We are to owe henceforward our power to epidemical
diseases, our wealth to the declension of our commerce, and our
security to riot and to tumult.
There is yet another consideration, my lords, which ought well to be
regarded, before we suffer this bill to pass. Many laws are merely
experimental, and have been made, not because the legislature thought
them indisputably proper, but because no better could at that time be
struck out, and because the arguments in their favour appeared
stronger than those against them, or because the questions to which
they related were so dark and intricate that nothing was to be
determined with certainty, and no other method could therefore be
followed, but that of making the first attempts at hazard, and
correcting these errours, or supplying these defects which might
hereafter be discovered by those lights which time should afford.
Though I am far from thinking, my lords, that the question relating to
the effects of this law is either doubtful or obscure; though I am
certain that the means of reforming the vice which its advocates
pretend it is designed to prevent, are obvious and easy; yet I should
have hoped, that the projectors of such a scheme would have allowed at
least the uncertainty of the salutary effects expected from it, and
would, therefore, have made some provision for the repeal of it when
it should be found to fail.
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