The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11

It might be imagined, my lords, that those who had thus far agreed would not easily find any occasion of dispute; nor would any man, unacquainted with the motives by which senatorial debates are too often influenced, suspect, that after the pernicious qualities of this liquor, and the general inclination among the people to the immoderate use of it, had been generally admitted, it could be afterwards inquired, whether it ought to be made more common, whether this universal thirst for poison ought to be encouraged by the legislature, and whether a new statute ought to be made to secure drunkards in the gratification, of their appetites.

To pretend, my lords, that the design of this bill is to prevent or diminish the use of spirits, is to trample upon common sense, and to violate the rules of decency as well as of reason. For when did any man hear, that a commodity was prohibited by licensing its sale? or that to offer and refuse is the same action?

It is, indeed, pleaded, that it will be made dearer by the tax which is proposed, and that the increase of the price will diminish the numbers of the purchasers; but it is at the same time expected, that this tax shall supply the expense of a war on the continent: it is asserted, therefore, that the consumption of spirits will be hindered, and yet that it will be such as may be expected to furnish, from a very small tax, a revenue sufficient for the support of armies, for the reestablishment of the Austrian family, and the repression of the attempts of France.

Surely, my lords, these expectations are not very consistent, nor can it be imagined that they are both formed in the same head, though they may be expressed by the same mouth. It is, however, some recommendation of a statesman, when of his assertions one can be found reasonable or true; and this praise cannot be denied to our present ministers; for though it is undoubtedly false, that this tax will lessen the consumption of spirits, it is certainly true, that it will produce a very large revenue, a revenue that will not fail but with the people from whose debaucheries it arises.

Our ministers will, therefore, have the same honour with their predecessors, of having given rise to a new fund, not indeed for the payment of our debts, but for much more valuable purposes, for the exaltation of our hearts under oppression, for the elevation of our spirits amidst miscarriages and disappointments, and for the cheerful support of those debts which we have lost hopes of paying. They are resolved, my lords, that the nation, which nothing can make wise, shall, while they are at its head, at least be merry; and since publick happiness is the end of government, they seem to imagine that they shall deserve applause by an expedient, which will enable every man to lay his cares asleep, to drown sorrow, and lose in the delights of drunkenness both the publick miseries and his own.

Surely, my lords, men of this unbounded benevolence, and this exalted genius, deserve such honours as were never paid before; they deserve to bestride a butt upon every signpost in the metropolis, or to have their countenances exhibited as tokens where this liquor is to be sold by the license which they have procured. They must be at least remembered to future ages, as the happy politicians who, after all expedients for raising taxes had been employed, discovered a new method of draining the last relicks of the publick wealth, and added a new revenue to the government; nor will those, who shall hereafter enumerate the several funds now established among us, forget, among the benefactors to their country, the illustrious authors of the drinking fund.

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.

No man can pass a single hour in publick places without meeting such objects, or hearing such expressions as disgrace human nature; such as cannot be looked upon without horrour, or heard without indignation, and which there is, however, no possibility of removing or preventing, whilst this hateful liquor is publickly sold. But the visible and obvious effects of these pernicious draughts, however offensive or inconvenient, are yet much less to be dreaded than their more slow and secret operations. That excess of distilled spirits inflames the poor to insolence and fury; that it exposes them either to hurt, by making them insensible of danger, or to punishment, by making them fearless of authority, is not to be reckoned the most fatal consequence of their use; for these effects, though their frequency makes it necessary to suppress them, with regard to each individual are of no long duration; the understanding is in a short time recovered after a single debauch, and the drunkard may return to his employment.

But though the pleasures of drunkenness are quickly at an end, its pains are of longer continuance. These liquors not only infatuate the mind, but poison the body; nor do they produce only momentary fury, but incurable debility and lingering diseases; they not only fill our streets with madmen, and our prisons with criminals, but our hospitals with cripples. Those who have for a time infested the publick walks with their insults, quickly disturb them with their lamentations, and are soon reduced from bullies to beggars, and obliged to solicit alms from those they used to threaten and insult.

Nor does the use of spirits, my lords, only impoverish the publick, by lessening the number of useful and laborious hands, but by cutting off those recruits by which its natural and inevitable losses are to be supplied. The use of distilled liquors impairs the fecundity of the human race, and hinders that increase which providence has ordained for the support of the world. Those women who riot in this poisonous debauchery are quickly disabled from bearing children, by bringing on themselves, in a short time, all the infirmities and weaknesses of age; 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, for which no cure can be expected;'and who, therefore, are an additional burden to the community, and 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.

Thus, my lords, is the great source of power and wealth dried up, the numbers of the people are every day diminished, and, by consequence, our armies must be weakened, our trade abandoned, and our lands uncultivated. To diminish the people of any nation is the most atrocious political crime that it is possible to commit; for it tends not to enslave or impoverish, but to annihilate; not to make a nation miserable, but to make it no longer a nation.

Such, my lords, are the effects of distilled liquors; effects of which I would not have shocked you with the enumeration, had it not been with a design of preventing them; and surely no man will be charged with so trivial an offence as negligence of delicacy, when he is pleading, not for the honour or the life of a single man, but for the peace of the present age, the health of posterity, and the existence of the British people.

After having examined the nature of these liquors, it is natural to inquire, how much they are in use; whether mankind appear to know their quality, and avoid and detest them like other poisons; or whether they are considered as inoffensive, and drank, like other liquors, to raise the spirits, or to gladden the heart; whether they make part of social entertainments, and whether they are handed round at publick tables, without any suspicion of their fatal consequences.

It is well known, my lords, that these liquors have not been long in use among the common people. Spirits were at first only imported from foreign countries, and were, by consequence, too dear for the luxuries of the vulgar. In time it was discovered, that it was practicable to draw from grain, and other products of our own soil, such liquors as, though not equally pleasing to elegant palates with those of other nations, resembled them, at least in their inebriating quality, and might be afforded at an easy rate, and consequently generally purchased.

This discovery, my lords, gave rise to the new trade of distilling, which has been now for many years carried on in this nation, and of the progress of which, since the duties were laid upon its produce, an exact account may be easily obtained, which I thought so necessary in our deliberations on this bill, that I have procured it to be drawn out.

From this account, my lords, it will be discovered, what cannot be related without the utmost grief, that there has prevailed, for many years, a kind of contagious infatuation among the common people, by which they have been incited to poison themselves and their children with distilled spirits; they have forsaken those liquors which in former times enlivened their conversation and exalted their merriment, and, instead of ale and beer, rioted of late in distilled spirits.

The amazing increase of the consumption of spirits for the last ten years, is a proof too evident of the prevalence of this destructive species of drunkenness; and I shall, therefore, without troubling your lordships with earlier accounts, only mention in round numbers, the vast quantities for which the duty has been paid for a few years in that period. In the year 1733, the number of gallons distilled was three millions and nine hundred thousand, which in 1735 was increased to five millions and three hundred thousand; soon afterwards the law was made which we are now persuaded to repeal, by the execution of which, however feeble and irresolute, the number was reduced in the first year afterwards to three millions, and might, perhaps, by steady perseverance have been every year lessened; but in a short time the people prevailed in the contest with the legislators, they intimidated information, and wearied prosecution; and were at length allowed to indulge themselves in the enjoyment of their favourite vice without any farther molestation.

The effects of this indulgence, my lords, have been very remarkable; nor can it be denied, that the government betrayed great weakness in suffering the laws to be overruled by drunkenness, and the meanest and most profligate of the people to set the statutes at defiance; for the vice which had been so feebly opposed spread wider and wider, and every year added regularly another million of gallons to the quantity of spirits distilled, till in the last year they rose to seven millions and one hundred thousand gallons.

Such, my lords, is at present the state of the nation; twelve millions of gallons of these poisonous liquors are every year swallowed by the inhabitants of this kingdom; and this quantity, enormous as it is, will probably every year increase, till the number of the people shall be sensibly diminished by the diseases which it must produce; nor shall we find any decay of this pernicious trade, but by the general mortality that will overspread the kingdom.

At least, if this vice should be suppressed, it must be suppressed by some supernatural interposition of providence; for nothing is more absurd, than to imagine, that the bill now before us can produce any such effect. For what, my lords, encourages any man to a crime but security from punishment, or what tempts him to the commission of it but frequent opportunity? We are, however, about to reform the practice of drinking spirits, by making spirits more easy to be procured; we are about to hinder them from being bought, by exempting the vender from all fear of punishment.

It has, indeed, been asserted, that the tax now to be laid upon these liquors will have such wonderful effects, that those who are at present drunk twice a-day, will not be henceforward able to commit the same crime twice a-week; an assertion which I could not hear without wondering at the new discoveries which ministerial sagacity can sometimes make. In deliberations on a subject of such importance, my lords, no man ought to content himself with conjecture, where certainty may, at whatsoever expense of labour, be attained; nor ought any man to neglect a careful and attentive examination of his notions, before he offers them in publick consultations; for if they were erroneous, and no man can he certain that he is in the right, who has never brought his own opinions to the test of inquiry, he exposes himself to be detected in ignorance or temerity, and to that contempt which such detection naturally and justly produces; or if his audience submit their reason to his authority, and neglect to examine his assertions, in confidence that he has sufficiently examined them himself, he may suffer what to an honest mind must be far more painful than any personal ignominy, he may languish under the consciousness of having influenced the publick counsels by false declarations, and having by his negligence betrayed his country to calamities which a closer attention might have enabled him to have foreseen.

Whether the noble lord, who alleged the certainty of reformation which this bill will produce, ever examined his own opinion, I know not; but think it necessary at least to consider it more particularly, to supply that proof of it which, if it be true, he neglected to produce, or to show, if it be found false, how little confident assertions are to be regarded.

Between twice a-day and twice a-week, the noble lord will not deny the proportion to be as seven to one; and, therefore, to prevent drunkenness in the degree which he persuades us to expect, the price of the liquor must be raised in the same proportion; but the duty laid upon the gallon will not increase the price a fifth part, even though it should not be eluded by distilling liquors of an extraordinary strength; one fifth part of the price is, therefore, in his lordship's estimate, equal to the whole price seven times multiplied. Such are the arguments which have been produced in favour of this bill; and such is the diligence with which the publick happiness is promoted by those who have hopes of being enriched by publick calamities.

As the tax will not make a fifth part of the price, and even that may be in some measure evaded, the duty paid for licenses scarcely deserves consideration; for it is not intended to hinder retailers, but to make them useful in some degree to the ministry, by paying a yearly tax for the license of poisoning.

It is, therefore, apparent, upon the noble lord's supposition, that the price of the liquor will be raised in consequence of this tax, that no man can be hindered from more than a fifth part of his usual debauchery, which, however, would be some advantage to the publick; but even this small advantage cannot be expected from the bill, because one part will obstruct the benefits that might be hoped from another.

The duty upon liquors, however inconsiderable, will be necessarily an augmentation of the price to the first buyer, but probably that augmentation will be very little felt by the consumer. For, my lords, it must be considered, that many circumstances concur to constitute the price of any commodity; the price of what is in itself cheap, may be raised by the art or the condition of those that sell it; what is engrossed by a few hands, is sold dearer than when the same quantity is dispersed in many; and what is sold in security, and under the protection of the law, is cheaper than that which exposes the vender to prosecutions and penalties.

At present, my lords, distilled spirits are sold in opposition to the laws of the kingdom; and, therefore, it is reasonable, as has been before observed, to believe that an extraordinary profit is expected, because no man will incur danger without advantage. It is at present retailed, for the greatest part, by indigent persons, who cannot be supposed to buy it in large quantities, and, consequently, not at the cheapest rate; and who must, of necessity, gain a large profit, because they are to subsist upon a very small stock.

These causes concurring, may be easily imagined to raise the price more than a fifth part above the profit which is expected in other traffick; but when this bill shall become a law, the necessity of large profit will no longer subsist; for there will then be no danger in retailing spirits, and they will be chiefly sold in houses by persons who can afford to purchase them in great quantities, who can be trusted by the distiller, for the usual time allowed in other trades; and who, therefore, may sell them without any exorbitant advantage.

Besides, my lords, it is reasonable to imagine, that the present profit to the retailer is very great, since, like that which arises from the clandestine exportation of wool, it is sufficient to tempt multitudes to a breach of the law, a contempt of penalties, and a defiance of the magistrates; and it may be therefore imagined, that there is room for a considerable abatement of the price, which may subtract much more than is added by this new duty.

This deduction from the price, my lords, will probably be soon produced by the emulation of retailers, who, when the trade becomes safe and publick, will endeavour to attract buyers by low rates; for what the noble lord, whose ingenious assertion I am now opposing, has declared with respect to traders, that for a tax of a penny upon any commodity, they oblige the consumers to advance twopence, is not universally true; and I believe it is as likely, that the people will insist upon having the same liquor at the usual price, without regard to the tax, as that the venders will be able to raise their price in an unreasonable proportion. The obstinacy of the people with regard to this liquor, my lords, has already appeared; and I am inclined to believe, that they who have confessedly conquered the legislature, will not suffer themselves to be overcome in the same cause by the avarice of alehouse keepers.

I am, therefore, confident, my lords, that this bill will produce no beneficial effects, even in this city; and that in the country, where the sale of spirits was hindered by the late law, or where, at least, it might have been hindered in a great measure, it will propagate wickedness and debauchery in a degree never yet known; the torrent of licentiousness will break at once upon it, and a sudden freedom from restraint will produce a wanton enjoyment of privileges which had never been thought so valuable, had they never been taken away. Thus, while the crowds of the capital are every day thinned by the licensed distributors of poison, the country, which is to be considered as the nursery in which the human species is chiefly propagated, will be made barren; and that race of men will be intercepted, which is to defend the liberty of the neighbouring nations in the next age, which is to extend our commerce to other kingdoms, or repel the encroachments of future usurpation.

The bill, my lords, will, therefore, produce none of the advantages which those who promote it have had the confidence to promise the publick. But let us now examine whether they have not been more sagacious in securing the benefits which they expect from it themselves.

That one of the intentions of it is to raise a sum to supply the present exigencies of the government is not denied; that this is the only intention is generally believed, and believed upon the strongest reasons; for it is the only effect which it can possibly produce; and to this end it is calculated with all the skill of men long versed in the laudable art of contriving taxes and of raising money.

I have already shown to your lordships, that seven millions of gallons of spirits are annually distilled in this kingdom; this consumption, at the small duty of sixpence a gallon, now to be imposed, will produce a yearly revenue of £175,000. and the tax upon licenses may be rated at a very large sum; so that there is a fund sufficient, I hope, for the expenses which a land war is to bring upon us.

But we are not to forget, my lords, that this is only the produce of the first year, and that the tax is likely to afford every year a larger revenue. As the consumption of those liquors, under its late discouragements, has advanced a million of gallons every year, it may be reasonably imagined, that by the countenance of the legislature, and the protection of authority, it will increase in a double proportion; and that in ten years more, twenty millions will be distilled every year for the destruction of the people.

Thus far, my lords, the scheme of the ministry appears prosperous; but all prosperity, at least all the prosperity of dishonesty, must in time have an end. The practice of drinking cannot be for ever continued, because it will hurry the present generation to the grave, and prevent the production of another; the revenue must cease with the consumption, and the consumption must be at an end when the consumers are destroyed.

But this, my lords, cannot speedily happen, nor have our ministers any dread of miseries which are only to fall in distant times upon another generation. It is sufficient for them, if their expedient can supply those exigencies which their counsels have brought upon the publick; if they pay their court to the crown with success, at whatever disadvantage to the people, and continue in power till they have enlarged their fortunes, and then without punishment retire to enjoy them.

But I hope, my lords, that we shall act upon very different principles; that we shall examine the most distant consequences of our resolutions, and consider ourselves, not as the agents of the crown to levy taxes, but as the guardians of the people to promote the publick happiness; that we shall always remember that happiness can be produced only by virtue; and that since this bill can tend only to the increase of debauchery, we shall, without the formality of a commitment, unanimously reject it with indignation and abhorrence.

Lord CARTERET spoke to the following effect:—My lords, the bill now before us has been examined with the utmost acuteness, and opposed with all the arts of eloquence and argumentation; nor has any topick been forgotten that could speciously be employed against it. It has been represented by some as contrary to policy, and by others as opposite to religion; its consequences have been displayed with all the confidence of prediction, and the motives upon which it has been formed, declared to be such as I hope every man abhors who projected or defends it.

It has been asserted, that this bill owes its existence only to the necessity of raising taxes for the support of unnecessary troops, to be employed in useless and dangerous expeditions; and that those who defend it have no regard to the happiness or virtue of the people, nor any other design than to raise supplies, and gratify the ministry.

In pursuance of this scheme of argument, the consequences of this bill have been very artfully deduced, and very copiously explained; and it has been asserted that by passing it, we shall show ourselves the patrons of vice, the defenders of debauchery, and the promoters of drunkenness.