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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

Leaflets [New Zealand Alliance]

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Notable Indictment.

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[unclear: State] Cardinal Archbishop Manning, who was a devoted member of the [unclear: d] Kingdom Alliance, and warmly advocated the popular direct veto, vividly [unclear: ated] the fruits of the Drink Traffic everywhere when he wrote in an article [unclear: in] fortnightly Review of September, 1886, the following indictment against [unclear: ing] in the United Kingdom, and accused the licensed Liquor Traffic of being [unclear: uce] of the evil. His Eminence said :—

Is there then any one dominant vice of our nation ? To answer this let us [unclear: an].

[unclear: 1.]Is there any vice in the United Kingdom that slays at least 60,000, or, as [unclear: un] believe and affirm, 120,000 every year ?
[unclear: 2.]Or that lays the seed of a whole harvest of diseases of the most fatal [unclear: and] renders all other lighter diseases more acute, and perhaps even fatal in [unclear: all]?
[unclear: 3.]Or that causes at the least one-third of all the madness confined in our [unclear: ers]?
[unclear: 4.]Or that prompts, directly or indirectly, seventy-five per cent. of all crime?
[unclear: 5.]Or that produces an unseen and secret world of all kinds of moral evil, [unclear: and] personal degradation, which no Police Court ever knows and no human eye [unclear: hear] reach?
[unclear: 6.]Or that, in the midst of our immense and multiplying wealth, produces [unclear: powerty], which is honourable, but pauperism, which is a degradation to a [unclear: and] people ?
[unclear: 7.]Or that ruins men of every class and condition of life, from the highest to [unclear: swest], men of every degree of culture and education, of every honourable [unclear: vison], public officials, military and naval officers and men, railway and house-[unclear: servants], and, what is worse than all, that ruins women of every class, from [unclear: act] rude to the most refined ?
[unclear: 8.]Or that above all other evils is the most potent cause of destruction to the [unclear: pratice] life of all classes ?
[unclear: 9.]Or that has already wrecked, and is continually wrecking, the homes of [unclear: aprri] culturai and factory workmen ?
[unclear: 10.]Or that has already been found to paralyse the productiveness of our [unclear: arise] in comparison with other countries, especially the United States.
[unclear: 11.]Or, as we are officially informed, renders our commercial seamen less [unclear: monthly] on board ship ?
[unclear: 12.]Or that spreads these accumulating evils throughout the British Empire, [unclear: in] blighting our fairest colonies ?
[unclear: 13.]Or that has destroyed, and is destroying, the indigenous races where so the British Empire is in contact with them, so that from the hem of its [unclear: point] there goes out not the virtue of civilisation and of Christianity, but [unclear: edation] and death ? "

He further wrote—"The safety of the commercial world is being sacrificed to [unclear: all] the profits of the drink trade. But the safety of the commonwealth is above [unclear: the] and ought to interpose its mandate."

supplied for Free Distribution at 4d. per 100, 1s. 6d. per 500, 2s. 6d. per 1,000.]

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[unclear: Is] Liquor Revenue pay ?

[unclear: uation] of London brewers once waited upon Mr. Gladstone, to urge that certain [unclear: Elation], restrictive of the Liquor Traffic, would seriously affect the revenue, Mr. [unclear: comptly] replied: "Gentlemen, I cannot permit a question of mere revenue to be [unclear: beingside] a Question of morals; but give me a sober population, not wasting their [unclear: strong] drink, and I shall know where to get my revenue." The late Hon. John [unclear: redited] with having used similar language. Justice Grier, of the United States [unclear: act,] said: " If a loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a [unclear: asumption] of ardent spirits, she will be the gainer a thousandfold in the health, [unclear: happiness] of the people."

[unclear: Generally] admitted that the indirect cost of drink to a country, in crimes, loss of time, [unclear: ith], competence, commerce, and life, is at least equivalent to the direct cost. It is [unclear: timate] that eighty millions have been spent in New Zealand upon drink, and [unclear: Letting] approaching twenty millions of revenue (Colonial and local) have been [unclear: of] it. The direct expenditure, unlike that upon food, furniture, wholesome [unclear: jack] a dwelling house, is wholly a loss to the purchaser. The indirect cost to the State [unclear: capabely] to be borne by the individuals of the State; so that to get twenty millions of [unclear: on] State as a whole has been involved in an indirect loss of eighty millions, and the [unclear: commerce] in a direct loss of eighty millions more, the whole one hundred and sixty [unclear: during] absolutely unproductive, except of untold demoralisation and misery, and the [unclear: as] wealthy and powerful liquor oligarchy to corrupt commerce, the public Press, the [unclear: and] the public administration, in favour of the interests of their devastating trade. [unclear: are] hundred and sixty millions of money, not merely wasted, but made to produce not [unclear: jfeation], but greater poverty than if it had been thrown into the sea, is a very dear [unclear: the] people for twenty millions of revenue.

[unclear: This] leaves out of account, and therefore out of the cost involved, the enormous wealth [unclear: avalible] and reproductive use of this one hundred and sixty millions of money would [unclear: need.] Even the labour it has employed of maltsters, draymen, barmen, policemen, [unclear: soliders] and a host beside, has involved the State in the loss of the enormous wealth that [unclear: resulted] from a reproductive employment of all this brain and sinew; while the [unclear: usetity] of grain destroyed to make the drink has both increased the cost of bread to [unclear: and] through the drink expenditure diminished their capacity to purchase it.

[unclear: C.] Fernald, in an admirable book on the Economics of Prohibition, published in 1890 [unclear: at]Wagnalis, rightly says:—" If any community could ascertain just what its saloon-[unclear: making], it could better afford to lay a direct tax upon the people of that whole [unclear: time] pay it year after year to the saloon-keepers, without getting anything in return, [unclear: he] afford to spend the same money at their bars, and drink their liquor. For then [unclear: time] would save the whole indirect cost."

[unclear: Further] says: "The latest statistics carry the direct cost of intoxicants to one thousand [unclear: ji] annually for the United States. As the indirect cost has at least equalled the [unclear: time] past, it is probable that it does now, though we have no statistics on crime, [unclear: side], later than 1880. This is certainly a bad showing. . . . Take, now, the [unclear: hetty]-eight million dollars which the general Government collects from the Liquor [unclear: Me] is very nearly one dollar in ten dollars of the people's outlay. There is evidently [unclear: what]. For it is 'we, the people,' who are the Government, and we, the people, [unclear: ending] the money. It is ' we' who expend the one thousand million dollars, and it is [unclear: 'we'] who get back the ninety-eight million dollars. That cannot pay. The whole [unclear: no] more afford to do business at an outlay of ten dollars for one dollar received, than any [unclear: may] afford to do business at the same rate. It is no answer to say that we are rich enough, [unclear: enough] in other ways to bear the loss for a good while to come. If Wanamaker were to [unclear: them] of the departments of his great store was costing him ten dollars for every one [unclear: id], that department would be promptly closed out. It would not satisfy him that [unclear: partments] were bringing in enough to save him from immediate bankruptcy. Such a [unclear: time] be stopped by any business man of sense. Why should it not be stopped by the [unclear: is] if they have sense ? It is not good financiering to get ninety-eight million dollars [unclear: expenditure] of one thousand million dollars, and the indirect loss of another one [unclear: milon] dollars."

[unclear: Supplied] for Free Distribution at 4d. per 100, 1s. 6d. per 500, 2s. 6d. per 1,000.]

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Effects of Alcohol.

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The following extracts are taken from H. Harbour's admirable little book, "Strong Reasona Against Strong Drink":—

"The [British] Registrar-General's returns show that a high death-rate-acccompanies a ready access to alcoholic liquors. In his Forty-fifth Annual Report be showed that from 25 to 65 years of age, where 967 men in all occupations die, 1,521 publicans die, and 2,205 publicans' servants. When the statistics of [unclear: mor] tality of those engaged in various occupations were first published by the Registrar-General the grocers were among the healthiest men in the kingdom, but afterwards their vitality began to show a decline, and Dr. Farr pointed out that the downward tendency commenced from the day when grocers began to sell strong drink."

"Diseases arising from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable a become hereditary."—Dr. Erasmus Darwin.

"I have been brought to the conviction, from the very large experience of [unclear: the] father and grand father, which has extended over a century, that no cause has [unclear: and] to so much suffering and inherited ill-health as the consumption of alcohol."—[unclear: Sarles] Darwin.

"I hardly know any more potent cause of disease than alcohol."—Sir W. [unclear: ill], F.R.S., Physician to the Queen.

"If there were no alcoholic drinking, very many of the congestions and [unclear: dam] inations of modern days would be unknown."—Dr. Rutherford.

"As I looked at the hospital wards to-day, and saw that seven out of ten [unclear: red] their disease to alcohol, I could but lament that the teaching about the [unclear: prestion] was not more direct, more decisive, more home-thrusting, than even it [unclear: had] been."—Sir A. Clarke, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician in Ordinary to the Queen.

"I never suffer ardent spirits in my house, thinking them evil spirits."—Sir [unclear: stley] Cooper.

"Ardent spirits dispose to every form of acute disease."—Dr. Benj. Rush.

"The effect of drinking spirits is to convert the blood in the arteries into the [unclear: used] of the veins; in other words, it is to change the bright-looking, vermillion-[unclear: boured], nutritious blood into blood which is black in its colour, without the [unclear: never] to nourish, and poisonous in its effects."—Dr. Benj. Brodie.

"Alcohol is a poison, and health cannot be benefited by it to any degree-[unclear: an] bear it sometimes, but it is benefited by it never. It is injured by the [unclear: all] lest dose."—Sir Andrew Clark, M.D., F.R.C.P.

"I have no hesitation in attributing a very large proportion of some of the [unclear: but] painful maladies which come under my notice, as well as those which every [unclear: medical] man has to treat, to the ordinary and daily use of fermented drink, taken [unclear: in] the quantity which is conveniently deemed moderate."—Sir H. Thompson, [unclear: F. R. S.]

"Alcoholic drinks are injurious if habitually taken for daily use."—Alfred [unclear: repenter], M.D.

"Every organ in the body is supplied with deficient nourishment, every tissue [unclear: let er] iorated by the constant and regular use of alcohol, even in quantities far [unclear: at] of drunkenness."—Norman S. Kerr, M.D., F.L.S.

"lt is perfectly certain that there are multitudes at this moment who are [unclear: during] their constitutions, and shortening their lives, by taking alcohol daily, in [unclear: amount] which they consider strictly moderate."—J. J. Ridge, M.D.

Supplied for Free Distribution at 4d. per 100, 1s. 6d. per 500, 2s. 6d. per 1,000].

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Effect of the Liquor Traffic on the Material Welfare of the People.

[unclear: In fact] is dawning upon the people that nothing else robs every other labour [unclear: made] interest like the Liquor Traffic.

Vastly more than is perhaps commonly supposed, the Drink Traffic seriously affects work and wages, local settlement, storekeeping and the price [unclear: mores], the value of property and municipal revenue. But, while the whole [unclear: community] suffers directly or indirectly by the Liquor Traffic, no class of the [unclear: community] would be more benefited by its complete prohibition than the Liquor [unclear: backers] themselves, for reasons perfectly obvious to everyone except [unclear: selves].

Besides this, a powerful liquor interest corrupts municipal and parliamentary [unclear: this], and both general and local police administration.

The expenditure on drink accounts for the bulk of the local bad debts, the [unclear: finshed] cash trade, diminished demand for labour and corresponding fall in [unclear: these] and diminished demand for properties of all kinds; and explains the [unclear: ere] why hundreds of men, who in the past have earned good wages, were never [unclear: pressed] of the means to become permanent settlers, establish homes, require [unclear: press] built and furnished, and families supplied with needful goods, improving [unclear: bears] for everybody; but, if not already dead, are still wandering about as [unclear: all] less swaggers, and destined to augment taxation by a pauperised old age. The bad debts and reduced cash trade through drink necessitate the store-[unclear: members] covering this loss by charging more for their goods, and thus living is [unclear: of] dear for everybody, and everybody is taxed in the price of his stores because [unclear: be] Drink Traffic.

The license fees are a dead loss, for if the Drink were swept away a few [unclear: st] oepers could easily pay the whole over and over out of their extra profit, or [unclear: of] people out of the reduced cost of living. But, as a matter of fact, taxation [unclear: sold] fall lighter on everyone by reason of the general increase of prosperity [unclear: in] settlement which would result from the saving of the money at present [unclear: fly] squandered upon drink. But now storekeepers pay a good deal more in [unclear: the] of trade, and every consumer is heavily taxed beside.

The short-sighted licensing public and the all-powerful licensed victualler [unclear: at] the lines:—

A smiling young lady of Niger
Went out for a ride on a tiger:
They returned from their ride
With the lady inside—
And the smile on the face of the tiger!

No one can tell the moral, social, and material wreckage and ruin accounted by the ghastly fact that over eighty millions have been spent on drink in [unclear: the] Zealand, and that over two millions a year are still squandered on it.

[unclear: Effect] Veto Resolution Adopted by the House of Representatives in 1889.

Whereas the enormous direct expenditure on intoxicating liquors in this Colony [unclear: amounting] annually to more than two millions sterling—contributes largely to [unclear: existing] depression, adds materially to crime and poverty, and reduces the [unclear: the] available for reproductive industries; and whereas the people under the [unclear: having] law are powerless to remove the principal cause of these evils, it is, in the [unclear: pasion] of this House, imperative that the Government should, without delay, [unclear: produce] a Bill giving power to the people, by Direct Vote at the Ballot Box, [unclear: redically] taken, to prohibit the sale of such liquors within the district in which [unclear: beside]."

Supplied for Free Distribution at 4d. per 100, 1s. 6d. per 500, 2s. 6d. per 1,000.]