TEETOTALISM AND THE PERMISSIVE BILL.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 662, 16 April 1870, Page 2

TEETOTALISM AND THE PERMISSIVE BILL.

(to the editor.) Sir — Several paragraphs have been published this yearbyyouonthe abovesubject, but always when a slight defeat of the cause is known, to wit, the last mail on the Right Hon. John Bright. I hive before me the results of some hotly coi^, tested voting in the United States, for license or no license, and the Carolina Spartan Bays the people have decided by a strong majority that whiskey drinking is an evil, and should be suppressed, and not a luxury to be taxed. In England the cause is making great progress. Last yearthe number of petitions for the Permissive Bill was equal to any other three subjects put together, not excluding the Reform or Irish Church Question. Three of the members of the British Government are supporters of the above bill. One Roman Catholic bishop obtained 12,000 signatures to the teetotal pledge in one day in the north of. Ireland in December last. From the report of the House of Convocation, as laid before the Queen, we find over 1300 townships and parishes without any place licensed to sell intoxicating drinks. The number of teetotal statesmen of high rank in the Colonies is increasing. There have been teetotal Premiers in Victoria, South Australia, and in New Zealand, our present Mr Fox. In the older countries, we find Cobden and Bright in England ; Lincoln and Grant in America ; and M. EmilQ Ollivier, the present and first Constitu~ tional Prime Minister of France under Napoleon 111. The fact of the United Kingdom Alliance, at Manchester, for the total suppression of the traffic in all intoxicating liqgors, being able to.expend L 15,000 a year, and always increasing, speaks much for progress in this cause, and its friends are much pleased with the success of late years. Now, sir, I, with many others, ask you to give the victories of the temperance party as well as their defeats. I am, &c, A Teetotaler.