and an improved society abroad, and by appeals to their emotions and consciences and reason from high-souled and high-hearted men and women whose approbation they covet and whose disgust they shrink from. But the eager philanthropist, nobly impatient of human misery, cannot await all this; he would stamp it out by prohibition, or at least curtail it by the statute as it stands. And yet he ought to remember that he has not been constituted the admeasurer or controller of other men's pleasures or the judge of their conduct, of what they should deem desirable either for their health or their gratification.

It is an old saying, that the longest way round is often the shortest way home, and I fear that our short-cuts may only land us in thickets and morasses and quicksands, in which they have so often landed the most eager and noblest spirits of the past. And I think we are justified in regarding it as a principle, that that legislation is always open to suspicion, which, to provide for the good, real or seeming, of a few, becomes. tyranny to the many. Nor is this fact weakened by the consideration, that such legislation tends to defeat, by artificial obstruction, the great winnowing processes of nature to sift out the weak.

It is a doctrine fraught with enormous dangers, and belongs to the now generally exploded or dying-out dogma of the paternality of governments. In short the whole present movement of the mode of licensing, of Dunkin Bills, and of Prohibitions, appears to me to be retrograde rather than progressive.

But I believe the time is coming when it will be recognized, that the main duty of a Government, if not its only duty, is to see that A does not injure B, and vice versâ, and that it has nothing to do (save this) with interfering with human liberty, or with suppressing or patronizing or cherishing anything. I believe that public spirit and individual effort and social organization for good are damped and even paralysed by governmental substitution, and that we had better revert to the principle underlying a saying attributed to Cromwell, when called upon to interfere in a case deemed meet for suppression, 'Why, gentlemen, I am a constable to keep the peace.'

This whole article by FIDELIS is a most eloquent appeal, impassioned, compact, or

8th.

nate, orderly, and, if we admit the author's premises, most convincing. These premises are:-Ist. That a Government is entitled to curtail the rights of A, if it conceives that thereby it will benefit B, though A may be the better member of society. 2nd. That it is likewise entitled, if it deems proper, to take of the goods or earnings of A in order to carry out its system of benefiting B-B disclaiming all the time against being so benefited, and A opposing the plan as essentially unjust. 3rd. That a system of things characterised by the absence of temptations leading the weak to transgress, would be a far better system of things than that under which we live. 4th. That the principles of Prohibitionists harmonise with those of Christianity, though not with the actual practice of Christ. 5th. That restrictive measures-Gothenburg systems and such-as actually tried, have effected the good so sanguinely anticipated by their authors. 6th. That they have effected this without greater or equal countervailing disadvantages in any other direction. 7th. That we can predict with certainty the future effects of a measure on a being so complexly organised and conditioned as man. That the Mohammedan system which puts at once a strait-waistcoat on the will, far transcends the Christian, which leaves the will free to use but not to abuse. 9th. That the tendency of advancing civilization towards greater and greater freedom of the individual is a tendency in the wrong direction, and ought to be substituted by the doctrine of the paternality of Governments. 10th. That it is the duty of a Government to punish, not only for actual crime, but for vices and failings and that, in addition, it is incumbent on it to relieve society, as far as possible, of the temptations to go wrong. 11th. That natural selection-the survival of the fittest-ought to be cheated in its operation by a universal artificial system of preserving the constitutionally weak, to propagate their weaknesses and uncontrol; instead of endeavoring-by appeals to reason, to the sense of right, to the affections, to self-interest-to rouse the sluggish will and invigorate self-control, and, thus, constituting this the test of their improvability and of their title to survive. 12th. That a Government possesses rights of a kind quite distinct from those possessed by individuals.

These, I conceive, all or most of them, must be postulated to make the argument of Fidelis' other than a passionate, but condensed and powerful, appeal.

I can imagine the effect of the article of FIDELIS on partial and impassioned readers by its effect upon myself. When reading it I am swept along by the torrent and vehemence of her eloquence-the symbols of the impatient, burning, humanity-loving soul, that by sheer energy of will would fain force us to her conclusion in spite of and over all the barriers of logic and reason and sense. But in the cool afterthought, I ask myself, what does it all. amount to? To little or nothing! That in a society of a hundred persons, because three of them, in using, are liable to abuse something, the remaining ninety-seven shall be forced to forego its use. This looks monstrous! But to the eye of reason, the argument is not weakened if you reverse the numbers. We may waive our rights if we choose. If good men, in the interest of humanity, we often have to do so. But neither majorities nor minorities have any right-and the true thinker always confines himself to rights to prevent me, a free human being, from doing what I like, so long as my doing so does not interfere with the equal right of every other man to do what he likes. And we are travelling towards this in spite of all obstructions and retrogressions. A majority have no right to act against right, though they may have the power.

Though drunkenness is denounced in the Bible as a debasing and enormous crime, and though men were wont in the days of Christ to indulge in drunken debauches, yet, in the full view of all this, Christ drank wine himself, made it for others to drink, and never in any case forbad its use, but only its use in excess. And if Christ left the will free, then what grounds have we for thinking that he would hedge it round now with cast-iron impossibility.

I say

this because on former occasions, much more than in the present, the Scriptures had been pressed by FIDELIS into the service of her argument.

Mohammed, indeed, made what he conceived to be an improvement on Christianity by enacting a Maine liquor law. And if a teetotaler wants something stringently prohibitive, he will find his beau ideal of a

legislator there. There he will enjoy a religion that not only prohibits the abuse, but the use, of wine. But in exchanging Christ for Mohammed, he will exchange the far-sighted legislator who touches the springs of human action, for the dogmatic prohibitionist who substitutes for pregnant principles a code of unbending rules, and who, though lopping off the branches, touches not the root.

But what an array of figures! Surely they must convince! And yet they do not. But 'facts are stubborn things.' No: they are, on the contrary, the most soluble things in the world-melt away faster often than sugar in water. What are named facts may be only the appearances of facts, as, in a mirage we see trees and ships in the sky. Every day I hear sensible people speak of facts which are no facts at all. I have a great respect for facts and statistics when collected with the scrupulous care of truthloving and impartial minds, but when pitchforked at us in slovenly round numbers of millions, with no basis for the calculations supplied us-statistics I know not how compiled, possibly in the interest of the theory to be established, by some zealot, who, having received a mental bent through religious or social influence, has, like the leaning tower of Pisa, never been able to grow straight again-for such statisticsand they are most general-I have the smallest possible respect.

But, statistics or no statistics, liberty of speech and of action has been purchased at too high a price-by the blood and mortal agonies of whole armies of the martyrsof humanity-to be bartered for pelf or balanced against a money consideration. Still I hope to be able to show that the argument on the ground of expenditure lies quite the other way. But it is the old question belonging to the tribe-times of the world, and which ought to be relegated to the Sioux and the Blackfeet, or to Sparta and early Rome, whether the individual exists for the State or the State for the individual; whether we are Spartans or men; whether, in short, we belong to ourselves or to other people. It is at bottom a very funny idea, indeed.

But let it come once to be established as a principle that a government or a majority (of one or one million, matters not) may, for the sake of a supposed present or pros

pective good, curtail our rights or restrict our liberties, and we make a breach in the embankment through which the waters may rush in and destroy us. For instance, it might be argued that, inasmuch as scrofula and consumption and hereditary insanity are filling our hospitals and poor-houses and asylums, and since the orphans of such become a burden on society, increasing our taxes and emptying our pockets; and since women's love of dress and show and trinkets has, physicians tell us, taxed their husbands' brains to their utmost tension and beyond it, rendered their lives a miserable struggle and cut them short in midcareer, plunging many of them into drinking and gambling, brain-softening and insanity; and since imprudent and silly marriages are a pregnant source of misery, and throw so many miserable, draggled wives and orphans unprovided for, on charity and the public purse; I think the motto of each of us ought to be excussus propriis aliena curo,' and that a government of force ought to shut up the scrofulous, consumptive, and insanitytainted, lest, in propagating their kind and spreading disease broadcast throughout the land, and filling our hospitals and asylums, ever necessarily enlarged, and in leaving their more and more numerous offspring a charge on the public, we become by-andby pauperised and bankrupt. The vicious, too, ought to be confined; for there is nothing more certain than that vice runs in certain families. The women likewise will have to be looked after, and the sumptuary laws re-enacted. In such a state of things, the magistrates and parliaments will have to regulate the marriages and say who shall marry whom. I think their hands will be pretty full, and that with our beautiful new system of universal intermeddling-of every one interfering with every one; and with a head-censor, and his censors and sub-censors and sub-sub-censors, and a whole army of spies and runners-I think, I say, that FIDELIS, no less than the rest of us, will wish herself well rid of our beautiful system, especially when the tax-collector hands us in from time to time, 'his little bill' for the maintenance of the hobby-horse.

I once heard a preacher say, 'things go on slowly in God's world.' Of the whole sermon this only remains with me. But when pained with wrong-doing, and impatient of the injustice, and sick of the intrigues

and littleness of our poor small life, I recall the words, and they act as a tonic on my mind.

And let our good, earnest 'Fidelis' remember 'festina lente'-the 'lente' being as necessary to progress as the haste. But Prohibition, or the Mohammedan thou-shaltnot-use, ought never to be substituted for the Christian thou-shalt-not-abuse.

FIDELIS argues that we are bound to obey the divine morality which teaches, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."' But if by this FIDELIS means that it is our duty neither to drink a glass of wine nor give it to another to drink, then she is quoting what she conceives to be the principles of Christianity against the practice of Christ, and which therefore are not his principles at all, but an entire misapprehension of them.

Again, says FIDELIS, 'glancing at the present extent of the agitation, we find that distant Sweden seems to have taken the lead, and having tried her "Gothenburg system" for more than ten years in some parts of her dominion, is now, encouraged by the success which seems to have attended it there, endeavouring to extend its operation throughout the kingdom.' DELIS is, of course, honest in her statement here. But

'Audi et alteram partem.'

FI

In the English House of Commons, Mr. Chamberlain, the advocate of the Gothenburg system, made a speech in its favor which was pronounced a 'decided success, and resumed his seat amid general cheering.' His motion was seconded by Sir John Kennaway but was opposed

by a formidable array of unfavorable statistics by Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson. The latter saw great difficulty in the way of adopting the Gothenburg system in this country. All parties in that House desired the reduction of crime and drunkenness. But what were the facts of the case at the model town cited by the hon. member? In Gothenburg convictions for drunkenness were certainly reduced from 2161 in 1865 to 1320 in 1868; but from 1869 to 1872 these convictions had increased to 1581, and in 1874 to 2234-a number larger than before the introduction of the system. Were this system to be tried in England, the great expense of compensating existing publicans

The Gothenburg Licensing Company had a good object in view when established, but the system, it appears, has proved a failure owing to the way in which has been carried out, and is at present only a money-making concern, realising a large amount annually, which forms a considerable income to the town. The drunkenness in Gothenburg is great even among the better classes, and the lower orders consider the company's retail shops as their priviledged resort. These shops are situated in the most frequented thoroughfares, right in the face of laborers and seamen, and I consider are a great temptation to drinking.

Finally, Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson said that the consumption of spirits in Gothenburg had risen in ten years from 66,169 galions to 329,982 gallons. These figures did not favor the belief that the Gothenburg system would diminish drinking in this country.'

Need I add comment?

With regard to the Dunkin Bill and the new license laws, proceeds FIDELIS,' there is little doubt that the more thorough-going

measure of Prohibition would be at once a more effectual and, taking all things into consideration, a fairer measure than the one that seems to press unequally on the poor and the rich, or than one which privileges a certain class to sell liquor and declares that others may not;' and adds, 'the unsatisfactoriness of all license laws has been shown by the almost incredible number which have been successively tried in Britain without solving the difficult problem.' FIDELIS also admits that 'the report of Mr. Totten as to the working of the Dunkin Act is unfavorable;' but this is, as always in similar cases, sought to be accounted for in 'the lack of sufficient machinery,' for

'Hope springs eternal in the human breast,
Man never is, but always to be, blest.'

If we fail, there is always some screw loose; and there always is, always must be. For the jars of the human system will shake loose the screws of any machinery you can devise, when that machinery is not in accord with the fundamental principles which govern the nature of the being with whom you deal; and no law that is founded on injustice and ignorance of man and society can eventually succeed. We must com

mence lower down, do what good we can, organized or alone, and wait. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt.' 'New wine must be put in new bottles.' Man himself must be reformed by the slow process of evolution, his higher powers developed, his tastes improved, his feelings refined, his self-control strengthened, his conscience sensitised, before a state of society can exist for which the best and the strongest are scarcely fitted yet. And there is hope for humanity. In his native condition, the savage is roused only by the strongest excitements, as of war, the chase, etc., and is incapable generally of resisting the appetite for strong drinks, yielding himself almost always and without control to their influence. But this is true of only the exceptions amongst civilized men. Agriculture, mechanics, the arts, gentle games, reading, social intercourse, music, science, philosophy, etc., afford in general adequate excitements to the modified and improved brains of those who have advanced so far on the road of progress out of the primitive state of savagery. Among inordinate appetite for alcoholic excitements such the persons who cannot resist the or the thirst for strong drinks are relatively few, and are destined, we think, to be fewer still, now that the drinking habits of the upper and middle classes of society have so much improved and are improving, and since it is more a disgrace than in past times to be seen drunk. Hence it becomes the duty of every one of us-but without the assumption of any airs of superiority which so ill becomes us-to try, by the exhibition of a good example, by gentle appeals to the conscience and emotional nature, by arguments addressed to the reason, by kindly words of warning and Christian treatment, to elevate those with whom we are brought in contact, and to seek to strengthen them in habits of self-control, and all this in a kindly, natural, and genial way.

But though the unsatisfactoriness of all license laws has been shown;' though, so so far, the Dunkin law has proved a failure; 'Prohibition, at least, cuts the Gordian knot.' So says FIDELIS; and I wholly agree with her. But have we not had too many knots, which refused to be untied, cut by impatient violence-from Alexander's famous feat to the present proposed Prohibition Bill ? Thus: He is a heretic.