I, my lords, am one of those who are convinced that the bill now
before us, which has been censured as fundamentally wrong, is in
reality fundamentally right; that the end which is proposed by it is
just, and the means which are prescribed in it will accomplish the
purpose for which they were contrived.
The end of this bill, my lords, is to diminish the consumption of
distilled spirits, to restrain the populace of these kingdoms from a
liquor which, when used in excess, has a malignity to the last degree
dangerous, which at once inebriates and poisons, impairs the force of
the understanding, and destroys the vigour of the body; and to attain
this, I think it absolutely right to lay a tax upon these liquors.
Of the vice of drunkenness, my lords, no man has a stronger abhorrence
than myself; of the pernicious consequences of these liquors, which
are now chiefly used by the common people, no man is more fully
convinced, and therefore, none can more zealously wish that
drunkenness may be suppressed, and distilled spirits withheld from the
people.
The disorders mentioned by the noble lord, are undoubtedly the
consequences of the present use of these liquors, but these are not
its worst effects.
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