Numbers, my lords, are necessary to success in commerce as in war; if the manufacturers be few, labour will be dear, and the value of the commodity must always be proportioned to the price of labour.
These, my lords, are the arguments by which I have hitherto been incited to oppose this bill, which I have not found that any of its defenders can elude or repel; for they content themselves with a cowardly concession to the multitude, allow them to proceed in wickedness, confess they have found themselves unable to oppose their sovereign pleasure, or to withhold them from pursuing their own inclinations; and, therefore, have sagaciously contrived a scheme, by which they hope to gain some advantage from the vices which they cannot reform.
But who, my lords, can, without horrour and indignation, hear those who are entrusted with the care of the publick, contriving to take advantage of the ruin of their country?
Let others, my lords, vote as their consciences will direct them, I shall likewise follow the dictates of my heart, and shall avoid any concurrence with a scheme, which, though it may for a time benefit the government, must destroy the strength and virtue of the people, and at once impair our trade and depopulate our country.
Lord CARTERET then rose up, and spoke in substance as follows:—My lords, the warmth with which this debate has been hitherto carried on, and with which the progress of this bill has been opposed, is, in my opinion, to be imputed to strong prejudices, formed when the question was first proposed; by which the noble lords have been incited to warm declamations and violent invectives; who, having once heated their minds with suspicions, have not been able to consider the propositions before them with calmness and impartiality; but have pursued their first notions, and have employed their eloquence in displaying the absurdity of positions never advanced, and the mischief of consequences which will never be produced.
It is first to be considered, my lords, that this bill is intended, not to promote, but to hinder, the consumption of spirituous liquors; it is, therefore, by no means necessary to expatiate upon that which is presupposed in the bill, the pernicious quality of spirits, the detestable nature of drunkenness, the wickedness or miseries which are produced by it. Almost all that has been urged by the noble lords who have spoken with the greatest warmth against the bill, may reasonably be conceived to have been advanced for it by those who projected it; of whom it may be justly imagined, that they were fully convinced how much spirits were abused by the common people, and how much that abuse contributed to the wickedness which at present prevails amongst us, since they thought it necessary to prevent them by a new law.
But, my lords, when they saw that the abuse of distilled liquors was in a very high degree detrimental to the publick, they saw, likewise, that the trade of distilling was of great use; that it employed great numbers of our people, and consumed a great part of the produce of our lands; and that, therefore, it could not be suppressed, without injuring the publick, by reducing many families to sudden poverty, and by depriving the farmers of a market for a great part of their corn. In the plains of the western part of this island, the grain that is chiefly cultivated is barley, and that barley is chiefly consumed by the distillers; nor, if they should be at once suppressed, could the husbandman readily sell the produce of his labour and his grounds, or the landlord receive rent for his estate; since it would then produce nothing, or what is in effect the same, nothing that could be sold.
It is, indeed, possible, my lords, that the Dutch might buy it; but then it must be considered, that we must pay them money for the favour, since we allow a premium upon exportation, and that we shall buy it back again in spirits, and, consequently, pay them for manufacturing our own product. For it is not to be imagined, that any law will immediately reclaim the dispositions, or reform the appetites of the people. They are well known to have drank spirits before they were made in our country, and to indulge themselves at present in many kinds of luxury which are yet loaded with a very high tax. It is not, therefore, probable, that upon the imposition of a high duty they will immediately desist from drinking spirits; they will, indeed, as now, drink those which can be most easily procured; and if, by a high tax suddenly imposed, foreign spirits be made cheaper than our own, foreign spirits will only be used, our distillery will be destroyed, and our people will yet not be reformed.
That heavy taxes will not deter the people from any favourite enjoyment, has been already shown by the unsuccessfulness of the last attempt to restrain them from the use of spirits, and may be every day discovered from the use of tobacco, which is universally taken by the common people, though a very high duty is laid upon it, and though a king thought it so pernicious that he employed his pen against it. The commons, therefore, prudently forbore to use violent measures, which might disgust the people, but which they had no reason to believe sufficient to reform them, and thought it more expedient to proceed by more gentle methods, which might operate by imperceptible degrees, and which might be made more forcible and compulsive, if they should be found ineffectual.
Another evil will by this method, likewise, be avoided, which is the certain consequence of high duties; this tax will produce no clandestine frauds nor rebellious defiance of the legislature; the distillers will not be tempted to evade this impost by perjuries, too often practised where the profit of them is great, nor smugglers to assemble in numerous troops with arms in their hands, and carry imported liquors through the country by force, in opposition to the officers of the customs, and the laws of the nation. That this, likewise, is practised upon other occasions to escape heavy taxes, all the weekly papers inform us; nor are there many months in which some of the king's officers are not maimed or murdered doing of their duty.