The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-05-30 00:00:00

MR. BRIGHT ON INTEMPERANCE.

A
A day's sitting of the yearly meeting of the Society of
Fri durin discuss upon temperance and Ibutper-
ant. slati e Bight on. John Bright said tiaalig the
posi lie t n this on differed very inu from
tha n b many s
un t they elm aye crying to lia-
tue r the v of great evil, and %he nt
propositions before them, ranging from firstly up to
sixthly, showed that they adhered to that course.
They asked for things to be done which they know, and
all know, at the present time, with the present state of
public opinion, were impossible to be done. The
asking" for tame things-iii itself reftaled an -Mount
of simplicity which could not be understood by him.
It wan for Parliament to make such changes as (for
instance) the shutting up of public-houses when
decent and well-behaved people would be indoors
and abed to preserve order in the streets.
Thus Parliament would do all that was necessary for
the public good, and for the proper administration of
police regulations. If all those things were done,
and if the public-houses were closed on Sundays; if the
hours of sale were shortened, if licences were taken
from the grocers, the amount of drinking, which was
so absolutely appalling, would be but little lessened,
and it would make almost no difference to the great
question. For instance, in Scotland, at a place he visited
every year, and where he was but six weeks ago, when
walking on a Sunday down one of the most beautiful of
glens, where Nature seemed to have placed its loveliest,
and where one might indeed think there were no vice*
to be found, yet from the only public-house for
many miles he 88W some men reel, drunk from
whisky supplied to them. What legislation co.ild do
in the present state of public opinion was pretty nearly
nothing. He met a minister of the Established Church
in Scotland who brought out whisky and ask. d him
to drink. He told him he was surprised he did so,
when the minister replied that he objected to the
custom as he (Mr. Bright) did; but were he to refuse
to offer it to his friends he would be stigmatised as
mean and unsocial. As long as this state of thiegs
existed Parliament need not, and ought not, to do any-
thing further than was just necessary to preserve order
in the streets. Those who advocated these changes
were always pointing to the United States; but surely
in the State of Ohio, from which an epistle had been
read, the opinion prevalent among the population
there had rendered legislation possible—ad opinion
very different from the opinion here. Because there
public opinion was favourable to it, legislation followed
as a matter of course. If Parliament were to pass such
laws as those proposed by many of the friends of
temperance legislation the very next week they would
have to repeal them, and the whole City of London
would be in riot, revolt, and insurrection. Against
public opinion Parliament could have no more power
than the meanest citizen. He had during many years
been urged to take these questions under his notice,
and he had been induced to look very carefully to what
was the mode in which this evil could be touched.
He believed it would never be touched unless the
thoughtful, serious men, beginning with the ministers
of the Gospel, and all those who went to places of
worship for other reasons than fashion. ..ould regard
the question of intemperance as one of the great evils
they have to overcome. He had come to the opinion
, that unless the religious portion of this country would
I take up this question there was no hope for it what-
ever. Lately in Convocation they had discussed this
' question. In Scotland it had been discussed.
ek large body of Independent ministers had taken
' it up. Among the Wesleyan body it had been
taken up. But until all ministers took it up he
did not think it possible to touch it at all. At
present, according to custom, wines must lie upon our
tables, to ornament them, and form the staple of the
conversation, which was about their qualities and
prices. One friend had said that he had not taken in-
toxicating drinks for thirty-five years. He (Mr.
Bright) would not say he had abstained for so long, but
for thirty four years—from the time he became a
householder—he had not bought any wine or spirituous
liquor whatever; he had in his house no decanters, and
be thought he had no wine-glasses, and had not had
them since 1839, when he took to housekeeping. It had
cost him some inconvenience and trouble, but altogether
he had had no occasion to regret the steps he then
took. He believed that it would be an advantage
which no words in our language would be at all
adequate to describe if those who tried to do anything
for their fellows would try to bring about a current of
national opinion in favour of abstinence from a source
of so much evil. He thought the yearly meeting should
have nothing to do with the question of legislation.
Their own business was in their own homes, to endea-
vour to change the course of opinion, and if the Society
of Friends united with other good men, he believed
that there were no words winch could describe, and
no mind which ennui imagine, what good would result
front their united efforts.