How the Money Goes.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 208, 25 June 1887, Page 1

How the Money Goes.

The annual drink bill of New Zealand may be set down in round numbers as two and a half million sterling (.t'2.,100,000), thai is very nearly an average of £5 per head _ for every man, woman, and child. Indeed il ia the opinion of many who have a pood opportunity for knowing, that if allowance be made for the adulterations piactised, the amount spent will be veiy much move than that represented by the retail value of the drink that is passed through the Customs. But taking -£2,500,000 as the amount, it is worth while to try to get something like a definite idea of what this sum represents. Take a few illusli aliens. If tins amount were paid in one pound " notes " of the Bank of New Zealand, tl.ey would reach, when placed end 1 o end, about 322 miles Thai is to say, they would reach nearly all the way trom Auckland to Wellington, along the route of the proposed central railway, or within 50 miles of the distance between Christchurch and Xnvcreargill by railway. If these same notes w ere sew n together they would cover nearly 13 acres of land. If the same amount of money were in half sovereigns they would touch one another along a line of about (50 miles ; and they would cover about three fifths of an acre when placed clo^e to one another. The same amount of money would be 100,000,000 (one hundied millions) of sixpenny pieces. T!ie«e placed co that one Mould touch the edge of another would reach nealy 1,200 railed That is to say you might lay down sixpences edge to edge in a straigh line from Auckland to Wellintcn, and from Wellington to Dunedin, and then lay dow n another similar line of silver coin the whole of the way back in order to expend the number spent annually in New Zealand on scrong diink. The same number of sixpenny pieces would if laid flat on the top of one another, make a column nearly 80 miles high. Or they would make a silver wall 5 feet high and a mile long, which would enclose a square of 40 acres. This amount of money would build the central railway through the North Island, and leave nearly enough to connect it with both the East and West Coasts by branches. It would build the East and West Coast railway across the South Island, and leave a good balance for connecting the We=t Coast townß with Nelson. A few months ago, when the war scare wa3 abroad, it was thought necessary to spend a lot of money in defences £2,500,000 would buy oil" 1.11 the hostile cruisers that are likely to visit us for many a day. But at present the people of New Zealand are paying this amount to sundry persons for making and selling an'article that does more mischief every year than would be done by the landing of an invading army on our coast, Yet again : £2,500,000 wv uld buy for every family in New Zealand 7 four-pound loaves of bread, 10 lbs. of fresh meat, $ lb, of tea, and 1 lb. of butter every week during the whole year. The money ppent in drink would actually keep the whole population of New Zealand from starvation. Yet we hear complaints of hard times and poverty. Stop the drink traffic, and there would be very little heard about poverty in New I Zealand. —N.Z. S LA WRY, in Methodist, August, 1885.