distilleries, and thereby arrest the otherwise inevitable pauperization of the people.

The writer of that pamphlet goes at length into these topics. He shows that several times within the past century distillation from grain was prohibited, in order to secure the people from the horrors of starvation, and that in all cases a great diminution of crime was the result, attended by an immensely increased ability on the part of the people to supply themselves with the comforts of life, which was largely availed of; and although scarcity of food, bordering on actual want, was apprehended, greatly increased exportation of oats took place at those periods, to enable us to pay for our larger imports of various articles, thus proving that no real deficiency of food existed; that all we needed was to avoid madly destroying the products of our fertile soil.

The details of these results are very interesting. I will now shortly give you a few of them. During the years 1809 and 1810 distillation was stopped in consequence of an apprehended scarcity of food. The result was highly gratifying, but very different indeed from what might have been anticipated; for there was a large increase in our importation of drapery, both new and old-of blankets, cotton goods, haberdashery, earthenware, black tea, sugar, and hops. The same results took place in 1813 and 1814. So long since as the year 1843, I petitioned parliament to the following effect :

"To the Honourable and Right Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament Assembled, "The Memorial of the undersigned respectfully prayeth, "That your Honourable House shall forthwith pass a law prohibiting altogether the manufacture of intoxicating drinks in the United Kingdom; it being a fact well ascertained, and not now disputed, that nearly all the crime and misery in the land is caused by the makers of these drinks; the judges and magistrates of the kingdom having frequently declared that, to the use of the deleterious articles manufactured by them may be attributed nearly all the wickedness of the people. Your petitioner, therefore, entreats your Honourable House to grant the prayer of his petition, as it seems to him unwise of any Government to permit the continuance of practices which, by universal consent, are so destructive of the best interests of society."

And, for still further evidence of the rapid growth of sound views on this question, I refer our members to a long and interesting article in the Edinburgh Review for July last, "Teetotalism, and Laws against the Liquor Trade." Truth, though often long overborne by prejudice and selfishness, always triumphs in the long

run.

I annex a table of imports, an examination of which will at once satisfy you of the reality of this pleasing picture. It is only necessary for us to make a good use, instead of an evil use, of the bounties of Providence, to place our people in a condition of abounding comfort and happiness.

The quantity of spirits includes that charged with duty, and that supposed to be smuggled by licensed distillers, and also the foreign spirits of all kinds imported into Ireland.

The statement of imports is extracted from the returns made to parliament in 1822. (See Third and Fourth Reports of Commissioners of Inquiry.)

In the years 1816 and 1817, in consequence of a great increase in the duty on spirits, illicit distillation was very prevalent, which accounts for diminished imports in these two years.

In order to pay for these large imports of the comforts and luxuries of life, we were obliged, as I have stated, to export increased quantities of grain and other produce. The export of oats (the grain principally used in distillation) during the periods referred to, was, as per returns of the collector of imports and exports for 1809 and 1813, so great, that its increased value was annually, during those years of scarcity, £500,000 over the years 1807 and 1811, which were years of plenty.

But this statement does not give any true idea of what would be the real gain to our country if the destruction of grain by distillation and brewing were entirely put a stop to. We have no means of ascertaining the quantity destroyed by illicit distillation; but it was, and is still, no doubt, very large.

Seeing such advantageous social and commercial results, in the shape of large imports and exports, during seasons of real or apprehended scarcity, what amount of national prosperity might not be calculated on if all our surplus food, in seasons of acknowledged abundance, were exchanged for the comforts and luxuries of life? From the facts I have laid before you, your largest expectations— your most sanguine hopes-could hardly fail to be realized.

I was further asked "Is it the inference which you draw generally, that whenever there has been a temperance movement, the people consumed more manufactured goods?"—" Yes. The period to which I am now referring was long before temperance was thought of; the people were only prevented from drinking whiskey because they could not get the article; it was not manufactured. I draw the inference that if we could now prohibit altogether the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors and other intoxicating drinks, the same happy results would follow, and they would, no doubt, be permanent. The conclusion which seems to my mind inevitable is, that scarcity is created by the destruction of food in our breweries and distilleries, and that we should never have any scarcity of food but for this cause. I doubt that there was ever a scarcity of food in Ireland, bordering on famine, until the years 1846, 1847, and 1848."

"Your own principles would carry you far beyond closing public houses on Sunday, to the adoption of the Maine Law?"-" Undoubtedly; I see no other real good to be derived from legislation. I do not think that legislation to regulate an evil is either wise or effective. If drinking be an evil it should be suppressed by the legislature; and that it is an evil is universally admitted, for we are constantly endeavouring to limit it."

"Have

made you any calculation as to what would be the saving in the United Kingdom if spirituous liquors were not consumed ?" "If there were an entire disuse of intoxicating drinks, I believe the annual saving would be at least £120,000,000, perhaps £150,000,000. Of this amount the sum actually expended yearly on these drinks is probably seventy or eighty millions of pounds. The balance of loss arises from various causes, such as loss of time; cost of punishing crime; feeding paupers; supporting hospitals and lunatic asylums; loss of shipping, &c., &c. Some fairly deduced calculations have raised the annual loss to even larger amounts than I have stated."

It is full time for intelligent men to take serious thought of these matters. It is the especial duty of an association founded for "Promoting the study of Statistical and Economical Science," to take earnest heed that society shall not want ample information on such vital questions, or be in any doubt as to our anxiety to use all the intellectual and moral forces it may be in our power to wield, in efforts to save the people from the sad consequences resulting from their drinking usages.

Before concluding this paper, I beg to recall your special attention to the table I have extracted from "Morewood's History of Inebriating Liquors." The information it imparts seems to me so startling as to demand our most serious attention. It points out, in the full light of revealed truth, that the appetite for alcoholic stimulants is an increasing appetite-that generation after generation is more and more enslaved by it. The taste for it becomes more and more nearly a universal mania; proving, almost to demonstration, that all who indulge in it are transmitting to their children, and their children's children, an hereditary craving, which renders them less and less able to withstand temptation, and which, if not arrested, must ultimately annihilate all the manliness and virtue of the people.*

In the year 1834, when Mr. J. S. Buckingham brought before the House of Commons his motion for an inquiry into the causes of an increase of national drunkenness, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Althorp, looked upon it as the dream of a man who was insane on that point, and said that he doubted if even a seconder for it could be found in the house.

*So long since as the year 1743, a bill was introduced into the House of Lords for "altering the duties on spirituous liquors" on which occasion Lord Harvey and Lord Lonsdale spoke forcibly against their use. I quote a sentence from each-" If the use of spirituous liquors be encouraged, the diligence of the lower classes, which can only be supported by health, will languish." "Those women who riot in this poisonous debauchery are quickly disabled from bearing children, 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; and who 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."

Prophetic words these, as witnessed by our crimes and our poorhouses. "Drunkenness appears to be in some measure hereditary. scending from parents to their children. This may often arise from bad example and We frequently see it deimitation, but there can be little question that, in many instances at least, it exists as a family predisposition.-Macknish on the " Anatomy of Drunkenness.”

Mr. Buckingham, however, made out so triumphant a case, and his speech on the occasion was of such thrilling interest, the house was constrained to grant the motion, and a most important parliamentary inquiry was the result.

I subjoin but one extract from Mr. Buckingham's powerful address:

"The second document to which I wish to draw the special attention of the House, is one of the most appalling, perhaps, that the history of intemperance has produced. It is a report of the number of men, women, and children who entered within a given time fourteen of the principal gin-shops of London and its suburbs, of which there are two in Whitechapel; three at Mile End; one in East Smithfield; two in Holborn; one in Bloomsbury, and three in Westminster. (The particulars of each house, which I omit, are here given.)

"The grand total for one week only in the fourteen houses selected, the names of which I have seen, and the localities of which I have myself inspected, amounts to no less a number than 269,437, divided in the following proportions, namely, 142,453 men, 108,593 women, and 18,391 children, the women and children united nearly equalling the men, and often surpassing them in the grossness and depravity of their demeanour. Alas! Sir, is it England of which we are speaking; the land of the lovely and the brave-the seat of the sciences and the arts-the school of morality and religion; or are these attributes of excellence ascribed to us in mockery, in order to heighten our sense of sorrow and of shame ?"

The foregoing statistics were taken in the year 1834. The following, of a similar character, were compiled in Edinburgh in the present year, and they equally claim the attention of the political

economist.

A careful examination of the numbers who entered the public houses and taverns in that city, on Sunday the 6th March last, gives the following results:

48,405 Total, being nearly one-third the entire population of the city.

"Women frequently acquire the vice by drinking porter and ale while nursing. These stimulants are usually recommended to them from well-meant but mistaken motives, by their female attendants. Many fine young women are ruined by this pernicious practice. Their persons become gross, their milk unhealthy, and a foundation is too often laid for future indulgence in liquor."—Ibid.

Levison on the "Hereditary Tendency of Drunkenness" (a small pamphlet) also contains much evidence of this tendency; and it is a well-known truth that very many persons have such an overpowering thirst for alcoholic liquors, that they, over and over again, after long periods of entire abstinence from their use, fall into a habit of drunkenness; as if their misery were unavoidable; just as men are often attacked with gout and other diseases which it is acknowledged they inherit from their parents.

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