THE PERMISSIVE BILL.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 218, 20 June 1872, Page 3

THE PERMISSIVE BILL.

To the Editor of the THAMES GUARDIAN. Sir, —Seeing your columns have been filled with remarks and opinions from the opponents to the Permissive Bill, and seeing, also, that mere personal fancies arso freely sent forth by your correspondents, I beg to offer a few remarks in favour of the movement. We, as supporters of the bill, like others who have had to struggle against the force of the Press, are perfectly aware that coldness, ridicule, and sneers, will be levelled at us as a body, and perhaps individually. But, sir, our aim is restrict, and ulimately fetter, the demon drink (not the publicans), so that the enormous crimes, vice, and misery caused by drunkenness will be but seldom seen or heard of. There is no more active recruiter of the Lunatic Asylum, gaols, and poor bouses. I believe that, as things now stand, the temptations put in the way of all manner of people to exceed all bounds in the use of intoxicating drink are quite indefensible. But, sir, we level not, nor do we charge the publican as the cause of all this. Most of the mischief under which the Colony is groaning lias, more or less, been caused—and certainly has been intensified by legislation, and, therefore, it is the duty of the Legislature to remove these evils. Many objectors to the Permissive Bill assert that it will interfere with free trade. How many instances can be brought to prove that, so far as the abstract principle is concerned, free trade lias been interfered with. For instance, in this and .hundreds of other towns, has not the

storing and sMc of keio<- ~fireworks, nitro-glycerine, and cum; then again such trades as arc . irimentral to the public health, are they not prohibited to be in the midst of crowded towns and cities—therefore to give to every community the right to decide for itself how much or how little of this drink shall go into the midst of it, is consistent with that self-government which has long I ceti the boast of this colony.—l am. &c., 1.0.0. F.