Thus, my lords, it appears, that the corruption is become universal,
and, therefore, that some remedy ought to be attempted; nor can I
conceive any measures more consistent with justice, or more likely to
produce the end intended by them, than those which are now offered to
your consideration, by which the liquor will be made dearer, too dear
to be lavishly drank by those who are in most danger of using it to
excess; and the number of those who retail it will be diminished by
the necessity of taking a license, and of renewing them every year at
the same expense.
The inefficacy, my lords, of violent methods, and the impossibility of
a total deprivation of any enjoyment which the people have by custom
made familiar and dear to them, sufficiently appears from the event of
the law which is now to be repealed. It is well known, that by that
law the use of spirituous liquors was prohibited to the common people;
that retailers were deterred from vending them by the utmost
encouragement that could be given to informers; and that discoveries
were incited by every art that could be practised, and offenders
punished with the utmost rigour.
Yet what was the effect, my lords, of all this diligence and vigour? A
general panick suppressed, for a few weeks, the practice of selling
the prohibited liquors; but, in a very short time, necessity forced
some, who had nothing to lose, to return to their former trade; these
were suffered sometimes to escape, because nothing was to be gained by
informing against them, and others were encouraged by their example to
imitate them, though with more secrecy and caution; of those, indeed,
many were punished, but many more escaped, and such as were fined
often found the profit greater than the loss.
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