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The Colony's Drink Bill.

New Zealand Good Templar Tracts, No. 9.

The cost of the alcoholic liquors consumed in this Colony in 1894 was £2,099,552, equal to £3 1s 1d for each European man, woman, and child. That sum of money brought no return to us for its expenditure. It was absolutely thrown away, but in such a manner as to create many serious evils. From the following table and diagram a good comparative idea of the amount may be obtained :—

From this it appears that we spend almost as much on alcoholic liquor as we do on all kinds of clothing and tea and sugar combined, and all this we spend on a commodity which does no good to any, but much harm to all. While we have been prodigally spending this wealth on an unnecessary luxury, we have been striving to satisfy the needs of the unemployed of this fruitful country. Had this money been put into reproductive channels of industry, what would have been the difference ?

Our drink account was a sum large enough to pay the labour of 20,000 workmen at 7s per day the year through. That means food, clothing, and comfort for 60,000 women and children. Thus it was enough to make 80,000 persons comfortable had it been diverted from the ocean of waste into the fields of industry.

The £2,099,552 of the drink bill, if diverted to wages, would represent a weekly sum of £43,740 of liberated wealth. Such a sum would give employment to every unemployed man and woman in the colony. Every family would receive the necessaries of life; their demands for comforts would at once begin to increase. Workmen would require, and be able to pay for, new suits of clothes; their wives would require new garments, and their children new and comfortable clothing. Their food demands, firing, household furniture, would all increase; and by this means all the industries of the country would be revived, until, instead of mills, factories, workshops, stores, &c, being only able to find part time for employes, not one would have an hour idle or a bench or desk unused.

To confine the illustration, take the proportion of the drink bill for the city of Dunedin and suburbs alone, the population being set down at 52,000—that is £156,000 a year, or almost £500 a day, equal to 7s a day for 1428 men for every working day in the year, wet and dry. In such a state of things, where would our "unemployed" question be ?

It is evident that with such a drain upon our resources it is impossible to get rid of financial troubles and labour difficulties. Therefore, to vote for the liquor traffic continuing, is simply to vote for the continuance of our hard times.