TEMPERANCE
488
TEMPERANCE
well-being. Were all its citizens sufficiently self-
controlled the State would have no claim to interfere,
but in its own interests it has to supply by external
pressure defects of personal character. The diffi-
culty, then, is so to legislate that the weak may be
protected without the freedom of the temperate being
unduly infringed. The most obvious thing to do
was to lessen temptation by lessening the number of
licensed houses. But this policy involves evils of
its own. The giving of licences creates a quasi-
monopoloy, and monopolies legally secured have a
tendency to breed fraud of every sort. The drink-
seller tends to become a publican in the old sense.
He pays a heavy sum in excise and licence for the
privilege of trading in liquor, and he must recoup
himself from the purchaser. Hence, on the one hand,
the evils of smuggling or illicit production, and, on
the other, of adulterated liquor, of inducements to
drink to excess, of "tied houses" in the hands of
producers. The heavy taxation, induced both by
considerations of revenue and of social welfare,
crushes out free competition and brings the trade
into a few hands, and thus within the state is begotten
a powerful trust, the interests of which are purely
financial and not necessarily in harmony with those
of the commonwealth. If legislation opposed to
those interests has not behind it, as a permanent
force, the moral sense of the larger and saner part of
the community, it becomes inoperative and defeats
itself. Hence true reform in the matter of the drink
traffic depends ultimately on rightly educated public
opinion.
Until the end of the eighteenth century the medical profession did little to dispel the ancient tradition about the health-giving qualities of strong drink, to which the name given to the distilled essence of fermented liquors, aqtia vitir, and the word "spirit" itself remain as witnesses. And in default of the Church, persecuted and gagged by the civil law, there was none amongst the sects to preach temperance as a principle of ascetics. Isolated physicians like Dr. George Cheyne (1671-1743) had pointed out the dangers of spirit-drinking; Dr. Trotter of Edinburgh and Dr. Rush of Philadelphia both published papers to the same effect in 1788. But it was in the United States that the first combined efforts were made to educate public opinion in this matter. In tracing the history of these voluntary associations which aimed at temperance reform primarily by persuading the individual, it will be convenient to deal with the non-Catholic bodies separately; historically they were the first in the field, and, arising in communities predominantly non-Catholic, they are naturally much more numerous. As will be pointed out, though alike in aim, they sometimes differ in method from Catholic organizations. We cannot pretend to give more than a few salient features of so enduring and widespread a movement.
Influenced by the formation at Boston in 1826 of the Society for the Promotion of Temperance Dr. John Edgar, of Belfast, a Presbyterian, founded on the same lines the Ulster Temperance Society in 1829, and the Rev. G. W. Kerr, a Quaker, a similar society at New Ross. Later in the same year the Glasgow and West of Scotland Society was started by John Dunlop. The next year an English society was formed by Henry Forbes in Bradford. All these and many others which sprang up throughout the British Isles originated in the desire to suppress the spirit- drinking which had become so prevalent, and hence their pledges allowed the moderate use of fermented liquors. It was not unl il 1S32 that at Preston under the advocacy of Jose|)h Livesay total abstainens first appeared, and the word "teetotal", applied to abstinence, came into general use. The new pledge caused a sort of schism in many of the earlier societies, but gradually, as the illogicality of taking alcohol in
one form and renouncing its use in another became
apparent, teetotalism prevailed almost everywhere.
Yet the phenomenon observable to-day, that less
spirit consumption means more consumption of beer,
was evident even then. Another cause of dis.sension
amongst non-Catholic reformers sprang from erro-
neous views about the moral character of strong
drink itself. In their hatred of its abuse, many
extremists declaimed against its use as something
intrinsically evil and thus were betrayed into irra-
tional attitudes which injured their cause. If alcohol
is evil in se, no one is justified in offering it to others,
or in licensing its sale by others. The publican must
be classed with the pandar: the State must put down
the drink traffic by force. In addition to these
violent views, men who based their religion on the
Bible were hard put to it to explain the toleration and
even implicit commendation of the use of wine to
be found in its pages, and a vast controversy arose
over the question whether the "wine" of Scripture
was fermented or not. Undoubtedly, these disputes,
and the adoption in many cases of a standpoint op-
posed to common sense, have done much to prevent
the cause of real temperance from progressing, as
it might have done, outside the Church, and its
practical identification with false religious beliefs
has operated to create distrust of the movement
amongst many Catholics. But, notwithstanding this
ethical confusion amongst the sects, the social and
phj'sical benefits of temperance are so marked that
its advocacy has had a constant and growing influence
upon public opinion. By 1842 the chief societies in
England were, the National Temperance Society,
the British and Foreign Society for the Suppression
of Intemperance, and the British Temperance As.so-
ciation: the Scottish Temperance League was founded
in 1844, and in Ireland all the Protestant bodies had
drawn new vigour from the great campaign of Father
Mathew.
But the mid-century ended in universal political and social disturbance, and the original impulse towards temperance lost for a time much of its vital- ity. Later, in more settled conditions, the campaign against strong drink took on a more scientific char- acter. It aimed, by the organization of women and children, by teaching temperance in the schools, and by setting forth the physical effects of excessive indulgence, at creating such a weight of opinion as to influence the legislature. The juvenile societies, called "Bands of Hope", so marked a feature to-day of Protestant propaganda, were started in 1847. Inspired by the Prohibition Law of Maine (1851) the United Kingdom Alliance, which had for express object "the total and immediate legislative suppres- sion of the traffic in intoxicating liquors as beverages" and which is stiU the most active of modern organi- zations, came into being in Manchester in 1853. We need not trace in greater detail the development during the next half -century of these various societies in the British Isles, a development which, as far as numbers are concerned, is of imposing extent. A recent Presbyterian movement, inaugurated in 1909 in the north of Ireland by the Rev. R. J. Patterson and called "Catch-My-Pal", may be mentioned as having met with nuich success both there and in England. As for other societies, the .Alliance Hand- book (and as regards Ireland and Scotland its enu- meration is by no means exhaustive) reckons 18 tem- perance bodies which are legislati\e and general, 17 which are .sectional (.\riny, Navy, etc.), 22 identi- fied with different "Churches", 14 which are sects or orders of themselves, 10 confined to women, 8 juvenile .societies, ()2 county and 17(1 town societies — - in all 327. These various associations, of course, produce a large amoimt of Temperance literature, whether in book form or as newspapers and tracts. This vigorous polemic, as is natural, has called forth
