The alcoholic controversy.

Date:
[1868?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The alcoholic controversy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (tribus rusticcB) are sure to re-esta¬ blish prohibition more stringently than ever. To prevent themselves from being thns eluded, the people of Michigan have lately put the prohibitory law into their Constitu¬ tion; so that it wall no longer be possible for legislators to tamper with it. In all probability State after State, as fast as it is brought up to blood-heat on this subject, will follow the lead of Michigan ; after which the capitalists will de¬ spair of recovering their impure source of gain, and many odious vices will be starved out. As re¬ gards the Germans, it must be admitted, that all the recent immi¬ grants are discontented that they cannot get their familiar beer ; and though there is much sottishness connected with it, they are not to be treated as on a level with the spirit-drinkers. They stir up their countrymen who were in America before them ; thus in a few States the controversy is not simply be¬ tween capitalists and the public. It ought not to be overlooked, though our limits forbid here to enlarge on it, that in all our colonies the movement against the drink trade is active, and that it always has its strength from below, but is resisted, as here, by the moneyed classes. As to these islands, the reason why landlords in rural places get on so well with a prohibition fully equal to that of Maine, is, because there are no powerful capitalists to counteract thtm. The truth comes out in another way in the experience of Co-operative Stores. It is rarely indeed that the work¬ men to whom these belong will endure that beer be sold in them; as Mr. Gladstone (according to the newspapers) was lately surprised to discover. Capitalists have no in¬ fluence on those stores : that is why the beer is so easily voted out. Nor do we hear of a ‘ discontented mino¬ rity.’ In our towns the struggle will be quite different; and the danger with us, in the near future, is great, lost the local leaders of the Liberals side with the capitalists against the nation. These leaders are some¬ times themselves ‘ in the trade,’ and everywhere have near friends or political associates in it. If they take this course and carry the party with them, a split in the Liberal ranks will come at an early date, and be very fatal to immediate hopes. Much depends on two men, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. J. S. Mill. If they pronounce clearly and vigor¬ ously for the morality of the people as more important than profits to one class of tradesmen (whom Mr. C. Buxton feels most painfully to have got rich at the expense of the people’s vice and misery), all will go right: the capitalists wdll have to submit. But if Mr. Gladstone adhere to Whig routine, and Mr. J. S. Mill to economic theory, the noble excellencies of both will pre¬ cipitate an obstinate struggle, to which we can foresee only one end. The example of the United States, and the high-strung convictions of the Temperance party, augur for the Liberals immediate weakness and ultimate discomfiture. severity shows that the framers intend its precautions to be violated, not to he executed. They are dust to throw into the eyes of good, simple people; for they are certainly impossible. Space forbids further elucidations. Spoiliswocde 3; Co., Printers, JYew-street Square, E.C. and 30 Parliament Street, S. W.