Chapter XVII.

Intemperance.

We may now turn our attention to some of those national institutions and practices which tend to neutralise the uplifting influence of education. The home, the school, the workshop, the church all contribute to the formation of character. The house of ill-fame, the gambling den, the drinking-bar oppose a maleficent influence, crumbling the pillars of character so laboriously erected. The most colossal of the sinister influences is intemperance. Words cannot convey, statistics cannot measure, the wreckage it has wrought. The moral energies of Christian nations should flow out in conquering deluge to overwhelm this dreadful scourge of man.

Look at the magnitude of the problem it presents. According to the "Gambrinius"—a beer organ published in Vienna—the world's production of beer in 1894 was 5,477,862,221 gallous; that of wine, 3,432,150,000. At the average retail rate, says the "Encyclopædia of Social Reforms," of five cents a gallon, 2,739,000,000dol was required to satisfy the world's thirst for intoxicants in tne year a rate of expenditure sufficient in eighteen months to purchase every ounce of the worlds great stock of gold. In the last twenty five years of last century the United States consumed 15,000,000,000 gallons, an amount which would fill a canal 20ft wide 10ft deep and 1,938 miles long. The drink bill of the United states is now l,400,000,000dol a year—an amount one-third more than the Public Debt, twice as much as the capital stock in the banks, a little less than the united capital of the trusts, more than half the value of all her farm products, one-third more than her total imported merchandise, and one-twelfth more than her total exports. From the United States Census, 1890, the following staggering fact is obtained: The total weight of grain used in producing sprit and beer was for one year 3,654,000,0001b. Suppose, now this grain had been ground into flour and made into bread. There would have been a certain waste in the process of grinding, but this loss of weight would have been compensated for in the water added to make the bread; so that lib of grain would have made lib of bread. To have turned 3,654 millions of pounds of grain into 3.654 millions of pounds of bread would have supplied a llb loaf every day in the year to over 10,000,000 people, which represented one-seventh of the total population of the country. The total estimated expenditure of Great Britain on intoxicating liquors during the last twenty-five years amounts to £4,000,000,000 or an annual average of just upon £160,000,000. In the year 1904. page break ending December 31, Great Britain paid for intoxicating drink £168.987,165. She paid for all governmental purposes—including all the expenses of the Monarchy, salaries of officers of State, upkeep of Royal palaces and Imperial Parliament; expenses of administration of justice, salaries of judges and magistrates, cost of prisons, police, reformatories, etc.; expenses of national defence, cost of Navy, Army, and ordnance factory; expenses of education, upkeep of British Museum, National Gallery, universities, colleges, etc.; interest on National Debt; cost of collecting revenue; cost of post office and telegraphic service—£140,325,848; £28,661,317 less than the amount spent on drink. During the last thirty-seven years New Zealand has spent £93,287,931 on alcohol—an amount sufficient to have redeemed the total Public Debt and defrayed the cost of building all her railways, and then left a balance large enough to cover all the expenses of government during the past year. From the "New Zealand Official Year Book, 1907," the following significant particulars may be gleaned;—The amount paid in wages to all the men and boys employed in all the manufacturing industries of the Dominion in 1906 was £3,979,593; the amount spent on alcohol was £3,360,121. The money spent on intoxicants would in less than four years purchase all the land, buildings, machinery, and plant used in all the industries in the Dominion. Last year the money spent was three times as much as the rates levied by all local bodies, and more than the total value of all butter, cheese, and frozen meat exported for the year. Taking round figures, Britain now spends £164.000,000, United States £240,000,000, Germany £150,000,000, Australia £15,000,000, New Zealand £3,000,000 a year on alcohol.

Let us look at this vast problem, first, in the light which polirical economy sheds. Political economy is the science which treats of wealth, its production and distribution. It is considered to have nothing to do with moral questions, except so far as they affect material prosperity. If the economist treats of gambling, he treats it as a vice lessening thrift and leading to impatience of steady industry, and thereby diminishing productive power. He has nothing to do with its immorality as such. In the same spirit he approaches the liquor traffic. He turns a deaf ear to all tales of woe founded on drunkenness, and asks: "How do the drinking customs of the people act on the production and distribution of wealth?" This is the eternal question by which he strives to meet any assault of mere sentiment. The excesses of an alcohol-loving husband fill up the measure of the wife's cup of sorrow; the economist stands immovable as a statue, and frigidly inquires if the man's industrial efficiency is impaired by his immoderate indulgence. Let us bring the liquor traffic to the bar of the judgment of political economy. We will look at the operations of the traffic from the point of view of the cold, unfeeling, soulless man concerned only for that wealth which consists in the multitude of marketable goods. The examination will convince all those free from incurable bias that the economist joins hands with the moralist and philan- page break thropist in condemning the traffic in strong drink. To secure this conviction we have only to establish four propositions:—

1.	That the expenditure on alcohol is wasteful—in the economic sense, that in no way does the expenditure strengthen a people as producers of wealth.
2.	That the expenditure impairs the industrial efficiency of a people, thereby lessening their productive capacity.
3.	That the expenditure accentuates the unemployed problem by taking away employment from labour.
4.	That the liquor traffic costs more to the State directly than it yields in revenue.

Let us address ourselves to the first proposition. What contribution to national character, efficiency, or wealth does this enormous expenditure make? Does the alcohol feed the body or promote physical efficiency? Medical opinion a generation or two ago inclined to the affirmative. To-day it answers almost unanimously: "No!" In 1885 the French Academy of Medicine, one of the most illustrious scientific bodies in the world, in adopting a series of resolutions affirming the desirability of strictly regulating the consumption of alcohol, asserted without dissenting voice that alcohol of all kinds was a poison. The minutes of the British Medical Association show that the same opinion is held by the bulk of the medical profession in Britain. It is true that a few months ago a manifesto was issued in favour of moderate drinking of alcohol, signed by sixteen medical men. The manifesto engineered by a lawyer, and many of the signatories have since expressed their regret at signing. Many of the others are large holders of brewery shares. Besides, the manifesto is counter to the opinion of many of the leading physicians of Britain, such as Sir F. Treves, Sir T. Barlow, Sir W. Horsley. Sir Lauder Brunton, Professor S. Woodhead, Professor Osier, etc. Indeed, it seems doubtful whether alcohol is really useful as a restorative or medicine. The experience of the London Temperance Hospital is almost conclusive as to the value of non-alcoholic treatment. All kinds of cases are dealt with, and the cures there are more numerous than in any other hospital in which alcohol is used. During a period of ten years, says Dr M'Lintock, actuary of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, the Chicago hospitals in which alcohol was used in pneumonia showed a deah rate of 28 to 38 per cent. Treatment without alcohol during the same period at the Mercy Hospital showed a death-rate in pneumonia of less than 12 per cent.

The experience of life insurance companies speaks whit equal authority. There are many now who have a special temperance section, offering easier terms of insurance to abstainers. The page 123 following are the results of thirty-four years' experience of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Society:—

Total Abstinence Section.—Expected death claims, 8,048 for £1,889,628; actual death claims, 5,724 for £1,298,348. Total gain,

There were 2,324 fewer deaths than were expected; and £591,280 less to pay than was expected.

Non-abstaining Section.—Expected death claims, 10,869 for £2,463,253; actual death claims, 10,469 for £2.379,242. Total

The difference is most marked. The non-abstainers show only 400 fewer deaths than were expected against 2,324 of the abstainers; and only £84,011 less than expected against £591,280. Apparently total abstinence tends to longevity. Mr T. P. Whittaker, M.P., a recognised authority on insurance, says that the actual tables of this Society show that from twenty-five to sixty years of age the average mortality amongst abstainers is 40 per cent less than that in the moderate section. Dr M'Lintock reported to the Actuarial Society of America that the actual death-rate among moderate drinkers was 22 per cent, higher than among total abstainers.

In the face of these figures, and the generality of medical testimony, it can hardly be contended that alcohol promotes health or strengthens or feeds the body. If it does not, then the fabulous sums which nations spend on its consumption are, to say the least of it, wasted. Have we then come to this conclusion: that a people would be as rich in health and bodily strength if its beer and spirits were emptied into the ocean? Already we have advanced further—a people would augment its bodily vigour by pouring its alcohol into the sewers. Here is a challenge to the economist. Material wellbeing demands the checking of waste, especially colossal waste of this kind. Great Britain and her self-governing colonies spend £200.000,000 a year on that which in no way promotes national efficiency. The economist has little tolerance for the industry whose products are so useless that their destruction would be as beneficial as their consumption; still less for that industry whose products are so harmful that their destruction would be more beneficial than

The second proposition states that the national expenditure on intoxicants involves a deterioration of national efficiency. In an era when the international competition in commerce is so keen, no country can afford to carry burdens which crush down industrial efficiency. Neither Great Britain nor her Colonies have any producing power to throw away or misdirect. That the star of our empire may remain in the ascendant, we must expand, not contract productive capacity. By education we enlarge our powers, and by page 124 "drink" we diminish them. By education we unfold our possibilities by "drink" we enwrap them. In New Zealand education obtains in round figures £900,000 of the people's money, the public bar obtains over £3,000,000. Less than £1,000,000 is spent in making industrial efficiency and more than £3.000,000 in unmaking

That excessive indulgence in alcohol essens capacity admits of easy proof. Other things being equal, employers invariably choose men of sober rather than men of intemperate habits In 1906 9,210 persons were arrested for drunkenness in New Zealand Considering that not one case of drunkenness in twenty ever comes before the Police Court, one is well within the mark in estimating that there are 30 000 excessive drinkers in the Domm. on. It can not be contended that these 30,000 are so efficient bread-winners and producers as they would be were their habits sober. To the liquet traffic this loss of efficiency must be ascribed. Its existence makes tens of thousands of men in every country a burden upon the the country's resources, and a cause of impoverishment; and yet every sober, industrious man is a source of enrichment.

The action of the American Railroad Companies bears remarkable testimony to the pernicious influence of intoxicants in lessening productive power. Ninety per cent, of them require abstinence from alcohol on the part of their employees when on duty April 12th, 1899, the American Railway Association aaopted a set of standard rules, one of which rcads:—

G.—The use of intoxicants by employees while on duty is prohibited. Their habitual use, or frequenting of places where they are sold, is sufficient cause for dismissal.

There are a little more than 200,000 miles of main-trunk mile age in the United States, and the Railway Association controls 160.000 miles of it. The greater number of the Railway Companies that are not incorporated in the Association have rules equally stringent against the use of intoxicants. Many Companies both in the Association and out of it, make total abstinence under all circumstances, a pre-requisite of employment, here for instance is the form to be filled in by an applicant for employment on the Vendalia Line:—

To________________________

Dear sir,—I hereby make application for a situation as..................... and if employed agree to observe all the rales and regulations of the Company, to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors to aviod saloons and places of low resort, to conduct myself properly whether on or of duty, and to perfrom my duty to the bset of my ability.

Rule 22 of the regulations of the Toronto, Hamilton, and Buffalo Railway reads:—"The use of intoxicating liquors is forbidden under any circumstances."

In 1908 there were 1,189.815 employed on the American railways, and it was estimated that fully 1,000,000 came within the operation of rule "G 'of the Railway Association, or its equivalent.

The Pittsburg Railway Company gave the following significant notice to its employees on the 20th April, 1907:—

Notice to Employees

April 20th, 1907.

For the betterment of the service and the safety of the publuic it will from this date be the policy of this Company to Not retain in its employ men who use intoxicating liquors or cigarettes, or are in the habit of gambling. While it is the privilege of each individual to eat, drink, and smoke what he pleases, it becomes the duty of this managelent to have in its service only men of sober and temperat habits, physically and mentally able to perform the duties to which they may be assigned.

John Murphy,

General Superintendent Approved:

Jno. D. Callery.

Pres.

What the "Railway Age "said a few years ago is undoubtedly true that the railways of the United States now constitute one of "the grandest and most effective temperance organisations in existence." This statement is equally true of the Canadia railways.

The practice of these American Railway Companies is incontrovertible testimony to the detrimental effects of indulgence in intoxicant on industrial efficiency.

But more direct proof is available. Examine briefly the statistics of lunacy. One person in 285 in England and Wales is a certified lunatic. Forbes winslow, M.B., D.C.L., LL.D., recently wrote:-"We are indeed a mad world at the present time, and I shudder to think what will be our condition thirty years hence, unless some stringent measures are passed by the Legislature enabling us to deal with the subject effectually. I am of opinion that degeneration, and how to contend with it, are the most important questions of the present day. It is the duty of everyone to aid in the prevention of this calamity. Out one aim in life should be to improve the intellectural, moral and physical condition of man, to prevent his degeneration, and to establish, if possible, his regeneration."

In 1859 there were in England and Wales 37,000 certified insane persons, or one in 536 persons. On the 1st January, 1905, there were 120,000, or one in 285. A great deal of this increase page 126 is apparent only, and is due, not to growing insanity, but to better and more accurate registration. The records of the English Lunacy Commissioners for five years, 1899-1903, state the main causes of insanity in the following order:—Among men, 22.5 per cent, is said to be due to intemperance, 18.8 per cent, to heredity. 14 per cent, to bodily disease. Among women it is 9.4 per cent., 24.9 per cent., and 13.1 per cent respectively. The Commissioners admit the difficulty of arriving at certain conclusions. 'Intemperance," they say, "frequently is as much the effect of brain weakness as a cause, and the intermingling of these makes it impossible to arrive at precise conclusions." "In any case," they proceed, "it cannot be denied that alcohol is a brain poison." The Superintendent of Banstead Asylum specifies intemperance, worry, and heredity as the chief causes of mental aberration. "After very careful inquiry," says the Superintendent of Claybury Asylum, "I believe that alcoholic stimulants of various kinds have been the exciting or predisposing cause of insanity in 30 per cent, of men, and 18 per cent, of women. The immoderate use of alcohol impels to disease, affecting not the life of one generation only. The Hanwell Asylum places heredity as the chief cause with 48 per cent., and intemperance as the second with 24 per cent.^*

As far as investigation has gone, statistics show that 25 per cent, at least of the world's insanity is due to intemperance. The census of 1901 showed that there were 117,274 lunatics, of winch number 46,800 were married or widowed. No wonder heredity is such a mighty cause. The lunatic through intemperance leaves progeny who are insane through heredity. The propagation of the unfit is appalling. In a Magdalene Home in London a hundred consecutive cases were recently inquired into, and thirty-seven mothers were found to be feeble-minded. A metropolitan worthouse, at the same time, had as inmates twelve weak-minded women, who, amone: them, had given birth to twenty-one illegitimate children. This is the tragedy of insanity—the cumulative effect of the operation of its causes.

Truly intemperance weakens efficiency. But examine now

Carrol D. Wright, the United States Commissioner of Labour when in charge of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labour, analysed the causes of the crimes committed in 1880 in Suffolk County which includes the City of Boston. The total number of sentences for year was 16,897, of which 12,289, or 72 per cent., were for drunkenness and illegal sale of liquor; the first accounting for 12,221 con-

^* The 1895 Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour states that out of 1,506 cases inquired into the insanity of 526, or about 35.70, was found to be due either to their own use of liquor or that of their

page 127 victions, the latter for 68. Of the remaining 4,608, 2,067 were for offences committed while under the influence of liquor, and in 1,918 cases the intent to commit the crime had been formed while the perpetrator was intoxicated. In 1,804 cases the crime was commitred under conditions induced by the drinking habits of the criminal, while in 821 cases the drinking habits of others induced the crime. He thus arrived at a total of 14,386 convictions, or 84 per cent, of the whole, due directly or indirectly to intoxicants.^* Professor J. J. M'Cook, of Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, read a paper in 1895 before the Twentieth Century Club, in which he ascribed 80.67 per cent, of crime to drink. He found ninety-five to ninety-seven of every hundred in gaol self-confessed drinkers, though most, of course, asserted that they drank only moderately. Investigation among the official records discovered over 20 per cent. of murders set down specifically to excessive indulgence in alcohol. Mr Justice Hodges, of Victoria, wrote on October 3, 1907:—" After close upon nineteen years' experience in the criminal and divorce courts, I can repeat what I said publicly some years ago: that drink is either directly or indirectly responsible for more crime, more sin, more domestic misery than all other causes put together."

Crime means weakness, crime means inefficiency, crime means misdirected energy. It means expense to the State, it means impairment of productive power. Truly intemperance is a colossal evil.

The contribution of intemperance to pauperism has already been adverted to. The twenty-third Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour contains the record of special investigations into the condition of the tenement population of Boston. The investigation covered 475 families and 2,140 persons. The most potent individual cause of the tenement condition was found to be drink, to which was ascribed 42 per cent, of the cases. Again, we may say that intemperance is a fearful engine of degradation, destroying industrial efficiency.

But this catalogue of woe has no end. Drink enfeebles the constitutions of the children of the nations. Dr Demme, a distinguished Gennan physician, found that of the children of nondrinkers 82 per cent, were sound, while of those of excessive drinkers only 17 per cent, were so. Dr Brendell, in a lecture a few years ago before the Anthropological Society of Munich, ascribed to alcohol "fatty, enfeebled hearts, shrivelled kidneys, fatty or

^* This conclusion is confirmed by the results of an official inquiry in 1895, published in the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour. It was found that 84.41 per cent, of the crimes in the year were committed by those who acknowledged that "their intemperate habits led to a condition which induced the crime." Further. "82 per cent, of the criminals were under the influence of liquor when the crime was committed."

page 128 hardened livers, changes in the texture of blood-vessels which cause paralytic strokes and softenings of the brain" "In spite of the marvellous advance of our present age," he concluded, "a great retrogression in an ethical sense is undeniable, the chief cause of which is the increase of drunkenness, because the beer saloon has become the centre and focus of social life."

Intemperance is a prolific source of death. In July, 1907, the City Coroner of Sydney publicly stated that of 600 deaths which he inquired into in the year previous a very large proportion was due directly or indirectly to excesses in alcoholic liquor. The annual report of the Registrar-General of England and Wales for 1893 states that "the deaths directly ascribed to intemperance numbered 2,174, or 73 per 1,000,000. Many British insurance companies refuse to insure brewers or publicans under any conditions. Among them are the Scottish Widows' Fund Life Assurance Society, the United Kingdom Company, the Mutual of New York, the Mutual of Australasia. Many others load publicans' at from 25s to 42s per cent. Among them are the Prudential Life Office, the Scottish Temperance Society, the Equitable. The discrimination in favour of total abstainers on the part of many companies has already been alluded to. The experience of insurance companies gives us this conclusion: That, taking the rate of mortality at 10.000. there will die of this unit 620 farmers, 1,361 brewers, 1,521 saloon-keepers 2,205 waiters in saloons. Truly intemperance kills. The national interest again emerges. Intemperance is the inveterate enemy of physical and mental manhood; and a permanent nation must have men strong in body and mind to cany its heavy burdens and to win

Is it matter for wonder that the Chinese claim that eleven centuries before Christ one of their Emperors ordered all vines in the country to be uprooted; that Buddha inculcated total abstmence as a divine ordinance; that Draco punished drunkenness with death: that Lycurgus, King of Thrace, ordered all vines to be destroyed; that the Carthagenians forbade wine in their camps? Is it any wonder that the greatest of all modern philosophers, Bacon, exclaimed: "All the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the human race nor alienate so much property as drunkenness"? Is it it surprising that our British Generals, Wolseley. Roberts Kitchener, should stand for abstinence in the Army; that the last named testified that during the Soudan campaign the victories of the men and speedy recoveries of the wounded were due to the abstinence of the men from alcoholic drinks? Can we marvel that intoxicants were abolished a few years ago in the canteen of the United States Army? We can now understand the passages in Cæsar bearing testimony to the strength which temperance imparts. He tells us that the Nervii—a race of Teutons—displayed the most conspicuous valour of all the tribes he met in Gaul. Their preeminence he ascribes to the fact that they were water-drinKers and page 129 forbade wine to be brought amongst them as being injurious to sinew and courage. Cæsar's works, indeed, abound in eloquent expressions of praise for the sturdy temperance in food and drink of the Gauls and Germans, whose natural vigour, undiminished by excess, took ten long years of fierce conflict to subdue.

The above table should stir the reforming zeal of every patriotic British subject, especially in view of the progress towards national sobriety being made in the United States. In 1870 that country had 7,000,000 people living under No-license In 1900 there were 18.000,000; in 1907, 40,000,000.

The third proposition avers that expenditure on alcohol takes away employment from Labour. What is meant is that capital devoted to the liquor traffic offers less employment to Labour than if devoted to any other industry. The proof is easy and invulnerable. If the people of New Zealand were to cease spending £3,000,000 a year on beer, or the people of Britain £164,000,000, the money would be released for expenditure in other directions. When the labourer gets his wages, if one avenue of customary expenditure is closed, he has more to lay out in other ways. If Britain were suddenly to discontinue drinking, her people would find themselves with £164,000,000 with which to extend their purchases of other commodities. Now, to buy commodities is to buy the labour necessary to produce those commodities. If, for instance, New Zealand adopted the reform of No-license, the totle demand for labour would not be page 130 lessened. Labour would not be required to make beer to the value of £3,000,000, but it would be required to make other goods to the value of £3,000,000. The mere shutting off of expenditure on one article of consumption does not diminish a community's general purchasing power; it ensures enlarged expenditure on other articles. What happens is a transference of Labour and Capital from one industry to others. Reasoning similar to that used in showing that Freetrade does not lessen the employment in a country applies here. To allow the free importation of boots may occasion the closing down of a local factory, but the labour discharged will be required to produce for export commodities to pay for the boots imported.

The abolition of the liquor traffic, however, would involve something more than the mere transference of labour from an injurious trade to wholesome industries. The transference would increase the demand for labour. It would not only absorb the men and women displaced from the manufacture and distribution of intoxicants, it would create a demand for many more workers. The Blue Books of the British House of Commons for 1891 contain a Government return which shows that out of each £100 of value produced £55, or 55 per cent., was paid in wages in the coal mining industry, 40.8 per cent, in shipbuilding, 34.7 per cent, in the construction of docks and harbours, 31 per cent. in the working of railways, 27.9 per cent, in agriculture. 27.5 per cent, in cotton manufacture, 23.3 per cent, in the iron and steel trade, 21.9 per cent, in woollen manufacture, 7.5 per cent, in brewing. Of the £164,000,000 which British people spend annually on alcohol, some £12,300,000 finds its way into the pockets of the labourers as wages. Spend that sum on coal., and some £90,200,000 would be earned by Labour in the form of wages. Succinctly put, spend £1 on beer, and Is 6d of it will be paid in wages; spend £1 on coal, and lis of it will be devoted to wages: spend £1 on a railway excursion, and the spender will have the satisfaction of knowing that over 6s of his money will be obtained as wages by the railway employees. Spend it on cloth, and ove 4s of it will be wages.

Looked at in another way, £100 spent on coal will give employment to more than seven times as many labourers as the same money spent on beer; spent on shipbuilding, it will give nearly six times as much employment; spent on wheat, butter, etc., it will give nearly four times as much; on cutlery more than three times as much. The liquor traffic, in short, per million of money spent on it, gives employment to fewer men than any other trade. Such was the result arrived at by the Royal Commission which investigated the matter in 1891. The relative conditions of industry in all parts of the civilised world being similar, the findings of the Commission must be approximately true in Australasia and Canada.

Indeed, they are confirmed by a table more recently compled from the Government records of the United States, and published in 1901 by Bliss in his "Encyclopedia of Social Reform" This table takes nine representative industries, shows the amount of capital employed in each, the total number of labourers, the total amount of wages, and the average number of employees and the average yearly wages paid per 10,000dol of

According to this table money invested in making boots and shoes will give employment to nearly ten times as many persons as money spent on beer; on clothing to nearly nine times as many; on bread to nearly eight times as many. With the exception of cotton, there is more capital employed in brewing than in any other industry; yet there is less paid in wages; and a less number of workmen engaged. The boot trade employs a little more than one-third of the capital, pays more than twice as much in wages, and employs more than three times as many workers. From the point of view of employment of labour, cotton stands next in order of demerit to beer; yet for every £2,000 of capital it employs twice as many hands, and disburses £22 more in wages. The reason for the greater difference between the number of labourers employed as compared with the amount of wages paid is to be found in the larger number of women and children employed in cotton factories. As an employer of labour, then, the brewer is the worst. These tables furnish an illustration of the supreme folly of buying beer that trade may be stimulated and the employment of labour increased.

They also furnish a striking commentary upon another table set forth by Bliss. It shows how the Americans distribute their expenditure

To spend the largest sum on the most harmful article of consumption, which is at the same time the product of an industry which gives the least employment to labour proportionate to expenditure and capital employed, seems strangely irrational.

This enormous consumption of alcohol must have a close bearing on the unemployed problem. For every man now employed in the liquor business, three, four, five, or more would be wanted if the liquor business were abolished, and the people's money, now spent on liquor, turned into other channels. Might it not have a bearing also on the problem of low wages? To increase the demand for labour without increasing the supply is necessarily to benefit the worker. It relieves any glut in the labour market and causes wages to take an upward tendency.

It is the same with labour as with the products of labour: increase the demand relative to the supply, and up goes the price. It is estimated that if No-license were carried in New Zealand it would displace about 3,750 workpeople, but it would employ them in other industries and call for 7,500 more. If that number were not unemployed, then the increased demand would manifest itself increased competition for the labourers already employed, which could not but result in an increase of general wages. It should not be forgotten that the £3,000,000 the people spend annually in the public bars represent a minimum of three times as much employing power when expended on other commodities.

There remains the fourth proposition to establish to complete the economist's case against the liquor traffic: It costs more directly and indirectly to the State than it yields in revenue. Indeed, it would seem that the direct outlay in money occasioned by the traffic in strong drinks is much greater than the enormous revenue it affords. Again, we must draw upon the statistics of the United States. The Government departments of that country are the most perfectly organised in the world for furnishing the arithmetic of social problems. Every year a statistical abstract is issued, and the publication of 1895 gives an estimate of the cost to the country of the liquor traffic in 1890, which shows the madness of supporting the traffic on account of the revenue it yields.

It was estimated that the net direct cost in that year was 765,38l,893dol, and the net public revenue was 137,263,974dol For every dollar received, five dollars had to be spent. An estimate is also attached of the indirect cost, which is stated at 453,076,220dol, bringing the total cost of the traffic to the nation to the fabulous sum of 1,218,453,113dol. So that for every dollar the Treasury gains the nation loses nine.

The manner of arriving at the cost to the Goverment of poverty and crime is by ascribing to drink 75 per cent, of the cost of institution for criminals and paupers. The totle cost of these institutions to the State and local governments was in 1890 91,841,840dol,75 pre cent. of which give 68.881.110dol.

The traffic to the State goverments and locals bodies of America involves a direct monetary loss. These bear the expense of police administration and charity, 91, 841,480dol, and receive license fees amounting to 24,786496dol. But 75 per cent. of the cost of police administration and charity would be saved if the drinking customs of the people were discontinued. The direct monetary gain to these public bodies, if the traffic were abolished, would be 68,881,110dol, less 24,786,496dol, or 44,094,714dol. In other words, to secure twenty-four million dollars these bodies have to pay out sixty-eight millions.

These figures of course relate to the year 1890. Nothing so elaborate has been published since, but the 1906 Report of the Massachusetts Board of Charity is confirmatory. Part of Masachusetts is under No-license and part under License. The Repon shows that the cost of pauperism in License cities is 675dol per 1,000 inhabitants, in No-license cities 378dol per 1,000—a decrease of nearly 80.70. The decrease would be much greater but for the aftermath of weakness caused by excessive drinking under License. This will disappear when a new generation arises uncorrupted by insobriety, past or present. Carrol D. Wright, indeed, has recently estimated that for every dollar of revenue got in by the United States from drink, there is a resultant expense of twenty-one dollars.

How is this gigantic evil to be dealt with? The question is importunate. It will come with louder knocks every year. As Lord Rosebery said some time ago, Great Britain must grapple with and overthrow it, or it will grapple with and overthrow Great Britain. There is no problem more alarming than this of intem perance. It wastes money; but, worse still, it wastes character. It is an economic problem of the first magnitude. It is a social and moral problem of still greater proportions. An earnest people must rise up and smite it. The duty will not be denied. The manhood of the nation must purge off this distemper. But how?

We may rely upon education inculcating in our schools sound teaching upon the baneful effects of alcohol upon the human body. We may use the Church, Platform, and Press as vehicles of moral suasion. We may trust to the conscience and enlightened selfinterest of the people to put an end to intemperance, which dethrones the reason, excites the passions, and leads to crime. Ofwhile not neglecting or depreciating this method, we may combine i with laws regulative or prohibitive of the traffic in alcohol, rostively, we may promote the growth of temperance sentiment, an negatively we may strike down institutions which impede the grow of temperance practice. Such a course is likely to effect reformation with greater despatch.

The curse of alcohol is the ungovernable appetite it tends to engender. The appalling prevalence of intemperance is not due to any lack of knowledge of its injurious consequences. Men drink in excess to drown sorrow; men drink to aid conviviality; men drink because their companions drink. Thus men begin to drink. After wards men drink because the passion for it has got hold of them. The facility which the public house system, with its open bar, offers to this drinking is the feature of the problem which should attract the attention of all reformers earnest for human betterment and the enlargement of human capacity. If the charge laid against intemperance be true, it behoves every stalwart, wholesome-minded people to adopt every expedient for its discouragement. Law page 135 must be invoked and its penalties applied with rigour if need be. It may be urged that we cannot make moral by Act of Parliament. Without in any way assenting to this proposition, this at any rate is true: We can multiply the difficulties to the practice of vice. The principle cannot be gainsaid, and it is a good working one for the politician that wrong will flourish most when least encumbered with impediments, and prosper least when most harassed with restrictions. Laws are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence, crime, and wrong. They are invented for the one good, great purpose, that what is not just shall not be convenient. It is the duty of the Government of a country to make it as easy possible for an individual to do right, and as difficult as possible for an individual to do wrong.

The State has abundant justification, then, for regulating or abolishing entirely the traffic in strong drink. And, indeed, this traffic has no claim upon the support of an enlightened people. A trade which flourishes upon the ruins of its supporters, which derives its revenue from the impoverishment of homes, which thrives upon the crumbling of character, which requires for its prosperity the injury of the community, ought not to be able to claim the encouragement of a nation's laws. The liquor traffic is such a trade, and yet it receives the sanction and protection of British law. If alcohol affected farm stock as it affects human stock, it would have been prohibited long ago.

The moral energies of the British Empire must gather for the overthrow of the traffic in intoxicants. The struggle will be tremendous. But we are not permitted without dishonour to lay down the burden of it. The evil is full grown. It is shaking the pillars of our national might. British stamina is strong, but the immeasurable tide of strong drink can wear it down, as the ocean, plunging and heaving at a bank, eats into it and devours it. We must swing round upon this dreadful scourge. We must play the iconoclast and strike down the institution, which flourishes only by striking down the character of the people. If we cannot foresee the ultimate consequences of the great social change, we must stand on abstract right and have faith that what is just shall prove expedient It cannot be that the abolition of the liquor traffic can bring with it a train of disasters commensurate with that occasioned by its existence. The magnitude of the problem must not be allowed to induce hesitation. Let courage mount with occasion. The manhood of the nation, the womanhood of the nation, its childhood, its happinness, its moral and material well-being, cry aloud: "Down with the traffic, and up with manhood." The body politic shall be purged of this disease. The sword must be d rawn and the scabbard flung away. The destiny of our Empire hangs upon the issue. And we must not expect that in stepping in to change an old inveterate custom it can be done peaceably; we are bound to jar page 136 something. There is nothing for the cancer but the knife, and there is nothing for the liquor traffic but the severance of the taproot. Hardship in individual cases may be inflicted. It cannot be avoided where vested interests are being assailed. But this most not soften into acquiescence. When a great work is to be done on a source of corruption in society, it is, as has been already said, only men with the temper of the sword and the fervour of the flame who can do it. In proclaiming and preaching of the evils of intemperance we would do well to catch the spirit of the great Nazarene. He preached to the blind beggar with clay and spittle, to the sick with healing, to the broken-hearted with comfort, to the money changers with the scourge. In the same way we should preach to the labourer with honest wages, and to the evil institution with battle-axe and battering ram.