“In the South of France, therefore, the opinion is held that the greatest care should be given to the production of beer. Besides, people in the South do not drink the good wine which they produce; they export it. Money is more valuable to them than good wine. Inferior wine, however, remains, and is consumed to a great extent. We are of opinion that beer would offer to all considerable advantages; and therefore it is desirable that the brewing industry in the South of France should be developed in the fullest possible manner.” In England about the year 1833 the use of intoxicating liquors had increased to such a point that government applied itself to the discovery of some means of diminishing the consumption. The Duke of Wellington, whose long career as a soldier on the continent and elsewhere had taught him the beneficial influence of beer, and who saw clearly the amount of misery and degradation caused among his countrymen by the use of distilled liquors, introduced while Prime Minister, the well known “Beer Bill.” Its passage was urged distinctly on the ground that a free consumption of beer would greatly diminish the use of spirits. The Duke himself strongly advocated the bill and instanced the continental beer-drinking countries as the happiest and most temperate on the globe. On the other hand the so-called temperance men appeared in large deputations to urge (against all reason) that whatever beer might be consumed would be in addition to the previous consumption of ardent spirits and not in place of it, or any part of it, that intoxication would be increased in a ratio correspondent to the amount of beer used, and in short that the proposed plan of reform was much like an attempt to quench fire by pouring on oil. The bill, however, was at last passed by a large majority and has proved very successful. The consumption of beer has largely increased, distilled liquors are less used, and, notwithstanding the assertions of some over-zealous partisans of total abstinence, we can prove by statistics carefully collected that the amount of drunkenness in the country began to decrease immediately after the passage of the bill. William E. Gladstone, the great English statesman who, in the year 1868-9, carried through Parliament an act intended to promote the cause of temperance by cheapening wine and beer and making their sale part of the business of restaurants and confectioners’ shops, wrote a short time ago as follows: “I am opposed to coffee and tea palaces as I believe they are more deteriorating than beer shops. The stimulating properties of coffee or tea are greater and more injurious than those of malt liquors.”