temperance is the growing appetite for spirits, and it would not be very difficult to show that in Paris, at least, the amount of alcohol per head of the population, consumed, is as large as in London. We are, of course, aware that travellers usually express a contrary opinion; but the statistics furnished by wine merchants and by government officials are more authoritative than casual observation. We very much doubt whether the drunkenness of London is obvious to the senses of a traveller who visits it on a tour of pleasure or business. Mark Lane and Mincing Lane, Cheapside or St. Paul's Church Yard, Piccadilly, Regent Street, Pall Mall, or the Parks, will compare favourably with the Champs Elysées or the Boulevards. London has a drunken reputation, Paris a sober one, and the case is prejudged. Those of our readers who have advocated temperance in private or public circles know that there are many Englishmen who, not having seen, refuse to believe the extent of intemperance in their own land. No argument is more usual or hackneyed than that the great mass must not be debarred from enjoyment or liberty because of the few members of the family of Stiggins who abuse their liberty. But no such complacency exists among the clergymen, town missionaries, and other workers in Ratcliffe Highway or Bethnal Green; nor would it long remain in the mind of any intelligent traveller who would carefully and candidly investigate the social state of Paris. It is a fact that drunkenness in Paris is on the increase, and that the great danger to order and government in France is to be found in the wine-shops.

We have before us a letter addressed by Mr. E. C. Delavan, of New York, to a friend in America, which has been published in this country. In 1839 he visited Europe, and devoted himself to the investigation of social questions. In the present year, being again upon a tour of pleasure, he felt compelled by the discussion in England to look again at the facts. We give our readers an extract from his statement of the result; and this, it must be remembered, is not hearsay, or hurried inquiry, or careless observation, but the distinct and positive testimony of an eye-witness of the most undoubted credibility.

I visited one wine-shop with my guide,' says he, last evening (April 30th 1860); I saw the proprietor, and told him that I was curious to see his establishment; he was very polite, and sent a person round with us.

At the lowest, five hundred persons were already assembled, and the people were flocking there in droves; men, women, and children, whole families, young girls alone, boys alone, taking their seats at tables: a mother with an infant on her arm came reeling up one of the passages.

It was an immense establishment, occupying three sides of a square, three or four stories high, and filling rapidly with wine votaries. I saw hundreds in a state of intoxication, to a greater or less degree. All, or nearly all, had wine before them.

The attendant stated to me, that the day before (Sunday) at least two thousand

Eating and Drinking.

169 sand visited the establishment, and that the average consumption of wine was two thousand bottles per day.

This place was considered a rather respectable wine-shop. My guide then took me to another establishment, not ten minutes' ride from the emperor's palace.

The scene here beggars description. I found myself in a narrow lane, filled with men and women of the lowest grade. The first object which met my sight was a man dragging another out of the den by the hair into the lane. Then commenced a most inhuman fight; at least fifty people were at hand, but not a soul attempted to part the combatants.

I then entered into the outer room of the establishment, which was packed full of the most degraded human beings I ever beheld, drinking wine, and talking in loud voices. I did not dare to proceed further.

'I was informed by the cabman that, in the establishment last visited, he had seen from eighty to a hundred and fifty lying drunk at a time; that they frequently drank to beastly drunkenness, and remained until the fumes passed off, for if found drunk in the streets the police take them in charge.

'I was told there were hundreds of such places in Paris as I visited last night.' Such, then, is continental sobriety, and so much for the additional obstacles imposed by Government in the way of all agencies for good.

But there remains, as we have seen, a second argument. The wine licences being granted to eating-houses will, it is said, associate eating and drinking, instead of making drinking a sort of duty of itself

'The definition,' says the Rev. Dr. Burns, in an able letter addressed to the chancellor, of an eating-house merely provides that some eatables shall be present, but not that they shall be consumed. There is nothing in the bill, or that could be inserted in it, which would hinder the opening of shops doing a very small trade, or absolutely none, in eatables, and a "driving trade in wine. Again, if the shop is a bona-fide eating-house, there is nothing in the bill to prevent persons resorting to it for wine-drinking alone; while, in order to make his wine-trade as flourishing as possible, it might be the shopkeeper's interest to set apart wine-rooms for the accommodation of his customers. You strongly insisted on the salutary effect of joining drinking and eating. Some medical men would dispute this teaching, and all abstainers would deny it in respect to intoxicating drinks. But, granting your view to be correct, have you considered that, while eating naturally satisfies, intoxicating liquor naturally excites, and that the wine at dinner may lead to wine after dinner? The old tavern was never a very sober place of resort, though used for eating as well as drinking purposes; and the licensed victuallers' houses have become, as you confessed, places for drinking almost exclusively. What guarantee can you offer that many of the present eating-shops will not equally degenerate? If the frequenters call for wine more than for meat, the owner will only be too happy to oblige them, and to let the course of his trade flow in the direction which gives him least trouble and brings him the greatest gain.'

We conceive this argument to be amply satisfactory.

Only one other branch of the subject yet claims our attention, and in this we may allow ourselves to feel some sympathy with those who have supported the Government measure. There can be little doubt that the bill has been a heavy blow and great discouragement to the licensed victuallers. It has struck directly at their monopoly ; and while it has weakened their power, it has, at the same time, exhibited the hollowness of their pretensions to political influence, and the small danger incurred by public men in

setting

setting them at defiance. With the power of temperance sentiment with him, and not against him as in the case of Mr. Gladstone, any minister may safely regard the opposition of the publicans to any measure as comparatively unimportant. But while we rejoice at this, we do not agree with the reasons which are generally assigned in approval of the policy. Many of those who have advocated Mr. Gladstone's wine bill have done so, not from any clearly-defined notion of the effects of the publican monopoly on public morality, or from any desire that the power of the publican should be weakened for any future contest with temperance men, but from a sort of notion that Mr. Gladstone's bill was a development of the principles of free trade. This has been the cant of the last few months' agitation. The truth is, free trade has nothing to do with the question, but it is a very easy argument to put forward. The measure itself is restrictive of trade, not promotive of free trade. Even in wine the trade is not to be free, it is to be licensed and only conducted within strict limitations, while the measure introduces a tax upon the trade in provisions which did not exist before. But further, 'free trade' has no real connection with a discussion of the safety or danger of any particular 'home' trade. Would any free trader feel bound to advocate the removal of all restrictions in the trade in gunpowder, and the allowance of a stock of any amount within a thickly-inhabited town? The principles of free trade involve the abolition of all duties imposed for the sake of protection,' and mean no more than this, that the consumer shall be at liberty to buy in the best market, even though that market be a foreign one. But they do not involve the abolition of all laws of internal government necessary for public safety, even though those laws prohibit or restrict trade. Equality and not preference, as the rule of commerce, having been established, other considerations may be admitted to determine the home regulations which necessity or convenience may dictate, and which must be applicable to all alike. This distinction is again and again recognized in the treaty with France, which bears the signature of the greatest free trader. In the seventh article, her Britannic Majesty promises to recommend to Parliament to admit into the United Kingdom merchandise imported from France at a rate of duty equal to the excise duty which is or shall be imposed upon articles of the same description in the United Kingdom. The customs is removed, but the foreign produce is placed not upon more favourable, but simply upon equal terms, with the producer at home.

It is understood,' says article 9th, between the two high contracting powers, that if one of them thinks it necessary to establish an excise-tax or inland-duty upon any article of home production or manufacture which is comprised among the preceding enumerated articles, the foreign imported article of the same description may be immediately liable to an equivalent duty on importation.'

But

The Census of New Zealand.

171

But we are not blind to the fact that the great controversy which has yet to be decided in reference to the liquor traffic will turn on this point. The entire licence system must certainly be brought before the legislature for discussion, and the alternatives of prohibition of the common sale of or open trade in drink will, in our opinion, alone present themselves. It is suicidal for temperance men to expend their energies in seeking to patch up and amend a system so rotten as the licence system; their true policy must be, by constant agitation and discussion of a principle, to prepare the public mind. The public mind will never be prepared for prohibition but by the discussion of prohibition; and it will depend upon the unanimity and energy with which temperance men pursue this course, whether the Permissive Maine Law movement in this country shall achieve a rapid success, or be postponed until the desperate mischief of open trade drive the legislature to a course which, if adopted now, would save years of disaster and disgrace to the country.

ART. VII. Statistics of New Zealand for 1858, compiled from Official Records. Auckland: 1860.

IT

T was only in the year 1842 that New Zealand became a British colony. It had been visited on several occasions by the veteran colonial chaplain, the Rev. Samuel Marsden, who may well be styled the apostle of New Zealand. To his civilizing and christianizing influence, much of the success which has crowned European emigration into that interesting colony must be attributed. He had made the acquaintance of a native on board ship, on his return voyage to New South Wales. By means of the kindness which he showed to this unfortunate man, Mr. Marsden's way was opened to the career of philanthropy, which led him to make seven voyages to New Zealand, and which contributed greatly to the advancement of the people. Duaterra, the native referred to, was taught agriculture by him, and was furnished with wheat for sowing. When the grain grew there was no mill to grind it, and savage ingenuity did not even devise the quern, or hollow stone in which to pound the grain. Mr. Marsden sent a hand-mill for grinding corn, which occasioned vast surprise among the people. He also conveyed implements of industry, and introduced the horse, the cow, and the sheep. These various acts of kindness prepared the way for the introduction of the Gospel, and Mr. Marsden was received with unusual confidence by a people who had long been cannibals. At one visit he was the means of promoting peace among contending tribes, and on his next visit each rival chieftain wished the missionary settlement to be within his own domain. The Wesleyan Missionary Society early sent

some

some zealous labourers into this interesting field, and they have reaped their wonted success. The Maories are now, nominally at least, almost all Christians. There are several Maori clergymen in the Episcopal Church, besides a band of zealous native assistant ministers among the Wesleyans.

The first attempt to colonize New Zealand was made in 1839, previously to which time no white men, except the missionaries, and runaway seamen or convicts, resided there. Still more recently, great efforts have been made to plant settlements; and the progress has been rapid, and the results most satisfactory. There are now six provinces in the colony: Wellington, on the eastern side of Cook's Strait; Auckland, and New Plymouth in the North Island; Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago in the Middle Island. Otago was colonized by a zealous band of Presbyterians belonging to the Free Church of Scotland in 1848. These took with them the ecclesiastical and educational organization which they had at home, and set apart a portion of their land for the maintenance of Christian ordinances. The Rev. Thomas Burns, a nephew of the poet, and who had resigned a valuable living in the Church of Scotland at the disruption in 1843, was the first minister. This colony has prospered largely. There are now 6,944 Europeans inhabiting it, of whom about 5,000 are Presbyterians. In the town of Dunedin, the capital of the province, there are 1,712 souls. Canterbury was a settlement formed by members of the Church of England, and was first occupied in 1850. The site made choice of possessed a harbour of its own, an immense extent of land, which it was supposed might easily be brought under cultivation, and removed from danger of disturbance from the natives, of whom there were but few, an extent of grazing country unequalled in New Zealand, and a territory "every way available for being formed into a province, with a separate legislature." The plan was to sell the land at an additional price, and appropriate one-third of the cost to ecclesiastical purposes. The sums thus realized by sales of land were to be placed at the disposal of an ecclesiastical committee, who were empowered to make such arrangements as they might think fit, to organize an endowed church in the colony. Within a year after the arrival of the first band, three thousand emigrants were in the province. The towns of Lyttleton and Christchurch were founded. The former of these now contains 1,135 persons, and the latter, 1,443. In neither of these settlements has there been any exclusion of other sects. Episcopalians abound in Otago, and Presbyterians in Canterbury; and Protestant dissenters, Roman Catholics, and Jews are found in both. All have their separate places of worship. The other colonies have been settled in the ordinary way; but the tone given by the Otago and Canterbury associations has influenced all, so

that