The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-10-09 00:00:00

TRADE IN INTOXICATING DRINKS.

At the Social Science Congress, held at Bristol, on
Tuesday, the drink traffic was the subject of a volun-
tary paper read by Professor F. W. Newham. The
Association, he said, attended in detail to the public
education, public health, and public wealth, and
treated of them separately, though in reality they were
not really separate. There was a potent canoe ruin, tug
to all three, which was not prominent in the il.cuments
of the society, which stalked abroad in the world,
laughed at scruple and trampled under foot every form
of human welfare. It would not be right to allow that
formidable ageecy to escape a most searching discus-
',ion. The traffic in int tode g drink yielded to the
Executive Government twenty-one millions sterling of
annual revenue as a fraction of the money spent on it—
indeed, only a small fraction—of the substance wasted,
besides the moral ruin. It was a favourite ides with many
thateducation would gradually banish all the mischiefs
of seducing liquors. That might be true if any one
could kill off from year to year, not only all those who
drank too much, but their families with them, and
leave none but the duly educated to people the land.
Forty years of improved education side by side with the
increased developments of capital and commercial free-
dom had manifested how feeble a weapon was mere
scholastic teaching against the solicitations to drink
and its hideous train of miseries to the whole com-
munity. Those who trusted to education were now
saying that it must be compulsory; but compulsory
education could not work on that part of the com-
munity which it is chiefly desired to affect until drink
shops were closed. The Professor imagined the children
of a drunkard arced into a school by law. The state in
which they would come would be such that, unless the
Government could prevent the vice of these parents, it
would, in all probability, have to adopt the child en•
tirely. While the State insisted on permitting
capitalists to thrive by making drunkards, it left itself
no means of educating drunkards' children, but by a
socialistic system, in which the State became universal
parent. The friends of education spoke of training as
well as teaching, but training presupposed family life.
It would be sufficient, said the professor, to press that
until Parliament and the nation elected to feed, clothe,
and lodge for nothing the children of drunkard., the
first pre-requisite step for educating them must be a
law for making drunkenness difficult. The paper then
went on to point out that it availed little to pails
laws against inoculation and vaccination, and
in general laws for the health of towns or
country in the case of those families in which the seeds
of disease were nourished by the drunkenness of
parents. A sot could not keep a healthy house, and no
laws could force him to do so. It was then demon-
strated that, as regarded the wealth of the nation, the
effect of the beer-house and gin produce was to keep in
a state of semi-pauperism thousands upon thousands.
Having called attention to the fact that the subject he
was discussing bad been taken up by the Lower House
of Convocation, Professor Newman urged that an abso-
lute veto on the drink traffic must be exercised by some
one for moral purposes. The collective public, it was
his opinion, ought to have the power co-ordinate with
the magistrate. Such a veto, be said, could rlbt con
rectly be called despotic or tyrannical.
This japer was much applauded. At the close of
the reading a gentleman asked what effects had been
observed in the parishes above a thousand in number
—in which, according to a statement in Convocation,
no public-houses were found.
Mr. Raper replied that the evidence hail satisfac-
torily established that the best moral effects were
observable.
Mr. James Heywood inquired how the proposed veto
should be exercised.
Pr t lessor Newman replied that the local vetoing vote
was to be that of two-thirds of the inhabitants in the
district
Mr. Raper, observing that several proposals were
before the country, staid that the plan mentioned by
Professor Newman was sehstantially the same as that
advocated by Sir Wilfrid Lawson in the House of
Commons last Session. The principle was to pre-
vent public-houses being forced into districts where
they were not wanted by the inhabitants. Govern-
ment would have to decide the precise way of ascer-
taining the will of the resident.. Professor Newman
thought that London would require special arrange-
ments.
The Roy. NV. Cairne, of Manchester, dealt with the
Sunday liquor traffic. He trac-d the history of the
laws connected with this difficulty, and enlarged upon
the ultimate relations between Sunday drinking and
crime, drawing upon his experience as a chaplain in the
county gaol at Manchester. The rev. gentlem in quoted
Mr. Bright's statement that none were HO interested in
the question of Sunday closing as the families of the
licensed victuallers. Great advantages would accrue
to all classes from a stop being put to the Sunday
1 quer traffic.
Professor Newman thought that Mr. Cairne
scarcely went far enough. There must be provision
for more than Sunday closing.
The benefit of the operation of the law adopted in
Australia to further Sunday closing was adverted to by
a gentleman from that colony.
Another colonist stated that pressure had to be
put on the Legislature to induce it to pass this Act.
The Rev. Mr. Cairne, in replying, pointed to the
advantage of keeping temptation away from prisoners.
Many of those had actually regretted leaving gaol
because of exposure to temptation.