_ It is to be remembered, my lords, that whatever corruption shall prevail amongst us, it cannot be imputed to this bill, which did not make, but find the nation vitiated, and only turned their vices to publick advantage; so that if it produces any diminution of the sale of spirits, it is indisputably to be applauded as promoting virtue. If the sale of spirits still continues the same, it will deserve some degree of commendation, as it will, at least, not contribute to the increase of vice, and as it will augment the revenue without injuring the people; for how, my lords, can we be censured for only suffering the nation to continue in its former state?
Lord TALBOT then spoke in substance as follows:--My lords, if we consider the tendency of the argument used by the noble lord, the only argument on which he appears to lay any stress, it will prove, if it proves any thing, what cannot be admitted by your lordships, without bidding farewell to independency, and acknowledging that you are only the substitutes of a higher power.
It appears by the tenor of his reasoning, that he considers this house as only obliged, in questions relating to supplies, to ratify the determinations of the other; to submit implicitly to their dictates, and receive their sovereign commands, without daring either to refuse compliance, or delay it.
If we conjoin the reasoning of the noble lord who spoke last, with that of one who spoke before in favour of the bill, we shall be able to discover the full extent of our power on these occasions; the first was pleased to inform us, that though we were at liberty to examine the paragraphs of this bill, we had no right, at least no power to amend them; because in money bills, the commons left us no other choice than that of passing or rejecting them.
This, my lords, might have been thought a sufficient contraction of those privileges which your ancestors transmitted to you, and the commons needed to have desired no farther concessions from this assembly, since this was a publick confession of a subordinate state, and admitted either that part of our ancient rights had been given up, or that we were at present too much depressed to dare to assert them.
We might, however, still comfort ourselves with the peaceful and uncontested possession of the alternative; we might still believe that what we could not approve we might reject, without irritating the formidable commons. But now, my lords, a new doctrine has been vented among us; we are told not only that we must not amend a money bill, but that it will be to no purpose to reject it; for that the other house will send it again without altering any thing but the title, and force it upon us, when there is no time for any other expedient.
If this, my lords, should be done, I know not how the bill might, at its second appearance, be received by other lords; for my part, I should vote immediately for rejecting it, without any alleviating or mollifying expedients. I should reject it, my lords, even on the last day of the session, without any regard to the pretended necessity of raising supplies, and without suffering myself to be terrified into compliance by the danger of the house of Austria; for though I think the balance of power on the continent necessary to be preserved at the hazard of a fleet or an army, I cannot think it of equal importance to us with the equipoise of our own government; nor can I conceive it my duty to enslave myself to secure the freedom of another.
The danger, therefore, of disgusting the commons, at this or any other juncture, shall never influence me to a tame resignation of the privileges of our own house; nor shall I willingly allow any force to arguments which are intended only to operate upon our fear; and, therefore, unless there shall appear some better plea in favour of this bill, I shall think it my duty to oppose it.
The other plea is the difficulty, or, in the style of the noble lord who spoke last, the impossibility of raising supplies by any other method. That it is not easy to raise supplies by any new tax, in a nation where almost all the necessaries of life are loaded with imposts, must be readily allowed; but that it is impossible, the folly of the people, which is at least equal to their poverty, will not suffer me to grant.
One other expedient, at least, has been already discovered by the wonderful sagacity of our new ministers; an expedient which they cannot, indeed, claim the honour of inventing, but which appears so conformable to the rest of their conduct, and so agreeable to their principles, that I doubt not but they will very often practise it, if the continuance of their power be long enough to admit of a full display of their abilities.
Amidst their tenderness for our manufactures, and their regard for commerce, they have established a lottery for eight hundred thousand pounds, by which they not only take advantage of an inclination too predominant, an inclination to grow rich rather by a lucky hazard, than successful industry; but give up the people a prey to stockjobbers, usurers, and brokers of tickets, who will plunder them without mercy, by the encouragement of those by whom it might be hoped that they would be protected from plunderers.
All lotteries, my lords, are games, which are not more honest or more useful for being legal; and the objection which has been made to all other games, and which has never yet been answered, will be found equally valid when applied to them. They engross that attention which might be employed in improving or extending our manufactures; they swallow that money which might circulate in useful trade; they give the idle and the diligent an equal prospect of riches; and by conferring unexpected wealth upon those who never deserved it, and know not how to use it, they promote extravagance and luxury, insolence and dissoluteness.
But these consequences, my lords, and a thousand others equally important, equally formidable, may be objected without effect, against any scheme by which money will be raised; money! the only end at which our ministers have aimed for almost half a century; money! by which only they have preserved the favour of the court, and the obedience of the senate; money! which has supplied the place of wisdom at one time, and of courage at another.
To gain money, my lords, they have injured trade by establishing a lottery; and they are now about to sacrifice the health and virtue of the people, to the preservation of a trade by which money may be furnished to the government. This, my lords, is their only design, however they may act, or whatever they may profess; if they endeavour to protect either the trade or lives of people, it is only because they expect a continuance of taxes from them; and when more desperate measures are necessary for the same purposes, they ruin their trade by one project, and destroy their lives by another.
Lord LONSDALE next spoke, to this effect:--My lords, it is not without the utmost grief and indignation, that I find this house considered by some who have spoken in vindication of this bill, as obliged to comply with any proposals sent up by the commons for raising money, however destructive to the publick, or however contrary to the dictates of our conscience, or convictions of our reason.
What is this, my lords, but once more to vote ourselves useless? What but to be the first that shall destroy the constitution of the government, and give up that liberty which our ancestors established?
That this is really the design of any of the noble lords, who have spoken in vindication of the bill, and have asserted the necessity of passing it, without any attempts to amend it, I am very far from affirming; but certainly, my lords, this, and this only, is the consequence of their positions, with whatever intention they may have advanced them; for how, my lords, can we call ourselves independent, if we are to receive the commands of the other house? or with what propriety can we assume the title of legislators, if we are to pass a bill like this without examination?
The bill now before us, my lords, is of the utmost importance to the happiness of that nation whose welfare we have hitherto been imagined to superintend. In this bill are involved not only the trade and riches, but the lives and morals of the British people; nor can we suffer it to pass unexamined, without betraying the nation to wickedness and destruction.
Should we, on this occasion, suffer ourselves to be degraded from legislators to messengers from the commons to the throne; should we be content only to transmit the laws which we ought to amend, and resign ourselves up implicitly to the wisdom of those whom we have formerly considered as our inferiours, I know not for what purpose we sit here. It would be my counsel that we should no longer attempt to preserve the appearance of power, when we have lost the substance, or submit to share the drudgery of government, without partaking of the authority.
The time of such desperation is, indeed, not yet arrived; but every act of servile compliance will bring it nearer; and, therefore, my lords, for the sake of ourselves, as well as of the people, I join the noble lord's motion for resuming the house, that farther information may be obtained both by ourselves, by the commons, and by the nation.
The duke of NEWCASTLE then rose, and spoke to the effect following:--My lords, I believe no lord in this assembly is more zealous for the advantage of the publick than myself, or more desirous to preserve the lives, or amend the morals of the people; but I cannot think that this character can justly imply any dislike of the bill now before us.
If I should admit what the noble lord has asserted, that the lives and morals of the people are affected by this bill, I cannot yet see that his inference is just, or that our compliance with the motion is, therefore, necessary.
That under the present regulation, the miseries of the nation are every day increased; that corruption spreads every day wider, and debauchery makes greater havock, is confessed on all sides; and, therefore, I can discover no reason for continuing the laws in their present state, nor can think that we ought to decline any experiment by which that disorder, which cannot be increased, may possibly be lessened.
It is confessed by the noble lords, who declare their approbation of the motion for postponing the consideration of this bill, that they intend nothing less than a gentle and tacit manner of dropping it, by showing the commons that though to avoid offence they do not absolutely reject it, yet they cannot approve it, and will not pass it; and that, therefore, the necessity of raising supplies, requires that another bill should be formed, not liable to the same objections.
The consequence of this procedure, my lords, can only be, that either the commons will form another bill for raising money, or that they will send up this again with a new title, and such slight alterations as not the happiness of the nation, but the forms of the senate demand.
If, in return for our endeavours to reform a bill, of which they think themselves the only constitutional judges, they should send it again with only another title; what, my lords, shall we procure by the delay, but a new occasion of murmurs and discontent, a new confirmation of the power of the commons, and an establishment of senatorial chicanery, at once pernicious to the publick, and ignominious to ourselves.
That the commons, in sending back a bill that has been rejected in this house, with only a change in the title, act contrary to the end of senatorial consultations, though consistently with their external forms, cannot be denied: but as each house is without any dependence on the other, such deviations from the principles of our constitution, however injurious to our authority, or however detrimental to the nation, cannot be punished, nor otherwise prevented, than by caution and prudence.
If, therefore, the commons, as they have formerly done, should return the bill without alteration, we shall only have impaired our own authority, and shaken the foundations of our government by a fruitless opposition. Nor shall we gain any advantage, though they should comply with our expectations, and employ the little time that remains in contriving a new tax; for corruption must then proceed without opposition, the people must grow every day more vitious, and debauchery will, in a short time, grow too general to be suppressed.
With regard to the bill before us, the only question that is necessary or proper, is, whether it will promote or hinder the consumption of distilled liquors? for as to the effects of those liquors, those that vindicate, and that oppose this bill, are of the same opinion; and all will readily allow, that if the law now proposed shall be found to increase the consumption which it was intended to diminish, it ought immediately to be repealed, as destructive to the people, and contrary to the end for which it was designed; but if the additional duties shall produce any degree of restraint, if they shall hinder the consumption even of a very small part, I think it must be allowed that the provisions are just and useful; since it has already appeared, that this vice is too deeply rooted to be torn up at once; and that, therefore, it is to be pruned away by imperceptible diminution.
Whether the provisions now offered in the bill might not admit of improvements; whether some other more efficacious expedients might not be discovered; and whether the duties might not be raised yet higher, with more advantage to the publick, may undoubtedly admit of long disputes and deep inquiries; but for these inquiries and disputes, my lords, there is at present no time: the affairs of the continent require our immediate interposition, the general oppressors of the western world are now endeavouring to extend their dominions, and exalt their power beyond the possibility of future opposition; and our allies, who were straggling against them, can no longer continue their efforts without assistance.
At a time like this, my lords, it is not proper to delay the supplies by needless controversies; or, indeed, by any disputes which may, without great inconvenience, be delayed to a time of tranquillity, a time when all our inquiries may be prosecuted at leisure, when every argument may be considered in its full extent, and when the improvement of our laws ought, indeed, to be our principal care. At present it appears to me, that every method of raising money, without manifest injury to the morals of the people, deserves our approbation; and, therefore, that we ought to pass this bill, though it should not much hinder the consumption of spirituous liquors, if it shall barely appear that it will not increase it.
It is at least proper, that, at this pressing exigence, those that oppose the bills by which supplies are to be raised, should, by offering other expedients, show that their opposition proceeds not from any private malevolence to the ministry, or any prepossession against the publick measures, but from a steady adherence to just principles, and an impartial regard for the publick good; for it may be suspected, that he who only busies himself in pulling down, without any attempts to repair the breaches that he has made, with more fit or durable materials, has no real design of strengthening the fortification.
It has been proposed, indeed, by one of the noble lords, that a tax of three shillings a gallon should be laid upon all distilled spirits, and collected by the laws of excise at the still-head, which would doubtless secure a great part of the people from the temptations to which they are at present exposed, but would at the same time produce another effect not equally to be desired.
I have been informed, my lords, upon mentioning this proposal in conversation, that such duties will raise the price of the liquors distilled among us above that of foreign countries; and that, therefore, not only all our foreign trade of this kind would be immediately destroyed, but that many of those who now drink our own spirits, only because they are cheaper, will then purchase those of foreign countries, which are generally allowed to be more pleasant.
That this is really the state of the affair, I do not affirm; for I now relate only what I have heard from others; but surely the imposition of so heavy a duty requires a long consideration; nor can it be improper to mention any objections, the discussion of which may contribute to our information.
But any other regulations than those now offered, will require so many inquiries, and so long consultation, that the senate will expect to be dismissed from their attendance, before any resolutions are formed; and when once the supplies are provided, we shall find ourselves obliged to leave the law relating to spirituous liquors in its present state.
Then, my lords, will the enemies of the government imagine that they have a new opportunity of gratifying their malignity, by censuring us as wholly negligent of the publick happiness, and charge us with looking without concern upon the debauchery, the diseases, and the poverty of the people, without any compassion of their wants, or care of their reformation.
That to continue the present law any longer, will be only to amuse ourselves with ineffectual provisions, is universally allowed; nor is there any difference of opinion with regard to the present state of the vice which we are now endeavouring to hinder. The last law was well intended, but was dictated by anger, and ratified by zeal; and therefore was too violent to be executed, and, instead of reforming, exasperated the nation.
No sooner, therefore, did the magistrates discover the inflexible resolution of the people, their furious persecution of informers, and their declared hatred of all those who concurred in depriving them of this dangerous pleasure, than they were induced, by regard to their own safety, to relax that severity which was enjoined, and were contented to purchase safety by gratifying, or, at least, by not opposing those passions of the multitude, which they could not hope to control; the practice of drinking spirits continued, and the consumption was every year greater than the former.
This, my lords, is the present state of the nation; a state sufficiently deplorable, and which all the laws of humanity and justice command us to alter. This is the universal declaration. We all agree, that the people grow every day more corrupt, and that this corruption ought to be stopped; but by what means is yet undecided.
Violent methods and extremity of rigour have been already tried, and totally defeated; it is, therefore, proposed to try more easy and gentle regulations, that shall produce, by slow degrees, the reformation which cannot be effected by open force; these new regulations appear to many lords not sufficiently coercive, and are imagined still less likely to reform a vice so inveterate, and so firmly established.
These opinions I cannot flatter myself with the hope of reconciling; but must yet observe, that the consumption of these liquors, as of all other commodities, can only be lessened by proper duties, and that every additional imposition has a tendency to lessen them; and since, so far as it extends, it can produce no ill effects, deserves the approbation of those who sincerely desire to suppress this odious vice that has so much prevailed, and been so widely diffused.
It is, indeed, possible, that the duties now proposed may be found not sufficient; but for this defect there is an easy remedy. The duty, if it be found, by the experience of a single year, to be too small, may, in the next, be easily augmented, and swelled, by annual increases, even to the height which is now proposed, if no remedy more easy can be found.
It may be objected, that this fund will be mortgaged for the payment of the sums employed in the service of the war; and that, therefore, the state of the duty cannot afterwards be altered without injustice to the publick creditors, and a manifest violation of the faith of the senate; but, my lords, though in the hurry of providing for a pressing and important war, the commons could not find any other method so easy of raising money, it cannot be doubted but that when they consider the state of the nation at leisure, they will easily redeem this tax, if it shall appear inconvenient, and substitute some other, less injurious to the happiness of the publick.
It was not impossible for them to have done this in the beginning of this session; nor can it be supposed, that men so long versed in publick affairs, could not easily have proposed many other imposts; but it may be imagined, that they chose this out of many, without suspecting that it would be opposed; and believed, that they were at once raising supplies, and protecting the virtue of the people.
Nor, indeed, my lords, does it yet appear that they have been mistaken; for though the arguments of the noble lords who oppose the bill are acute and plausible, yet since they agree that the consumption of these liquors is, at last, to be hindered by raising their price, it is reasonable to conceive, that every augmentation of the price must produce a proportionate diminution of the consumption; and that, therefore, this duty will contribute, in some degree, to the reformation of the people. It seems, at least, in the highest degree probable, that it cannot increase the evil which it is intended to remedy; and that, therefore, we may reasonably concur in it, as it will furnish the government with supplies, without any inconvenience to those that pay them.
The bishop of OXFORD next spoke to this effect:--My lords, this subject has already been so acutely considered, and so copiously discussed, that I rise up in despair of proposing any thing new, of explaining any argument more clearly, or urging it more forcibly, of starting any other subject of consideration, or pointing out any circumstance yet untouched in those that have been proposed.
Yet, my lords, though I cannot hope to add any thing to the knowledge which your lordships have already obtained of the subject in debate, I think it my duty to add one voice to the truth, and to declare, that in the balance of my understanding, the arguments against the bill very much outweigh those that have been offered in its favour.
It is always presumed by those who vindicate it, that every augmentation of the price will necessarily produce a proportionate decrease of the consumption. This, my lords, is the chief, if not the only argument that has been advanced, except that which is drawn from the necessity of raising supplies, and the danger of disgusting the other house. But this argument, my lords, is evidently fallacious; and therefore the bill, if it passes, must pass without a single reason, except immediate convenience.
Let us examine, my lords, this potent argument, which has been successively urged by all who have endeavoured to vindicate the bill, and echoed from one to another with all the confidence of irrefragability; let us consider on what suppositions it is founded, and we shall soon find how easily it will be dissipated.
It is supposed, by this argument, that every drinker of these liquors spends as much as he can possibly procure; and that therefore the least additional price must place part of his pleasure beyond his reach. This, my lords, cannot be generally true; it is perhaps generally, if not universally false. It cannot be doubted, but that many of those who corrupt their minds and bodies with these pernicious draughts, are above the necessity of constraining their appetites to escape so small an expense as that which is now to be imposed upon them; and even of those whose poverty can sink no lower, who are in reality exhausted by every day's debauch, it is at least as likely that they will insist upon more pay for their work, or that they will steal with more rapacity, as that they will suffer themselves to be debarred from the pleasures of drunkenness.
It is not certain that this duty will make these liquors dearer to those who drink them; since the distiller will more willingly deduct from his present profit the small tax that is now proposed, than suffer the trade to sink; and even if that tax should be, as is usual, levied upon the retailer, it has been already observed, that, in the quantities necessary to drunkenness, it will not be perceptible.
But, my lords, though this argument appears thus weak upon the first and slightest consideration, the chief fallacy is still behind. Those, who have already initiated themselves in debauchery, deserve not the chief consideration of this assembly; they are, for the greatest part, hopeless and abandoned, and can only be withheld by force from complying with those desires to which they are habitually enslaved. They may, indeed, be sometimes punished, and at other times restrained, but cannot often be reformed.
Those, my lords, who are yet uncorrupted, ought first to engage our care; virtue is easily preserved, but difficultly regained. But for those what regard has hitherto been shown? What effect can be expected from this bill, but that of exposing them to temptations, by placing unlawful pleasures in their view? pleasures, which, however unworthy of human nature, are seldom forsaken after they have once been tasted.
In the consideration of the present question, it is to be remembered, that multitudes are already corrupted, and the contagion grows more dangerous in proportion as greater numbers are infected.
To stop the progress of this pestilence, my lords, ought to be the governing passion of our minds; to this point ought all our aims to be directed, and for this end ought all our projects to be calculated.
But how, my lords, is this purpose promoted by a law which gives a license, an unlimited and cheap license, for the sale of that liquor, to which, even those who support the bill impute the present corruption of the people? This surely is no rational scheme of reformation, nor can it be imagined, that a favourite and inveterate vice is to be extirpated by such gentle methods.
Let us consider, my lords, more nearly the effects of this new-invented regulation, and we shall see how we may expect from them the recovery of publick virtue. A law is now to be repealed, by which the use of distilled liquors is prohibited, but which has not been for some time put in execution, or not with vigour sufficient to surmount the difficulties and inconveniencies by which its operation was obstructed. The law is, however, yet in force, and whoever sells spirits must now sell them at the hazard of prosecution and penalties, and with an implicit confidence in the kindness and fidelity of the purchaser.
It cannot be supposed, my lords, but that a law like this must have some effect. It cannot be doubted that some are honest and others timorous; and that among the wretches who are most to be suspected of this kind of debauchery, there are some in whom it is not safe to confide; they, therefore, must sometimes be hindered from destroying their reason by other restraints than want of money; and, when they are trusted with the secret of an illegal trade, must pay a dearer rate for the danger that is incurred.
But when this law is repealed, and every street and alley has a shop licensed to distribute this delicious poison, what can we expect? The most sanguine advocate for the bill cannot surely hope, that any of those who now drink spirits will refrain from them, only because they are sold without danger; and though what cannot be proved, or even hoped, should be admitted, that some must content themselves with a smaller quantity on account of the advanced price, yet while they take all opportunities of debauchery, while they spend, in this destructive liquor, all that either honest labour or daring theft will supply, they must always be examples of intemperance; such examples as, from the experience of late years, we have reason to believe will find many imitators; and therefore will promote at once the consumption of spirits, and the corruption of the people.
There is always to be found in wickedness a detestable ambition of gaining proselytes: every man who has suffered himself to be corrupted, is desirous to hide himself from infamy in crowds as vitious as himself, or desires companions in wickedness from the same natural inclination to society, which prompts almost every man to avoid singularity on other occasions.
Whatever be the reason, it may be every day observed, that the great pleasure of the vitious is to vitiate others; nor is it possible to squander an hour in the assemblies of debauchees of any rank, without observing with what importunity innocence is attacked, and how many arts of sophistry and ridicule are used to weaken the influence of virtue, and suppress the struggles of conscience.
The fatal art by which virtue is most commonly overborne is the frequent repetition of temptations, which, though often rejected, will at some unhappy moment generally prevail, and, therefore, ought to be removed; but which this bill is intended to place always in sight.
To what purpose will it be, my lords, to deprive nine hardened profligates of a tenth part of the liquor which they now drink, which is the utmost that this duty will effect? If they have an opportunity of corrupting one by their solicitation and example, the difference between nine and ten acts of debauchery is of very small importance to mankind, or even to the persons who are thus restrained, since their forbearance of the utmost excesses is only the effect of their poverty, not of their virtue.
How far is such restraint from being equivalent to the corruption of one mind, yet pure and undebauched! to the seduction of one heart from virtue, and a new addition to the interest and prevalence of wickedness! If it be necessary that the supplies should be raised for the government by the use of this pernicious liquor, it is desirable that it should be confined to few, and that it should rather be swallowed in large quantities by hopeless drunkards, than offered everywhere to the taste of innocence and youth, in licensed houses of wickedness.
The consumption will, for a time, be the same in both cases, but with this important difference, that wickedness would only be continued, not promoted; and as the poison would rid the land by degrees of the present race of profligates, it might be hoped, that our posterity would be uninfected.
But under the present scheme of regulations, my lords, vice will be propagated under the countenance of the legislature; and that kind of wickedness by which the nation is so infatuated that it has increased yearly, in opposition to a penal law, will now not only be suffered, but encouraged, and enjoy not impunity only, but protection.
Thus, if we pass the bill, we shall not even be able to boast the petty merit of leaving the nation in its present state; we shall take away the present restraints of vice, without substituting any in their place; we shall, perhaps, deprive a few hardened drunkards of a small part of the liquor which they now swallow, but shall open, according to the expectation of the noble lord, fifty thousand houses of licensed debauchery for the ruin of millions yet untainted.
To leave the nation in its present state, which is allowed on all hands to be a state of corruption, seems to be the utmost ambition of one of the noble lords, who has pleaded with the greatest warmth for this bill; for he concluded, with an air of triumph, by asking, how we can be censured for only suffering the nation to continue in its former state?
We may be, in my opinion, my lords, censured as traitors to our trust, and enemies to our country, if we permit any vice to prevail, when it is in our power to suppress it. We may be cursed, with justice, by posterity, as the abettors of that debauchery by which poverty and disease shall be entailed upon them, contemned in the present as the flatterers of those appetites which we ought to regulate, and insulted by that populace whom we dare not oppose.
Had none of our predecessors endeavoured the reformation of the people, had they contented themselves always to leave the nation as they found it, there had been long ago an end of all the order and security of society; for the natural depravity of human nature has always a tendency from less to greater evil; and the same causes which had made us thus wicked, will, if not obviated, make us worse.
Since the noble lord thinks it not necessary to attempt the reformation of the people, he might have spared the elaborate calculation by which he has proved, that a large sum wilt be gained by the government, though one third part of the consumption be prevented; for it is of very little importance to discuss the consequences of an event which will never happen. He should first have proved, that a third part of the consumption will in reality be prevented, and then he might very properly have consoled the ministry, by showing how much they would gain from the residue.
That this bill, as it now stands, will produce a large revenue to the government, but no reformation in the people, is asserted by those that oppose, and undoubtedly believed by those that defend it; but as this is not the purpose which I am most desirous of promoting, I cannot but think it my duty to agree to the proposal of the noble lord, that by postponing the consideration of the bill, more exact information may be obtained by us, and the commons may be alarmed at the danger into which the nation has been brought by their precipitation.
Lord BATH then rose again, and spoke to the following effect:--My lords, as the noble lord who has just spoken appears to have misapprehended some of my assertions, I think it necessary to rise again, that I may explain with sufficient clearness what, perhaps, I before expressed obscurely, amidst the number of different considerations that crowded my imagination.
With regard to the diminution that might be expected from this law, I did not absolutely assert, at least, I did not intend to assert, that a third part would be taken off; but only advanced that supposition as the basis of a calculation, by which I might prove what many lords appeared to doubt, that the consumption might possibly be diminished, and yet the revenue increased.
Upon this supposition, which must be allowed to be reasonable, both the purposes of the bill will be answered, and the publick supplies will be raised by the suppression of vice.
The diminution of the consumption may be greater or less than I have supposed. If it be greater, the revenue will be, indeed, less augmented; but the purposes which, in the opinion of the noble lords who oppose the bill, are more to be regarded, will be better promoted, and all their arguments against it will be, at least, defeated; nor will the ministry, I hope, regret the failure of a tax which is deficient only by the sobriety of the nation.
If the diminution be less than I have supposed, yet if there be any diminution, it cannot be said that the bill has been wholly without effect, or that the ministry have not proceeded either with more judgment or better fortune than their predecessors, or that they have not, at least, taken advantage of the errours that have been committed. It must be owned, that they have either reformed the nation, or at least pointed out the way by which the reformation that has been so long desired, may be effected.
That this tax will in some degree hinder drunkenness, it is reasonable to expect, because it can only be hindered by taxing the liquors which are used in excess; but there yet remain, concerning the weight of the tax that ought to be laid upon them, doubts which nothing but experience can, I believe, remove.
By experience, my lords, we have been already taught, that taxes may be so heavy as to be without effect; that restraint may be so violent as to produce impatience; and, therefore, it is proper in the next essay to proceed by slow degrees and gentle methods, and produce that effect imperceptibly which we find ourselves unable to accomplish at once.
I cannot therefore think, that the duty of three shillings a gallon can be imposed without defeating our own design, and compelling the people to find out some method of eluding the law like that which was practised after the act, by which in the second year of his present majesty, five shillings were imposed upon every gallon of compound waters; after which it is well known, that the distillers sold a simple spirit under the contemptuous title of
senatorial brandy, and the law being universally evaded, was soon after repealed as useless.
Such, my lords, or worse, will be the consequence of the tax which the noble lord has proposed; for if it cannot be evaded, spirits will be brought from nations that have been wiser than to burden their own commodities with such insupportable impost, and the empire will soon be impoverished by the exportation of its money.
Lord HERVEY answered, in substance as follows:--My lords, I am very far from thinking the arguments of the noble lord such as can influence men desirous to promote the real and durable happiness of their country; for he is solicitous only about the prosperity of the British manufactures, and the preservation of the British trade, but has shown very little regard to British virtue.
That part of his argument is, therefore, not necessary to be answered, if the suggestion upon which it is founded were true, since it will be sufficient to compare the advantage of the two schemes. And with regard to his insinuation, that senatorial brandy may be revived by a high duty, I believe, first, that, no such evasion can be contrived, and in the next place am confident, that it may be defeated by burdening the new-invented liquor, whatever it be, if it be equally pernicious, with an equal tax. The path of our duty, my lords, is plain and easy, and only represented difficult by those who are inclined to deviate from it.
Lord BATHURST spoke next, to the effect following:--My lords, whatever measures may be practised by the people for eluding the purposes of the bill now before us, with whatever industry they may invent new kinds of senatorial brandy, or by whatever artifices they may escape the diligence of the officers employed to collect a duty levied upon their vices and their pleasures, there is, at least, no danger that they will purchase from the continent those liquors which we are endeavouring to withhold from them, or that this bill will impoverish our country by promoting a trade contrary to its interest.
What would be the consequence of the duty of three shillings a gallon, proposed by the noble lord, it is easy to judge. What, my lords, can be expected from it, but that it will either oblige or encourage the venders of spirits to procure from other places what they can no longer buy for reasonable prices at home? and that those drunkards who cannot or will not suddenly change their customs, will purchase from abroad the pleasures which we withhold from them, and the wealth of the nation be daily diminished, but the virtue little increased?
Thus, my lords, shall we at once destroy our own manufacture and promote that of our neighbours. Thus shall we enrich other governments by distressing our own, and instead of increasing sobriety, only encourage a more expensive and pernicious kind of debauchery.
In the bill now under our consideration, a middle way is proposed, by which reformation may be introduced by those gradations which have always been found necessary when inveterate vices are to be encountered. In this bill every necessary consideration appears to have been regarded, the health of the people will be preserved, and their virtue recovered, without destroying their trade or starving their manufacturers.
The efficacy of this bill seems, indeed, to be allowed by some of the lords who oppose it, since their chief objection has arisen from their doubts whether it can be executed. If a law be useless in itself, it is of no importance whether it is executed or not; and, therefore, I think it may safely be inferred, that they who are solicitous how it may be enforced, are convinced of its usefulness.
If this, my lords, be the chief objection now remaining, a little consideration will easily remove it; for it is well known, that the only obstruction of the former law was the danger of information; but this law, my lords, is so contrived, that it will promote the execution of itself; for by setting licenses at so low a price, their number will be multiplied, and every man who has taken a license will think himself justified in informing against him that shall retail spirits without a legal right.
If, therefore, there should be, as a noble lord has very reasonably supposed, fifty thousand licensed venders of these liquors, there will likewise be fifty thousand informers against unlawful traders; and as the liquors may then always be had under sanction of the law, the populace will not interest themselves in that process which can have no tendency to obstruct their pleasure.
Thus, my lords, shall we, by agreeing to this bill, make a law that will be at once useful to the government and beneficial to the people, which will be at once powerful in its effects and easy in its execution; and, therefore, instead of attending any more to the wild and impracticable schemes of heavy taxes, rigorous punishments, sudden reformations, and violent restraints, I hope we shall unanimously approve this method, from which so much may be hoped, while nothing is hazarded.
Lord CARTERET then rose up, and spoke in substance as follows:--My lords, though the noble lord who has been pleased to incite us to an unanimous concurrence with himself and his associates of the ministry, in passing this excellent and wonder-working bill, this bill, which is to lessen the consumption of spirits, without lessening the quantity which is distilled, which is to restrain drunkards from drinking, by setting their favourite liquor always before their eyes, to conquer habits by continuing them, and correct vice by indulging it, according to the lowest reckoning, for at least another year; yet, my lords, such is my obstinacy, or such my ignorance, that I cannot yet comply with his proposal, nor can prevail with myself either to concur with measures so apparently opposite to the interest of the publick, or to hear them vindicated, without declaring how little I approve them.
During the course of this long debate I have endeavoured to recapitulate and digest the arguments which have been advanced, and have considered them both separate and conjoined; but find myself at the same distance from conviction as when I entered the house; nor do I imagine, that they can much affect any man who does not voluntarily assist them by strong prejudice.
In vindication of this bill, my lords, we have been told that the present law is ineffectual; that our manufacture is not to be destroyed, or not this year; that the security offered by the present bill has induced great numbers to subscribe to the new fund; that it has been approved by the commons; and that, if it be found ineffectual, it may be amended another session.
All these arguments, my lords, I shall endeavour to examine, because I am always desirous of gratifying those great men to whom the administration of affairs is intrusted, and have always very cautiously avoided the odium of disaffection which they will undoubtedly throw, in imitation of their predecessors, upon all those whose wayward consciences shall oblige them to hinder the execution of their schemes.
With a very strong desire, therefore, though with no great hopes of finding them in the right, I venture to begin my inquiry, and engage in the examination of their first assertion, that the present law against the abuse of strong liquors is without effect.
I hope, my lords, it portends well to my inquiry, that the first position which I have to examine is true, nor can I forbear to congratulate your lordships upon having heard from the new ministry one assertion not to be contradicted.
It is evident, my lords, from daily observation, and demonstrable from the papers upon the table, that every year, since the enaction of the last law, that vice has increased which it was intended to repress, and that no time has been so favourable to the retailers of spirits as that which has passed since they were prohibited.
It may, therefore, be expected, my lords, that having agreed with the ministers in their fundamental proposition, I shall concur with them in the consequence which they draw from it; and having allowed that the present law is ineffectual, should admit that another is necessary.
But, my lords, in order to discover whether this consequence be necessary, it must first be inquired why the present law is of no force? For, my lords, it will be found, upon reflection, that there are certain degrees of corruption that may hinder the effects of the best laws. The magistrates may be vitious, and forbear to enforce that law, by which themselves are condemned; they may be indolent, and inclined rather to connive at wickedness by which they are not injured themselves, than to repress it by a laborious exertion of their authority; or they may be timorous, and, instead of awing the vitious, may be awed by them.
In any of these cases, my lords, the law is not to be condemned for its inefficacy, since it only fails by the defect of those who are to direct its operations; the best and most important laws will contribute very little to the security or happiness of a people, if no judges of integrity and spirit can be found amongst them. Even the most beneficial and useful bill that ministers can possibly imagine, a bill for laying on our estates a tax of the fifth part of their yearly value, would be wholly without effect, if collectors could not be obtained.
I am, therefore, my lords, yet doubtful, whether the inefficacy of the law now subsisting necessarily obliges us to provide another; for those that declared it to be useless, owned at the same time, that no man endeavoured to enforce it; so that, perhaps, its only defect may be, that it will not execute itself.
Nor though I should allow, that the law is at present impeded by difficulties which cannot be broken through, but by men of more spirit and dignity than the ministers may be inclined to trust with commissions of the peace, yet it can only be collected, that another law is necessary, not that the law now proposed will be of any advantage.
Great use has been made of the inefficacy of the present law to decry the proposal made by the noble lord for laying a high duty upon these pernicious liquors. High duties have already, as we are informed, been tried without advantage; high duties are at this hour imposed upon those spirits which are retailed, yet we see them every day sold in the streets without the payment of the tax required; and, therefore, it will be folly to make a second essay of means which have been found, by the experience of many years, unsuccessful.
It has been granted on all sides in this debate, nor was it ever denied on any other occasion, that the consumption of any commodity is most easily to be hindered by raising its price, and its price is to be raised by the imposition of a duty; this, my lords, which is, I suppose, the opinion of every man, of whatever degree of experience or understanding, appears likewise to have been thought by the authors of the present law; and, therefore, they imagined, that they had effectually provided against the increase of drunkenness, by laying upon that liquor which should be retailed in small quantities, a duty which none of the inferiour classes of drunkards would be able to pay.
Thus, my lords, they conceived that they had reformed the common people, without infringing the pleasures of others, and applauded the happy contrivance by which spirits were to be made dear only to the poor, while every man who could afford to purchase two gallons, was at liberty to riot at his ease, and over a full flowing bumper look down with contempt upon his former companions, now ruthlessly condemned to disconsolate sobriety, or obliged to regale themselves with liquor which did no speedy execution upon their cares, but held them for many tedious hours in a languishing possession of their senses and their limbs.
But, my lords, this intention was frustrated, and the project, ingenious as it was, fell to the ground; for though they had laid a tax, they unhappily forgot that this tax would make no addition to the price, unless it was paid; and that it would not be paid, unless some were empowered to collect it.
Here, my lords, was the difficulty; those who made the law were inclined to lay a tax from which themselves should be exempt, and, therefore, would not charge the liquor as it issued from the still; and when once it was dispersed in the hands of petty dealers, it was no longer to be found without the assistance of informers, and informers could not carry on the business of persecution without the consent of the people.
It is not necessary to dwell any longer upon the law of which the repeal is proposed, since it appears already, that it failed only from a partiality not easily defended, and from the omission of what is now proposed, the collection of the duty as the liquor is distilled.
If this method be followed, there will be no longer any need of information, or of any rigorous or new measures; the same officers that collect a smaller duty may levy a greater, nor can they be easily deceived with regard to the quantities that are made; the deceits, at least, that can be used, are in use already; they are frequently detected and suppressed; nor will a larger duty enable the distillers to elude the vigilance of the officers with more success.
Against this proposal, therefore, the inefficacy of the present law can be no objection; but it is urged, that such duties would destroy the trade of distilling; and a noble lord has been pleased to express great tenderness for a manufacture so beneficial and extensive.
I cannot but sometimes wonder, my lords, at the amazing variety of intellects, which every day furnishes some opportunity or other of observing, and which cannot but be remarked on this occasion, when one produces against a proposal the very argument which another offers in its favour. That a large duty levied at the still would destroy or very much impair the trade of distilling, is certainly supposed by those who defend it, for they proposed it only for that end; and what better method can they propose, when they are called to deliberate upon a bill for the prevention of the excessive use of distilled liquors?
The noble lord has been pleased kindly to inform us, that the trade of distilling is very extensive, that it employs great numbers, and that they have arrived at exquisite skill, and therefore,--note well the consequence--the trade of distilling is not to be discouraged.
Once more, my lords, allow me to wonder at the different conceptions of different understandings. It appears to me, that since the spirits which the distillers produce are allowed to enfeeble the limbs, and vitiate the blood, to pervert the heart, and obscure the intellects, that the number of distillers should be no argument in their favour! For I never heard that a law against theft was repealed or delayed, because thieves were numerous. It appears to me, my lords, that if so formidable a body are confederated against the virtue or the lives of their fellow-citizens, it is time to put an end to the havock, and to interpose, while it is yet in our power to stop the destruction.
As little, my lords, am I affected with the merit of the wonderful skill which the distillers are said to have attained: it is, in my opinion, no faculty of great use to mankind, to prepare palatable poison; nor shall I ever contribute my interest for the reprieve of a murderer, because he has, by long practice, obtained great dexterity in his trade.
If their liquors are so delicious, that the people are tempted to their own destruction, let us at length, my lords, secure them from these fatal draughts, by bursting the vials that contain them; let us crush, at once, these artists in slaughter, who have reconciled their countrymen to sickness and to ruin, and spread over the pitfals of debauchery such baits as cannot be resisted.
The noble lord has, indeed, admitted, that this bill may not be found sufficiently coercive, but gives us hopes that it may be improved and enforced another year, and persuades us to endeavour the reformation of drunkenness by degrees, and above all, to beware, at present, of hurting the
manufacture.
I am very far, my lords, from thinking, that there are this year any peculiar reasons for tolerating murder; nor can I conceive why the manufacture should be held sacred now, if it be to be destroyed hereafter; we are, indeed, desired to try how far this law will operate, that we may be more able to proceed with due regard to this valuable manufacture.
With regard to the operation of the law, it appears to me that it will only enrich the government without reforming the people, and I believe there are not many of a different opinion: if any diminution of the sale of spirits be expected from it, it is to be considered, that this diminution will or will not be such as is desired for the reformation of the people; if it be sufficient, the manufacture is at an end, and all the reasons against a higher duty are of equal force against this; but if it is not sufficient, we have, at least, omitted part of our duty, and have neglected the health and virtue of the people.
I cannot, my lords, yet discover, why a reprieve is desired for this manufacture; why the present year is not equally propitious to the reformation of mankind as any will be that may succeed it. It is true we are at war with two nations, and, perhaps, with more; but war may be better prosecuted without money than without men, and we but little consult the military glory of our country, if we raise supplies for paying our armies, by the destruction of those armies that we are contriving to pay.
We have heard the necessity of reforming the nation by degrees urged as an argument for imposing first a lighter duty, and afterwards a heavier; this complaisance for wickedness, my lords, is not so defensible as that it should be battered by arguments in form, and therefore I shall only relate a reply made by Webb, the noted walker, upon a parallel occasion.
This man, who must be remembered by many of your lordships, was remarkable for vigour, both of mind and body, and lived wholly upon water for his drink, and chiefly upon vegetables for his other sustenance: he was one day recommending his regimen to one of his friends who loved wine, and who, perhaps, might somewhat contribute to the prosperity of this
spirituous manufacture, and urged him, with great earnestness, to quit a course of luxury by which his health and his intellects would equally be destroyed. The gentleman appeared convinced, and told him, that he would conform to his counsel, and thought he could not change his course of life at once, but would leave off strong liquors by degrees. By degrees, says the other, with indignation! if you should unhappily fall into the fire, would you caution your servants not to pull you out but by degrees?
This answer, my lords, is applicable in the present case; the nation is sunk into the lowest state of corruption, the people are not only vitious, but insolent beyond example; they not only break the laws, but defy them; and yet some of your lordships are for reforming them by degrees.
I am not easily persuaded, my lords, that our ministers really intend to supply the defects that may hereafter be discovered in this bill; it will doubtless produce money, perhaps much more than they appear to expect from it; I doubt not but the licensed retailers will be more than fifty thousand, and the quantity retailed must increase with the number of retailers. As the bill will, therefore, answer all the ends intended by it, I do not expect to see it altered, for I have never observed ministers desirous of amending their own errours, unless they are such as produce a deficiency in the revenue.
Besides, my lords, it is not certain, that when this fund is mortgaged to the publick creditors, they can prevail upon the commons to change the security; they may continue the bill in force for the reasons, whatever they are, for which they have passed it, and the good intentions of our ministers, however sincere, may be defeated, and drunkenness, legal drunkenness, established in the nation.
This, my lords, is very reasonable; and therefore we ought to exert ourselves for the safety of the nation, while the power is yet in our own hands, and without regard to the opinion or proceedings of the other house, show that we are yet the chief guardians of the people, and the most vigilant adversaries of wickedness.
The ready compliance of the commons with the measures proposed in this bill, has been mentioned here with a view, I suppose, of influencing us, but surely by those who had forgotten our independence, or resigned their own. It is not only the right, but the duty of either house, to deliberate without regard to the determinations of the other; for how would the nation receive any benefit from the distinct powers that compose the legislature, unless their determinations are without influence upon each other? If either the example or authority of the commons can divert us from following our own convictions, we are no longer part of the legislature; we have given up our honours and our privileges, and what then is our concurrence but slavery, or our suffrage but an echo?
The only argument, therefore, that now remains, is the expediency of gratifying those by whose ready subscription the exigencies which the counsels of our new statesmen have brought upon us, and of continuing the security by which they have been encouraged to such liberal contributions.
Publick credit, my lords, is, indeed, of very great importance, but publick credit can never be long supported without publick virtue; nor indeed if the government could mortgage the morals and health of the people, would it be just or rational to confirm the bargain. If the ministry can raise money only by the destruction of their fellow-subjects, they ought to abandon those schemes for which the money is necessary: for what calamity can be equal to unbounded wickedness?
But, my lords, there is no necessity for a choice which may cost us or our ministers so much regret; for the same subscriptions may be procured by an offer of the same advantages to a fund of any other kind, and the sinking fund will easily supply any deficiency that might be suspected in another scheme.
To confess the truth, I should feel very little pain from an account that the nation was for some time determined to be less liberal of their contribution, and that money was withheld till it was known in what expeditions it was to be employed, to what princes subsidies were to be paid, and what advantages were to be purchased by it for our country. I should rejoice my lords, to hear that the lottery by which the deficiencies of this duty are to be supplied, was not filled; and that the people were grown at last wise enough to discern the fraud, and to prefer honest commerce, by which all may be gainers, to a game by which the greatest number must certainly lose, and in which no man can reasonably expect that he shall be the happy favourite of fortune, on whom a prize shall be conferred.
The lotteries, my lords, which former ministers have proposed, have always been censured by those that saw their nature and their tendency; they have been considered as legal cheats, by which the ignorant and the rash are defrauded, and the subtle and avaricious often enriched; they have been allowed to divert the people from trade, and to alienate them from useful industry. A man who is uneasy in his circumstances, and idle in his disposition, collects the remains of his fortune, and buys tickets in a lottery, retires from business, indulges himself in laziness, and waits, in some obscure place, the event of his adventure. Another, instead of employing his stock in a shop or warehouse, rents a garret in a private street, and makes it his business, by false intelligence, and chimerical alarms, to raise and sink the price of tickets alternately, and takes advantage of the lies which he has himself invented.
Such, my lords, is the traffick that is produced by this scheme of raising money; nor were these inconveniencies unknown to the present ministers in the time of their predecessors, whom they never failed to pursue with the loudest clamours, whenever the exigencies of the government reduced them to a lottery.
If I, my lords, might presume to recommend to our ministers the most probable method of raising a large sum for the payment of the troops of the electorate, I should, instead of the tax and lottery now proposed, advise them to establish a certain number of licensed wheelbarrows, on which the laudable trade of thimble and button might be carried on for the support of the war, and shoeboys might contribute to the defence of the house of Austria, by raffling for apples.
Having now, my lords, examined with the utmost candour, all the reasons which have been offered in defence of the bill, I cannot conceal the result of my inquiry. The arguments have had so little effect upon my understanding, that as every man judges of others by himself, I cannot believe that they have any influence, even upon those that offer them; and, therefore, I am convinced, that this bill must be the result of considerations which have been hitherto concealed, and is intended to promote designs which are never to be discovered by the authors before their execution.
With regard to these motives and designs, however artfully concealed, every lord in this assembly is yet at liberty to offer his conjectures; and therefore I shall venture to lay before you what has arisen in my mind, without pretending to have discovered absolute certainty, what such accomplished politicians have endeavoured to conceal.
When I consider, my lords, the tendency of this bill, I find it calculated only for the propagation of diseases, the suppression of industry, and the destruction of mankind; I find it the most fatal engine that ever was pointed at a people, an engine by which those who are not killed will be disabled, and those who preserve their limbs, will be deprived of their senses.
This bill, therefore, appears to be designed only to thin the ranks of mankind, and to disburden the world of the multitudes that inhabit it; and is, perhaps, the strongest proof of political sagacity that our new ministers have yet exhibited. They well know, my lords, that they are universally detested, and that wherever a Briton is destroyed, they are freed from an enemy; they have, therefore, opened the floodgates of gin upon the nation, that when it is less numerous, it may be more easily governed.
Other ministers, my lords, who had not attained to so great a knowledge in the art of making war upon their country, when they found their enemies clamorous and bold, used to awe them with prosecutions and penalties, or destroy them like burglars, with prisons and gibbets. But every age, my lords, produces some improvement, and every nation, however degenerate, gives birth at some happy period of time to men of great and enterprising genius. It is our fortune to be witnesses of a new discovery in politicks; we may congratulate ourselves upon being contemporaries with those men who have shown that hangmen and halters are unnecessary in a state, and that ministers may escape the reproach of destroying their enemies, by inciting them to destroy themselves.
This new method may, indeed, have upon different constitutions a different operation; it may destroy the lives of some, and the senses of others; but either of these effects will answer the purposes of the ministry, to whom it is indifferent, provided the nation becomes insensible, whether pestilence or lunacy prevails among them. Either mad or dead, the greatest part of the people must quickly be, or there is no hope of the continuance of the present ministry.
For this purpose, my lords, what could have been invented more efficacious than an establishment of a certain number of shops at which poison may be vended; poison so prepared, as to please the palate while it wastes the strength, and to kill only by intoxication. From the first instant that any of the enemies of the ministry shall grow clamorous and turbulent, a crafty hireling may lead him to the ministerial slaughterhouse, and ply him with their wonder-working liquor, till he is no longer able to speak or think; and, my lords, no man can be more agreeable to our ministers than he that can neither speak nor think, except those who speak without thinking.
But, my lords, the ministers ought to reflect, that though all the people of the present age are their enemies, yet they have made no trial of the temper and inclinations of posterity; our successours may be of opinions very different from ours; they may, perhaps, approve of wars on the continent, while our plantations are insulted, and our trade obstructed; they may think the support of the house of Austria of more importance to us than our own defence, and may, perhaps, so far differ from their fathers, as to imagine the treasures of Britain very properly employed in supporting the troops, and increasing the splendour of a foreign electorate.
Since, therefore, it will not be denied by our ministers, that the affection and gratitude of posterity may atone for the obstinacy, blindness, and malice of the present age; since those measures which are now universally censured, may at some distant time be praised with equal unanimity; why, my lords, should they extend their vengeance to the succeeding generation? why should they endeavour to torture their limbs with pains, and load their lives with the guilt of their parents? why should they hinder that trade to which they must owe all the comforts which plenty affords? why should they endeavour to intercept their existence, or suffer them to exist only to be wretched?
If I may once more declare my sentiments, my lords, I believe the ministers do not so much wish to debilitate the bodies as the understandings of posterity, nor so ardently desire a race of cripples as of fools. For cripples, my lords, can make no figure at a review, nor strut in a red coat with a tolerable grace; but fools are known by long experience to be the principal support of an army, since they are the only persons who are willing to pay it!
Whatever, my lords, be the true reasons for which this bill is so warmly promoted, I think they ought, at least, to be deliberately examined; and, therefore, cannot think it consistent with our regard for the nation to suffer it to be precipitated into a law. The year, my lords, is not so far advanced, as that supplies may not be raised by some other method, if this should be rejected; nor do I think that we ought to consent to this, even though our refusal should hinder the supplies, since we have no right, for the sake of any advantage, however certain or great, to violate all the laws of heaven and earth, to doom thousands to destruction, and to fill the exchequer with the price of the lives of our fellow-subjects.
Let us, therefore, my lords, not suffer ourselves to be driven forward with such haste as may hinder us from observing whither we are going; let us not be persuaded to precipitate our counsels by those who know that all delays will be detrimental to their designs, because delays may produce new information, and they are conscious that the bill will be less approved the more it is understood.
But every reason which they can offer against the motion, is, in my opinion, a reason for it; and, therefore, I shall readily agree to postpone the clause, and no less readily to reject the bill.
If, at last, reason and evidence are vain, if neither justice nor compassion can prevail, but the nation must be destroyed for the support of the government, let us at least, my lords, confine our assertions, in the preamble, to truth; let us not affirm that drunkenness is established by the advice or consent of the lords spiritual, since I am confident not one of them will so far contradict his own doctrine, as to vote for a bill which gives a sanction to one vice, and ministers opportunities and temptations to all others; and which, if it be not speedily repealed, will overflow the whole nation with a deluge of wickedness.
Lord ISLAY next spoke to the effect following:--My lords, I have attended for a long time to the noble lord, not without some degree of uneasiness, as I think the manner in which he has treated the question neither consistent with the dignity of this assembly, nor with those rules which ought to be ever venerable, the great rules of reason and humanity. Yet being now arrived at a time of life in which the passions grow calm, and patience easily prevails over any sudden disgust or perturbation, I forbore to disconcert him, though I have known interruption produced by much slighter provocations.
It is, my lords, in my opinion, a just maxim, that our deliberations can receive very little assistance from merriment and ridicule, and that truth is seldom discovered by those who are chiefly solicitous to start a jest. To convince the understanding, and to tickle the fancy, are purposes very different, and must be promoted by different means; nor is he always to imagine himself superiour in the dispute, who is applauded with the loudest laugh.
To laugh, my lords, and to endeavour to communicate the same mirth to others, when great affairs are to be considered, is certainly to neglect the end for which we are assembled, and the reasons for which the privilege of debating was originally granted us. For doubtless, my lords, our honours and our power were not conferred upon us that we might be merry with the better grace, or that we might meet at certain times to divert ourselves with turning the great affairs of the nation to ridicule.
But, my lords, still less defensible is this practice, when we are contriving the relief of misery, or the reformation of vice; when calamities are preying upon thousands, and the happiness not only of the present age, but of posterity, must depend upon our resolutions. He that can divert himself with the sight of misery, has surely very little claim to the great praise of humanity and tenderness; nor can he be justly exempted from the censure of increasing evils, who wastes in laughter and jocularity that time in which he might relieve them. _