AN EXPOSURE OF THE RISKS OF MODERATE DRINKING.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, 14 April 1905, Page 2

AN EXPOSURE OF THE RISKS OF MODERATE DRINKING.

(to THE V.bITOR.) Sift, —As a vary large proportion of tbo adult males of New Zealand are moderate drinkers I am sure you will acknowledge on perusal of it that they ought ail to read the following acturial figures as to the result of that habit on health and longevity. The figures were compiled in the ordinary way of business by Roderick M'Kenzie Moore, Actuary of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution. They were not compiled io enforce a prohibition argument, but to read before the British Institute of Actuaries, on November 30th, 1903. Such surroundings ensure the accuracy of the figures, and this must be accepted without question. The paper opened the eyes of insurance agents the world over. Mr Moore in his investigations covered 61 years' life assurance experience, and dealt with 121,673 individual cases—the abstainers always having been kepi separate from lhe moderate drinkers, and being closely the same in number, age and social condition. This period is long enough, and the number of c*ses large enough for accurate and reliable data to be obtained. All the non abstainers were good average lives (says Mr Moore), and no excessive drinkers were included, so the comparison is absolutely fair as between ictal abstinence and strictly moderite drinking. Yet what do we find is Lha appaiiug result of even this moderate indulgence. Between the ages of 20 and 30 the deaths of moderate drinkers exceed those of abstainers by 11 per cent. In this first period the drink had not as yet bad tims to develop its full results, but in the period, age 80 to 40, the deaths of moderates exceed those of total abstainers by 68 per cent. This appears to show that a very large proportion ceased, as time went on, to be moderate in their potations. During the ages 40 to 50 it was even worse, viz., 74 per cent, excess ; during the ages 50 to 60 the moderates again exceeded the abstainers by 42 per cent., by which time the premature death harvest had been nearly reaped. But even thm the drinkers sti'l held the field from 60 to 70, with an excess of 19 per cent. These figure? have been sc cepted bvCßriti-h and American Lite ■ As-ociations and ata absolutely iacunirovertible. Ihe last, argument against no-license, i.e., that a large proportion of men can s&fely indulge in moderate drinking, is thus pulverised and shattered, —Yours, etc., ALEX. B. ADAMS. Dunedin, 8/4 1905.