Extracts from Speech Delivered by Archbishop Manning at Meeting of United Kingdom Alliance (Permissive Bill Society) at Birmingham, October 18th, 1871.

Archbishop Manning, who was introduced in most friendly words by the Chairman, and was much cheered, said:—"Mr. Chairman, I heartily give you joy, and congratulate the United Kingdom Alliance on the circumstances and the auspices under which we meet to-night. For many years you—I wish I could say we, for my participation in your work is recent and is feeble —you for years past have been rowing against a tide so vehement and so obstinate that many thought the attainment of your object was impossible. I will not say that that tide is turned; but I will say that that tide is turning. (Hear, hear.) I will say that though we may not relax our arms, every stroke of the oar sends us onward, and that the tide is turning so that we shall float before it. (Hear, hear.) That which was pronounced impossible has began, in the judgment of all men, to be inevitable. (Hear, hear.) It is a simple question of time, and the work will be done. (Hear, hear.) I have to congratulate you, Sir, first of all on this great change in the public opinion of the country, a change marked in the tone of our public newspapers, which hitherto have trifled with the subject—(Hear, hear)—as forty or fifty years ago, which you, Sir, say you remember, the public newspapers of England trifled with negro slavery until its abolition was inevitable. (Hear.) The change of public opinion has been marked also in Parliament, and marked in the Government. . . .

I wish to congratulate you, Sir, once more upon the fact that the opponents of this course of legislation have began fairly to reason upon it. (Hear, hear.) The first objection was that my Hon. friend's bill was fanaticism. Well, now, it was the fanaticism of Father Mathew, in which I should count it a very great happiness to walk. (Hear, hear.) It is a fanaticism in which I believe all who hear me are prepared to walk onward without relenting, and without looking to the right hand or to the left. We are agreed in these two things—the first is, that drunkenness must be put down—(hear)—and secondly, that the ratepayers, by a vote of two thirds, must have the power to put it down. (Cheers.) If this be fanaticism I confess we are all fanatics together. (Hear, hear.) But before men so speak, let them examine the whole course of our legislation and see whether local self-government page 20 be not the very nature and genius of our whole system. Another objection which was made was this: that it was an extreme measure. I would ask, Sir, whether any remedy to an extreme evil can be adequate and commensurate without being extreme likewise? (Hear.) It must cover the whole wound, or it will not make a cure. (Hear.) And when I look at what that evil is; when I see that it is devouring men, body and soul; that it is devouring women; that it is devouring children; that it is invading classes hitherto free from drunkenness; that in my own flock I know that there are boys and girls of twelve who are beginning to be drinkers of spirits; when I see around mo that homes are wrecked, that children winder barefooted in the streets until they contravene the laws of the land, and, being committed, become hardened criminals, seven-fold worse after their liberation than they were when they entered the prison;—when I see this spreading on every side, and when I know that our whole political fabric—(for I am leaving all question of Christianity and of morals aside for the moment)—is built on piles, and those piles are the social morals of the people, and that drunkenness is fretting away the foundations upon which the whole social and political fabric of the country rests—any man who, seeing this, can for one moment say that the evil is not so extreme that language can hardly adequately give expression to it, and can hesitate to apply any remedy which is alone commensurate, alone efficacious, I cannot count that man either a Christian or a lover of his country. (Hear, hear.) It was but the other day, Sir, that my duties carried me through that part of London which lies on the north bank of the river Thames. I would invite any man who has a doubt upon this subject to walk with me through Ratcliffe Highway. (Hear.) I went to visit the schools of my flock. There were little children, from eight to thirteen years of age, morning and evening, passing through streets, the very atmosphere of which was heavy and rank with sin. There is not a sin which the imagination of man can conceive which is not rife in that North Bank of the River Thames. I saw there figures and faces deformed and defiled by the sin of drunkenness, and therefore, by every other form of sin: a population horrible to look upon, and that is the creation of drink. (Hear.) And when I remember that the majority of the people of Great Britain is to be found in the towns, that the rural people is the minority, and that drink is corrupting and demoralising our town people—those vast centres of your national life—I can only conceive it to be an infatuation in any statesman who does not at once apply an adequate and vigorous remedy to this enormous evil. (Cheers.) So much, Sir, for the extremity of this measure. And now the last and only further objection that I will touch is this. I was told by the same writer, and I thought page 21 it well to take down at least the substance of his words, that this bill of my noble friend was at variance with free Government, Liberal principles, and our constitution. All I can say is, if free government mean unbridled license to manufacture, sell, and drink, I only hope that our own free government may be brought to some rational liberty. (Hear, hear.) If liberal principles mean a free trade in drink, in which the capitalist is to double and turn three and four times over the amount of money invested, by the destruction of men, women and children, home and domestic life, morals and religion, the sooner we look for better principles the better. (Cheers.) But I deny altogether this allegation. I say further, that the whole genius of your constitution bears on the principle of this Bill. In the 6th year of King Edward VI. there was a Statute enacted, and the first of its kind, which runs in these words:—"Forasmuch as intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth of this realm do daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common alehouses, and other houses called tippling houses, be it therefore enacted that the Justices of the Peace shall have power, two of them to remove, discharge, and put away the common selling of ale and beer in the said common alehouses and tippling houses in such town or towns, &c., as they shall think meet and convenient." Well, I ask what have the friends of the Permissive Bill done more than this? The only difference is, that they do not trust the Justices of the Peace—(hear)—and that they do trust the people. (Hear.) And so do I with all my heart, and I do so for a thousand reasons, and one which is sufficient—because they know the mischief under which they suffer. (Hear, hear.) . . . . The working men of England, or the peasantry, or the artisans of England will, I hope, make a strike as I said against the drink trade, because theirs is the only power which can counterbalance the capitalists who brew, and who distil. (Hear, hear.) There is a tyranny of capital over all the springs and powers of politics, and legislation, and the only power in this country that can countervail it is the unanimous will of the working men. (Cheers.) Well, now, I hope that we shall re-constitute the homes of the people of which we heard the other day. I hope to see the time when every working man shall have a homo in which his family will be around him, and in which he will have time to speak to his family, and to see them at his knee. I hope he will see them at his knee on the Sunday, and that there never may be permitted the slightest infraction of the old Christian tradition of England which holds sacred the first day of the week. (Hear, hear.) Now there is one other word, and it is the last. The other class on whom I call in virtue of their patriotism, their philanthropy, and their Christian zeal are our page 22 statesmen; and I hope that they have given up or are giving up the chattering of political economy in connection with this subject of drink. (Hear, hear.) The theory of free trade in drink has been the misery of Liverpool; it has been well tried there and more than its failure has been demonstrated. (Hear.) And I hope we shall not hear any more about "labor markets." "Labor markets" always make me think of slave markets, Let us hear no more of the relation between man and man constituted by money. We are men, brethren, friends, fellow-Christians. Let us be related to one another in this sense, and if statesmen will look upon the millions of our people in this way—instead of spending time, as you well said, Sir, over political economy questions, very interesting to contending politicians, but which do not touch the social or domestic state of the people—if they will give up caulking, and painting, and careening, and coppering the old vessel, which is perfectly seaworthy—we have done enough for it lately—if we will only let it go, and if we will take care of the crew—(hear)—if the screw are sober, and moral, and obedient, and under discipline, we need fear none of those disasters which only a year ago filled a thousand homes in England with mourning. The heart of England is sound; and the heart of England is Christian. Let us hold fast to that. We are entering upon a new struggle, and I hope, Sir, that we shall redouble our efforts, and I feel perfectly sure that the tide is turning, and that before we meet again in this hall nest year, as I trust we may, a great progress will have been made in this subject, and I have no doubt we shall see the end of the conflict; and may God defend the right. (Cheers.)