May I be allowed, my lords, to congratulate my countrymen and fellow-subjects upon the happy times which are now approaching, in which no man will be disqualified for the privilege of being drunk, when all discontent and disloyalty shall be forgotten, and the people, though now considered by the ministry as their enemies, shall acknowledge the lenity of that government, under which all restraints are taken away.
But to a bill for such desirable purposes, it would be proper, my lords, to prefix a preamble, in which the kindness of our intentions should be more fully explained, that the nation may not mistake our indulgence for cruelty, nor consider their benefactors as their persecutors. If, therefore, this bill be considered and amended, (for why else should it be considered?) in a committee, I shall humbly propose, that it shall be introduced in this manner: "Whereas the designs of the present ministry, whatever they are, cannot be executed without a great number of mercenaries, which mercenaries cannot be hired without money; and whereas the present disposition of this nation to drunkenness inclines us to believe, that they will pay more cheerfully for the undisturbed enjoyment of distilled liquors, than for any other concession that can be made by the government, be it enacted, by the king's most excellent majesty, that no man shall hereafter be denied the right of being drunk, on the following conditions."
This, my lords, to trifle no longer, is the proper preamble to this bill, which contains only the conditions on which the people of this kingdom are to be allowed henceforward to riot in debauchery, in debauchery licensed by law, and countenanced by the magistrates; for there is no doubt but those on whom the inventors of this tax shall confer authority, will be directed to assist their masters in their design to encourage the consumption of that liquor from which such large revenues are expected, and to multiply, without end, those licenses which are to pay a yearly tribute to the crown.
By this unbounded license, my lords, that price will be lessened, from the increase of which the expectations of the efficacy of this law are pretended; for the number of retailers will lessen the value as in all other cases, and lessen it more than this tax will increase it. Besides, it is to be considered, that at present the retailer expects to be paid for the danger which he incurs by an unlawful trade, and will not trust his reputation or his purse to the mercy of his customer, without a profit proportioned to the hazard; but when once the restraint shall be taken away, he will sell for common gain; and it can hardly be imagined, that at present he subjects himself to informations and penalties for less than sixpence a gallon.
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.