It is always presumed by those who vindicate it, that every
augmentation of the price will necessarily produce a proportionate
decrease of the consumption. This, my lords, is the chief, if not the
only argument that has been advanced, except that which is drawn from
the necessity of raising supplies, and the danger of disgusting the
other house. But this argument, my lords, is evidently fallacious; and
therefore the bill, if it passes, must pass without a single reason,
except immediate convenience.
Let us examine, my lords, this potent argument, which has been
successively urged by all who have endeavoured to vindicate the bill,
and echoed from one to another with all the confidence of
irrefragability; let us consider on what suppositions it is founded,
and we shall soon find how easily it will be dissipated.
It is supposed, by this argument, that every drinker of these liquors
spends as much as he can possibly procure; and that therefore the
least additional price must place part of his pleasure beyond his
reach. This, my lords, cannot be generally true; it is perhaps
generally, if not universally false. It cannot be doubted, but that
many of those who corrupt their minds and bodies with these pernicious
draughts, are above the necessity of constraining their appetites to
escape so small an expense as that which is now to be imposed upon
them; and even of those whose poverty can sink no lower, who are in
reality exhausted by every day's debauch, it is at least as likely
that they will insist upon more pay for their work, or that they will
steal with more rapacity, as that they will suffer themselves to be
debarred from the pleasures of drunkenness.
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