Some distillers will probably say that they cannot support themselves and families if they abandon this business; and some farmers will say, if we cannot sell our cider and rye to the distillers, the products of our orchards must all be lost, and rye is the only article which we can raise upon our farms with any profit. And if I were not to purchase these articles, says the distiller, their price must be so low that no farmer could afford to raise them. Thus to reduce a large class of the yeomanry of our country--its very sinews--to poverty, would be a greater evil than even the intemperance that is so common.
Is it indeed true, that in this free and happy country an industrious, temperate, and economical man, cannot find any employment by which he can support himself and family in a comfortable manner without manufacturing poison and selling it to his countrymen? In other words, cannot he live without destroying them? Is land so scarce, or so eaten up with tithes and taxes, that he cannot thence derive subsistence unless he converts its products into money at the expense of others' comfort, reputation, and life? Is every honest calling so crowded, or so unproductive, that every avenue is closed? Have the men who make this plea tried, even for a single year, to live without the manufacture of spirits? It may be, indeed, that for a time they will find other pursuits less productive than this. And is not this, after all, the true reason why they shrink from the sacrifice? But if superior profits be a sufficient reason for continuing distillation, it is a reason that will justify the robber, the thief, and every other depredator upon the rights of others.
But how does it appear that the stoppage of all the distilleries in the land will reduce the price of cider and rye? Their operation has produced a great demand for these articles, and that demand has thrown into the market an immense supply: the consequence is, that the prices are reduced as low as the articles can be afforded, at a very moderate profit, and the great complaint now among farmers is, that they are so low. Let the distilleries cease to exist, and the special demand for these articles will cease; and consequently the market will not be glutted with them, because no extra efforts will be made to raise them: the result will probably be, that in a very short time their price will be very nearly or quite as high as it now is.