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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    urgent is indefinitely delayed, because those who strive to handle it from no party point of view, are, hy the perversity which party spirit engenders, commonly treated as impracticable fanatics. The solution of the problem is, however, vital to the existence of the Liberal party. Let us look the facts in the face. At the last general election the confidence of the nation in one party was unmistakably challenged on the licensing question. The publicans declared for open war, and went bodily over to the other side. It is not in human nature to decline a combat which is invited so generally and so heartily. The Liberal party had to confess itself in the wrong in all it had done, and to confess itself, under the circumstances, unable to deal with a solution the discreet settlement of which is vital to society. The harassed people went further : they asserted with ostentatious vehemence, for we saw it in the window of every public-house, that the tendency of Liberal action in Government is distinctly, constantly, permanently irreconcileable with that of the publicans’ rights, actual and prospective. Well, what is to be done 1 The Liberal party must either make war against that which not only threatened, but used all the hostility in its power, which boasts of its victory in the great cause of reaction, and which affects to hold the balance of power, or be content to take a lower line of political duty. There is, however, a third course, that of discovering the means by which society may be invited to adopt remedies for the mischiefs which all intelligent and honest men, of whatever party they may be, allow to be a growing danger to society itself. This latter policy I hope to commend to the favourable consideration of the gentlemen before me. Here, however, I think it will be convenient to point out what, in my opinion, was the error which the late Liberal Government made in dealing with the licensing question, and the sale of alcoholic drinks to be consumed on the premises. I am, of course, unable to anticipate what will be hereafter the expedient which the leaders of the Liberal party may adopt in order to conciliate their avowed and pronounced enemies; but it is clear that at present they are very shy, as a rule, of making any utterance about the topic. The mistake of the past appears to me to be this. The Government entered into the particulars of a measure without having attempted to avow or expound its principle. They failed to do what they ought to have done, and they undertook that which they ought to have left alone.
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