THE DRINK TRADE AND THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. BY JOSEPH BARKER. We estimate the badness of a business according to the mischief it does; but we estimate the guilt or depravity of the men who conduct a mischievous business according to circumstances. If a man has been brought up to a bad business, he is less likely to see the evil of the business than one who has not been brought up to it. If a man has not been taught the principles of human duty, he will be less likely to see the evil of a bad business than one who has had a decent moral training. If many people follow a bad business, and if they have followed it long, men will be slower to see its badness than if it were practised only by few, and introduced only of late. General custom and education have a great influence on men. There are persons in the Southern States of America who have little or no idea of the evils of slave-holding. There are Thugs who think it a duty to commit murder on certain classes of men, and there are Christians,—millions of them,—who think it right both to rob and murder those who, in consequence of being wiser and better than themselves, have been led to renounce and oppose the errors of the Christian faith. We must not therefore wonder if we find people who do not see the evil of the traffic in intoxicating drinks. There are people who believe that ale, wine, an spirits are useful,—persons who even think that they are necessary. There are persons who believe that all the evi s 2 THE DEINK TEADE connected with the sale and use of drink are the evils, not of the drinking system, but of parties who have not the sense and virtue to make a right use of a good thing; just as there are persons in America who believe that all the evils connected with slave-holdiug are chargeable entirely on individual men, and not on anything wrong in slave¬ holding itself. Persons of this class argue: “Are we to give up our business because base or foolish men conduct it amiss, or make a wrong use of the things we sell? Is a baker to give up baking because some eat too much bread; ora butcher to give up butchering because others eat too much flesh?” And we have to make allowance for such men. We are mistaken if we think all men as clear-sighted on every"subject as ourselves; and we are mistaken if we think we are as clear-sighted on every subject as some others are. We may see many things more clearly than others; and others may see many things more clearly than we. It is safer, in talking about the drink traffic, to condemn the business than the men. And the business itself is not equally mischievous in all ■cases. Take a town like Magog. There are fifty public- houses in it, and you hold one of them. You might give it up, but another would take the house, and carry on the business, and carry it on inafar "worse way than you, and with far worse results. Ought you in this case to give it up? Many would say yes. We cannot. Many would say, Let him act on principle, regardless of consequences.” e would say, let him act on principle; but the great principle is to do the thing which we believe will have the best consequences. Some would say, “The worse the consequences the better: the business "will all the sooner be brought to an end.” We do not think so. On the same prmcip e some would have no amelioration of slavery. ey wou d have it as bad as possible that its horrors may sooner en it. They would have no amelioration of religion, nml J ™°- U i lave * ts absurdities, and crimes, and horrors, ben ^plw e i d ’ e3t , by becomin g tolerable it should come to horrn « ^ era ed - • Tl '^ ' vouW ba ™ abatement of the shout l t P I0StltHtl011 > lest au abatement of the horrors evMs L f“ d ° perpe ‘ uate the evil. We would abate all never b ^ ^ P 0SS1 ^ e * There are some evils that can be curpd G ^ CUreC ^ ; aut * ^ iere are many that cannot cured all at once; and we would abate the evils of all, AND THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 3 trusting to increasing knowledge and virtue to extinguish them or reduce their mischievous influence to the lowest point in the future. We Tegard the drinking system as bad. We believe that intoxicating drinks are wholly useless. We believe they are always injurious. If the sale of them and the use of them could be brought at once to an eternal close, we should rejoice. But they cannot. What, then, shall we do? Bring them as near to a close as we can,, and so long as the use and sale continue make them as little mischievous as possible. We say the drink traffic is bad. It is one of the worst. Judged by the rule laid down above, it is the worst perhaps of all; for we know no other which seems to do so much harm. It aids all kinds of vice; it hinders all forms of virtue. It causes pauperism. It keeps millions in want; and torments millions more with the fear of want. It causes disease. It brings numbers to untimely ends; and numbers more whom it permits to live, it causes to languish in pain and misery. It makes many into thieves and murderers. It causes others to commit manslaughter. It reduces many to beggary; and numbers more to the more wretched and revolting calling of prostitution. But why dwell on particulars? There is hardly a house, hardly a heart, that does not suffer some pang in consequence of the accursed traffic. When I think of the young who go unclad, ill-fed, untaught,—of the old who languish uncheered, un¬ blessed ; of the hopeful, loving wives who have been wrapped in gloom; of the parents who have died of broken hearts, in consequence of the ruinous influence of intoxicating drinks on themselves or on those most dear to them, my own heart is sad; my own soul is wrapped in gloom; and I sigh and sorrow over my suffering race. But what shall be done to bring the traffic to an end? The first thing is to lessen the demand for- intoxicating drinks. So long as there are people so foolish as to wish for such drinks, there will be people- so inconsiderate or so wicked as to meet their wishes. Demand causes supply. If the Chinese want opium, the natives of India will grow it. If the Americans want slaves, some will breed them, and others will kidnap them. And if men demand drink, drink will be supplied. But if men cease to use intoxicating drinks, people will cease to prepaie them. Every man that drinks helps to keep up the traffic. 4 THE DRIVE TRADE The guilt of the traffic must be divided among the drink buyers and the drink sellers. The next thing is to supply, away from drink-shops, all those accommodations and amusements which draw so many to those places. Some go to the public-house to read'the papers. Let reading-rooms be established in every neigh¬ bourhood, and in every part of every large town, and let them be supplied with a large assortment of every kind of interesting papers and publications. Some goto the public- house for an innocent game. Let rooms be provided in which people may indulge their taste in every kind of innocent amusement. Let there be rooms for chess and drafts: for music and song: lor dancing and bowling. Some go to the public-house for company. Let there be lecture- rooms, and conversation and debating-rooms provided. Some go to public-houses because they like the drink. Let efforts be made to cure them of their wretched taste. Talk to them. Reason with them. Give the young a better education that they may never contract such miserable tastes. Supply them with books that they may get a taste for knowledge. People will have pleasures of some kind. If you do not bring them to take pleasure in knowledge, work, or harmless play, they will seek pleasure, and find pleasure in vice and crime. But if you can so train them as to enable them to find pleasure in study and books, in useful pursuits and innocent amusements, drink will be little or no temptation. Temperance hotels are excellent things when well conducted; but when converted into smoking houses, gambling hells, or swindling holes, they are execrable. People often drink because they are languid, over-wearied, and low-spirited. If they would take care of their money in good times, and spend their leisure hours in study, or in healthful and agreeable recreations, they would not be often troubled with languor, exhaustion, and low spirits. Hundreds of thousands form drinking habits on Sunday. The museums, the crystal palaces, the botanical and zoolo¬ gical gardens, picture galleries, concert-rooms, libraries, reading-rooms, public parks, are shut up on the weekly holiday, and no facilities are given for travelling by the rail¬ ways, and endless multitudes are obliged, if they leave their mmes at all, to go either to the drink-shops or to places of worship. They will not go to the places of worship. The common kind of sermons they hate, they loathe. They AND THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 5 have no great liking for the preachers. They have never found them their friends. They have generally found them their foes. They believe them to be selfish: they know them to be ignorant. They have little faith in their honesty. They cannot conceive how men can believe the absurdities and abominations which they preach. You might almost as well therefore ask them to drown them¬ selves as to urge them to go to chapel or church. Even the Unitarian chapels are not over-attractive. The people are too aristocratic and cold. And the preachers are too abstruse. There are few Unitarian chapels for the working classes; and those which there are are supplied with only third-rate or fourth-rate preachers. The masses want something plain and practical,—something good both in style and matter,—and these are not to be found either in the Unitarian or the Orthodox places of worship. Besides, men of sense are tired of old-fashioned hymns and prayers. They know they are not true; they feel they are dull; and they suspect them of hypocrisy. They want such music, and such styles of address as are to be met with in the better class of concerts and lecture rooms. They are tired of the follies, and fictions, and forms of the dark ages. Preachers and presbyters, parsons and clerks, policemen and churchwardens, may do what they will, they will never get the mass of the people to spend their Sundays in chapels and churches, so long as the performances in them are so silly, so contemptible, so unnatural, so worthless, and so wicked as they generally are. What then? If reading- rooms and libraries, if parks and picture galleries, if museums and crystal palaces are not open on Sunday, many will go to drink-shops, some will go to gambling hells, and some will go to brothels. They will not leave home perhaps with the intention to go to such places. They will leave home with the intention of taking a walk. But it will begin to rain. Or the wind will be too high. Or the day will be too cold. Or the road will be too dirty. They will get tired with their walk, or weary of the weather, and they will enter a drinking-house for shelter or rest. They have no desire for drink; but they cannot have the accommodation unless they buy it. So they take it. Iu this way hundreds of thousands are injured, and numbers ruined. The fault is in the Sabbatarians. The guilty parties we the scribes and pharisees, who say, If you will not be saved 6 THE DRINK TRADE in our way, go the other way, and be damned. These scribes and pharisees are the great upholders of the drinking system. These scribes and pharisees are the men who fill the brothels and the gambling hells. They know there are more crimes committed, more visits to infernal places, more diseases contracted, more money lost, more ruin caused on Sundays than on all the other days of the week. But what care they? They know that if they were to sanction or tolerate pleasant and profitable ways of spending the Sunday, their dull and senseless sermons, their false and hypocritical forms, would be almost deserted; and rather than lose their profits or abate their pride, they will give up multitudes to vice and ruin. One of the objects of temperance men should be to abate the power of the priests. They should open their halls on Sun¬ days to lectures, not only on temperance, but on use¬ ful and interesting subjects. They should unite their efforts to get the iniquitous Sunday restriction removed from the Crystal Palace and the British Museum; the public parks and reading-rooms; the libraries and concerts; the botanical and zoological gardens, and all similar institutions. They should try to obtain cheap Sunday trains. They should encourage music and singing. They should estab¬ lish useful Sunday schools, where children and youths can be taught Writing, Arithmetic, Geography and Astronomy, Geology and Chemistry, Botany and Natural History, Philology and Physiology. They should offer remunerative terms to able lecturers. The temperance reform has gone about as far as it can on the old plan. If it is to be carried much farther we must have new methods, fresh agencies. We must accompany our denunciations of drinking and of the dt ink traffic with efforts to lead the people to form habits o thought and reading, and a taste for innocent and useful pleasures. We must at the same time do what we can to lessen the SU PP y 0 drink. While the demand generally insures a su PPly, a supply often insures a demand. If opium be supplied to the Chinese, many Chinese will be led to use it, who otherwise would never have seen the bewitching drug. 6 1 f e y supplied, many will drink who otherwise 2 touch the fascinating poison. The establish- ? r; PS , ^eatly Creased the sale of beer. e multiplication of gin-shops increases the sale of spirits. AND THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 7 A reduction of the duty on spirits would increase the consumption. An increase of duty would lessen the con¬ sumption. “By making things scarce,” say some, “you turn them into luxuries; and so increase people’s desire for them.” This may be true in some cases; but it is not true in all. It is not true with regard to tobacco, drink and opium. It is rather the opposite of the truth. The cheaper and more plentiful you make those loathsome poisons, the more freely do people use them: the more madly do they prize them. They are things which make themselves desired,—that make themselves necessary,—when once people begin to use them. And we know of no instance in "which many people have not begun to use them where they have been offered at tempting prices. They are cheaper in America and Germany than here; and they are more freely used there. They are cheaper in Scotland than here, and in Scotland they are more freely used. They are cheaper in Ireland; and if they are no more freely used there, it is because money is scarcer. The only effect of cheapness in America has been, that in some places the evil had become so appalling and unbearable as to lead to greater efforts on the part of benevolent individuals for the suppression of the use, and the prohibition of the traffic. It should be our endeavour therefore while we try to lessen the demand for drink by converting the drinkers, and giving the young a better training, to try to lessen the supply by placing obstructions in the way of the manufacture and sale of the drinks. We are in favour of the experiment of a Maine Law, or a Permissive Bill. It might not do all we could wish, it might not do all that some people expect,—but it would do something. The great thing, however, is to aid the cause of freedcun and reform, of education and mental culture, geneially. n this way you reach the root of the evil. Tou make men self-governing. You raise up a saviour for them in t en own hearts and in their own characters. Books, papers, study, knowledge, with their attendant virtues and ennob¬ ling pleasures are the saviours of mankind. Let the e *JT e ranee Societies and the Temperance Advocates pon er es things. Many are seeking the patronage of the priests an the churches. This will be the ruin of the cause. It nas •already proved its ruin in many places. It wi pro ruin in more. If you want the cause to prosper, yo 8 THE DRINK TRADE, ETC. make it free. You must allow it to expand. You must ally it with progressive principles, progressive movements progressive men. The orthodox priests and churches will use you for their vile and selfish ends,—they will fetter and enfeeble you,—and then abandon you. But truth and freedom, science and virtue, will be your fast and lasting friends. Ally yourselves with them, and temperance shall make itself felt and respected from the cottage to the Throng and bring all classes in the nation, and all the nations of the earth, to rejoice in its blessings. WORKS PUBLISHED BY IB .A. IR, IKL IE IR, &C O O., MU. KAN'S BUILDINGS, GREAT NEW STREET, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. NOW OUT, No. 1.—THE WAY TO BE HAPPY. Price Id. No. 2.—THEISTIC CONTROVERSY. Price Id. No. 3.—WHAT HAS THE BIBLE DONE FOR WOMAN? Price 2d. No. 4.—SELF-CULTURE. Price 2d. No. 5.— A TRACT FOR THE TIMES.— 1. The Wat to National Wealth and Greatness. 2. The English Constitution and Speculative and Prac¬ tical Reforms. 3. Economy.— The Great Impend¬ ing Danger, and How to Prepare for it. Price Id. ^•6. ^ FEW DISCOVERIES which People will Make if They Set Fairly to Work to Investigate the Question as to the Divine Authority of tiie Bible. Price Id. No. 7.—LOVE AND MARRIAGE. Price 3d. No. 8.— HUMAN PROGRESS; or, The Past, the Present, and the Future or Humanity. Price 2d. BETWEEN MR. BARKER AND tuu 1 B ERG IN PHILADELPHIA. ON IHE DIVINE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. Price 2s. BARKER & PRINTERS M’LEAN’S buildings, great iV ° I BEET, 1LEKT STREET, LONDON, E.C.