The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

izlcr(ras ceT l'A d F (e f A arsickpirc.
year to year, to secure the repeal of the malt tax, in the
hope that the farmer would be benefited by an increased
cemanid for his barley, when the agitation, if successful,
would either increase taxation in other ways or prevent
the reduction of taxes pressing on the real comforts of
the people; whereas, with the promotion of total abstisnence, the true interests of the farming body would be
bound up with the sobriety and prosperity of ali other
classes. The day will come, if wisdom is not to cry aloud
in vain, when the lords and tenants of the soil will recognize the folly of relying for any portion of their gains
upon the maintenance and increase of habits and a
tLraffie which diminiish the purchasing and consuming
power of the community, while poor and county rates
are raised to an unprecedented and oppressive degree.
No illustration could be apter than the present system
of "the penny-wise and pound-foolish " method of business to which the far-sighted trader has a reasonable
aversion; and if self-interest alone were to guide the
counsels of the agriculturists of the land-and in such a
connection self-interest (like self-love) and social are the
same-it would prompt them to pray and labor for the
lihastening of the period when a people, having shaken
off enervating indulgences and enslaving customs, should
call for larger and yet larger supplies of the really Heaven-sent food, satisfying and strengthening, in the providing of which the husbandman would find a quick and
sure reward, so that sower and eater would have good
reason to rejoice together. The enlightened Fe6nelon
long ago saw that to stop the manufacture of strong
drink was not to lessen, but to augment the wealth of the
soil; and the eldest son of the late King of the French
had arrived, by observation, at the same legitimate conclusion,.* All trade, and not least that which is concerned
* Sce Appendix K.
II
97