TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 25 August 1909, Page 13

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT.

From whence springs the talk about " personal liberty " in regard to alcoholic prohibition? When all cisc fails, when the opponent of proliibition has not any longer an argumentative leg on which to stand, he falls back upon the high-sound-ing and meaningless phrase "personal liberty." In what else has he the liberty of person about which he declaims? What does he do that is not regulated by civic, moral, or conventional law? He wears clothing? Certainly ; he is a creature of the conventional law. He pays his debts? Why, of course; he follows the moral law. He does not kill his girl children when they do not suit him, as fathers do in China. He abides by the civil statute as well as by the moral and conventional law. He is not allowed to buy prussic acid, cocaine, or nifcro-glyoerine at' will, not because he would kill himself or others with it, but bec'aiise he comes under the law of prevention, the saiegard of society. And it is therefore for that very reason that he should be prevented from baying alcoholic poison, not because he will become a drunkard and kill his family, either by inches or with, an axe, but because the law, being unable to discriminate, tegish^es against him as well as the one who might do all these things. Every man who tries to buy nitroglycerine does not mean to blow up a railroad station filled with people/ but 'the law oan take no chances. There is no one left — that is, no person of standing or one whose word carries weight — who attempts longer to deny the moral as well as fundamental and economic wrong in the liquor traffic ; and the only real opposition to nation-wide prohibd-teon lies in the forces of .capital invested in saloents, breweries, and distilleries, and the moderate (?) drinker who insists upon " personal liberty," and who is at tbe same time a slave to the habit. ALCOHOL AND LONG LIFE. By Helen Ross Laird. Dr Eccles, assistant surgeon in St. Barnabas's Hospital, London, and medical officer of a large life insurance office, has recently written a very interesting and convincing monograph on the question of alcohol as affecting life insurance. He asks and answers three questions : — 1. Does the excessive use of alcohol tend to shorten life? 2. Does alcohol, taken in moderation, affect the probability of a long life? 3. Do total abstainers show distinctly greater longevity than any other class of the community? As to the first question, one great life insurance company has for the last 34 ? rears required a larger premium on the ives of " beer-chop " keepers, licensed victuallers, and their servants. It has been their experience that those engaged in the liquor business, and the barkeepers, barmaids, labourers, and co forth, are apt to drink to excess, and for that reason alone are found to be very bad risks. Twice in £he 34 years they have raised the rate, finding the mortality too large even for the ■ higher premiums, and for the last 12 yeais it his been at a tremendously high rate. STATISTICS UNEMOTIONAL TESTIMONY The second question has required careful statistics over a long period of years to clear it up. But it is now so sure that moderate drinking tends to shorten, life that almost every :arge life insurance company in England, and many of the accident companies, give a reduction of premium of from 5 to 10 per cent, by total abstainers. This is the more striking because the first total abstainer who ever tried to insure in a London office was asked to pay an 'ncrea.<-ed premium. His name was Robert Warner, and he was a young Quaker. He applied in 1840, and" was told that he must pay higher rites, pince it was at that time believed by life insurance men that abstinence was not good for the health. Robert Warner was no milksop, but a strong man. He declined to accept their terms, and went home and organised an insurance company, with other Quakers as backers, for abstainers only. It is now the wellknown United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution, and has proved its point through 48 years, of insurance. It now takes non-abttainers also, but keeps them in a separate section. The other offices have a separate section for abstainers, and the records of these sections the following facts are drawn, which answer the third question also: — The numbeT of deaths as compared^ to 'he calculated- " expectation of death " is 94 per cent, in the non-abstainers, but only 71 in the abstainers. The abstainer not only bas fewer accidents, but recovers more rapidly from injuries received. In this connection, it may be well to quote the answers received by a Aew York newspaper which sent these questions to various American life insurance companies : — THE ANSWERS OF HARD-HEADED INSURANCE MEN. "As a rule, other thinp ri being equal, do you consider the habitual uter of intoxicating beverages as good an insurance ii-k as the total abstainer? If not, why not. The answers were: — No. Drink diseases the system. No. Drink destructive to health. No. Less vitality and recuperative power. No. Use tends to shorten life. No. Drink cuts short life expectation. No. Drink shortens life. 1 No. Drink is dangerous to health jind longevity. No. Predisposes to disease. No. Reduce* expectation il life to i nearly two -thirds.

That battery of " Noes " is surely formidable to the moderate drinker, and valuable artillery for the temperance worker. Dr Newsholme. Fellow of the Royal College of Phy«J.an.s. and Health Examiner for the University of Cambridge, is the a at ho/ of an article on "' Alcohol and Public Health." which gath'TS up the statistics of many benefit ■societies, and shows t-hat they give the some results as tiie insuranooe tables. He lonsidei-h that the chief evil wrought by alcohol is not the shortening of life alone, but the making of it inefficient and diseased. Illness and Insanity and suicide all come in the train of drink, and poverty and alcohol are close companions. For long life, then, a man must part company early with alcohol. For heelth the teetotaller has the constant advantage. For prosperity and a sound mind, the abstainer has a far better chance. Alcohol is against 'ong life, health, and. happiness — and those who hope for a successful cafreer and a good old age cannot afford even '-he most moderate habit of drink. .