equality with publicans if they are only in a sufficiently large way of business, and thereby to foster a grave source of national danger. But suppose the bill were read a second time, which is only an acknowledgment of its principle, does any reflecting reader who has followed the changes in our laws and constitution with ever so little attention, believe for an instant that a real injustice would be permitted against any important section of the community? For, as already stated, no great reform can be accomplished without inconveniencing individuals, who in this case would in all probability be either habitual drunkards, or those who are enriching themselves at their expense. It may be that in the present condition of society the bill aims at too much, and it is quite certain that in its passage through Parliament it would be loaded with safeguards against oppression and the possibility of arbitrary proceedings on the part of total abstainers, by honourable members who would be anxious to prove their devotion to a certain class of their constituents, so that no poor man would be “robbed of his beer,” and no legitimate interests would be sacrificed. For permissive legislation, as we have seen, has been found the most effective in that country where the rights of citizens are the most jealously watched. On the other hand, the official sanction which the bill would give to the cause of temperance would make that cause “diplomatically strong;” and the very prospect of its passing into law would have the effect of greatly diminishing some of the evils, and of entirely sweeping away other existing abuses of which it is intended to be the corrective. Regarded in this light, then, it is earnestly to be hoped that all classes of our readers will carefully weigh the national importance and value of the so-called “Permissive Bill,” and that when it is next brought before the Legislature, its promoters may succeed in enlisting for it a larger amount of support than it has hitherto enjoyed. At present the real but partially concealed forces which militate against drinking reform are the bitter hostility of an unlawful section of the trade which it would injure, and the disinclination of fiscal administrators to reduce a very material but a very iniquitous item in the public revenue resulting from the traffic. The statesman has yet to stand forward with the courage needful for initiating what will assuredly be the most important moral and financial reformation of our country. CHAPTER XVI. RETROSPECT—CONCLUSION.