THE PERMISSIVE BILE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 543, 13 September 1872, Page 3

THE PERMISSIVE BILE.

The Pein>ia>jve EilJ is leing a-.taekcd on all ridis ami in all'quar'ers. In England a reaction is setting in a ainst it, an 1 in Australia pul'lic feeling seems to be making a deturmii ed stand agaii.tsitsencroacbmmts on civil liberty. Hitherto he eppos tiuii to tLis fanatical movement has been confb ed to thj Press but the pe 'p!e are now taking the matter in lianil IbemsolviS, and associations aie lei g formed wi hj the expiess oh} ct of resisting the meaiure in the inter ests of peisi'iial liberty. The two great ob" jec ions urged against it are that it is an infringement of liberty in a matter within the i r ■ vime of the individual, aild the second that it won'd utteily fail in its object by calling into existei.ee an illicit sale of drinks, which would be far more injurious than the licensed sytem at prestnt ino; eration. Thfi 'Australasian' in an artie'e on this subject points out that the heavy drinking 1.01.is which once jrcvailed so in England, aiegiaduslty anl ra| idly lesb ning under ihe growing enlightens,eut and improving mo'al tene (f the pecple, and tha' it wi uld faea'ly cheek th!s pre. LT'-is to a Eyetcm of legislation, that w> uld as-:Oiiate the cause of liber'y with the use vt diii k. 'Kothing" says the 'Australasian.' 'could be move detrimental to the moral influences tlu»t.a>e working th : s reform than 'o attempt to aid them by a tyiannical law which, a< an E glish paper nbi-erves, would of J execution, aid like Caliban erect a drunkard into a god'."