The tom-foolery of the permissive bill / [a Templar].

Date:
[1872?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The tom-foolery of the permissive bill / [a Templar]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “The Government Bill is not perfection; indeed, no human legislation can lay claim to perfection; hut, at least, it might be regarded as an honest attempt to face a very great difficulty. It says that it will not encourage the sale of drink* by affording increased eacilities for the transfer of money out of the pockets of the labourer into the till of the publican; but, on the other hand it says, just as plainly, that it will not lend itself to the schemes or plans of those who want to taboo all drink.” Here a bit of the good-sense that marked dear Granny in her youthful days, peeps out: though a little muddled by her ‘ drops/ The 4 aim’ and ‘honesty’ of the Bill we do not question; but its power to meet the evil. When a doctor gives an infinitesimally mild pill to remove a vast chronic obstruction, his honesty does not get rid of his imbecility, nor give potency to his prescription. To the patient who is dying of his doctor, the honesty of the treatment makes no amends for the quackery. The Nation doesn’t just now need a prescription for the evils of “increased facilities” of disease and drunkenness,—it will need them when they come,—it is com¬ plaining of, and suffering from, the needless, over-powering, mon¬ strous and multitudinous facilities that already exist, and the Bill of the Government is cruelly, contemptuously, and audaciously silent in regard to a remedy against their evils. Onr ‘ Grandmother ’ was always a bit of a tuft-hunter : and having recently kept company with Lord Derby, she has “lost her head,” and fairly “pinned her faith” to the sleeve of the noble Lord. Poor Granny! it is not thou that speakest—but a scion of the House of Stanley: With him, therefore, we will proceed to tilt a few rounds :— 1. “If the majority conceive that a certain course of conduct shall be held injurious to the minority, they will seek to stop that conduct. One year they would fight against drink: the next against Australian mutton. Nay, it is possible to conceive that, if the Permissive Bill principles were to be in the ascendant, we should soon see (!) interferences with individual liberty such as now seem hardly possible !” In the first place, will any sane man or woman tell us what it is a community has a right to do, if not to stop injury ? Will any sane person say, that a minority have a right to prevent injury, but not a majority? Are all agreed? If so—we have only to determine what particular “ course of conduct” is so seriously injurious as to make it worth while to stop it. The drink-traffic is, admittedly, an institution that justifies an attempt to stop its evils—and so hundreds of attempts have been made, and the Government Bill is the latest example of the sort. For hundreds of years, our ‘ Grandmothers ’ and ‘ Grandfathers ’ too, have fought against English drink-shops,—trying to limit them in their numoers, hours, and customers,—did they ever “fight against English muttonV’ If, for three centuries, the limiting of drink-shops has not led to the limiting of butcher’s-shops, why should it all at once begin to do so now? Especially, why should the perception of the evils of English-beer lead to a crusade against Australian-beef ? With all due deference to Lord Derby and our Grandmother, * But wliy not encourage the sale Of a good thing?