Complete works of samuel.., p.301
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 301
The bill, my lords, will, therefore, produce none of the advantages which those who promote it have had the confidence to promise the publick. But let us now examine whether they have not been more sagacious in securing the benefits which they expect from it themselves.
That one of the intentions of it is to raise a sum to supply the present exigencies of the government is not denied; that this is the only intention is generally believed, and believed upon the strongest reasons; for it is the only effect which it can possibly produce; and to this end it is calculated with all the skill of men long versed in the laudable art of contriving taxes and of raising money.
I have already shown to your lordships, that seven millions of gallons of spirits are annually distilled in this kingdom; this consumption, at the small duty of sixpence a gallon, now to be imposed, will produce a yearly revenue of £175,000. and the tax upon licenses may be rated at a very large sum; so that there is a fund sufficient, I hope, for the expenses which a land war is to bring upon us.
But we are not to forget, my lords, that this is only the produce of the first year, and that the tax is likely to afford every year a larger revenue. As the consumption of those liquors, under its late discouragements, has advanced a million of gallons every year, it may be reasonably imagined, that by the countenance of the legislature, and the protection of authority, it will increase in a double proportion; and that in ten years more, twenty millions will be distilled every year for the destruction of the people.
Thus far, my lords, the scheme of the ministry appears prosperous; but all prosperity, at least all the prosperity of dishonesty, must in time have an end. The practice of drinking cannot be for ever continued, because it will hurry the present generation to the grave, and prevent the production of another; the revenue must cease with the consumption, and the consumption must be at an end when the consumers are destroyed.
But this, my lords, cannot speedily happen, nor have our ministers any dread of miseries which are only to fall in distant times upon another generation. It is sufficient for them, if their expedient can supply those exigencies which their counsels have brought upon the publick; if they pay their court to the crown with success, at whatever disadvantage to the people, and continue in power till they have enlarged their fortunes, and then without punishment retire to enjoy them.
But I hope, my lords, that we shall act upon very different principles; that we shall examine the most distant consequences of our resolutions, and consider ourselves, not as the agents of the crown to levy taxes, but as the guardians of the people to promote the publick happiness; that we shall always remember that happiness can be produced only by virtue; and that since this bill can tend only to the increase of debauchery, we shall, without the formality of a commitment, unanimously reject it with indignation and abhorrence.
Lord CARTERET spoke to the following effect: — My lords, the bill now before us has been examined with the utmost acuteness, and opposed with all the arts of eloquence and argumentation; nor has any topick been forgotten that could speciously be employed against it. It has been represented by some as contrary to policy, and by others as opposite to religion; its consequences have been displayed with all the confidence of prediction, and the motives upon which it has been formed, declared to be such as I hope every man abhors who projected or defends it.
It has been asserted, that this bill owes its existence only to the necessity of raising taxes for the support of unnecessary troops, to be employed in useless and dangerous expeditions; and that those who defend it have no regard to the happiness or virtue of the people, nor any other design than to raise supplies, and gratify the ministry.
In pursuance of this scheme of argument, the consequences of this bill have been very artfully deduced, and very copiously explained; and it has been asserted that by passing it, we shall show ourselves the patrons of vice, the defenders of debauchery, and the promoters of drunkenness.
It has been declared, that in consequence of this law, by which the use of distilled liquors is intended to be restrained, the retailers of them will be multiplied, and multiplied without end; till the corruption, which is already too extensive, is become general, and the nation is transformed into a herd of drunkards.
With regard to the uses to which the money which shall arise from this tax is to be applied, though it has been more than once mentioned in this debate, I shall pass it over, as without any connexion with the question before us. To confound different topicks may be useful to those whose design is to impose upon the inattention or weakness of their opponents, as they may be enabled by it to alter sometimes the state of the controversy, and to hide their fallacies in perplexity and confusion; but always to be avoided by those who endeavour to discover and to establish truth, who dispute not to confound but to convince, and who intend not to disturb the publick deliberations, but assist them.
I shall, therefore, my lords, only endeavour to show that the consequence, of which some lords express, and I believe with sincerity, such dreadful apprehensions, is not in reality to be feared from this bill; that it will probably promote the purpose for which it is declared to be calculated, and that it will by no means produce that havock in the human species which seems to be suspected, or diffuse that corruption through the people which has been confidently foretold.
The present state of this vice, my lords, has been fully explained, as well by those who oppose the bill as by those who defend it. The use of distilled liquors is now prohibited by a penal law, but the execution of this law, as of all others of the same kind, necessarily supposes a regular information of the breach of it to be laid before the magistrate. The people consider this law, however just or necessary, as an act of the most tyrannical cruelty, which ought to be opposed with the utmost steadiness and vigour, as an insupportable hardship from which they ought at any rate to set themselves free.
They have determined, therefore, not to be governed by this law, and have, consequently, endeavoured to hinder its execution; and so vigorous have been their efforts, that they have at last prevailed. At first they only opposed it by their perseverance and obstinacy, they resolved to persist in the practice of retailing liquors without regard to the penalties which they might incur by it; and, therefore, as one was put to prison, his place was immediately supplied by another; and so frequent were the informations and so fruitless the penalties, that the chief magistrate of the metropolis lamented publickly in the other house, the unpleasing necessity to which he was subjected by that law, of fining and imprisoning without end, and without hopes of procuring the reformation that was intended. Thus they proceeded for some time, and appeared to hope that the magistrates would after a while connive at a practice, which they should find no degree of severity sufficient to suppress; that they would sink under the fatigue of punishing to no purpose, that they would by degrees relax their vigilance, and leave the people in quiet possession of that felicity which they appeared to rate at so high a price.
At length, my lords, instead of wearying the magistrates, they grew weary themselves, and determined no longer to bear persecution for their enjoyments, but to resist that law which they could not evade, and to which they would not submit. They, therefore, determined to mark out all those who by their informations promoted its execution, as publick enemies, as wretches who, for the sake of a reward, carried on a trade of perjury and persecution, and who harassed their innocent neighbours only for carrying on a lawful employment for supplying the wants of the poor, relieving the weariness of the labourer, administering solace to the dejected, and cordials to the sick.
The word was, therefore, given that no informer should be spared; and when an offender was summoned by the civil officers, crowds watched at the door of the magistrate to rescue the prisoner, and to discover and seize the witness upon whose testimony he was convicted; and unfortunate was the wretch who, with the imputation of this crime upon him, fell into their hands; it is well remembered by every man who at that time was conversant in this city, with what outcries of vengeance an informer was pursued in the publick streets, and in the open day; with what exclamations of triumph he was seized, and with what rage of cruelty he was tormented.
One instance of their fury I very particularly remember: as a man was passing along the streets, the alarm was given that he was an informer against the retailers of spirituous liquors, the populace were immediately gathered as in a time of common danger, and united in the pursuit as of a beast of prey, which it was criminal not to destroy; the man discovered, either by consciousness or intelligence, his danger, and fled for his life with the utmost precipitation; but no housekeeper durst afford him shelter, the cry increased upon him on all hands, and the populace rolled on after him with a torrent not to be resisted; and he was upon the point of being overtaken, and like some others destroyed, when one of the greatest persons in the nation, hearing the tumult, and inquiring the reason, opened his doors to the distressed fugitive, and sheltered him from a cruel death.
Soon afterwards there was a stop put to all information; no man dared afterwards, for the sake of a reward, expose himself to the fury of the people, and the use of these destructive liquors was no longer obstructed. How much the practice of this kind of debauchery prevailed, after this short restraint, and how much the consumption of these destructive liquors has increased, the noble lord who spoke last has very accurately informed us, nor can any argument be offered for the present bill more strong than that which his computations have already furnished.
For if it appears, my lords, and it cannot be doubted after such authentick testimonies, that seven millions of gallons of spirits are every year consumed in this kingdom, and that of these far the greatest quantity is wasted in the most flagitious and destructive debauchery; it is surely at length necessary to consider by what means this consumption, which cannot be stopped, may be lessened, and this vice obstructed, which cannot be reformed.
By opening a sufficient number of licensed shops, the number of unlicensed retailers will be necessarily lessened, and by raising the price of the liquor, the quantity which the poor drink must, with equal certainty, be diminished; and as it cannot be imagined that the number of those who will pay annually for licenses, can be equal to that of the petty traders, who now dispose of spirits in cellars and in the streets; it is reasonable to believe that since there will be fewer sellers, less will be sold.
Some lords have, indeed, declared their suspicion, that the number of licensed shops will be such as will endanger the health of the people, and the peace of the commonwealth; and one has so far indulged his imagination, as to declare that he expects fifteen hundred shops to be set open for the sale of spirits, in a short time after the publication of this law.
If it be answered, that no spirits can be sold but by those who keep a house of publick entertainment by a license from the justices of the peace, the opponents of the bill have a reply ready, that the justices will take all opportunities to promote the increase of the revenue, and will always grant a license when it is demanded, without regard to the mischiefs that may arise from the increase of the retreats of idleness and receptacles of vice; and that, therefore, to allow justices to grant licenses for the retail of any commodity upon which a tax is laid, is to permit the sale of it without limits.
But, my lords, this argument will vanish, when it is considered that those justices to whom the law commits the superintendency of publick-houses, are superintended themselves by men who derive their authority from a higher power, and whose censures are more formidable than judicial penalties. The conduct of the justices, my lords, as of every other person, lies open to the observation of the reverend clergy, by whose counsels it is to be regulated, and by whose admonitions it ought to be reformed; admonitions which cannot be supposed to be without force from men to whom the great province of preaching virtue and truth is committed, and whose profession is so much reverenced, that reputation and infamy are generally in their power.
Should the justices, my lords, abuse their authority, either for the increase of the revenue, or any other purpose, what could they expect but to be marked out on the next day of publick worship for reproach and derision? What could they hope but that their crimes should be displayed in the most odious view to their neighbours, their children, and their dependants; and that all those from whom nature or interest teaches them to desire friendship, reverence, or esteem, will be taught to consider them as the slaves of power and the agents of villany, as the propagators of debauchery, and the enemies of mankind?
There is, therefore, my lords, reason to hope that the bill may be useful, because it will be hindered from being detrimental; and as there is an absolute necessity of doing something, and no better method can at present be proposed, I think this ought not to be rejected. We have found by experience that the publick is not to be reformed at once, and that the progress from corruption to reformation must be gradual; and as this bill enforces some degrees of amendment, it is at least more eligible than the present law, which is wholly without effect, because no man will dare to put it in execution.
Every man must be convinced, by his own experience, of the difficulty with-which long habits are surmounted. I myself suffer some indulgence which yet I cannot prevail upon myself to forbear; this indulgence is the use of too much snuff, to which it is well known that many persons of rank are not less addicted; and, therefore, I do not wonder that the law is ineffectual, which is to encounter with the habits and appetites of the whole mass of the common people.
For this reason, my lords, I cannot approve what has been recommended in this debate, any new law that may put the enjoyment of this liquor yet farther from them, by facilitating prosecutions, or enforcing penalties, as I am convinced that the natural force of the people is superiour to the law, and that their natural force will be exerted for the defence of their darling spirits, and the whole nation be shaken with universal sedition.
It has been objected by the noble lord, that the tax now proposed is such as never was raised in any government, because, though luxury may confessedly be taxed, vice ought to be constantly suppressed; and this, in his lordship’s opinion, is a tax upon vice.
His lordship’s distinction between luxury and vice, between the use of things unlawful, and the excess of things lawful, is undoubtedly just, but by no means applicable on this occasion; nor, indeed, has the noble lord, with all his art, been able to apply it; for he was obliged to change the terms in his argument; and, instead of calling this tax, a tax upon strong liquors, to stigmatize it with the odious appellation of a tax upon drunkenness.
To call any thing what it really is not, and then to censure it, is very easy; too easy, my lords, to be done with success. To confute the argument it is only necessary to observe, that this tax is not a tax upon drunkenness, but a tax laid upon strong liquors for the prevention of drunkenness; and, by consequence, such as falls within the compass of his own definition.
That it is not a tax upon luxury cannot be inferred from the indigence of those whom it is intended to reform; for luxury is, my lords, ad modum possidentis, of different kinds, in proportion to different conditions of life, and one man may very decently enjoy those delicacies or pleasures to which it would be foolish and criminal in another to aspire. Whoever spends upon superfluities what he must want for the necessities of life, is luxurious; and excess, therefore, of distilled spirits may be termed, with the utmost propriety, the luxury of the poor.
This, my lords, appeared to be the opinion of the noble lord who spoke so copiously on this question at the beginning of the debate; of this opinion was the reverend prelate when he observed, that necessity itself was become luxurious, and of this opinion must every man be who advises such a duty to be laid upon these liquors as may at once debar the poor from the use of them; for such a proposal evidently supposes them unnecessary, and all enjoyment of things not necessary is a degree of luxury.
To tax this luxury, which is, perhaps, the most pernicious of all others, is now proposed; but it is proposed to tax it only to suppress it, to suppress it by such slow degrees as may be borne by the people; and I hope a law so salutary will not be opposed only because it may afford the government a present supply.
The duke of NEWCASTLE then rose up, and spoke to the following effect: — My lords, I am of opinion that this debate would have been much shorter, had not the noble lords who have spoken in it suffered themselves to be led away, either by their own zeal, or the zeal of their opponents, from the true state of the question, to which I shall take the liberty of recalling their attention, that this important controversy may have at length an end.
The point, the only point that is, in my opinion, now to be considered, is this: the people of this nation have for some time practised a most pernicious and hateful kind of debauchery; against which several laws have been already made, which experience has shown to be so far without effect, that the disorder has every year increased among them; [while the duke was speaking, the bishop of ORFORD said, without intention to be overheard, “Yes, that is the true state of the case,” upon which the duke stopped, and asked whether his lordship had any objection to make, who answered that he had no design of interrupting him; and he, therefore, proceeded.] A new law, therefore, is proposed, less severe, indeed, than the former, but which it is hoped will be for that reason more efficacious; this law having passed through the other house, is now, in the common course of our procedure, to be considered by us in a committee.
