The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-14 00:00:00

THE WINE LICENCES BILL.

The agitation against the Wine Licences Bill has
suffered a signal defeat. All the efforts of the pub-
licans, combined for this occasion, not with sinners,
but with saints, have been exerted in vain, and the
measure has passed its second reading by a consi-
derable majority. This, indeed, was the natural
conclusion of Monday's debate ; for, though the op-
ponents of the bill showed no lack of energy, their
arguments either contradicted each other or fell
short of the point at which they were aimed. Neither
Mr. Henley nor Mr. Buxton, for instance, attempted
to deny. that a bill for the free sale of wine was the
necessary corollary of the French Treaty. If the
wines of France are to be introduced into this
country on such a footing as will open them to
common consumption—if they are to be natu-
ralized among us as ordinary beverages, it is per-
fectly indispensable that the conditions now affixed
to theirade in spirituous liquors should be changed.
One part of the transaction is the natural sequel to
the other. If the Treaty means anything, it means
that the people of these islands are to have free ac-
cess to the produce of French vineyards, and this
access they could never have obtained if wine were
to be procurable in future on the same terms only
as regulate its sale at present. Turn the question
the other way, and see how it would look. Sup-
pose coals and cutlery had hitherto been saleable in
France only under the restrictions of a close mono-
poly, would there be a fair chance either for Eng-
lish producers or French consumers unless this mo-
nopoly were removed P
Of the arguments levelled against the vice of
intoxication we may also say that they should have
been directed against the Treaty itself. If the free
introduction of French wines will tend to the in-
crease of drunkenness, that is a good reason for ex-
cluding them deliberately from our markets, either
by Customs' duties or any other effectual barrier.
Once, however, admit them as eligible articles of
commerce, and it follows as a matter of course, unless
the proceeding is to become an absurdity, that facili-
ties should be provided for their sale. In point of fact,
it has been assumed throughout, until the interests
of a monopoly were touched, that it would
be a decided advantage to the public if these
wines could be brought freely into use on
this side of the Channel. Mutual advantages
was the great principle of the Treaty. It was
held that if Frenchmen could but get English
manufactures, and Englishmen could but get French
wines, both nations would feel the benefits of the
exchange so deeply that they would be very unlikely
to quarrel afterwards. That the wines of Bordeaux
would be beneficial, and not detrimental articles of
consumption, was as much taken for granted as
that Sheffield table-knives or Staffordshire plates
would be commodities useful and not noxious, to
our neighbours. The true question, therefore, is
not whether French wines should be sold—for that
follows necessarily on the adoption of the treaty—
but what persons should be allowed to sell them.
On this point we need do no more than cite the
evidence of Mr. Buxton himself. "They need not
dream," he told the house, " of placing the sale of
those wines under the restrictions of the existing
licensing system, with its close and monopolising
character."

There is no denying, however, that the bill has
been regarded in some quarters with sincere appre-
hension, as menacing the country with an increase
of intemperance. Mr. Gladstone said, truly enough,
that this " was the real case "—would the free sale
of French wines promote the practice of drunken-
ness or not ? We think that no bad consequences
need be feared, but that many good results may be
hoped. Omitting, for the moment, the manifest
hypocrisy of this argument in the mouths of those
who already live hy the sale of intoxicating
liquors, we might easily show that, if any nais.
chief is to be apprehended from the pending mea-
sure, it would certainly not be remedied by allow-
ing the publicans to have their own wk. It is
one of their arguments that, even on thEoprinciple
of pushing these wines into use, the business should
be left with them. Forgetting, for the time,
their original objections to the thing itself, they
declare that they are the very people to do it. Mr.
Ayrton even reproduced this part of their case,
and with evident approval, The beersellers, he
observed, " argued fairly in their memorial that
their houses were better calculated to bring wine
into consumption among the working classes than
establishments opened for the purpose." If there-
fore the anticipated consumption of this article is to
be attended with any increase of inebriety, the re-
sult, according to the publican's own argument, will
be rather diminished than promoted by opening new
establishments for its sale, inasmuch as thhse fresh
corners can never drive such a trade as the old houses
would have driven. However, we need not dissect
such pleas as these. The true question, so far as it
is a question at all, lies in the probable effect of
making wine saleable at a great many more houses
than at present, and we see no reason for appre-
hending that this effect will make itself felt in any
increase of drunkenness.

Of course, if we accepted Mr. Ayrton's postulate
that " the intemperance of the people was precisely
_in proportion to the opportunities given for drink-
ing and the number of drinking 'opuses established,"
we should also perceive the danger of opening au
additional number of drinking houses for public
use; though even here there is a flaw in the argu-
ment, for the establishments in question are so nu-
merous already that very few persons, we fear, are
kept sober from sheer lack of a place in which to get
'drunk. Mr. Ayrton, to give validity to this reason-
ing, should show that at present the opportunities
of drinking were so limited as to exclude a great
number of people from the chance of intoxicating
themselves ; and that, in short, " the whole popula-
tion of England," as Mr. Gladstone put the hypo-
thesis, " were in a state of earnest and intense
anxiety to become drunkards, and that the only rea-
son why they had not fallen into that condition was
that the public houses were too full to hold them." If
this were really the state of things, no doubt every
new wine-shop would increase the proportion of
drunkards in a ratio corresponding with the dimen-
sions and capital of the establishment ; but does Mr.
Ayrton know of any place where a man with money
in his pocket and the propensity to drink has the
smallest difficulty in getting as drunk as he pleases?
Is not the trade in liquors, though close enough to
affect price and quality, open enough to give un-
limited facilities for intoxication.

But there is another fallacy in the argument, and
it lies in the confusion of " drinks" and." drinking-
houses," as if all drinks and all houses where they
might be bought were necessarily of one and the
same character. Now, Mr. Gladstone's bill aims
especially at substituting: ore kind of drink for
another kind of drink in the national taste. It aims
at familiarising the people of this country with a
species of liquor which, though generous enough to
gladden the heart of man, is less calcalated to pro-
duce intoxication than any liquor now in common
use among us. Those who oppose the bill on ac-
count of its immoral tendency assume that, over
and above all those who now get drunk upon gin,
there will be an additional number getting diunk
upon claret; that the statistics of intoxication will
be augmented by a second table ; and that the
drunkards of the new wine-shops will have to be
added to the drunkards of the old publichouses.
But is this a reasonable supposition ? Is it not more
natural to presume that al wholesome and yet exhi-
larating beverage may wean a man from the use of
a more violent and noxious stimulant ? May not
the new wine-shop prove rather an enemy to the
old tavern, by offering a place of resort where in-
toxication, to say the least, is not so likely to be
common ? Beyond all question, a man in going into
one of the new establishments would find in the
house a place where excessive drinking would be
less frequent, and in the beverage supplied a liquor
in which intoxicating qualities were less likely to
lurk. Neither the idea nor the practice of drunken-
ness would be so much connected with tile new
houses as the old eves. Of course, a man may easily
get drunk upon French wine. Mr.Ayrton was right
enough there ; but, as a matter of probability, he
would not be likely to select that liquor if drunken-
ness were, his object, nor would he run such a
risk of being unexpectedly overtaken as would 'be
the ease if he were drinking gin. There is little
chance of mischief, therefore, in the measure, and
there is a fair chance of good. We cannot well be
providing people with greater facilities for intoxi-
cation, seeing that these are practically boundless
already, but we, may probably, by the free intro-
duction of an' innocuous and yt palatable beverage,
do something to supersede ' liquors of a more dan-
gerous kind.—Times,