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 TEMPERANCE

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TEMPERANCE

well-being. Were all its citizens sufficiently self- controlled the State would have no claim to interfere, but in its own interests it has to supply by external pressure defects of personal character. The diffi- culty, then, is so to legislate that the weak may be protected without the freedom of the temperate being unduly infringed. The most obvious thing to do was to lessen temptation by lessening the number of licensed houses. But this policy involves evils of its own. The giving of licences creates a quasi- monopoloy, and monopolies legally secured have a tendency to breed fraud of every sort. The drink- seller tends to become a publican in the old sense. He pays a heavy sum in excise and licence for the privilege of trading in liquor, and he must recoup himself from the purchaser. Hence, on the one hand, the evils of smuggling or illicit production, and, on the other, of adulterated liquor, of inducements to drink to excess, of "tied houses" in the hands of producers. The heavy taxation, induced both by considerations of revenue and of social welfare, crushes out free competition and brings the trade into a few hands, and thus within the state is begotten a powerful trust, the interests of which are purely financial and not necessarily in harmony with those of the commonwealth. If legislation opposed to those interests has not behind it, as a permanent force, the moral sense of the larger and saner part of the community, it becomes inoperative and defeats itself. Hence true reform in the matter of the drink traffic depends ultimately on rightly educated public opinion.

Until the end of the eighteenth century the medical profession did little to dispel the ancient tradition about the health-giving qualities of strong drink, to which the name given to the distilled essence of fermented liquors, aqtia vitir, and the word "spirit" itself remain as witnesses. And in default of the Church, persecuted and gagged by the civil law, there was none amongst the sects to preach temperance as a principle of ascetics. Isolated physicians like Dr. George Cheyne (1671-1743) had pointed out the dangers of spirit-drinking; Dr. Trotter of Edinburgh and Dr. Rush of Philadelphia both published papers to the same effect in 1788. But it was in the United States that the first combined efforts were made to educate public opinion in this matter. In tracing the history of these voluntary associations which aimed at temperance reform primarily by persuading the individual, it will be convenient to deal with the non-Catholic bodies separately; historically they were the first in the field, and, arising in communities predominantly non-Catholic, they are naturally much more numerous. As will be pointed out, though alike in aim, they sometimes differ in method from Catholic organizations. We cannot pretend to give more than a few salient features of so enduring and widespread a movement.

Influenced by the formation at Boston in 1826 of the Society for the Promotion of Temperance Dr. John Edgar, of Belfast, a Presbyterian, founded on the same lines the Ulster Temperance Society in 1829, and the Rev. G. W. Kerr, a Quaker, a similar society at New Ross. Later in the same year the Glasgow and West of Scotland Society was started by John Dunlop. The next year an English society was formed by Henry Forbes in Bradford. All these and many others which sprang up throughout the British Isles originated in the desire to suppress the spirit- drinking which had become so prevalent, and hence their pledges allowed the moderate use of fermented liquors. It was not unl il 1S32 that at Preston under the advocacy of Jose|)h Livesay total abstainens first appeared, and the word "teetotal", applied to abstinence, came into general use. The new pledge caused a sort of schism in many of the earlier societies, but gradually, as the illogicality of taking alcohol in

one form and renouncing its use in another became apparent, teetotalism prevailed almost everywhere. Yet the phenomenon observable to-day, that less spirit consumption means more consumption of beer, was evident even then. Another cause of dis.sension amongst non-Catholic reformers sprang from erro- neous views about the moral character of strong drink itself. In their hatred of its abuse, many extremists declaimed against its use as something intrinsically evil and thus were betrayed into irra- tional attitudes which injured their cause. If alcohol is evil in se, no one is justified in offering it to others, or in licensing its sale by others. The publican must be classed with the pandar: the State must put down the drink traffic by force. In addition to these violent views, men who based their religion on the Bible were hard put to it to explain the toleration and even implicit commendation of the use of wine to be found in its pages, and a vast controversy arose over the question whether the "wine" of Scripture was fermented or not. Undoubtedly, these disputes, and the adoption in many cases of a standpoint op- posed to common sense, have done much to prevent the cause of real temperance from progressing, as it might have done, outside the Church, and its practical identification with false religious beliefs has operated to create distrust of the movement amongst many Catholics. But, notwithstanding this ethical confusion amongst the sects, the social and phj'sical benefits of temperance are so marked that its advocacy has had a constant and growing influence upon public opinion. By 1842 the chief societies in England were, the National Temperance Society, the British and Foreign Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, and the British Temperance As.so- ciation: the Scottish Temperance League was founded in 1844, and in Ireland all the Protestant bodies had drawn new vigour from the great campaign of Father Mathew.

But the mid-century ended in universal political and social disturbance, and the original impulse towards temperance lost for a time much of its vital- ity. Later, in more settled conditions, the campaign against strong drink took on a more scientific char- acter. It aimed, by the organization of women and children, by teaching temperance in the schools, and by setting forth the physical effects of excessive indulgence, at creating such a weight of opinion as to influence the legislature. The juvenile societies, called "Bands of Hope", so marked a feature to-day of Protestant propaganda, were started in 1847. Inspired by the Prohibition Law of Maine (1851) the United Kingdom Alliance, which had for express object "the total and immediate legislative suppres- sion of the traffic in intoxicating liquors as beverages" and which is stiU the most active of modern organi- zations, came into being in Manchester in 1853. We need not trace in greater detail the development during the next half -century of these various societies in the British Isles, a development which, as far as numbers are concerned, is of imposing extent. A recent Presbyterian movement, inaugurated in 1909 in the north of Ireland by the Rev. R. J. Patterson and called "Catch-My-Pal", may be mentioned as having met with nuich success both there and in England. As for other societies, the .Alliance Hand- book (and as regards Ireland and Scotland its enu- meration is by no means exhaustive) reckons 18 tem- perance bodies which are legislati\e and general, 17 which are .sectional (.\riny, Navy, etc.), 22 identi- fied with different "Churches", 14 which are sects or orders of themselves, 10 confined to women, 8 juvenile .societies, 2 county and 17(1 town societies — - in all 327. These various associations, of course, produce a large amoimt of Temperance literature, whether in book form or as newspapers and tracts. This vigorous polemic, as is natural, has called forth