The present political aspect of the licensing question : an address delivered in Liverpool, November 1875 / by J.E. Thorold Rogers.

  • Thorold Rogers
Date:
[1875?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The present political aspect of the licensing question : an address delivered in Liverpool, November 1875 / by J.E. Thorold Rogers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the English workpeople are so detestably had. When a working man comes hack to his home, he feels the misery which he has to endure, and is too often driven from it to the warmth and splen¬ dour of the gin-palace bar. There are excuses for the drunken habits of the English workman ; is there any excuse for the law or custom which makes him the victim of this artificial system 1 I have constantly said that the first parliamentary reform which this country needs is the purification of Parliament; and that the first social reform which should be taken in hand is the abrogation of these powers of settling land which have been usurped in this country, or have been permitted by the legislature. I am sure that until these changes are effected, we shall be kept on the very threshold of moral progress, and can make no way. I detest palliatives. I want remedies; and one can always find social remedies for social evils. If I had a heap of offensive matter before my doors, I should get it carted away. That is a remedy. I should not disguise the stench by pouring a little eau cle Cologne on the top of the heap. That is a palliative. The present Government is, to a certain extent, conscious of what is the genuine cure for certain social mischiefs. The Artizan’s Dwelling Bill of the last session appears to recognise the facts; but, instead of dealing with the cause of the evil, it tries to palliate the evil. I am sorry to say that the palliative is what is likely to be exceedingly mischievous. The bill contains a strong flavour, not of eau de Cologne, but of Commonism ; for I suppose we can see who will have to pay the bill when the Act is put into operation on any considerable scale. I suspect it will be the ratepayer, and I am sure it ought not to be. I have no doubt that when people’s eyes are so far opened as to see the urgency of such reforms as I am indicating, we shall be met by a loud cry that the rights of property are endangered. But these are not the rights of property: they are rights usurped or extorted by persons over property, or, to be more accurate, rights allowed to dead persons to tie up an estate which is held by living persons. I sometimes think that the re-arrangement of the English land system will be assisted by the conviction which some of those who are supposed to profit by it entertain as to the ultimate consequences of the law, and which they begin to see are disastrous. I was talking the other day to the son of one of the wealthiest men in
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