Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 300
The specious pretence on which this bill is founded, and, indeed, the only pretence that deserves to be termed specious, is the propriety of taxing vice; but this maxim of government has, on this occasion, been either mistaken or perverted. Vice, my lords, is not properly to be taxed, but suppressed; and heavy taxes are sometimes the only means by which that suppression can be attained. Luxury, my lords, or the excess of that which is pernicious only by its excess, may very properly be taxed, that such excess, though not strictly unlawful, may be made more difficult. But the use of those things which are simply hurtful, hurtful in their own nature, and in every degree, is to be prohibited. None, my lords, ever heard in any nation of a tax upon theft or adultery, because a tax implies a license granted for the use of that which is taxed, to all who shall be willing to pay it.
Drunkenness, my lords, is universally and in all circumstances an evil, and, therefore, ought not to be taxed, but punished; and the means of it not to be made easy by a slight impost, which none can feel, but to be removed out of the reach of the people, and secured by the heaviest taxes, levied with the utmost rigour. I hope those to whose care the religion of the nation is particularly consigned, will unanimously join with me in maintaining the necessity, not of taxing vice, but suppressing it; and unite for the rejection of a bill, by which the future as well as present happiness of thousands must be destroyed.
Lord LONSDALE spoke as follows: — My lords, the bill now before us, has, from its first appearance in the other house, seemed to me of such importance as to deserve the greatest attention, and to demand the most diligent inquiry; and I have, therefore, considered it with uncommon care, and pursued all those inquiries from which I could expect any assistance for discovering its tendency and its consequences, with the nicest and most anxious vigilance.
That my attention and diligence may not wholly terminate in the gratification of idle and useless curiosity, it is proper to inform your lordships of their result; by which I hope to convince you, as I am myself convinced, that this bill cannot become a law, without endangering the lives of thousands, without dispersing diseases over the nation, or without multiplying crimes beyond the possibility of restraint or punishment; that it will fill the land with confusion for a time, by infatuating the people, and afterwards lay it desolate by destroying them.
All my inquiries, my lords, have had one constant and uniform Effect. On what side soever I have turned my speculations, I have found new arguments against this bill, and have discovered new mischiefs comprised in it; mischiefs which, however some may endeavour to overlook them, and others to despise them, will be found in a short time too general to be concealed, and too formidable to be neglected.
The first consideration, in which the necessity of deliberating on this bill engaged me, related to the quality of the liquors which are mentioned in it. With regard to this question, my lords, there was no possibility of long suspense; for the pernicious effects of spirits were confessed equally by all those who countenanced and opposed this new project; nor could any man take a survey of this city without meeting in his way such objects as might make all farther inquiry superfluous. The idleness, the insolence, the debauchery of the common people, and their natural and certain consequences, poverty, diseases, misery, and wickedness, are to be observed without any intention of indulging such disagreeable speculations; in every part of this great metropolis, whoever shall pass along the streets, will find wretches stretched upon the pavement, insensible and motionless, and only removed by the charity of passengers from the danger of being crushed by carriages, or trampled by horses, or strangled with filth in the common sewers; and others, less helpless perhaps, but more dangerous, who have drank too much to fear punishment, but not enough to hinder them from provoking it; who think themselves, in the elevation of drunkenness, entitled to treat all those with contempt whom their dress distinguishes from them, and to resent every injury which, in the heat of their imagination, they suppose themselves to suffer, with the utmost rage of resentment, violence of rudeness, and scurrility of tongue.
No man can pass a single hour in publick places without meeting such objects, or hearing such expressions as disgrace human nature; such as cannot be looked upon without horrour, or heard without indignation, and which there is, however, no possibility of removing or preventing, whilst this hateful liquor is publickly sold. But the visible and obvious effects of these pernicious draughts, however offensive or inconvenient, are yet much less to be dreaded than their more slow and secret operations. That excess of distilled spirits inflames the poor to insolence and fury; that it exposes them either to hurt, by making them insensible of danger, or to punishment, by making them fearless of authority, is not to be reckoned the most fatal consequence of their use; for these effects, though their frequency makes it necessary to suppress them, with regard to each individual are of no long duration; the understanding is in a short time recovered after a single debauch, and the drunkard may return to his employment.
But though the pleasures of drunkenness are quickly at an end, its pains are of longer continuance. These liquors not only infatuate the mind, but poison the body; nor do they produce only momentary fury, but incurable debility and lingering diseases; they not only fill our streets with madmen, and our prisons with criminals, but our hospitals with cripples. Those who have for a time infested the publick walks with their insults, quickly disturb them with their lamentations, and are soon reduced from bullies to beggars, and obliged to solicit alms from those they used to threaten and insult.
Nor does the use of spirits, my lords, only impoverish the publick, by lessening the number of useful and laborious hands, but by cutting off those recruits by which its natural and inevitable losses are to be supplied. The use of distilled liquors impairs the fecundity of the human race, and hinders that increase which providence has ordained for the support of the world. Those women who riot in this poisonous debauchery are quickly disabled from bearing children, by bringing on themselves, in a short time, all the infirmities and weaknesses of age; or, what is yet more destructive to general happiness, produce children diseased from their birth by the vices of their parents, children whose blood is tainted with inveterate and accumulated maladies, for which no cure can be expected;’and who, therefore, are an additional burden to the community, and must be supported through a miserable life by that labour which they cannot share, and must be protected by that community of which they cannot contribute to the defence.
Thus, my lords, is the great source of power and wealth dried up, the numbers of the people are every day diminished, and, by consequence, our armies must be weakened, our trade abandoned, and our lands uncultivated. To diminish the people of any nation is the most atrocious political crime that it is possible to commit; for it tends not to enslave or impoverish, but to annihilate; not to make a nation miserable, but to make it no longer a nation.
Such, my lords, are the effects of distilled liquors; effects of which I would not have shocked you with the enumeration, had it not been with a design of preventing them; and surely no man will be charged with so trivial an offence as negligence of delicacy, when he is pleading, not for the honour or the life of a single man, but for the peace of the present age, the health of posterity, and the existence of the British people.
After having examined the nature of these liquors, it is natural to inquire, how much they are in use; whether mankind appear to know their quality, and avoid and detest them like other poisons; or whether they are considered as inoffensive, and drank, like other liquors, to raise the spirits, or to gladden the heart; whether they make part of social entertainments, and whether they are handed round at publick tables, without any suspicion of their fatal consequences.
It is well known, my lords, that these liquors have not been long in use among the common people. Spirits were at first only imported from foreign countries, and were, by consequence, too dear for the luxuries of the vulgar. In time it was discovered, that it was practicable to draw from grain, and other products of our own soil, such liquors as, though not equally pleasing to elegant palates with those of other nations, resembled them, at least in their inebriating quality, and might be afforded at an easy rate, and consequently generally purchased.
This discovery, my lords, gave rise to the new trade of distilling, which has been now for many years carried on in this nation, and of the progress of which, since the duties were laid upon its produce, an exact account may be easily obtained, which I thought so necessary in our deliberations on this bill, that I have procured it to be drawn out.
From this account, my lords, it will be discovered, what cannot be related without the utmost grief, that there has prevailed, for many years, a kind of contagious infatuation among the common people, by which they have been incited to poison themselves and their children with distilled spirits; they have forsaken those liquors which in former times enlivened their conversation and exalted their merriment, and, instead of ale and beer, rioted of late in distilled spirits.
The amazing increase of the consumption of spirits for the last ten years, is a proof too evident of the prevalence of this destructive species of drunkenness; and I shall, therefore, without troubling your lordships with earlier accounts, only mention in round numbers, the vast quantities for which the duty has been paid for a few years in that period. In the year 1733, the number of gallons distilled was three millions and nine hundred thousand, which in 1735 was increased to five millions and three hundred thousand; soon afterwards the law was made which we are now persuaded to repeal, by the execution of which, however feeble and irresolute, the number was reduced in the first year afterwards to three millions, and might, perhaps, by steady perseverance have been every year lessened; but in a short time the people prevailed in the contest with the legislators, they intimidated information, and wearied prosecution; and were at length allowed to indulge themselves in the enjoyment of their favourite vice without any farther molestation.
The effects of this indulgence, my lords, have been very remarkable; nor can it be denied, that the government betrayed great weakness in suffering the laws to be overruled by drunkenness, and the meanest and most profligate of the people to set the statutes at defiance; for the vice which had been so feebly opposed spread wider and wider, and every year added regularly another million of gallons to the quantity of spirits distilled, till in the last year they rose to seven millions and one hundred thousand gallons.
Such, my lords, is at present the state of the nation; twelve millions of gallons of these poisonous liquors are every year swallowed by the inhabitants of this kingdom; and this quantity, enormous as it is, will probably every year increase, till the number of the people shall be sensibly diminished by the diseases which it must produce; nor shall we find any decay of this pernicious trade, but by the general mortality that will overspread the kingdom.
At least, if this vice should be suppressed, it must be suppressed by some supernatural interposition of providence; for nothing is more absurd, than to imagine, that the bill now before us can produce any such effect. For what, my lords, encourages any man to a crime but security from punishment, or what tempts him to the commission of it but frequent opportunity? We are, however, about to reform the practice of drinking spirits, by making spirits more easy to be procured; we are about to hinder them from being bought, by exempting the vender from all fear of punishment.
It has, indeed, been asserted, that the tax now to be laid upon these liquors will have such wonderful effects, that those who are at present drunk twice a-day, will not be henceforward able to commit the same crime twice a-week; an assertion which I could not hear without wondering at the new discoveries which ministerial sagacity can sometimes make. In deliberations on a subject of such importance, my lords, no man ought to content himself with conjecture, where certainty may, at whatsoever expense of labour, be attained; nor ought any man to neglect a careful and attentive examination of his notions, before he offers them in publick consultations; for if they were erroneous, and no man can he certain that he is in the right, who has never brought his own opinions to the test of inquiry, he exposes himself to be detected in ignorance or temerity, and to that contempt which such detection naturally and justly produces; or if his audience submit their reason to his authority, and neglect to examine his assertions, in confidence that he has sufficiently examined them himself, he may suffer what to an honest mind must be far more painful than any personal ignominy, he may languish under the consciousness of having influenced the publick counsels by false declarations, and having by his negligence betrayed his country to calamities which a closer attention might have enabled him to have foreseen.
Whether the noble lord, who alleged the certainty of reformation which this bill will produce, ever examined his own opinion, I know not; but think it necessary at least to consider it more particularly, to supply that proof of it which, if it be true, he neglected to produce, or to show, if it be found false, how little confident assertions are to be regarded.
Between twice a-day and twice a-week, the noble lord will not deny the proportion to be as seven to one; and, therefore, to prevent drunkenness in the degree which he persuades us to expect, the price of the liquor must be raised in the same proportion; but the duty laid upon the gallon will not increase the price a fifth part, even though it should not be eluded by distilling liquors of an extraordinary strength; one fifth part of the price is, therefore, in his lordship’s estimate, equal to the whole price seven times multiplied. Such are the arguments which have been produced in favour of this bill; and such is the diligence with which the publick happiness is promoted by those who have hopes of being enriched by publick calamities.
As the tax will not make a fifth part of the price, and even that may be in some measure evaded, the duty paid for licenses scarcely deserves consideration; for it is not intended to hinder retailers, but to make them useful in some degree to the ministry, by paying a yearly tax for the license of poisoning.
It is, therefore, apparent, upon the noble lord’s supposition, that the price of the liquor will be raised in consequence of this tax, that no man can be hindered from more than a fifth part of his usual debauchery, which, however, would be some advantage to the publick; but even this small advantage cannot be expected from the bill, because one part will obstruct the benefits that might be hoped from another.
The duty upon liquors, however inconsiderable, will be necessarily an augmentation of the price to the first buyer, but probably that augmentation will be very little felt by the consumer. For, my lords, it must be considered, that many circumstances concur to constitute the price of any commodity; the price of what is in itself cheap, may be raised by the art or the condition of those that sell it; what is engrossed by a few hands, is sold dearer than when the same quantity is dispersed in many; and what is sold in security, and under the protection of the law, is cheaper than that which exposes the vender to prosecutions and penalties.
At present, my lords, distilled spirits are sold in opposition to the laws of the kingdom; and, therefore, it is reasonable, as has been before observed, to believe that an extraordinary profit is expected, because no man will incur danger without advantage. It is at present retailed, for the greatest part, by indigent persons, who cannot be supposed to buy it in large quantities, and, consequently, not at the cheapest rate; and who must, of necessity, gain a large profit, because they are to subsist upon a very small stock.
These causes concurring, may be easily imagined to raise the price more than a fifth part above the profit which is expected in other traffick; but when this bill shall become a law, the necessity of large profit will no longer subsist; for there will then be no danger in retailing spirits, and they will be chiefly sold in houses by persons who can afford to purchase them in great quantities, who can be trusted by the distiller, for the usual time allowed in other trades; and who, therefore, may sell them without any exorbitant advantage.
Besides, my lords, it is reasonable to imagine, that the present profit to the retailer is very great, since, like that which arises from the clandestine exportation of wool, it is sufficient to tempt multitudes to a breach of the law, a contempt of penalties, and a defiance of the magistrates; and it may be therefore imagined, that there is room for a considerable abatement of the price, which may subtract much more than is added by this new duty.
This deduction from the price, my lords, will probably be soon produced by the emulation of retailers, who, when the trade becomes safe and publick, will endeavour to attract buyers by low rates; for what the noble lord, whose ingenious assertion I am now opposing, has declared with respect to traders, that for a tax of a penny upon any commodity, they oblige the consumers to advance twopence, is not universally true; and I believe it is as likely, that the people will insist upon having the same liquor at the usual price, without regard to the tax, as that the venders will be able to raise their price in an unreasonable proportion. The obstinacy of the people with regard to this liquor, my lords, has already appeared; and I am inclined to believe, that they who have confessedly conquered the legislature, will not suffer themselves to be overcome in the same cause by the avarice of alehouse keepers.
I am, therefore, confident, my lords, that this bill will produce no beneficial effects, even in this city; and that in the country, where the sale of spirits was hindered by the late law, or where, at least, it might have been hindered in a great measure, it will propagate wickedness and debauchery in a degree never yet known; the torrent of licentiousness will break at once upon it, and a sudden freedom from restraint will produce a wanton enjoyment of privileges which had never been thought so valuable, had they never been taken away. Thus, while the crowds of the capital are every day thinned by the licensed distributors of poison, the country, which is to be considered as the nursery in which the human species is chiefly propagated, will be made barren; and that race of men will be intercepted, which is to defend the liberty of the neighbouring nations in the next age, which is to extend our commerce to other kingdoms, or repel the encroachments of future usurpation.
