Thus, my lords, shall we at once destroy our own manufacture and promote that of our neighbours.  Thus shall we enrich other governments by distressing our own, and instead of increasing sobriety, only encourage a more expensive and pernicious kind of debauchery.

In the bill now under our consideration, a middle way is proposed, by which reformation may be introduced by those gradations which have always been found necessary when inveterate vices are to be encountered.  In this bill every necessary consideration appears to have been regarded, the health of the people will be preserved, and their virtue recovered, without destroying their trade or starving their manufacturers.

The efficacy of this bill seems, indeed, to be allowed by some of the lords who oppose it, since their chief objection has arisen from their doubts whether it can be executed.  If a law be useless in itself, it is of no importance whether it is executed or not; and, therefore, I think it may safely be inferred, that they who are solicitous how it may be enforced, are convinced of its usefulness.

If this, my lords, be the chief objection now remaining, a little consideration will easily remove it; for it is well known, that the only obstruction of the former law was the danger of information; but this law, my lords, is so contrived, that it will promote the execution of itself; for by setting licenses at so low a price, their number will be multiplied, and every man who has taken a license will think himself justified in informing against him that shall retail spirits without a legal right.

If, therefore, there should be, as a noble lord has very reasonably supposed, fifty thousand licensed venders of these liquors, there will likewise be fifty thousand informers against unlawful traders; and as the liquors may then always be had under sanction of the law, the populace will not interest themselves in that process which can have no tendency to obstruct their pleasure.

Thus, my lords, shall we, by agreeing to this bill, make a law that will be at once useful to the government and beneficial to the people, which will be at once powerful in its effects and easy in its execution; and, therefore, instead of attending any more to the wild and impracticable schemes of heavy taxes, rigorous punishments, sudden reformations, and violent restraints, I hope we shall unanimously approve this method, from which so much may be hoped, while nothing is hazarded.

Lord CARTERET then rose up, and spoke in substance as follows:—­My lords, though the noble lord who has been pleased to incite us to an unanimous concurrence with himself and his associates of the ministry, in passing this excellent and wonder-working bill, this bill, which is to lessen the consumption of spirits, without lessening the quantity which is distilled, which is to restrain drunkards from drinking, by setting their favourite liquor always before their eyes, to conquer habits by continuing them, and correct vice by indulging it, according to the lowest reckoning, for at least another year; yet, my lords, such is my obstinacy, or such my ignorance, that I cannot yet comply with his proposal, nor can prevail with myself either to concur with measures so apparently opposite to the interest of the publick, or to hear them vindicated, without declaring how little I approve them.