IN THE SACRED NAME OF LIBERTY!
'The ranks are gathering; on the one side of men rightly informed and
meaning to seek redress by lawful and honourable means only, and on the
other of men capable of compassion and open to reason but with personal
interests at stake so vast and with all the gear and mechanism of their
arts so involved in the web of past iniquity that the best of them are
helpless and the wisest blind.'--The Right Hon. C. F. G. MASTERMAN.
It is difficult for men and women to arrive at a true estimate of their
own state of mind. What others think of us is often a truer gauge than
what we think of ourselves, for we can only look at ourselves through
the distorting glass of self-love and self-interest. In these last
days we have had a wonderful revelation of what others think of us.
Our hoardings and our advertisement pages are crowded with appeals
which could only appeal to a generation that had ceased to think and
ceased to bear upon their hearts the woes of their fellows. In the
sacred name of liberty, in the cause of brotherhood and equality, we
were exhorted on every horizon to hold fast and change not. And we
were, above all, to beware of fanatics! We are indeed fallen very low
if this measure of our intelligence be correct.
I
In the sacred name of liberty we are exhorted to lay no sacrilegious
hand on the sacred ark of our licensing system. Whatever results may
ensue of perishing babes and ruined manhood we must vote No Change, for
liberty is great. Moloch of old was great; so great that he demanded
and got the sacrifice of a child now and then. But 'Liberty' is
greater still. If it be true that in proportion to the number of
licences in a district is the death-rate among the babies; if in
districts crowded with public-houses there be a death-rate of something
like 160 to 180 per 1000 babies in the first year of life, while in
districts where public-houses are rare the death-rate is about 40 per
1000 babies in the first year of life; and if we are to vote No Change
and acquiesce in that in the name of liberty, how great that idol
Liberty must be! We must examine it and make sure that its feet be not
of clay.
II
What is freedom? Freedom is that condition of things which enables a
man to co-ordinate all his faculties for the development of what is
best in him. The best a man is capable of is the evolution of a
character whose uprightness and honesty will command respect. But no
sooner does a man set his face toward that goal than he finds that he
can only climb towards it by sacrificing the liberty of his lower
nature. The animal in man must be fettered that the spirit may grow.
Only so can nobility of character be produced. It is manifest then
that freedom to produce character is only achieved by sacrificing
liberty. The idol Liberty is not, after all, really so great.
The best in life is not, however, developed in isolation. For we are
bound up with our fellow-men in the complex organism of life. And we
have no right to exercise any liberty that will mean loss or injury to
our fellows. It may be beneficial to me that I should have the
stimulus of alcohol; it may add colour to my drab life, and make the
bores that harass me more tolerable; and I may find in it a sacramental
value, as it promotes the flow of easy fellowship; but if the provision
made to supply one with that stimulus means the ruin of others--the
perishing of babes and the destruction of homes--then I have no right
to that provision. The limit of my personal freedom is the beginning
of hurt or injury to my fellow-men. It is along this great line that
civilisation has evolved. Each step forward has been a restriction of
liberty. Every extension of the franchise has been a restriction of
the power of the classes that ruled previously; each new law a
restriction of the right to do what one liked. Every great social
advance has been a restriction of previous liberty. No man is free now
to leave his children uneducated; no employer is free to deal as he
pleases with his employed. No sooner is the child born than the law
has it in its grip: within a few days the parent must register it and
give a biography of its ancestors to a registrar; then it ordains that
it be inoculated. At five years of age the child is deprived of
liberty, for he is shut up in barracks and then made a prisoner for ten
years, compelled to learn things that will never be of any value in all
the after years. After he has escaped from that prison-house, there
comes an interval of illusory liberty. He comes and goes as he likes
after the hours of toil. Then comes an emotional crisis and he
marries--and what is there left of his liberty? Every family is
established on this--the restriction of liberty. The traffic in the
street and the narcotic in the shop are alike in the grasp of law.
From the cradle to the grave a man is surrounded with restrictions of
liberty. There is no base liberty left to-day but the liberty to get
drunk. In the name of freedom there must come an end to that liberty.
III
And yet the horizon glows with these placarded appeals to leave things
as they are in the name of liberty. There is a true feeling behind
these appeals--the feeling that above all things Scotsmen love freedom.
And so they do. There is no race under the sun that have hazarded
their lives so much and so frequently for freedom as we have done. How
it stirs our blood to read the words in which our ancestors in the year
1320 defied the Pope when his Holiness sided with England against King
Robert Bruce. 'The wrongs which we have suffered under the tyranny of
Edward are beyond description,' wrote the nobility and commonalty of
Scotland in Parliament assembled, '... while a hundred of us exist we
will never submit to England. We fight not for glory, wealth, or
honour, but for that liberty without which no virtuous man can
survive.' We know the end of that and of every fight our fathers
fought for liberty. It was the moorsmen and cottars of Scotland, who
defied three kingdoms, and fought on with the Bible in one hand and the
sword in the other, that saved the liberties of nations. But what
liberty was it they fought for? The liberty to get drunk! The liberty
to establish at every street corner a centre for the spreading of
disease, misery, and pauperism! Those who make such appeals surely
underrate the intelligence of a generation who have not yet quite
forgotten the exploits and the sacrifices of their sires. The freedom
they achieved was the freedom to worship God as their consciences
directed, and to develop that national character of uprightness and
understanding that has been so fraught with blessing to the world. And
that freedom it is left to us to carry to fruition--by developing a
State that shall be free from ignorance, from degradation, from vice,
from self-indulgence--in one word, from drunkenness in every form. 'He
who will not give up a little temporary liberty for essential safety,
deserves neither liberty nor safety,' declared Benjamin Franklin. We
shall awake and establish public safety on the ruins of a false and a
degrading liberty. When we shall have achieved that--then we shall be
free indeed.
IV
Nothing appeals to my own heart so much as the anxiety shown by those
publicists regarding my taxation. They feel so much for me, and are
afraid that I shall require to pay more of an income-tax if I do not
vote No Change. This care for my personal interests touches me
profoundly; and the desire that the nation should drink itself into
financial prosperity must affect every patriot's heart. But, again,
Scotsmen can think. And no sooner do we exercise our minds than we see
how fallacious all this is--and how ungrounded our fears. The greatest
loss the nation sustains is the revenue from alcohol. What are the
losses that are entailed by that revenue? Against it must be put the
pauperism that the State has to support, and which is mainly caused by
alcohol; the cost of police and judges and prisons that are mainly
required because of alcohol; the loss to the State of the lives wasted
and ruined by alcohol. Strike a balance--and there is no gain to the
State from the revenues of alcohol. The greatest loss the State
sustains is the revenue it derives from the misery and degradation of
its citizens. No State can grow rich by exploiting the misery and the
vice of its own people. Were the money now wasted in this
non-productive trade devoted to industry, the resultant product would
pay the State over and over again for any loss from the sacrifice of
alcohol. Already this is being proved in the United States. In the
State of Massachusetts an increase in the taxation of theatres, soft
drinks, candy, and transport not only made up for the loss from the
taxes on alcohol, but realised an increase of over 500,000 dollars in
the first dry year! There in America the breweries and distilleries
are being converted into jam factories, boot factories, and where
formerly 250 men were employed they now employ 1500 men! One such
factory bears the placard:--
'Once we made booze,
Now we make shoes.'
The revenue that comes from prosperity enriches a nation; the revenue
that comes from its degradation impoverishes. When we are freed from
the waste and ruin wrought by alcohol--then our national revenue will
flourish as never before. In a prosperous land the revenue will look
after itself. Those who are so anxious lest we be overtaxed are trying
to inspire us with groundless fears.
V
The most sacred thing on earth is the mother and the child. It is they
who suffer and perish because of conditions that are indefensible. The
little spark of grey matter behind the eyes of a little child may
become a Newton, a Knox, or a Walter Scott. 'There is no wealth but
life,' declared Ruskin. Every motive of patriotism and religion moves
us to do everything in our power to save childhood and motherhood.
There never in any land was any propaganda so cynical, so unblushing as
the propaganda that for weary weeks has now screamed in our ears--'No
Change.' The blood of four dread years, and then--'No Change!' The
agony of the world's most awful Gethsemane, and at its end--'No
Change!' ... Nothing more need be said. Only the blind could have made
such appeals.