of industrial development in
Ireland realises what a terribly depressing influence the drink evil
exercises upon the industrial capacity of the people. 'Ireland sober is
Ireland free,' is nearer the truth, than much that is thought and most
of what is said about liberty in this country.

Now, the drink habit in Ireland differs from that of the other parts of
the United Kingdom. The Irishman is, in my belief, physiologically less
subject to the craving for alcohol than the Englishman, a fact which is
partially attributable, I should say, to the less animal dietary to
which he is accustomed. By far the greater proportion of the drinking
which retards our progress is of a festive character. It takes place at
fairs and markets, sometimes, even yet, at 'wakes,' those ghastly
parodies on the blessed consolation of religion in bereavement. It is
intensified by the almost universal sale of liquor in the country shops
'for consumption on the premises,' an evil the demoralising effects of
which are an hundredfold greater than those of the 'grocer's licences'
which temperance reformers so strenuously denounce. It is an evil in
defence of which nothing can be said, but it has somehow escaped the
effective censure of the Church.

The indiscriminate granting of licences in Ireland, which has resulted
in the provision of liquor shops in a proportion to the population
larger than is found in any other country, is in itself due mainly to
the moral cowardice of magistrates, who do not care to incur local
unpopularity by refusing licences for which there is no pretence of any
need beyond that of the applicant and his relatives. Not long ago the
magistrates of Ireland met in Dublin in order to inaugurate common
action in dealing with this scandal. Appropriate resolutions were
passed, and much good has already resulted from the meeting, but had the
unvarnished truth been admissible, the first and indeed the only
necessary resolution should have run, "Resolved that in future we be
collectively as brave as we have been individually timid, and that we
take heart of grace and carry away from this meeting sufficient strength
to do, in the exercise of our functions as the licensing authority, what
we have always known to be our plain duty to our country and our God."
No such resolution was proposed, for though patriotism is becoming real
in Ireland, it is not yet very robust.

I do not think it unfair to insist upon the large responsibility of