south-western counties that is under inspection; and if Dorsetshire be excepted, the per-centage sinks to 1 in 194·2.'*

What are the remedies for this evil? The Society above mentioned has adopted most of the expedients proposed by Mr. Stephenson at Liverpool, except that a pupil teacher is substituted for a schoolmistress. The following are the alterations of the Minutes which it is proposed to make in favour of parishes containing only 600, or fewer inhabitants :

A. That the teacher employed shall be certificated or registered, an ex-pupil teacher, or a teacher of a parochial union school, with rating not below first class of competency.

B. That the managers pay towards the stipend of the teacher a minimum salary of 231, which sum may be made up of voluntary contributions and schoolpence in whatever proportions the managers may deem best.

In all such cases, when these conditions have been complied with, the Committee would recommend their Lordships to make the following grants and aids :— 1. A pupil teacher for every 25 children in average attendance, in all cases where a certificated or registered teacher has been engaged.

2. A capitation grant of 98. per head for all children, irrespective of the amount of their payments, who may have attended 176 days.

3. Double amount of certificate gratuity (in no case to exceed 207.) to all certificated teachers, and a gratuity of 61. 138. 4d. to all registered teachers, teachers in unions, not rated below first class of competency, and to ex-pupil teachers.

4. A grant of 61., where the managers shall provide lodgings rent free. 5. A moiety of disbursements of school managers for fuel, repairs, apparatus, and books, provided that the amount claimed shall not in any year exceed 5l.'

ART. IV. 1.-Reports of Select Committees of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York (March 11th, 1861) relative to Amending the Constitution so as to Prohibit the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors as Beverages.

2. Report of the Committee appointed by the Legislature of Nova Scotia on the Liquor Traffic. Halifax, N. S. April 12th, 1861.

3. Report of Committee of the Victoria Legislature (1860) on the Traffic in Intoxicating Liquors.

4. Parliamentary Papers on New Zealand relating to the Management of Native Affairs, etc. July 27th, 1860 (No. 492).

5. Report of Deputation from the United Kingdom Alliance to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Wine License Scheme. March 19th, 1860.

6. Speeches of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone in the House of Commons April 15th, April 29th, and May 31st, 1861.

THE

HE relation that the Liquor Traffic sustains towards civil government and social legislation involves one of the greatest and most pregnant problems of the age; and the philosopher,

The Great Social Problem.

131

moralist, or statesman who shall solve this question in the councils of the nation, and bring it to a practical and righteous adjustment, will be deservedly famous throughout future generations, as one of the greatest benefactors and heroes of the race. Until this great social question is manfully dealt with and settled upon a true basis, we may safely predicate that social science and political economy will continue to be fraught with endless entanglements and anomalies, that will thwart the efforts and mock the expectations alike of the philanthropist and political reformer. But there is reason to hope that the true solution of the question is more than an apprehended possibility, and that the time, if not at hand, is rapidly approximating, when no civilized community will tolerate the existence of a traffic which supplies nothing useful or necessary to human existence and happiness, but which sends curses and calamities to every corner of the land.

It is not our present object to describe the anomalous and pestiferous character of the liquor traffic, or the seductive and pernicious nature of intoxicating liquors. Nor is it our aim to discuss the abstract principles of social legislation, as bearing upon the questions involved, either in the license system or in a prohibitory law. We seek rather to set before the reader, in a few rapid sentences, the actual attitude of the governments of the AngloSaxon communities towards the traffic in alcoholic beverages. Our practical object in these statements and remarks is, that we may contribute something, however small the item, that will aid the solution of the problem referred to, and thereby hasten the coming of that good time when sobriety shall be the basis and righteousness the bulwark of society; and when intemperance, our British vice, and the special curse of the Anglo-Saxon race, with its foul brood of social evils, shall be abated by the force of an intelligent and well-directed public opinion embodied in just and efficient legislation.

The New England States of the American Union have taken the lead in what is called the prohibitory policy in regard to the liquor traffic. Each and all of these States, acting upon and carrying out their sovereign powers and prerogatives, have risen in their moral might and social majesty, saying to this traffic in strong drink: Thou art an evil and accursed thing! be thou cast out of our midst!' They have put upon it the ban of the law and of social reprobation. No moral or Christian man, no good, law-abiding citizen in those States, will now dare to embark capital and character in the liquor traffic, knowing that both would be speedily brought to wreck and ruin. The law allows it not, and thereby declares it to be wrong and infamous. None, therefore, but the reckless and the vile will, under these circumstances, defy public sentiment, as embodied in the law of the land,

and

and set up in accordance with the popular will, expressed through the ballot-box.

The Old Bay State of Massachusetts, hand in hand with its younger sister, the State of Maine-the two were formerly one State-have nobly taken the lead in the march of prohibition. Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have followed in the race, with several others of the more western States. Altogether some eight or ten millions of the AngloSaxon race across the Atlantic have put their communal power into direct antagonism with the liquor traffic. No one in those States can sell intoxicating beverages for common use without violating the law and outraging public conscience and morality. That which is not a legitimate branch of trade, but is essentially a social wrong, has become a statutable offence and a crime. These prohibitory laws have now been in existence for periods of seven, eight, and ten years, the first Maine Law having been enacted in 1851. During this period many reactionary attempts have been made to render these laws nugatory, or to wipe them from the Statute Book. One of those efforts, through a complication of political difficulties of a purely party character, was for a time successful. The law in Maine was repealed, and for a season the liquor traffic, under the sanction of a stringent license system, was again allowed to blight and desolate the State.

at the very earliest opportunity the people, with a noble instinct of duty and self-preservation worthy of their Saxon forefathers, rose up as one man, and with a mighty manifestation of their indignant and determined will, declared that the liquor traffic should be totally prohibited.*

Last year, among other amendments adopted by the legislature of Massachusetts, was one whereby

The husband, wife, parent, child, guardian, or employer, of any person who hereafter may have the habit of drinking spirituous or intoxicating liquor to excess, may, in an action of tort against any person or persons who shall sell or deliver unlawfully to the person having such habits, any spirituous or intoxicating liquor, recover as damages, any sum not exceeding five hundred, and not less than twenty-one dollars. A married woman may bring such action in her own name, notwithstanding her coverture, and all damages recovered by her shall go to her separate use. In case of the death of either party, the action and right of action given by this section shall survive to or against his executor or administrator.

Even within the last few months, notwithstanding the absorbing national interests involved in the tremendous conflict going on betwixt the North and the South, several States have been taking advanced action to strengthen or amend their prohibitory acts.

* In Portland, A Board of Trustees,' incorporated under a special act, has been recently established, for the purpose of promoting the interests of temperance in the State, and the Rev, Neal Dow, LL.D., has been appointed chairman. The Board is represented by a weekly paper denominated The Maine Standard, and is empowered to raise and disburse funds in support of the temperance cause. A few

Report of Select Committee, New York Assembly.

133 A few weeks since, a bill was passed through the legislature of Michigan, by a vote of two to one, amending its prohibitory law, by which the illegal lager-beer saloons and tippling shops will find their quietus. The Constitution of the State of Michigan contains a prohibitory liquor clause, so that the legislature cannot license or permit the sale of strong drinks in the State. In the great State of New York, the Empire State' of the Union, as it is called, a prohibitory law, after the pattern of the 'Maine Law,' was adopted in the session of 1855 by large majorities in the legislature, and took effect on July 4th, 1855. The law worked well wherever it was enforced, and the immediate results were marvellous for good. But, as might have been expected, the execution and enforcement of the act was resisted by its enemies, the liquor dealers and their lawyers, at every step. Test cases were carried up to the Court of Appeals and by a majority of one, the law was pronounced unconstitutional by the judges, in regard to some of the provisions or machinery of the Act, but not in respect to its prohibitory principle. After this adverse decision the friends of the law felt themselves powerless to cope with the enemy, who again came in upon them as a flood. On the 16th April, 1857, the present Excise License Law was adopted. It contains some most stringent provisions, and is entitled An Act to Suppress Intemperance and to Regulate the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors.' But, like all other license laws, it has utterly failed to repress intemperance, and the result has been, in every sense, deplorable. Again, however, has the standard of prohibition been raised by the people sending in petitions praying for an amendment of the Constitution of the State, by a concurrent resolution of the Senate and the Assembly, so as to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor as a beverage. These petitions were referred to select committees of the two houses. On the 11th March, 1861, in the Assembly, the chairman of its select committee, Mr. D. J. Wager, submitted his report, signed by all the members of the committee. The following passages will best indicate the spirit and scope of the report:

The subject matter of the several petitions presented to your committee has been duly considered; and from the investigation and reflection given to it, they are fully persuaded that the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is, and always has been, a prolific source of pauperism, crime, and wretchedness. It has imposed heavy burdens upon the people, in the shape of taxation, and greatly added to the expense of the administration of our criminal laws. They are not aware of any good it has ever done, or that it possesses a single redeeming quality; and from the nature and character of the traffic, its past and present history, every page of which is black with horrors, they believe its further continuance by legislative sanction would be a crime.

The civilized world is raising its voice against it, awakened from its long, protracted stupor, by recent developments of science and a more perfect understanding of the truths of the Bible. All patriotic men, and all Christian men now

unite to condemn it, as ruinous to the health, morals, and happiness of society. Time and experience, the common arbiters and touchstone by which to test the merit of all propositions and questions relating to the individual, social, or public weal, have pronounced judgment of condemnation against it.

The moralist and the statesman, the man of science and the man of God, all unite in bearing witness against it, as the most uncompromising enemy to the individual, social, and moral well-being of man, and the progress of the race, that the ingenuity or malice of man ever devised.

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If the sale of intoxicating liquors as beverages be a good thing, then away with monopolies. Do not abridge by legislative restrictions a common-law right. If it is a rightful business, then it is a lawful business. And all men have a right to engage in it. And law-makers are bound faithfully to protect them in the exercise thereof. And if protection in a lawful business is a duty toward all, then denying it to one and extending it to another, is in derogation of a natural right, and an act of palpable injustice.

The restriction of the sale of intoxicating drinks to the few, and prohibiting it to the many, is an acknowledgment that it has a pernicious tendency.

If prohibition is an act of justice to many, then it is justice to all. No legislature would think of licensing a man to sell butter, cheese, grain, horses, dry goods, or land. Why not? Because it is a common-law right to engage in such business. No legislature would think of licensing a man to commit theft, robbery,. burglary, or murder. Why not? Because it is wrong-forbidden by the common law. A right therefore is to be protected because it is right, and wrong prohibited because it is wrong, without regard to the nature or extent of the right or the character of the wrong. Legalizing a wrong can never make it right; prohibiting a right can never make it wrong. The air we breathe, the light of heaven that we enjoy, and the earth on which we tread, are natural rights, free and accessible to all without distinction; but no more so than occupations that injure nobody.

Tested by these principles, your committee cannot perceive how the license system can be just or expedient.'

Having shown the necessity, and asserted the right of prohibition, the committee proceed to state their objections to a license system :

Our opposition to it is predicated upon the following grounds :—

⚫ Because it has always proved a failure wherever it has prevailed, as an antidote to intemperance, in every age and in every country.

Because it is the province of the legislature to protect the whole people, and not a privileged few.

Because a licensed sale of intoxicating beverages encourages drinking, thereby directly tending to induce and perpetuate all the vices of intemperance.

Because it is of immoral tendency, corrupting the heart, destroying the body, polluting the morals, demoralizing the character, debauching and debasing whole classes of society.

Because multitudes congregate in places where intoxicating liquors are sold according to law; there appetites are formed; there drunkenness usually begins; there pauperism and crime date their origin.

Because the protection which the law affords gives a kind of respectability to the traffic in the eyes of the world.

Because it increases the expenses of the State, augments the taxes and burdens of the people, according to recent reliable statistics, more than one-half.

Because it leads men into temptation, beguiles them from useful and honest industry, begets indolence and sloth, "a slothfulness that casteth into a deep sleep," ," "and sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears."

Because, by the abolition of licenses, the ballot boxes, the security of freemen, would be emancipated from the control of liquor-vendors, thereby securing and perpetuating the liberty of the citizen, the blessings of our free institutions, and. the inalienable rights of man for generations to come.

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