellowing like baited bulls. For our own part we have little or no sympathy with them. We believe them, as a body, to be about the most dissolute and debauched members of the community. Their tastes are depraved and vitiated j horse racing, gambling, ratting, drinking, fighting, &c, being among their favorite amusements. They not only drink to excess themselves, but encourage drinking in others. They ply the poor man with liquor until his money and senses are both gone, and then bundle him into the street. Ninety-nine publicans out of a hundred deserve being pinned to the pillory post by their ears for the deadly frauds the>y practise on tho public by the vile adulteration of the liquors they vend." I think, air, it ia better to be a " fanatic" than tho apologist of such gentry as theso, to pluy the part of a literary barman to the Bungs, and to prostitute tho high functions of the press by sneering at and decrying those who have no other aim than to effect a social reform, whioh even theso gentlemen submit ia grently called for, and the means of effecting which they themselves are utterly unable to suggest. — I am, &c,

A Rechabite.