DRINK AND THE UNEMPLOYED QUESTION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 4, 4 July 1895, Page 2

DRINK AND THE UNEMPLOYED QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STA.R. Sir, — As one who believes with Mr Pirani as far as the drink question is concerned that the liquor traffic is largely responsible for the unemployed trouble, I hasten to re]i!y to a letter appearing in your paper of June 29th. I Relieve I his is the bed rock of the difficulty, lit effects the drinker and the nondrinker. Your correspondent overlooks the amount of capital that is invested in the drink producing business, and which, compared to any other investment, returns so little to the laborer, viz., from ninepence .to one shilling in every one pound's worth of work produced. Take£^for instance, Guinness and Co's, brewers, in the North of Ireland. , Thei^-are £14,000,000 of money mvested^ln, that gigantic business, and they employ 3,000 persons all told. ' You will thus find it requires just £4,666 13s 4d of capital invested iv the business to give employment to one person. Take again in the North of Ireland the several linen factories. There is a similar amount of money invested in them, viz., £14,000,000, and they employ 1,000,000 persons, i.e., 33 to 1 in the liquor busiuess, and, again, you will find that £140 invested in the linen industry gives employment to one person. It is thus obvious that the liquor investment locks up a very large amount of the world's wealth in a channel that returns the least beneficial results to the laborer for his work, and the worst possible results to his health and happiness. I cannot, at present, tell you even the approximate amount of capital that is invested in the liquor producing businessj but if one alone has a capital of £14/,G00,--000, I leave your readers to form an estimate for themselves. If, then, the production of alcoholic liquors were prohibited, capitalists would then be compelled to invest in the next best thing, which would at the least return seven or eight shillings in the £ to the laborer for his work, and employ many more persons besides. Your correspondent says the cauee of the unemployed is sterility in administration, and a lavish expenditure of public money in the past, to which I agree. The former I have proved, and the latter is equally true as re gards the individuals who spend in New Zealand over £2,000,000 in liquor in oue year, and in the United Kingdom £141,250,000 also in one year. lam, etc., PROHIBITIONIST.