Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-05-24
The I,iauOr Traffic.

IL is a curious thing that intelligent men
should differ in opinion as to the wiser and
truer policy to be adopted by society toward
the liquor trafc-prohibition or license.
First of all to determine what this policy
should be, we need 10 determine what the
relation is of the liquor traffic to the general
welfare. Is it good or bad Is il partly
good and partly bad and if so is it more
good than bad, or more bad than good
Having settled that, it seems TO me there can
be no difficulty in determining what policy
the state should adopt in relation to it,
We say the liquor traffic is all bad there
is no good about it it is so bad in its in.
huences upon the common veal that moth
ing can be worse. The evils coming from
it to every public and social interest are
more and greater than those which arise
from all other sources of evil combined.
No one has ever denied or doubted this-so
far as | know. Mr.. Gladstone recently
said of it: "More evils come from it to
the people than from war, pestilence and
famine, those three great scourges of the
human family" Chief Justice Davis said
{" If all the evils of whatever kind were
divided into five parts, the liquor traffic
would be responsible for four of them No
one denies that all this is true of the relation
Of the liquor traffic to the general welfare.
This being so, what should be the policy
of the state in relation to it. The law has
forbidden lotteries and lottery Offices the
manufacture and sale of obscene books and
pictures; gambling houses houses of ILL
fame. Why Because their influence is
bad they are inconsistent with the general
welfare. This policy towards these indus.
tries is universally accepted as wise and
right. The liquor traffic inficts upon the
community thousand fold more evil than
all these combined. We say, therefore, it
should not be licensed, established and pro-
tected by law, but should be forbidden and
suppressed. 1t wages deadly war upon every
interest of nation, state and people. Every
body knows this to be true. Then why can
any intelligent man object to the policy of
prohibition The reason they give and the
only one is, that prohibition, wherever it has
been tried, has failed TO diminish the evils
of the traffic to any appreciable extent. Pol
iticians say this: liberation of the liquor
traffic will promote the interests of their
party, they think. Some doctors of divinity
say this prohibition is reproof of their
drinking habits. But this is all false, who.
ever says it. In all the history of prohi-
bition in whatever country-and it has a
history of more that thirty years-there has
never TRANSFERRED one incident which could
even give color to the assertion that it had
been a failure. On the contrary, it has been
and is an fundamentally Of great good
everywhere In England there are more
than fourteen hundred parishes where the
liquor traffic is prohibited-and in every one
of them, the result has been wonderful for
good. In Scotland and in Ireland, there are
-, tha trafI To hoo baa,,
forbidden by law with the same result. In
all Scotland and in all Ireland, except five
large cities, the grogshops are suppressed on
the Sunday with most beneficent results,
and at the last session of parliament, Sun
day prohibition bill for Wales was passed
almost unanimously. The benefits OF this
policy for Ireland and Scotland led to that
and now Sunday prohibition for England is
actively pushed. AT the last session of par
lament, also, a resolution in favor of local
option was passed by majority of forty
two, and Mr.. Gladstone has promised to
bring in bill embodying that principle. In
all English speaking countries, there is a
strong movement for this adoption of the
policy of prohibition to replace that of license
The liquor traffic is war "against the
church, the library and the school-it is one
phase of the warfare between heaven and
hell" Charles Baxton, member of parlia-
ment, said that. 1t is the wholesale pois-
onipg of the people it drives them to hell
like sheep" John Wesley said that. "The
liquor trs fiic is the gigantic crime of crimes"
Senator Morrill, of Maine said that. Every
body knows that all this is true. If this
great sin, shame and crime be continued, let
it he against the law and in spite of it, and
not established and protected by law-as in
those states where it is licensed.-Nedi Do,o.