The heart of the empire : discussions of problems of modern city life in England. With an essay on imperialism.

Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The heart of the empire : discussions of problems of modern city life in England. With an essay on imperialism. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    189/444 (page 165)
    IV TEMPERANCE REFORM WHAT excuse is there for any further literature on the drink question ? We venture to think that there is at least one. When Sir George Cornwall-Lewis was asked to consider proposals for legislation he would reply (so Mr. Bagehot tells us), “ The facts are these and these. Your theory is so-and-so. It accounts for facts Nos. i, 2, and 3, but fails to account for 4, 5, and 6, and what is your object ? ” ' Till he got a plain answer, and a proof that the plan was good, he would not look at it. An exact account of the evils complained of generally showed that the proposals rested on a flimsy foundation. The inductive method which he demanded has, sometimes at least, been lacking in the discussion of temperance. There have been whole libraries of de- nunciation and prescription, but they would not satisfy Cornwall-Lewis. It might be said of their authors, as of a great statesman, 11 He could never have appealed to the people by the felicitous attraction of his words.” Would that it could, as of him, be added, “He had a surer source of popularity in the intelligibility of his plans ” ! Their spirit, even if it strives but little to effect actual reforms, is infinitely better than the genial complacency which is so widely approved, but it does not help us to advance (in Mr. Balfour’s phrase) “ out of the stage of rhetorical description into that of practical proposal.”