The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-04-05 00:00:00

*orking men of England, equally with thole of
France and Germany, have a right to enjoy its
comforts, and to indulge its convivialities too— ,
of Course with due regard to temperance and
moderation. " The first glass for myself," it .has
been said, " the second for my friends, the third
for good humour, and the fourth for mine
enemies." And thus far, certainly, may we all
go, in our festive enjoyment of French and Ger-
man wines—always with impunity, and often
with advantage. It is with such a beverage
that men, even our working men, may be
merry and wise, according to the proverb. "It
is wine that maketh glad the heart of man."
And we are told to " give wine to those that be
of heavy hearts." Very different is it from that
" Strong drinle which " is raging," and of which
it is so truly said that " whosoever is deceived
thereby is not wise." And When CASSIO exclaimed,
"O, that men should put an enemy, in their
mouths to steal away their braint," it was to that
" invisible spirit of wine" he alluded, to the use
of which so many of our working classes are now
addicted on their convivial occasions, rather than
the wine itself, in its purity, from which they are
debarred. " Wine, ,as a restorative," says the
scientific LIEBIG—" as a means of refreshment
when the powers of life are exhausted, of giving
animation and energy where man, has to struggle
with days of sorrow ; as a means of correction
and compensation when raisproportion occurs in
nutrition,' and the organism is deranged in its
Operations, and as a means of protection against
transient organic disturbance,—wine is surpassed
by' no produce of nature .or art." And well,
therefore, may it be said of it, in the sober and
solemn strains of MILTON even—
" One sip of this
Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight,
Beyond the bliss of dreams : be wise and taste."
Our working classes, then, deserve to have the
opportunity of thus being wise and tasting ; and
let us hope that this will be the effect of the
Chancellor, of the Exchequer's scheme as
respects the wines of France and G&many,
weaning them from that habit of indulging in
those demoralising alcoholic, drinks, which consti-
tutes a' vice that lays prostrate the soul of man,
and exposes him to tie inroads of almost every
mmorality. •

In nothing, perhaps, appertaining to his pre-
sent fiscal policy, is Mr. GLADSTONE so con-
sistent—so true to his former principle—as in
the reduction of the wine duties. It was when►
he was Chancellor of the Exchequer before,
we believe, that he once took occasion, in his
place in Parliament, to describe wine as " one of
the great gifts of Providence to man ;" declaring.
that, " considering what a place it occupies
among the means of subsistence, and considering
how many useful and wholesome ends it subserves
in connection with his physical temperament,
considering the manner in which it might be
used as a competing article with alcoholic spirit,
it were most desirable to place it within the
reach of all classes,"—the very object, in fact,
that he has now proceeded to accomplish. It is
not, therefore, that the reduction of the duty on
wine were undesirable, but that the time of
making it, and the ways and means of doing so,
could not be considered opportune,—so far from
it, indeed, as, under the peculiar circumstances of
the times, to be detrimental to the general
interests.

But the thing is done. It is decreed that we
are henceforth to have wine cheap, and,
let us hope, good. Unless we can have
it good, indeed, we had better not have it
cheap. Wine, therefore, will truly be "no longer
an expensive luxury." The working classes even
will now be enabled to enjoy their glass of wine ;
and they may do so, as we have endeavoured to
show, to their great advantage, more especially
as compared with their present means of enjoy-
ment, whether for purposes of refreshment or
of ennvivialitv. What Parliament has yet to
settle, however, is the way in which the con-
sumption of wine shall be made more accessible,
and more agreeable, to the general public. The
remarks of Mr. KER SEYMER, in the House of
Commons, the other night, were most reasonable
and apposite, when he said, that " the House
having already resolved that wine should be
admitted into this country at a reduced duty,
the natural consequence of that resolution
was, that increased facilities should be given for
the consumption ;" and that although "he be-
lieved that the great body of our working classes
would still continue to drink beer; that that
would be the favourite national beverage ; yet it
was only reasonable that those who liked wine
should have a fair chance of getting it, and that
the only way to it should not be through the
gin-shop,"----adding that " intelligent foreigners
were greatly struck with that anomaly in our
social arrangements which prevented the sale of
any stimulating drink in our eating-houses ; and
that " all that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
proposed to do in that instance was partially to
remove that anomaly by bringing in those houses
the eating and the drinking together." Now
here we have the case put very plainly—and so
put, not by a partisan of the Ministry, but by one
of the Conservative Opposition—who had not
hesitated to declare, that this wine arrangement
was the best part of the Budget. We have tried
to explain why, did all things else agree, we
should think so too. But, we repeat, the thing
is done. Wine is to be made plentiful; and it
were but consistent and proper that the places
for enjoying it should be made as free as possible
from all immoral associations.

LATEST NEWS.

'BY. BRITISH AND IRISH MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.'

TUE AUSTRALIAN, MAURITIUS, AND
BOMBAY MAILS.
The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company have received the following telegram :
MARSEILLES, April 3.
The Panther, with the above mails, arrived at
9 p.m. The mails were despatched for London
at 10 p.m.

MELBOURNE, Feb. 17.

In Parliament the Land Bill is progressing.
The estimates were nearly voted, and the bill to
authorise the purchase of the Geelong Railway
was to be brought in on the evening of the depar-
ture of the mails.

The Government has agreed to the alteration
in the mail route, on condition of other colonies
sharing the expenses.
The formation of a Volunteer Corps is pro-
gressing.

A merchant, named Duffy, has been committed
to prison for extensive forgeries.
A great fire has broken out at Creswick.
The gold receipts had decreased 30,000 oz;as
compared with the same period last year.
Victoria had won the cricket match by sixty-
nine runs.

The following are the departures of gold
ships :—Jan. 17, Greyhound, 5,000 oz. for Liver-
pool; Jan. 24, Monarch, 29,000 oz. for London ;
Jan. 24, Norwood, 9,000 oz. for London ; Jan. 24,
Ockancha, 32,000 oz. for Liverpool ; Jan. 28,
Montmorency, 9,000 oz. for London ; Feb. 8,
Lightning, 13,000 oz. for Liverpool; Feb. 8, Lin-
colnshire, 32,000 oz. for London.
Arrivals :—The Great Britain, after a passage
of 55 days, White Star, Southampton, King of
Algeria, Omar Pasha, Bosphorus, Lady Head,
William Cuavill, Silistria, General. Williams,
Forest Oak, Black Eagle, Glendower, Marco
Polo, Constance, Dawn of Hope, Prince of Wales,
Revenue.
SYDNEY, 7th Feb.

Parliament met on the 24th January. Mr.
Cooper, the speaker, has resigned, and Mr.
Murray is unanimously elected in his place. The
bringing forward of the estimates has been post-
poned. •
Extensive frauds had been discovered in the
storekeepers' department. The officials have been
suspended in consequence.