The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74
Who is Responsible ?
Who is Responsible ?
Such then being the evil, the question arises—What is the cause ? The answer is the strength of alcoholic temptation and the weakness of human nature; and the superficial observer is, therefore, apt to place the responsibility on the drink-seller who holds out the temptation, and the drunkard who succumbs. But this is like blaming the flame and the fuel for the fire. What we want to know is, who set the fire alight ? and who keeps it burning ? In other words, who permits and encourages the drink-seller to perform the function of tempter ? The State does this by giving the drinkseller leave to sell; but it does not do this for his own sake. For whose, then ? Not for the drunkard's, for the State disapproves of drunkards; not for the teetotaller's, for the teetotaller disapproves of drink; but for the sake of the moderate drinker, whose reasonable requirements the State desires to satisfy. It is on account of the moderate drinker that the liquor traffic is tolerated and licensed. And if there were no moderate drinkers? Then there would be no liquor traffic. And if there were no liquor traffic? Then that terrible catalogue of evils which I have merely glanced at would be swept away, that utopian prophecy of Mr. Cham berlain's would be realised, and more would have been achieved for human happiness and virtue than by the combined labours of statesmen and philanthropists for the last 100 years. If, then, we ask again—Who is ultimately responsible for the greatest scourge of modern civilization, who is responsible for the ruthless waste of human life and character, for the impoverishment and degradation of the poor, for the sorrows of the fatherless and the widow, the shivering and the starving ? Our answer can only be (unpleasant as it may be to say it):—Stand forth, O moderate drinker, for thou art the man !