SATURDAY, 9th AUGUST.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3879, 9 August 1873, Page 2

SATURDAY, 9th AUGUST.

If Mr Fox's speech on the second reading of the Permissive Bill, on Wednesday night last, was less eloquent than his deliverances on the same subject on previous occasions, it was also much more businesslike ; if it was garnished with a smaller amount of literary adornment, and accompanied with a less brilliant display of rhetorical fireworks, it was, at any rate, better calculated both fo appeal successfully to the reason of the House, and to make a lasting impression on the mind of the constituencies. The objection to the passing of such an Act as the Permissive Bill to which any speaker who now a days addresses a deliberative assembly such as our Parliament must apply himself, is not, we believe, any inclination to palliate the enormous and terrible evils resulting from the prevalent use of intoxicating liquors ; it is rather the general doubt which exists whether such an Act, if passed, is likely to prove anything better than an ignominious failure, bringing at once the law and the law-givers into public contempt. The best conceivable method of meeting this doubt would, of course, be to adduce — if that were possible — an in- , stance of the passing and of the successful operation of a measure of the kind in some other colony, state, or nation. That, however, is not possible ; such measures existing, as yet, solely in theory. No lejrislature, so far as we are aware, has even passed the bill, except that of the province of Auckland ; and the results with which it was there attended must be looked upon, at present, as artillery, more or less effective, in the hands of the enemy. Failing the possibility of adducing an instance such as that described, the next best course was undoubtedly that adopted by IVJr Fox, viz , to adduce such instances of restriction of the liquor traffic — whether established by statute or otherwise — as he was in a position to show, had been attended with success in the diminution of drunkenness and its concomitant evils. There was.iv the first place, the Maine liquor law, the question of the effective ness or otherwise of which, considering that it is a plain question of fact which might, we imagine, be readily settled by statistics, is still, to a surprising degree, disputed. Mr Fox, to prove the effec tiveness of that measure, brought forward the testimony of Certain travellers and contributors to magazines — one, indeed, a man of the highest reputation — which, if it could betaken as thoroughly reliable, would certainly serve his purpose in a completely satisfactory manner. The testimony with regard to Maine itself, for instance, was that before the introduction of the prohibitory Act, nearly the whole proceeds of the immense saw-milling industry of the state were expended in rum ; now, on the contrary, there was not a more sober population on the face of the earth than that of Maine. If this testimony, regarded in itself, has any failing, it is that of being too strong. It is not easy to believe that anything more than a moderate per centage of a large industrial population ever expended nearly i the whole of their earnings on drink. We have no desire, however, to call its reliableness in question, but merely wish to point out that the data on which alono a legislative body should be asked to base its action, ore not the reports of travellers, but, where possible, the authoritative returns of RegistrarsGeneral, or where that is not possible, at any rate the carefully collected facts and figures of unofficial statisticians. On the whole, however, we are disposed to believe that the balance of evidence is very decidedly in favor of the success of the Maine Law, and to accept it as being so. That point being disposed of, the general question of the practicability of prohibition may be taken as settled. There arises, however, next the question whether what we may call " dislrictalised" prohibition — to use a novel expression which we owe to the fertile intellect of the Hon the Speaker — is practicable. To this question, we conceive, a telling reply was furnished by the report quoted by Mr Fox, on the social condition of the Ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury. The report, which had

the merit of being, at any rate, semi-official, was to the effect that, as regarded a very large number in deed of English parishes, the fact that no publichouse existed in them was sufficient to bring about almost a complete absence of drunkenness, and withit of crime and pauperism ; this, moreover, notwithstanding the fact that publichouses did exist in neighboring parishes. It was shown, as Mr Fox said, that the laborers in the parishes referred to would very seldom indeed take the trouble to walk a mile or a mile and ahalf, after a hard day's work, for the sake of drinking a glass of beer or spirits. This fact, if successfully proved, as we believe it can be, would remove the large class of objections to the Permissive Bill, which are based on the theory to which, apparently, Mr Yogel, for one, still adheres.—that no local or partial restriction, no measure short of a sweeping inhibition both on the importation and^ manufacture of spirituous liquors, can'be of any practical avail. There are still the further objections in regard to the particular manner in which local prohibition is proposed to be enforced, to be met; the one involving a question of principle ; the question, namely, of the respective rights of majorities and minorities,-— and to be met not by testimony, but by reasoning ; the other a question of fact — that, namely, whether the majority of the ratepayers or residents in a district are likely to enforce the prohibition — to be met by experiment. In regard to the first, the argument in reference to the " tyranny of the majority" is, we conceive, becoming discredited now-a-days, owing to the irrelei vant use too frequently made of it. The right of the majority to coerce the minority on a vast number of questions is, every day of our lives, and always must be, practically admitted. Mr JFox made a telling point when he asked — too casually — whether our loans were not raised under the " tyranny of the majority." Supposing the borrowing policy adopted by the country to be, in truth, attended with all the disastrous results which were predicted of it, would it not be theoretically a hardship of enormous severity and injustice, that all those who spoke, wrote, and voted against it.who protested agaiustit, from the first.with yehement indignation, and continue, many of them, to protest against it to this day, with unswerving persistency, should be involved in the common ruin. Yet, amidst all their protests and arguments, the absolute right of the majority to enter upon the policy, if it so decided, was, of course, never for a moment called in question. If, then, the minority is prepared to concede the right of the majority to take action, which, as alleged, imperils the individual well-being and the individual credit of every member of the community, its champions cannot, surely, turn round and deny such a right in a case where the worst result that can flow from its exercise is a modified curtailment of luxury. The question of fact, whether the ma jority of the ratepayers or residents in a district would, practically, enforce the prohibition — it might be directly, or it might be by the election of members of licensing boards pledged to tbe restrictive ticket — a system which, we believe, would be preferable — has yet to be decided by experiment ; and it is, we conceive, a matter of incalculable importance, not only to New Zealand, but also to the whole civilised world, that it should be bo decided speedily. The vast and world-embrac ing character of the functions which it is within the power of a colonial legislature like ours to exercise, we think, has never yet received the clear and full recognition due to it. When we see an Act, first framed by a colonial lawgiver, and first passed by a colonial parliament, which is destined, to all appear j ance, to bring about an agrarian reform, compared with which all previous reforms of the kind will be dwarfed into insignificance, taken up, in the first place, by the various neighboring colonies, and now at length brought before the Imperial Parliament, and likely, in all human calculation, to be sooner or later adopted by it, we are reminded of Victor Hugo's aspiration — with its indirect applicability to our own position — that " but two Tribunes should rule the globe, the French Tribune for the origination of ideas, and the English Tribune for the transformation of ideas into realities." Why, we may a9k, should New Zealand lag behind Great Britain in every legislntive reform ? If, on the one hand, her statesmen are Lilliputians beside the Gullivers of the English Parliament, on the other hand, they are not bound down by the thousand threads of precedent, prescription, and vested right dating back as far as the days of feudalism, which would render an Enceladus powerless. There are cases, no doubt, in which it is the preferable course to exercise caution, to wait upon the action of other States, and observe what results will attend it ; but there are othe.-s, and the present we believe is one of them, in which the boldest course is, in every respect, the wisest ; in which it is not only the one best calculated to gain for us credit abroad, but also to provide, effectually, a speedy remedy fur our most deadly malady at home.