We have never been able to support the Permissive Bill,
or to endorse what seem to us the exaggerated ideas of Teetotallers, but there is one strong law which we are surprised they do not attempt to carry. What is the argument against totally pro- hibiting the sale of alcohol to children under fifteen, under penalty of a loss of licence to the seller? Nobody doubts that -children are better without alcohol, as they are without tobacco, late hours, and many other indulgencies not necessarily in- jurious to their elders. They have no natural claim to liberty, which, indeed, in all other matters of educational discipline, is steadily refused them ; and they cannot need the drink, except under circumstances in which their elders would readily procure it for them. Respectable publicans, who keep their own children rigidly away from the bar, would not object to such a law, which, children not being free agents, may be justified on the same principle as the rule forbidding a publican to supply drink to a man already intoxicated. The prohibition, being absolute, would be easily worked ; and it could, we believe, in the present temper of the people, be readily carried through the House of Commons.
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