The licensed trade : an independent survey / by Edwin A. Pratt.

  • Pratt, Edwin A., 1854-1922.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The licensed trade : an independent survey / by Edwin A. Pratt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    composed mainly of persons who are in no way pre- judiced by such quantity of alcoholic beverages as they themselves may take. So the next conclusion I arrive at is that the demand for total suppression is uncalled for; and it is the final goal of total suppression that most of the reforms and changes advocated by the teetotal party really have in view. The demands actually advanced may not go beyond Sunday closing, high licence, time limit, and so on ; but what the teetotallers want in their heart of hearts is to ‘ sweep away the traffic altogether.’ It is for this reason that prohibition has a broader significance than it would have if considered solely from the point of view of practical politics of to-day. Prohibition is neither reasonable nor practicable. The assumption that total abstinence is necessary to secure moderation is one that is entirely false, and to curtail the relatively few luxuries of the great masses of the people, because certain indi- viduals drink to excess, while their social superiors can drink as they please, would be in the highest degree unjust. Mr. Gladstone once stated the position with unanswerable logic when he said : How can I, who drink good wine and bitter beer every day of my life in a comfortable room and among friends, coolly stand up and advise hard-wc rking fellow-creatures to take the pledge ? Nor did a daily supply of good wine and bitter beer have any apparent tendency to shorten Mr. Gladstone’s life, considering that he lived to attain his eighty-ninth year. It is not quite clear what ground the prohibitionists have for seeking to enforce their views on the remainder of mankind. In regard to their strength in the United States, the Committee of Fifty say in a report presented by them on the Physiological and Pathological Aspects of the Drink Problem :