[Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.].

Date:
[1876?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Debate on drunkenness and alcohol licensing in Liverpool.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    convert a confirmed toper into a sober man (bear, bear). He believed that true conversion belonged to a mucli bigber and holier influence, and that it was to that influence they must look for any abiding power to work out and sustain the desired reformation in the habits of the people. He was fortified in that view by innumerable examples which were to be found in the abortive efforts of many benevolent societies to combat the vices of the period. Those societies produced little or no effect upon the malady which they sought to cure. It was the religious character of his heaven-born mission that brought hundreds of thou¬ sands of habitual drunkards to the feet of Father Mathew, and to the same sacred influence was owing the great changes that were being effected at the present time in several districts of the country (hear, hear, and applause). Not all the laws of all the states that ever governed mankind could produce a result equal to to that which was produced by the magic spell exercised by an humble Capuchin Friar. But while holding that opinion he (Alderman M‘Swiney) was far from denying the action of wise laws in seconding the efforts of the ministers of religion to effect reforms in the habits and manners of the people (hear, hear). If he entertained any doubts on that head, those doubts would have vanished before the able and powerful arguments of his friend, Councillor Sullivan (hear, hear). Whatever result might be arrived at in dealing with the motion before the chair there could be but one opinion as to the object its supporters had in view in bringing it under the notice of the Council. Councillor Sullivan had shown them that private interests should not interfere with the public good, and that if an adverse decision be arrived at on this question that decision would be well understood out of doors (hear, hear). In asking the Council to affirm this resolution it was sought, and properly sought, to place power in the hands of the people to say whether they would or would not declare against the temptations which beset them in every street, lane, and alley of our city. That power was at present invested in the hands of magistrates. He (Alderman M‘Swiney) wanted to know would any representative of the people stand before his constituents and say they were unworthy to decide this matter amongst themselves. The Bill now before Parliament was similar in its operation to the Town Improvements Bill, and to many sanitary enactments in which the voice of the people alone decides the issue (hear, hear). The law which had studded our towns and cities with beer shops and public houses had like many other enactments from the same quarter, operated against the welfare of the people. The municipal body of Dublin was now invited to co-operate with other bodies in their efforts to stem the torrent, and to restore to our country its far-famed reputation for sobriety and immunity from heinous crimes (hear, hear). That re¬ putation belonged to this country before intoxicating drinks deluged the land. It was revived under the regime of the good and great Apostle of Temperance. Councillor Dennehy had admitted that when Father Mathew had commenced his crusade, the manufacture of whiskey, in 1839, had exceeded thirteen millions of gallons, and that it had fallen in a few years, under the temperance movement, to four millions of gallons. That was a fact which spoke volumes to prove the virtue