[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Slit,—It is a-little difficult
to understand why I should have incurred the almost sacra indignatio of Mr. Whitbread's letter. All that I have done or tried to do has been to fix attention upon the report lately submitted to the Mayor and the J4stices of the Peace by the Chief Constable of Carlisle— a report confirmed by the explicit testimony of the Mayor and the Bishop of Carlisle—in reference to the beneficial effects of the State Management Scheme in their city: I have said nothing, nor do I wish to say anything, to support what Mr. Whitbread calls " the bland assumption " that the State, which " gives and takes away and is apparently," in eyes like mine, " for ever blessed," possesses the character of infallibility. Mr. Whitbread, who says that he " knows Kings and knows Governments," will not go far astray if he regards the State as the whole community expressing itself in a democracy through its elected Government. My reference to the taxation of the Liquor Trade was directed not against persons like himself, but against those extreme advocates of Temperance who hold that the State would pollute itself if it were to take into its own hands the control of the Trade, for it seems to be a not unreasonable argument that a State, which can justly touch the Trade by collecting taxes from it, may with equal justice touch the Trade, and. I hope, touch it still more effectively, by controlling it altogether. It seemed to me important to show that, if both, Prohibition and Local Option lie, as apparently they do lie, outside the range of practical polities in Great Britain to-day, there may still be a chance of diminishing the evils of strong drink through State Management. Mr. Whitbread denies that the State possesses " the smallest right to control " what he shall eat, what he shall drink, or wherewithal he shall be clothed. But one of the chief interests of a civilized State is the moral welfare of its citizens. That end the State seeks to attain by prohibiting the sale of noxious foods; and by limiting and licensing public-houses ; and if Mr. Whitbread were to show himself insufficiently clad in a public street, it would probably assert its control over him then and there. Does Mr. Whitbread think that the State is not justified in the legislation which prevents the Liquor Trade from exterminating native races in Africa, or which protects certain classes of people, in time of peace and still more of war, against inordinate temptations to drunkenness in Great Britain ? That the Liquor Trade is one of the gravest perils to -the national life has been declared again and again, not by ecclesiastics alone but by statesmen and judges ; and no good patriot can or will make- light of that peril. That is the reason why what is advantageous to the Trade is so often prejudicial to the nation.
In reply to. Mr. Whitbread's final question, let me say that I think the State, if it takes over the Liquor Trade, should take it over at a fair valuation ; but that in deciding the amount of that valuation it may not improperly pay regard to the terrible injury which the Liquor Trade has for so long a time wrought upon men's bodies and souls all over the country and the Empire.--I am, Sir, &c.,
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