That question in Utopia will differ perhaps in the proportion of its
factors, but in no other respect, from what it is upon earth. The
same desirable ends will be sought, the maintenance of public order
and decency, the reduction of inducements to form this bad and
wasteful habit to their lowest possible minimum, and the complete
protection of the immature. But the modern Utopians, having
systematised their sociology, will have given some attention to the
psychology of minor officials, a matter altogether too much
neglected by the social reformer on earth. They will not put into
the hands of a common policeman powers direct and indirect that
would be dangerous to the public in the hands of a judge. And they
will have avoided the immeasurable error of making their control of
the drink traffic a source of public revenue. Privacies they will
not invade, but they will certainly restrict the public consumption
of intoxicants to specified licensed places and the sale of them to
unmistakable adults, and they will make the temptation of the young
a grave offence. In so migratory a population as the Modern Utopian,
the licensing of inns and bars would be under the same control as
the railways and high roads. Inns exist for the stranger and not for
the locality, and we shall meet with nothing there to correspond
with our terrestrial absurdity of Local Option.
The Utopians will certainly control this trade, and as certainly
punish personal excesses. Public drunkenness (as distinguished from
the mere elation that follows a generous but controlled use of wine)
will be an offence against public decency, and will be dealt with in
some very drastic manner. It will, of course, be an aggravation of,
and not an excuse for, crime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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