[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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    arriving at any such conclusion ? Would not a short Act of Parlia¬ ment, to prevent the manufacture of alcoholic drinks be the honest and most fair way of dealing with the question (hear, hear). As long as you allow manufacturers to make spirits, and brewers to carry on their trade, will ycu not find people to drink or sell it? We, the sellers of drink, have been charged with the cause of all the ills to which human flesh is heir; but I repeat that these evils must be removed by moral principle, and so long as you allow the article to be made, so long will you find people to drink it, and people to sell it (hear, hear). Do you ever think it would be necessary to denounce the Parliament that legalizes the sale of drink? Don’t you think that that would be the more proper way of dealing with it ? Whatever Mr. Redmond may think just now of the virtues of a short Act of Parliament to prohibit the manufacture of alcoholic liquors, we suspect he would not be so enamoured if face to face with such a “short” Bill. The sellers of drink have not been charged with “ all ” the ills that flesh are heir to. A fair proportion has been justly laid at their door, and it is certainly a startling doctrine that those evils are to be propagated in order to give employment to moral reformers. Yet Mr. Redmond thinks so. We denounce nobody, not even Parliament, but we are trying to force Parliament to undo its evil work. Now, suppose Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s Bill was put into operation in Dublin, and that the district of Rathmines would not follow its ex¬ ample, what a roaring trade the people there would have. What does this prove ? Would it be a dreadful thing to have the drinking shops of a district compressed into a group? Let Mr. Redmond visit the intersection of Sackville-street and Abbey-street, and he will find the Gin-palaces actually side hy side,—a group of about half-a-dozen, within pistol shot of each other. We say that Rathmines would have the option, and would doubtless exercise it, of freeing itself from that conjectural “ roaring trade ” in drunkard making, which Mr. Redmond wants to have “ fairly divided.” What right have I, who am able to control myself, that stands up for the use, and not the abuse of this commodity, to give up that which I think is right and proper, because the person living next to me is a drunkard ? (hear, hear). The Permissive Bill does not force Mr. Redmond or any other