REPORT OF THE DRUNKEN COMMITTEE.
AN amusing document has appeared among the Parliamentary Papers of the week, in the shape of a " Report of the Select Committee of Inquiry on Drunkenness." It commences with a declaration that the higher and middle classes are not so intemperate as in the days of our forefathers, but that the labouring classes are much more so. The causes of this increase of intemperance are divided into two classes ; remote and immediate. The former are stated to be the evil example still set by the tipper classes, and the practice, derived from a remote ancestry, of tippling on all occasions of interest to the hunian race,—such as births, marriages, christenings, funerals, meetings and departures of friends, and "even in the commercial transactions of bargain and sale." The immediate causes are said to be—the increase of gin-shops and the cheapness of gin, " and the additional allurements presented by every new competitor, who seeks to present more powerful attraction, to visiters." The consequences to individual character are thus detailed 6. Destruction of health, disease in every form and shape, prematnre decrepitude in the old, stunted growth awl general debility and decay in the young; loss of life by pamaysins, apoplexies, drowni rigs, burnings. and accidents of various kinds ; delirium trentens, one of the most awfol afflictions of humanity, paralysis, idiocy, madness. and violent death. 7. Destruction of mental capacity and vigour, and extinction of aptitude for learning, as well as if disposition for practising any useful art or industrious occupation. S. Irritation of all the worst passions of the heart, hatred, anger, revenge, with a brutalization of disposition, that breaks asunder and destroys the most endearing bonds of nature and society. a Extinction or all moral and religimm principle ; disregard of truth, indifference to education, violation of chastity, insensibility to shame, and indescribable degradation."
The "consequences to national welfare" are then enumerated
" The destruction of an immense amount ,f wholesome and nutritious grain, given by a bountiful Providence fur the fund of man, which is now converted by distillation into a pion; the highest medical anthorities, examined in great numbers before your Corn. mittee, being uniform in their testimony that ardent spirits are absolutely poisonous to the human constitution ; that in no case whatever are they necessary or even useful to persons in health ; that they are always in every case and to the smallest exteut deleterious, pernicious, or destructive, according to the proportions in which they may be taken into the system ; so that not only is an bnownse amount tf human food destroyed whilst thousands are inadequately fed, but tins food is destroyed in such a mummer as to injure greatly the agricultural producers themselves; for whose grain, but for this perverted and mistaken use of it, there would he more than twice the present demand for the use of the now scantily-fed people, who would then have healthy appetites to consume, and improved means to purchase, nutriment for them-elves and children, in grain as well as in all the other varied productions of the earth."
Losses in trade, fires and shipwrecks at sea; the inefficiency and insubordination of the Army and Navy ; the low estimation of our national character abroad ; " the diminution of the physical power and longevity" of Englishmen ; the poisoning of the "pure and healthy nutriment of infancy ;" the increase of paupers and bastards, prostitutes and thieves; the retardations of all improvement, inventive or industrial, civil or political], moral or religious ; the hindering of education, the weakening of good examples, and the creation of constant and increasing difficulties in the propagation of sound morality and the sublime truths of the gospel,"—in short, all the ills which flesh is heir to, all the sins which frail man commits, all his depraved propensities, are attributable to beer, gin, and whisky.
The Committee have made an estimate of the pecuniary loss sustained by the nation by gin-drinking, and declare it to be "little short of,fifly millions" annually !
Alien come the " Remedies to be applied." These are also divided into two classes ; immediate, and prospective. The right of the Legislature to interfere for the prevention of intemperance is in the first place maintained 52 That the right to exercise legislative intetferenee for the correction of any es!i• which affects the public weal, cannot be questioned, without dissolving society into its primitive elements, and going back to the combined and cooperative state of eivibta lion, wlth all its wholesome and lawfully imposed restraints, to the isolated and lawless condition of savage and salitary nature. 23. That the power to apply correctives, by legislative means, cannot be doubted without supposing the sober, the intelligent, the just, and the moral portion of the community unable to control the excesses of the iguorant and disorderly, which would be to declare our incapacity to maintain the first principles of government, by insuring tlie public safety. 24. That the sound policy of applying legislative power to direct, restrain, or punish. as the case may retinue, the vicious and contaminating peopensities cf the evil disposed, cannot be disputed, without joy:dictating the right of Government to protect the innocent from the tiolence of the guilty ; which would in effect declare all governmeut to be useless, and all lawful authority to be without any intelligible object or end—an admission that would undermine the very first principles of society."
The following are among the remedies, which are declared to be "desirable and practicable to be put into immediate operation."
26. The separation of the houses in which intoxicating drinks are sold into four distinct classes,—I. llouses for the Sale cf beer only, not to be consumed on the premises; 2. Houses for the sale of beer only, to be consumed on the promises. and in which refreshments of food may also Is obtained ; 3. houses for the sale of spirits may, not to be consumed on the premises ; 4. Houses for the accommodation of tr; tigers find travellers, 5' lire bcal and board may be obtained, and by o hum spirits, %vine, and beer may be sold. 7. The limiting the number of such houses of ettelt "lass, in proport ion to population in towns. and to distance and population in country ; the licences for each to be Domini, and granted by magistrates and mutticipr 1 authorities, rather than by the Excise, to be chargeable with larger sums annually than am now paid tbr them, especially Mr the sale of spirits, and to be subject to progressively increasing lines fer disorderly conduct. and fortiiture of licence, and closing up of the houses for repeated offences. :28. The closing of all such houses at earlier hours in the evening thou at pre. sent, and uniformly with eaclt at excepting only in the last class of houses for travellers, which may be opened at any hour hepersons requiring food or beds in the dwelling. 29. The tirst awl second class or houses to be closed on the SabbatIoday, eseept for one hour in the afternoon and one hour in the eve • g, to admit of families Mug supplied with beer at those periods; the third class of houses to be entirely closed during the Sabbath-day ; zonl the fourth class to be closed to 'all visitors on that day, excepting ouly to travellers and the inmates of the dwelling. 30. The making all spirit-shops as open to poblic view as other shops, where vvholesome provisions are sold —such as those of the baker, the butcher, and the fishmonger ; in order that the interior of such spirit-shops may be seen frotn without, and be constantly exposed to public inspection in every part. 31. The refusal of spirit licences to all but those who will engage to confine themselves exclusively to dealing in that article; and conseqtuntly the entire separation itt England, Scotland, and Ireland. of the sale of spirits front groceries, provisions. wine, or beer, exceiaing only in the fimrth class of houses (or hotels), tor travellers, and inmates, or lodgers, as before described." 34. The prohibition of the practice of paying the wages of workmen at public-houses, or any other place where intoxicating drinks are sold. 35. The providing for the payment of sloth vrages to every individual his exact amount, except when combined in families, so as to render it unnecessary for num to frequent the publie.houses. and spend a portion of their earnings to obtain change. 36. The payment of wages at or before the breakfast-hour in the mernings of the accustomed market day in each day, to enable the wives or other providers of workmeu to lay out their earnings in necessary provisions at an early period of the market, instead of risking its dissipation at night in the publichouse. 37. The prohibition of the meetings of all friendly societies, sick clubs, money clubs, masonic lodges, or any other permanent associations of mutual benefit and relief at public-houses or places where intoxicating thinks are sold, as such institutions were not formed expressly for the benefit of such public.houses, and when they are bunii fide associations of mutual help in time of need, can with far more economy and much greater ellieacy rent and occupy for fir ir periodical meetings equally appropriate rooms in other places. 38. The estztblishinent by the joint aid of the Go. vernment and the local authorities and residents on the spot of public walks and gar• dens, or open spaces for athletic and healthy exercises in the open air, in the immediate vicinity of every town, of an extent and character adapted to its population, and of disbid and parish libraries. museums, and re:fall:IA-rooms. acee,sible at the lowest rate of charge, sons to admit of one or the other being visited in any weather and at any time, with the rigid exclusion of all intoxicat iug drinks of every kind from all sliell places, whether in the opeu air or closed. 39. The reduction of the zloty on tea, coffee, and sugar, and all the healthy and unintoxieating articles of drink in ordinary use, so as to place within the reach of all classes the least injurious beverage on much cheaper terms than the most destructive. 40. The establishment of temperance societies in every town and village of the kingdom; the only bond of association bring a voluntary eugagement to abstain front the use of ardent spirits as a customary beverage, aud to tliscourage by precept aud example all habits or intemperance in themselves and others. 43. The removal of all taxes on koowledge, and the extending every facility to the widest spread of useful information to the humblest classes of the community. A national system of education, which should embrace as an esseutial part of the instructions given by it to every child in the kingdom, accurate intormation as to the poisonous and invariably deleterious nature of ardent spirits as au article of diet in any former shape. and the inculcation of a sense of shame at the crime of voluntarily destroying or thoughtlessly obscuring that faculty of reasoning and that consciousness of responsibility which chiefly distinguish man from the brute, and which his Almighty Maker when he created him in his own image implanted in the human race to cultivate, to improve, and to refine, and not to corrupt, to brutalize, and to destroy."
Among the ultimate remedies," are the following vigorous measures......
"4f. The absolute prohibition of Me i reportation from any foreign country, or from our tam colonies, if distilled spirits irs any shape. 47. The equally absolute prohibition of all distillation of ardent spirits from grain, the most important part of the food of man, in our own country. 48. The restriction of distillation from other materials to the inn-poses of the arts, manufactures, and medicine, and the confining the wholesale and retail deal' lug in such articles to the chemists, druggists, and dispensaries alone."
Then follow some statements of the beneficial effects which have resulted in the United States from the establishment of Temperance Societies, and the discontinuance of the use of spirits in vessels of war and the mercantile navy. The Report concludes with these "suggestions "—
" Your Committee, deeply impressed with the long catalogue of evils which they have endeavoured thus briefly and faintly to describe, and feeling the strongest and most earnest desire to lessen ateir number and amount, humbly venture to suggest to the House, the importance of drawing the attention of his Majesty's Government to the immediate introduction of such improvements as your Committee have respectfully te.commended in the Navy and Army, and in the ships einployed in the merchant service; to the causing such other ameliorations to be made iti this respect as can be effected by their authority wherever that may extend ; and to the public declaration of their determination to introduce early in the ensuing session somegtneral and comprehenstye law for the progressive diminution and olio-glee sunwession of all the existing
ties iTt means if intemperance, as the root and parent of abnost every other vice.
As your Committee are fully aware that oue of the most important elements lIz SUCeeSS1111 legislation is the obtaining the full sanction and support of public Opinion In favour of the laws, and as this is most powerful and most enduring when based on careful iuvestigatiou and accurate knowledge as the result, they venture still further to recommend the most extensive circulation during the recess, under the direct sanction of the Legislature, of an abstract of the evidence obtained by this inquiry. in a cheap and portable room.', as was done with the Poor. Lou' Report, to which it would form the best auxiliary ; the national cost of intoxication and its consequences being teufold in amount that of the Vuor.rates, and pauperism itself being indeed chiefly caused by habits of intemperance. of which it is but one out of many melancholy and fatal results."
These extracts will give our readers a fair idea of the contents of this Report, and enable them to refute the ill-natured carping of some who ought to know better, but who have not scrupled to pronounce the document as a mass of commonplace verbiage, and tautological absurdity, deserving rather of ridicule than serious attention. It is, indeed, a melancholy truth, that the Members of the House of Commons roared with laughter during the reading of some parts of the Report; and many are disposed (even after the solemn defence of it by the Chairman, Mr. BUCKINGHAM, and his adjutant, Mr. BAINEs) to regard the whole composition merely as a lengthy jeu d'esprit, after the fashion of KNICKERBOCKER'S New York. But our readers must judge for themselves.
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