The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1890. Government by Alcohol

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 148, 7 June 1890, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1890. Government by Alcohol

Not long ago we instanced as an evidence of business prosperity in this locality the number of drunken men seen in the streets of the town, and from the following it will be seen that Mr Goschen, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in England, holds the same view. We confess the figures quoted are startling as well as a surprise. In explaining the excess of £3,221,000 orer his estimates, Mr Goschen said : " Nearly 2£ millions out of this surplus haye been due' to an extraordinary rush to alcohol, and to an operation in silver which was not anticipated when I presented my Budget last year. I now wish to call the particular attention of the Committee to the fact that the increase in the consumption of alcohol has augmented the receipts from alcoholic beverages by a sum exceeding £1,800,000. Let me. remind the Committee that for 11 years the revenue from spirits had been declining, and for two years it had remained stationary. Now, if I had come before the House and said I believed there would be an increase in the consumption of alcoholic beverages in the year which would bring in £1,800,000 more, I should have been considered either a lunatic or libeller of the consuming classes of this country. Let me analyse the details of the revenue of the past year. The net receipts on all consumable articles except spirits, wine, and beer, actually fell short of my estimates by, in round numbers, £130,000. The net receipts from liquors amounted to £29.265,000, as compared with the estimate of £27,430,000. If I deduct the receipts from the charge made on the beer duty it shows an increase of c1036 upon £1,800,000. It is in drink, and drink alone, that as regards consumable articles the revenue was under-estimated for the laßt year. I may have been wrong in not foreseeing this -great increase, but I think I have been wrong in company with every person who has studied the the course of consumption of drink during the last few years. And the Committee will notice that this rush of alcohol has been universal. Some have rushed to the beer barrel, others to the decanter, bu«-aLI classes seem to have combined in toasting the prosperity of the country, and have largely increased the revenue. I call the special attention of the House of Commons to this extraordinary circumstance — a circumstance which will b» deplored by almost everyone for many reasons, and which places upon the Government and upon the House an increasing liability to deal with the consumption of alcoholic drinks. A closer examination of the separate sums in the list of alcoholic beverages will not diminish the surprise which the House and the public will feel. Of all beverages in the world, the one that shows the greatest increase is rum. I have taken some pains, but have failed practically to find out who drinkßthe rum. But I am told it is mainly seaport towns, and London, being a port,- has also contributed very largely to this extraordinary increase. The consumption of rum has increased by 12 per cent ; British spirits by 7 per cent ; brandy by nearly 6 per cent; and other sorts of spirits by nearly 5 per cent. I cannot exaggerate the impression which these figures make upon myself. The more you look into them the more extraordinary they seem, to be. I have wanted to show what this additional consumption of 12 per eent in rum means if reduced to intelligible proportions. I u .iderstand that rum is generally asked-, for in public houses by the halfquartern or the- half-gill, either of these terms meaning about one eighth of a pint. The retailer is allowed by Act of Parliament to mix water as long the spirit is not reduced below 25 degrees tinder proof. The price for a half-gill of rum is 2£d or B,d ; thuß the whole of the rum consumed in the United Kingdom, if supposed to have been drunk in these drams, in the year 1888 waa.245 millions of drams, and that enormous amount has been increased by 80 million drams during the course of the past financial year. I hope the Committee will consider 'that this is a matter which we ought to look fully in the face. We ought to understand, not only what 12 per cent means, but, when you go into detail, how it works out. It is an extraordinary historical fact that in the year 1 1875-76, which was the greatest drinking year on record, there was precisely the same rush, in precisely the same proportions of these different classes of spirits, and at the same time too the consumers of wine followed generally in the wake of the consumers of beer and spirits, and so it appears that, notwithstanding all our hopes, increased prosperity means, not an increased consumption of all the other great articles, but has, unfortunately, meant, and does mean, a great increase in the consumption of alcoholic liquors " We think that one main cause in England, at any rate, of people taking more stimulants in the way of alcohol when they have the money to buy them, is the scarcity or dearness of animal food s.uoh as beef and mut ton. It is admitted by the best medical authorities that the causes of the sobriety of young men .reared in New Zealand is mlainly owing to their enormous consumption of meat* as compared with their English brothers. It may therefore be laid down as an absolute truism that the best way to promote temperance in Great Britain in to cheapen the staple article s of food. Well fed and therefore contented men do not seek or require the fleeting stimulus given by alcohol.