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 L I E> RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLI NOIS
 
 A REPLY 
 
 BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH'S SPEECH 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF LOKDS 
 
 INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 REV. R. M. GRIER, M.A., 
 
 VICAE OF EUQELEY. 
 
 WITH A LETTER FROM THE RIGHT REV. BISHOP MAGEE. 
 
 " Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty 
 obHges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to 
 consider it in all its relations." — Burke. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY J. MASTERS & CO., 78, NEW BOND STREET. 
 
 1876. 
 Price Threepence.
 
 A LETTER, 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop, 
 
 It is with great reluctance that I sit down to criticise 
 your recent Speech on Intemperance in the House of Lords. 
 My regard for your character and office, my admiration for 
 your talents, my sense of the eminent services which you 
 have rendered to the Church, and my appreciation of the justice 
 with which, under difficult circumstances, you have treated an 
 unpopular religious school, no less than the fact that I claim 
 you as a fellow-countryman and kinsman, constrain me to keep 
 silence. But as a reply to your attack upon the Permissive 
 Bill must be made and published, it is, I think, far better that 
 it should come from the pen of a clergyman and friend, than of 
 an entire stranger. The latter would not know, as I do, how 
 incessantly engaged you are in the work of your diocese, and 
 would therefore not be inclined to make allowance for mistakes, 
 into which you have been hurried. He might, too, be unable to 
 understand what I know full well, how incapable you are of 
 intending to give offence by such expressions as *' a vote of the 
 streets,^' or " a majority of the streets/' I should myself indeed 
 prefer to speak of a vote of the people for the suppression of the 
 liquor trade as "a. vote of the fire-side,^' the vote of men, who, 
 knowing what the happiness of a quiet home is, desire to extend 
 it to others : but I am sure that your Lordship meant no harm, 
 when you employed another phrase to describe their vote. 
 
 Besides, it seems incumbent upon me to answer your Lord- 
 ship. The Memorial, which was the occasion for your speech, 
 was the result of the labours of a committee, of which I was 
 Secretary. It appeared to some of the clergy, that the National 
 Church had not done her duty in endeavouring to repress our 
 national vice, and that through her Bishops, she had a splendid 
 opportunity of making up for past remissness by calling attention
 
 to the evil in a House^ where noblesse oblige and not beer, 
 and securing legislation upon it. T knew too — we had recently 
 seen — how powerful is the voice of an united Episcopate. Against 
 the expressed opinion of the Lower House of Convocation, and 
 in spite of the remonstrances of the clergy, and many of the 
 best and most devoted laity of the Church, they had succeeded 
 m getting the Public Worship Regulation Act carried in both 
 Houses of Parliament by a triumphant majority. How could I 
 doubt that they would be as eager to use their whole political 
 influence to restrain the drunkenness of the nation, as to correct 
 the contumacy of clergymen who will not believe that the same 
 colour is black or white, as is most convenient, on the authority 
 of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ? I may have 
 been mistaken, but at any rate I am bound to see that a bill, 
 which I consider a mere act of justice does not suffer through 
 any action of mine. This would be in itself a sufficient apology 
 for my letter : but I greatly fear that it is due to my indiscretion 
 in advocating the Permissive Bill on the occasion of presenting 
 the Memorial to the Bishops, that your Lordship has attacked it 
 with so much severity ; and I am sure that you will agree with 
 me, that if this be so, if I am thus to blame for having stirred 
 up so powerful an antagonist to the measure, I am bound in 
 honour to defend it. 
 
 I observe however that whilst it is only the Permissive Bill, 
 that your Lordship directly attacks, you are extremely doubtful 
 as to the success of any legislative action to abate the evil of 
 intemperance. Indeed you seem to deprecate the appeal now 
 made to the Legislature as "clamour for legislation.^' But the 
 presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords is of itself, I 
 think, an indication that the morality of the people may be 
 seriously affected by the Legislature. Otherwise it would be 
 difficult to answer the question now too often asked, " why they 
 should be there.^^ At the present time it is my firm conviction 
 (and perhaps there are few clergymen who have greater oppor- 
 tunities for forming an opinion on the subject,) that for no 
 political purpose could a larger number of clerical votes be polled 
 than for the removal of the Bishops from the House of Lords. 
 This is not my view. They ought, I am convinced, to be in 
 Parliament, because the noblest object of Legislation is, in the ;»j>™^^:k,
 
 words of Mr. Gladstone^ ^' to make it easy for men to do good and 
 hard for them to do evil.'' Nor do I forget the services which 
 your Lordship and other Bishops rendered a few years ago to 
 the cause of morality in opposing the most mischievous clauses 
 in the unfortunate Licensing Bill of the present Home Secretary. 
 I am then still very sanguine that the Bishops having done so 
 much to prevent mischief, will be as eager to undo it in their 
 capacity of legislators. 
 
 This however your Lordship thinks, cannot and ought not to 
 be done by the Bill known as the Permissive Prohibitory Liquor 
 Bill of Sir Wilfrid Lawson. That measure you denounce in 
 language which would, I suspect, be called intemperate in a 
 teetotaler, as "absolutely immoral, thoroughly unconstitutional, 
 aud thoroughly mischievous in its operation." Still, your 
 Lordship, I observe with great satisfaction, would not be averse 
 from the entire suppression of a mischievous trade by an impe- 
 rial act, if public opinion would allow it : this you call a 
 logical measure : nor if the sale of alcohol can be proved to 
 be injurious, would it, you acknowledge, be any interference 
 with liberty to prohibit it all the country over. Such an ad- 
 mission coming from you, my Lord, is a very valuable one : and 
 shows that you have a far greater sympathy with the policy 
 of the United Kingdom Alliance than is generally supposed. 
 Indeed, since your speech I have heard you boldly claimed as 
 an unenrolled member of that Society. But honestly I am at 
 loss to understand how a measure for the abolition of a trade 
 throughout a country can be logical, and another for the abolition 
 of it in a given district illogical : or how there can be a greater 
 interference with liberty, when the ratepayers of a parish by a 
 majority of two thirds suppress a trade for themselves for the 
 space of three years, than when it is suppressed for them for 
 ever by a bare majority of votes in Parliament. Ordinarily, I 
 believe it is considered that local self-government is a safeguard 
 against a centralised tyranny ; but the nature of alcohol is so 
 peculiar that, I suppose, ordinary rules do not apply, when it is 
 under consideration. ''Let not one single drop of alcohol be 
 sold on English ground/' that is logical, and is in no sense sub- 
 versive of freedom. " Let not one single drop of it be sold in 
 this parish," that is illogical and an offence against freedom.
 
 But of course, if the Bill be " absolutely immoral" it can matter 
 little, whether it promote liberty or restrain it. Christians can- 
 not wish to do evil that good may come. It is necessary there- 
 fore to examine the argument with which you support the 
 statement. It is given in the Times as follows : " It was abso- 
 lutely immoral to say of a trade that it was poisonous, murderous 
 and destructive to society, and then to say that if two thirds of 
 the inhabitants wished to have this murderous, poisonous, and 
 wicked thing in the midst of them, they should have it whether 
 for good or bad. What would have been thought if Parliament 
 had passed a law declaring, that if two thirds of the people in any 
 village in India wished for infanticide they should be allowed to 
 have it ?" But your Lordship would seem not to be aware, that 
 most of the advocates of the Permissive Bill would hesitate to des- 
 cribe the liquor traffic, as murderous, poisonous and wicked. 
 They are content to say that it is dangerous to the health, happi- 
 ness, life, prosperity, virtue and religion of the people, and believe, 
 that if they can prove it to be so, they have made out a very 
 strong case against allowing it to be forced into the midst of an 
 unwilling community. 
 
 Of course there may be many communities so addicted to 
 drinking in the country, that it would be useless to deny 
 them facilities for drinking. This is the reason why the mem- 
 bers of the Alliance, like your Lordship, do not press for the entire 
 suppression of the trade ; public sentiment is not in favour of it : 
 very well then, we ask that public sentiment may be tested, and 
 that in those places only in which it is found to be against the 
 trade, the trade may be abolished. Why should this policy be re- 
 garded as immoral? "The trade is either good or bad," you reply: 
 " if good, it should be everywhere allowed ; if bad, it should be 
 everywhere suppressed." Well I cannot quite make out whe- 
 ther you believe it to be good or bad ; for evidently you would 
 neither allow it everywhere, nor suppress it everywhere. You 
 would neither allow all persons to sell it, nor prevent all persons 
 from selling it ; because public opinion is against you. Con- 
 sequently you are guilty, on your own showing, of promoting 
 an immoral policy. If the trade is good, you are support- 
 ing an injustice : if bad, you are protecting wickedness. 
 
 Forgive me, my Lord; this is not, I know, a fair repre-
 
 sentation of your policy however bad the trade may be. The 
 truth is, that the trade exists, and even if it be as immoral 
 as you say some of its opponents describe it, there is no 
 immorality in not immediately suppressing it. Of course 
 in a conquered country, where gunpowder has more influ- 
 ence than public opinion, it may be possible at once to put 
 down such a crime as infanticide, by the strong arm of the 
 law. But even in India, we found it, I think, a little difficult 
 to suppress Suttee, and we have not yet prohibited — no Bishop 
 has ventured to propose in the House of Lords that we should 
 prohibit — Polygamy. Is this immoral ? I presume the answer 
 would be. Polygamy undoubtedly is wrong ; but it is an old evil 
 in India ; there people regard it in a wholly different light from 
 the English ; we must wait therefore till they are better in- 
 structed ; but when they are prepared for the abolition of it, 
 it shall be abolished. And for such a policy we have, it appears 
 to me, the very highest authority. Slavery and Polygamy were 
 both tolerated by God under the old Dispensation. He winked 
 at them for the hardness of men's hearts. Was this immoral? 
 I aui sure that your Lordship would indignantly repudiate such 
 a charge; you would vindicate in your own luminous style the 
 justice of God's ways to man, and show that these institutions, 
 the source of so many wrongs and cruelties, could not be abo- 
 lished until the proper time had come, until, in other words, 
 men were prepared for their abolition. But if, my Lord, you 
 still think that there is any excuse for terming a law, which 
 would permit evil to continue amongst a people, who desire it, 
 immoral, what term will you apply to one, which forces evil upon 
 a community which desires to get rid of it ? 
 
 2. But of course whatever our objections to the liquor-trade, 
 we none of us desire that it should be suppressed by a method 
 which is thoroughly unconstitutional. But why should the 
 Permissive Bill be so described ? If it is proposed to establish 
 a free library in any town, a vote of the ratepayers is first taken 
 upon the subject. They will have to pay for the institution, 
 and will be benefited by it; will they have it, or will they not? 
 Is this unconstitutional and does it subject us to government 
 by a vote of the streets? Again if it is proposed to establish a 
 schoolboard, the same plan may be adopted ; the people will
 
 8 
 
 have to pay for it ; the people will be benefited by it : let them 
 vote whether there shall be one. Why then should it be un- 
 constitutional that the people, who have to pay for the sale of 
 alcohol in more ways than in money, and who are, or rather who 
 are thought to be benefited by it, should be allowed to say 
 whether or no it shall be carried on amongst them ? 
 
 Your reply is that you fear that Archbishop Manning would 
 be more likely in some parts of England, if government by a 
 plebiscite and a vote of the streets were allowed, to be sup- 
 pressed than the liquor-trade. It maybe so; and if it could be 
 proved that the people had the same direct interest in suppress- 
 ing him, or myself, or any other religious teacher that they 
 have in suppressing the liquor-trade, I should not consider it 
 unfair to entrust them with the power. When once it has 
 been conclusively shown that men through the influence of their 
 religious teachers are guilty of murder here, and theft there, and 
 starve their children, and maltreat their wives, and increase the 
 burden of local taxation, and are converted into sots and 
 suicides, and brutes and fiends, then I shall regard a Permissive 
 Prohibitory Religious Instruction Bill, as an eminently just and 
 a thoroughly constitutional measure. 
 
 3. The third count of your indictment against the Permissive 
 Bill is that it would be mischievous in its operation. First, 
 because it would cause secret intemperance. Possibly, but 
 would it cause more intemperance than it would repress ? 
 
 None of the supporters of the Permissive Bill are sanguine 
 enough to suppose that it would if carried at once be put in ope- 
 ration in every part of England, and at once suppress intemper- 
 ance even in those parts where it was put in operation. It is only 
 recently that an effort has been made to enforce the Maine Liquor 
 Law throughout the whole State, and it is allowed on all hands that 
 drunkenness still exists in Portland and other large towns. But 
 it has, I think, been abundantly proved that the State is vastly 
 more sober than it was ; that, in fact, nine-tenths of the drunk- 
 enness of the State has disappeared. Supposing a similar result 
 could be attained here in 1000 English parishes, should we 
 not have reason to rejoice? or ought our satisfaction at the 
 diminution of intemperance to be checked by the reflection that 
 such intemperance as still existed was secret ? True there
 
 9 
 
 might be evasion of the law, but is the law never evaded now ? 
 Every newspaper in every part of England bears witness that it 
 is; in some places indeed there would be far less chance of 
 evasion of the law relating to the sale of liquor then than now. 
 At the present time the people are required to obey the law, 
 whether they approve it or no. In many districts, in which the 
 landlords think it right to close all the public houses, the people 
 have no choice in the matter ; and may consequently be disposed 
 to encourage the illicit sale of strong drink. Of one such 
 parish I have heard : there is, I am informed, a great deal of 
 secret drinking there and a great deal of crime ; in a parish, in 
 which two-thirds of the people have declared themselves in 
 favour of prohibiting the liquor-trade, the prohibition is, ob- 
 viously, much more likely to be effective. 
 
 But secondly, you think that there would be strife and agita- 
 tion caused by the Bill. No doubt the publicans would defend 
 the sale of strong drink to the last, and use their whole influ- 
 ence to retain it. But can any other plan at all likely to remove 
 temptation from the way of the people, who wish not to be 
 tempted, without causing equal agitation, be proposed ? and 
 would not the disturbance be far less after all than that from which 
 we suffer now, owing to the undisputed power of the liquor- 
 traffic, and might it not be greatly restrained if only public 
 houses were closed, whenever the votes of the people were taken ? 
 For my own part I cannot conceive how a battle with so gigantic 
 a monster as English intemperance, can be fought with '^ rose- 
 water,^* and I prefer the Permissive Bill to all other plans which 
 have hitherto been proposed for attacking it, not because it is 
 perfect, but because it seems to me the best under the existing 
 circumstances of this country. 
 
 And now, my Lord, I must ask your forgiveness if I have 
 mistaken a brilliant jeu d'esprit, for a carefully constructed 
 argument ; but I am quite sure that the great majority of those 
 who have read it, believe that it was seriously meant, and I am 
 bound to prove to them that, however it was meant, it will not 
 bear examination. 
 
 But very gladly do I pass to a part of your speech which is 
 marked by the wisdom and courage for which your Lordship is 
 distinguished.
 
 10 
 
 There is not I am sure a Parish Priest in England who will 
 not heartily thank you for your boldness in condemning the 
 homes in which so many of our poorer parishioners are obliged 
 to live. It is shameful that in a Christian country horses 
 should be better housed than men^ and it may be one of the 
 many causes of intemperance in England that the homes of 
 our working men are so little attractive. But it is, on the 
 other hand, a melancholy fact that a very large proportion of 
 those classes who have comfortable homes and have been highly 
 educated are intemperate. Indeed I do not hesitate to say that 
 if the poor of England were no more sober than their betters, 
 their drunkenness would be appalling. Why then should you 
 expect drunkenness to vanish amongst them as education 
 spreads and their homes become more attractive, when it has 
 not vanished amongst people with a far higher education and 
 much more attractive homes than we can hope that theirs will 
 ever be ? The Scotch poor are more highly educated than the 
 poor of England, and more drunken ; the Lancashire poor are 
 better housed than the poor in other parts of England, and 
 certainly not more sober. 
 
 There is one advantage, my Lord, which many of the Pres- 
 byters of the English Church owe to the mediocrity of their 
 talents. They know the poor far better than they could have 
 done if they had spent their time in study, or in consequence of 
 their great abilities, had been separated from them by a wide social 
 gulf. On questions, therefore, which concern the habits of the 
 people, I venture with some confidence to oppose my judgment, 
 as a Parish Priest of eighteen years'* standing, to that of men 
 who in many respects are greatly my superiors, and I assert 
 unhesitatingly that no efforts for the social or religious im- 
 provement of the people will succeed on a large scale, so long 
 as temptations to intemperance abound amongst them. The 
 clergy have tried every means to counteract the influence of the 
 public house and have met with but small success. The people 
 are drinking and drunken still. We have started clubs and re- 
 creation rooms and mechanics^ institutes, and organized missions, 
 and visited from house to house, and spent time and money 
 upon our schools, and set an example of total abstinence, and 
 pleaded in the name of Christ. It is simply ungenerous
 
 11 
 
 insolence on the part of the " Times" to suggest that we can 
 do nothing but prepare jeremiads and sign memorials. We 
 have done all that even that infallible journal can suggest, and 
 we have failed to win the people to sobriety, and we shall fail so 
 long as they are tempted, as they now are, to drunkenness. It 
 may appear to you that I am wanting in faith when 1 say this. 
 But the truth is, that men are hardly likely to be successful as 
 Christians in winning others from a vice to which they tempt 
 them as citizens ; for^ be it remembered, ive are amongst those 
 who tempt them without their leave, and very often against 
 their will. The public houses in this country are the creatures 
 of the law, and the law is the result of our votes. They might 
 be removed if we pleased, and if we do not please, I cannot see 
 how we can expect God's blessing to rest upon our labours. 
 Nor does the fact that, as your Lordship asserts, there are 
 many predisposing causes for intemperance, prove in the least 
 that the sale of alcohol should not be restrained or prohibited ; on 
 the contrary, the more the inducements to the vice, the stronger 
 the reason that the sale should be forbidden. The more inflam- 
 mable a cask of gunpowder is known to be, the greater surely our 
 precautions to guard it from the fire. But I am quite of your 
 opinion that the clergy ought not to relax their exertions in 
 their parishes and look to Acts of Parliament to do their work. 
 No, we only ask of Parliament not to obstruct or undo our 
 work. We will labour cheerfully '' to purify and make beau- 
 tiful the weary, laborious lives of the poor of England,^' but 
 we demand that the law of this Christian country shall not " so 
 make provision for the flesh'' as to befoul and render them 
 miserable. One clergyman there was, my Lord, though not of 
 our communion, who laboured as you desire, who lived for the 
 poor and like them, and who obtained over the masses of his 
 countrymen a greater power than any religious teacher in the 
 present century. For a happy but too brief period Ireland 
 seemed almost freed from intemperance, but the liquor-trade 
 was permitted to continue. Christian citizens allowed tempta- 
 tions to a gross vice to remain amongst a people who showed 
 that they desired to escape from it, and Ireland is very nearly, 
 if not quite, as drunken as she was before the days of Father 
 Matthew.
 
 13 
 
 But not nearly so much for the sake of the drunkard as for 
 that of others do I ask that temptations to drinking may be 
 removed, or at least that there may be power to remove them. 
 Again and again am I witness of the misery which drunkenness 
 inflicts upon those who are as innocent of it as myself. At 
 present the work of a Parish Priest almost consists in vainly 
 trying to counteract the evil results of one preventible vice. 
 Here is a destitute widow whose husband it has killed; there a 
 number of " wastreF* children whose mother it has brutalized ; 
 here a young deserted wife, who bears on her body undeniable 
 proofs that she has a husband; there a middle-aged and 
 dying wife whose heart it has broken. Even as I write, my 
 Lord, a dear relative of my own is sufi'ering intense pain, and 
 is in some danger of sustaining life-long injury from a fearful 
 blow inflicted by an educated man in a state of intoxication ; 
 naturally I ask, why should all this misery be allowed ? 
 Why should a trade, without which this vice hardly could 
 exist, be tolerated ? or if it cannot be abolished, why should the 
 parishes in which the people are prepared for its suppression, be 
 obliged to tolerate it ? 
 
 The case, as it seems to me, stands thus between the 
 friends and the opponents of the United Kingdom Alliance. 
 In some 2000 English parishes there is no sale of alcohol 
 allowed, and by the testimony of credible witnesses, very little 
 drunkenness and little crime ; wherever it is sold, there is a 
 great deal of drunkenness and crime. " Why then,^' ask the 
 former, " should not the sale of it be forbidden in all other 
 parishes V " Because,'' they are informed, " the people wish 
 that it should be allowed." "Well then," they reply, "let the 
 people in every parish say whether they desire it or no, and 
 where they do not, let them at least be placed in the same 
 favourable circumstances as the inhabitants of the 2000 parishes 
 where alcohol is not sold." " No," it is retorted, " Englishmen 
 must not be governed by a majority of the streets. Refrain 
 from the drink, no one compels you to touch it." " We have 
 done so," is the answer, " many of us for years ; but why 
 should the wives, and children, and parents of men who will 
 get drunk suff'er so much misery, when it is possible to prevent 
 it ? The clergy who know and love the poor tell you that there
 
 13 
 
 are many who, so long as you tempt them to inebriety, will 
 not resist temptation/-' ''The clergy/Ms the answer, "want 
 class legislation. They should work amongst their people and 
 persuade them to be sober/^ " But the people themselves — 
 the working men — ask to be protected from the temptation." 
 " Oh, the working classes are always clamouring for legis- 
 lation." 
 
 My Lord, at times my heart is hot within me, and I ask, 
 when and how is this tyranny to end? Shall the people always 
 be denied the right to protect themselves against a proved 
 source of misery and crime ? Shall injustice never be re- 
 dressed except by violence ? Is it absolutely necessary in this 
 age of boasted enlightenment, to awaken a revolutionary spirit 
 to abolish a gigantic evil ? Shall the pleading even of the 
 ministers of Christ in behalf of the poor and the oppressed 
 be disregarded ? Must they hold their peace and give place to 
 demagogues, and allow them to go from town to town and tell 
 the people that they are miserable and wretched from causes 
 which are not removed, because the moneyed men, whom we 
 delight to send to Parliament, prefer property to morality and 
 vested interests to the suppression of an inveterate wrong ? 
 
 My Lord, I forbear. My heart is too full to write more, and 
 for what I have written I fear that you may be disposed to 
 reprove me. But I am sure that you will acquit me of all inten- 
 tional disrespect, and believe that I have written solely with the 
 view of promoting a cause which I regard as "Deo, regi, vicino." 
 
 I am. 
 Your Lordship^s faithful servant, 
 
 R. M. GRIER. 
 
 The Vicarage, Rugeley, 
 July 7th, 1876. 
 
 My dear Grier, 
 
 I have to thank you for sending me a copy of the letter 
 which you intend to publish in answer to my recent speech on 
 the Permissive Bill. 
 
 You do not invite and I have no wish to make a reply. 
 Were I to make one, it could only consist in saying over again
 
 14 
 
 what I have already said, and in adding that your arguments 
 have in no way altered my convictions. 
 
 When men diflfer essentially as to first principles, discussion 
 between them is useless, and they must content themselves, as 
 you and I must do, with stating their views once for all and 
 leaving them to be condemned or accepted by those who read 
 them. I wish, however, to take this opportunity of correcting 
 the misapprehension on your part — that my speech was in any 
 way caused either by the contents of the memorial to which 
 you refer, or by your own speech when bringing that memorial 
 before the Bishops. 
 
 That this cannot be the case is apparent from the fact that 
 my speech was mainly a repetition and expansion of what I 
 had said on the same subject three years ago. 
 
 I am not opposed, as you very fairly admit, to all legislation 
 for the regulation of the liquor traffic, nor even, on principle, to 
 one mode of its suppression. 
 
 I am, and I fear I shall always be, opposed, for the reasons I 
 have stated, to one particular mode of its suppression, viz., the 
 Permissive Prohibitory Bill. 
 
 I am well aware that in opposing this measure as I have 
 done, I expose myself to much obloquy and unjust imputation 
 of indifference to the cause of temperance, and to the moral 
 and social well being of the working classes. 
 
 I might, were I disposed to be critical, complain of something 
 of this mode of treatment in your own letter, and protest^ I 
 fear in vain, against the conviction which seems to animate all 
 advocates of the Permissive Bill, that those who do not like 
 their mode of dealing with intemperance can only be actuated 
 by unworthy motives, such, for instance, as " fear of rich men,'' 
 or willingness to " tempt the poor man," and the like. 
 
 I have no wish, however, either to complain of or to reply to 
 such accusations. However unjust I may deem them, I can 
 readily pardon them as expressing the deep earnestness of 
 those whose hearts being " hot" as your own, in their grief for 
 the evils of intemperance, are betrayed into using hot and 
 unfair words against those who sharing their horror of those 
 evils, differ conscientiously from them as to the proper remedies 
 for these.
 
 15 
 
 I prefer at any rate eDcIuring this and much more from good 
 and earnest men like yourself to purchasing their approval, and 
 perhaps with it some cheap popularity, by suppressing my own 
 convictions and by speaking and acting in opposition to my 
 matured and deliberate judgment in this or in any other 
 matter. 
 
 Were I ever to do this, I should certainly have shown that 
 both Church and State would be the better for the expulsion 
 of, at least, one Bishop from an assembly in which I have no 
 wish to retain my place a single hour after I cease to be free 
 to speak and act there solely according to the dictates of my own 
 reason and conscience, and entirely unswayed by the dread 
 of popular clamour, or the need for courting popular applause. 
 
 May I ask you to publish this letter along with your own; 
 and may I further entreat you, " of your charity,^' to believtf 
 that however we may differ as to the proper remedies for the 
 great national evils of Intemperance, I am as truly desirous of 
 removing these as I am. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 W. C. PETERBOROUGH. 
 
 The Palace, Peterborough, 
 July 8th, 18/6. 
 
 In reply I can only express my regret that my letter should 
 have left on the Bishop^s mind the impression that I attribute 
 to him, as motives for his opposition to the Permissive Bill, 
 fear of the rich or willingness to tempt the poor; I had no 
 such intention, and am, I trust, incapable of being so unfair. 
 Indeed the Bishop and I do not differ so much, as be imagines, 
 as to first principles. I am a member of the United Kingdom 
 Alliance for the entire suppression of the liquor-trade, and 
 should, like the Bishop, greatly prefer the suppression of it by 
 an Imperial Enactment, if it were possible, and the country 
 were prepared for it. But, like the Bishop again, I do not 
 think it possible ; so, unlike him, I agitate and plead for, what, 
 I think, can be obtained, for what, I am convinced, cannot long 
 in common justice be denied, viz., that the people for whom the 
 trade professes to exist, should be allowed to suppress it, if they
 
 16 
 
 please. I am, however, very far from classing the Bishop, because 
 he differs from me as to the best method of suppressing the traffic, 
 with men who would resist every measure of restriction uponit, 
 from a Maine Liquor Law, to the Sunday Closing Bill for 
 Ireland. How to impute disinterested motives to these geritle- 
 men with any regard for truth, it passes my charity and ingenuity 
 to conceive. 
 
 R. M. G. 
 
 The following is the Memorial alluded to in the Letter : 
 We, the undersigned, Clergy of the Church of England, venture re- 
 spectfully to appeal to your Lordships, as the only members of our order 
 in Parliament, most earnestly to support measures for the further re- 
 striction of the trade in intoxicating liquors in this country. An inti- 
 mate acquaintance with the people, extending, with some of us, over 
 many years, has convinced us that their condition can never be greatly 
 improved, whether intellectually, physically, or religiously, so long as 
 intemperance extensively prevails amongst them ; and that intemperance 
 will prevail, so long as temptations to it abound on every side. So far, 
 however, the efforts to remove these temptations have been obstructed ; 
 and recent debates in the House of Commons would seem to show that 
 the importance of removing them is very inadequately appreciated by the 
 Legislature. We appeal therefore to you, our Fathers in God, in the 
 name of our Master, and for the sake of our country, for help and guid- 
 ance in our endeavours to secure the serious attention of the Legislature 
 to a fearful and widespread evil ; and we earnestly pray your Lordships to 
 use the whole weight of your influence that another session may see the 
 passing into law of some well-considered remedial measure. What the 
 character of that measure should be, your Lordships will be able to deter- 
 mine : but we venture to remind your Lordships that a Committee of the 
 Convocation of Canterbury has recommended in their Report on Intem- 
 perance, p. 15, that " a legal power of restraining the issue or renewal of 
 licences should be placed in the hands of the persons most deeply 
 interested and affected — namely, the inhabitants themselves — who are 
 entitled to protection from the injurious consequences of the present 
 system :" and that a similar recommendation is contained in the more 
 recent Report of a Committee of the Convocation of York. 
 
 Amongst those, who signed it, were eleven Bishops (Suffragan, &c.,) 
 sixteen Deans, sixty Archdeacons, and a large number of Canons and 
 Honorary Canons. The names of those wilHng to sign it may still be 
 sent to W. I. S. Horton, Esq., Talbot Villa, Rugeley. 
 
 Printed by J. Masters & Co., 78, New Bond Street, London.
 
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