Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 296
Among these, my lords, the clergy have distinguished themselves by a zealous opposition to this growing evil, and have warned their hearers with the warmest concern against the misery and wickedness which must always be the attendants or the followers of drunkenness. One among them [Footnote: Bishop of SARUM.], whose merit has raised him to a seat in this august, assembly, and whose instructions are enforced by the sanctity of his life, has, in a very cogent and pathetical manner, displayed the enormity of this detestable sin, the universality of its prevalence, and the malignity of its effects; and in his discourse on the infirmary of this city, has observed with too much justness, that the lowest of the people are infected with this vice, and that even necessity is become luxurious.
Many other authorities [Footnote: He read the preamble to a former bill, the opinion of the college of physicians.] might be produced, and some others I have now in my hand; but the recital of them would waste the day to no purpose: for surely it is not necessary to show, by a long deduction of authorities, the guilt of drunkenness, or to prove that it weakens the body, or that it depraves the mind, that it makes mankind too feeble for labour, too indolent for application, too stupid for ingenuity, and too daring for the peace of society.
This, surely, my lords, is, therefore, a vice which ought, with the utmost care, to be discouraged by those whose birth or station has conferred upon them the province of watching over the publick happiness; and which, surely, no prospect of present advantage, no arguments of political convenience, will prevail upon this house to promote.
That the natural and evident tendency of this bill is the propagation of drunkenness, cannot be denied, when it is considered that it will increase the temptations to it by making that liquor, which is the favourite of the common people, more common, by multiplying the places at which it is sold, so that none can want an opportunity of yielding to any sudden impulse of his appetite, which will solicit him more powerfully and more incessantly as they are more frequently and more easily gratified.
In defence of a bill like this, my lords, it might be expected, that at least many specious arguments should be offered. It may be justly hoped that no man will rise up in opposition to all laws of heaven and earth, to the wisdom of all legislators, and the experience of every human being, without having formed such a train of arguments as will not easily be disconcerted, or having formed at least such a chain of sophistry as cannot be broken but with difficulty.
And yet, my lords, when I consider what has been offered by all who have hitherto appeared either in publick assemblies, or in private conversation, as advocates for this bill, I can scarcely believe, that they perceive themselves any force in their own arguments; and am inclined to conclude, that they speak only to avoid the imputation of being able to say nothing in defence of their own scheme; that their hope is not to convince by their reasons, but to overpower by their numbers; that they are themselves influenced, not by reason, but by necessity; and that they only encourage luxury, because money is to be raised for the execution of their schemes: and they imagine, that the people will pay more cheerfully for liberty to indulge their appetites, than for any other enjoyment.
The arguments which have been offered, my lords, in vindication of this bill, or at least which I have hitherto heard, are only two, and those two so unhappily associated, that they destroy each other; whatever shall be urged to enforce the second, must in the same proportion invalidate the first; and whoever shall assert, that the first is true, must admit that the second is false.
These positions, my lords, the unlucky positions which are laid down by the defenders of this pernicious bill, are, that it will supply the necessities of the government with a very large standing revenue, on the credit of which, strengthened by the additional security of the sinking fund, a sum will be advanced sufficient to support the expenses of a foreign war; and that at the same time it will lessen the consumption of the liquors from whence this duty is to arise.
By what arts of political ratiocination these propositions are to be reconciled, I am not able to discover. It appears evident, my lords, that large revenues can only be raised by the sale of large quantities; and that larger quantities will in reality be sold, as the price is little or nothing raised, and the venders are greatly increased.
If this will not be the effect, my lords, and if this effect is not expected, why is this bill proposed as sufficient to raise the immense sums which our present exigencies require? Can duties be paid without consumption of the commodity on which they are laid? and is there any other use of spirituous liquors than that of drinking them?
Surely, my lords, it is not expected, that any arguments should be admitted in this house without examination; and yet it might be justly imagined, that this assertion could only be offered in full confidence of an implicit reception, and this tenet be proposed only to those who had resigned their understandings to the dictates of the ministry; for it is implied in this position, that the plenty of a commodity diminishes the demand for it; and that the more freely it is sold, the less it will be bought. It implies, that men will lay voluntary restraints upon themselves, in proportion as they are indulged by their governours; and that all prohibitory laws tend to the promotion of the practices which they condemn; it implies, that a stop can only be put to fornication by increasing the number of prostitutes, and that theft is only to be restrained by leaving your doors open.
I am, for my part, convinced, that drunkards, as well as thieves, are made by opportunity; and that no man will deny himself what he desires, merely because it is allowed him by the laws of his country.
This, my lords, is so evident, that I shall no longer dwell upon the assertion, that the unbounded liberty of retailing spirits will make spirits less used in the nation; but shall examine the second argument, and consider how far it is possible or proper to raise supplies by a tax upon drunkenness.
That large sums will be raised by the bill to which the consent of your lordships is now required, I can readily admit, because the consumption of spirits will certainly be greater, and the licenses taken for retailing them so numerous, that a much lower duty than is proposed will amount yearly to a very large sum; for if the felicity of drunkenness can be more cheaply obtained by buying spirits than ale, when both are to be found at the same place, it is easy to see which will be preferred; this argument, therefore, is irrefragable, and may be urged in favour of the bill without danger of confutation.
But, my lords, it is the business of governours not so much to drain the purses, as to regulate the morals of the people; not only to raise taxes, but to levy them in such a manner as may be least burdensome, and to apply them to purposes which may be most useful; not to raise money by corrupting the nation, that it may be spent in enslaving it.
It has been mentioned by a very celebrated writer, as a rational practice in the exercise of government, to tax such commodities as were abused to the increase of vice, that vice may be discouraged by being made more expensive; and therefore the community in time be set free from it: but the tax which is now proposed, my lords, is of a different kind; it is a tax laid upon vice, indeed, but it is to arise from the licenses granted to wickedness, and its consequences must be the increase of debauchery, not the restraint. It is a tax which will be readily paid, because it will be little felt; and because it will be little felt, it is hoped that multitudes will subject themselves to it.
The act which is now to be repealed, was, indeed, of a very different nature, though perhaps not free from very just objections. It had this advantage at least, that so far as it was put in execution, it obstructed drunkenness; nor has the examination of the officers of excise discovered any imperfection in the law; for it has only failed, because it was timorously or negligently executed. Why it was not vigorously and diligently enforced, I have never yet been able to discover. If the magistrates were threatened by the populace, the necessity of such laws was more plainly proved; for what justifies the severity of coercion but the prevalence of the crime? and what may not be feared from crowds intoxicated with spirits, whose insolence and fury is already such, that they dare to threaten the government by which they are debarred from the use of them?
This, my lords, is a reflection that ought not to be passed slightly over. The nature of our constitution, happy as it is, must be acknowledged to produce this inconvenience, that it inclines the common people to turbulence and sedition; the nature of spirituous liquors is such, that they inflame these dispositions, already too much predominant; and yet the turbulence of the people is made a reason for licensing drunkenness, and allowing, without limitation, the sale of those spirits by which that turbulence must be certainly increased.
It may be, perhaps, urged, (for indeed I know not what else can be decently alleged,) that there is a necessity of raising money, that no other method can be invented, and that, therefore, this ought not to be opposed.
I know, my lords, that ministers generally consider, as the test of each man’s loyalty, the readiness with which he concurs with them in their schemes for raising money; and that they think all opposition to these schemes, which are calculated for the support of the government, the effect of a criminal disaffection; that they always think it a sufficient vindication of any law, that it will bring in very large sums; and that they think no measures pernicious, nor laws dangerous, by which the revenue is not impaired.
If government was instituted only to raise money, these ministerial schemes of policy would be without exception; nor could it be denied, that the present ministers show themselves, by this expedient, uncommon masters of their profession. But the end of government is only to promote virtue, of which happiness is the consequence; and, therefore, to support government by propagating vice, is to support it by means which destroy the end for which it was originally established, and for which its continuance is to be desired.
If money, therefore, cannot be raised but by this bill, if the expenses of the government cannot be defrayed but by corrupting the morals of the people, I shall without scruple declare, that money ought not to be raised, nor the designs of the government supported, because the people can suffer nothing from the failure of publick measures, or even from the dissolution of the government itself, which will be equally to be dreaded or avoided with an universal depravity of morals, and a general decay of corporeal vigour. Even the insolence of a foreign conqueror can inflict nothing more severe than the diseases which debauchery produces; nor can any thing be feared from the disorders of anarchy more dangerous or more calamitous, than the madness of sedition, or the miseries which must ensue to each individual from universal wickedness.
Such, my lords, is the expedient by which we are now about to raise the supplies for the present year; and such is the new method of taxation which the sagacity of our ministers has luckily discovered. A foreign war is to be supported by the destruction of our people at home, and the revenue of the government to be improved by the decay of our manufactures. We are to owe henceforward our power to epidemical diseases, our wealth to the declension of our commerce, and our security to riot and to tumult.
There is yet another consideration, my lords, which ought well to be regarded, before we suffer this bill to pass. Many laws are merely experimental, and have been made, not because the legislature thought them indisputably proper, but because no better could at that time be struck out, and because the arguments in their favour appeared stronger than those against them, or because the questions to which they related were so dark and intricate that nothing was to be determined with certainty, and no other method could therefore be followed, but that of making the first attempts at hazard, and correcting these errours, or supplying these defects which might hereafter be discovered by those lights which time should afford.
Though I am far from thinking, my lords, that the question relating to the effects of this law is either doubtful or obscure; though I am certain that the means of reforming the vice which its advocates pretend it is designed to prevent, are obvious and easy; yet I should have hoped, that the projectors of such a scheme would have allowed at least the uncertainty of the salutary effects expected from it, and would, therefore, have made some provision for the repeal of it when it should be found to fail.
But, my lords, our ministers appear to have thought it sufficient to endear them to their country, and immortalize their names, that they have invented a new method of raising money, and seem to have very little regard to any part of the art of government; they will, at least in their own opinion, have deserved applause, if they leave the publick revenue greater, by whatever diminution of the publick virtue.
They have, therefore, my lords, wisely contrived a necessity of continuing this law, whatever may be its consequences, and how fatal soever its abuses; for they not only mortgage the duties upon spirits for the present supply, but substitute them in the place of another security given to the bank by the pot act; and, therefore, since it will not be easy to form another tax of equal produce, we can have very little hope that this will be remitted.
There will be, indeed, only one method of setting the nation free from the calamities which this law will bring upon it; and as I doubt not but that method will at last be followed, it will certainly deserve the attention of your lordships, as the third consideration to which, in our debates on this bill, particular regard ought to be paid.
That the license of drunkenness, and the unlimited consumption of spirituous liquors, will fill the whole kingdom with idleness, diseases, riots, and confusion, cannot be doubted; nor can it be questioned, but that in a very short time the senate will be crowded with petitions from all the trading bodies in the kingdom, for the regulation of the workmen and servants, for the extinction of turbulence and riot, and for the removal of irresistible temptations to idleness and fraud. These representations may be for a time neglected, but must soon or late be heard; the ministers will be obliged to repeal this law, for the same reason that induced them to propose it. Idleness and sickness will impair our manufactures, and the diminution of our trade will lessen the revenue.
They will then, my lords, find that their scheme, with whatever prospects of profit it may now flatter them, was formed with no extensive views; and that it was only the expedient of political avarice, which sacrificed a greater distant advantage to the immediate satisfaction of present gain. They will find, that they have corrupted the people without obtaining any advantage by their crime, and that they must have recourse to some new contrivance by which their own errours may be retrieved.
In this distress, my lords, they can only do what indeed they now seem to design; they can only repeal this act by charging the debt, which it has enabled them to contract, upon the sinking fund, upon that sacred deposit which was for a time supposed unalienable, and from which arose all the hopes that were sometimes formed by the nation, of being delivered from that load of imposts, which it cannot much longer support. They can only give security for this new debt, by disabling us for ever from paying the former.
The bill now before us, my lords, will, therefore, be equally pernicious in its immediate and remoter consequences; it will first corrupt the people, and destroy our trade, and afterwards intercept that fund which is appropriated to the most useful and desirable of all political purposes, the gradual alleviation of the publick debt.
I hope, my lords, that a bill of this portentous kind, a bill big with innumerable mischiefs, and without one beneficial tendency, will be rejected by this house, without the form of commitment; that it will not be the subject of a debate amongst us, whether we shall consent to poison the nation; and that instead of inquiring, whether the measures which are now pursued by the ministry ought to be supported at the expense of virtue, tranquillity, and trade, we should examine, whether they are not such as ought to be opposed for their own sake, even without the consideration of the immense sums which they apparently demand.
I am, indeed, of opinion, that the success of the present schemes will not be of any benefit to the nation, and believe, likewise, that there is very little prospect of success. I am, at least, convinced, that no advantage can countervail the mischiefs of this detestable bill; which, therefore, I shall steadily oppose, though I have already dwelt upon this subject perhaps too long; yet as I speak only from an unprejudiced regard to the publick, I hope, if any new arguments shall be attempted, that I shall be allowed the liberty of making a reply.
Lord BATHURST replied to the following purport: — My lords, I doubt not but the noble lord has delivered, on this occasion, his real sentiments, and that, in his opinion, the happiness of our country, the regard which ought always to be paid to the promotion of virtue, require that this bill should be rejected. I am far from suspecting, that such an appearance of zeal can conceal any private views, or that such pathetick exclamations can proceed but from a mind really affected with honest anxiety.
This anxiety, my lords, I shall endeavour to dissipate before it has been communicated to others; for I think it no less the duty of every man who approves the publick measures, to vindicate them from misrepresentation, than of him to whom they appear pernicious or dangerous, to warn his fellow-subjects of that danger.
I, my lords, am one of those who are convinced that the bill now before us, which has been censured as fundamentally wrong, is in reality fundamentally right; that the end which is proposed by it is just, and the means which are prescribed in it will accomplish the purpose for which they were contrived.
The end of this bill, my lords, is to diminish the consumption of distilled spirits, to restrain the populace of these kingdoms from a liquor which, when used in excess, has a malignity to the last degree dangerous, which at once inebriates and poisons, impairs the force of the understanding, and destroys the vigour of the body; and to attain this, I think it absolutely right to lay a tax upon these liquors.
