Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1909. THE COST OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4470, 2 October 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2,1909. THE COST OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS.

This above all—to thine own eel/be true, And it must follow as the night the dag Thou cantt not then be fake to any man Shakespeare.

It was estimated recently by one of the Auckland newspapers that the true amount of the New Zealand liquor Bill is six millions sterling, which would be a considerable sum more than six of our primary industries, which were represented amongst our exports on 01st March. 1909, as follows

£ Butter.. .. 1,432,291 Cheese .. .. 865,468 Beef .. .. 454.924 Lamb .. .. 1,623,144 Timber.. .. 363,834 Gum .. .. 444,309 Total .. £5,288,970 If our contemporary’s estimate were correct that sum would find work for about 40,000 men for a whole year at £3 per week. We neither vouch for or deny the estimate, because it may embrace indirect and untabulated expenditure not accessible to us. But even if it were only about half that £6,000,000 estimate, the following figures will give some idea of the immense enw- spent in liquors and the useful purposes lo which it could be devoted. The money would secjjrp

50,00(5 boots, at 15s . SitfQQ Underclothing • • • • 75,000 Furniture .. . < • • 50,000 Musical Instruments .. n 20,000 Two Public Libraries.. . 80,000 Five hundred thousand vols. l*i>,ooo Insurance of 20,200 liveß for £2OO each 101,000 Toys ~ .. .. .. 62,932 Would build 500 houses, at £450 each.. .. .. 225,000 Three gymnasiums, at £2,000 each .. .. .. 6,000 Maintain 1,000 aged poor, at £1 per week .. .. 52,000 Maintain 1,000 police, at £3 per week, for 50 weeks.. 150,000 Would pay 13,000 men (supposed unemployed), £3 per week 2,028,000 Total £3,012,432 It is difficult to realize what three millions of pounds sterling really are but the above figures will help the, popular mind to form some idea of it. That being so, we see what dreadful waste there must be in the consumption of liquors, even allowing a liberal amount for medicinal purposes and the diet of moderate drinkers who, in spite of expert opinion to the contrary, think it does them good, The London Temperance Hospital has demonstrated to the world that alcoholic drinks are unecessnary—either to sustain a healthy life or for the treatment of disease. This coupled with medical testimony of the highest class, including that of Sir Henry Thompson, Sir Wm. Gull, Dr. B. W. Richardson, Dr. Andrew Clarke, and a host of others ought to be sufficient to prove to all drinkers that the traffic is being carried on for the sake of enriching a few with vested interests in it but to the great hindrance of all true progress and prosperity. It must be patent to every thoughtful person that there would not be so many unemployed in our midst and so many who are in a chronic state of poverty, If so much money was not wasted pu liquors, most of which may be classed as inquires and non-productive. People in Te Aroha and the adjacent districts compelled to pay poor rates and other taxes for Courts of Justice, police, prisons, *nd other purposes because of the wasteful drinking habits of people, or rather, » section of them, If tfre above sums wete industrially applied pi productive economic uses tradesmen would have their account* paid and New Zealand would be too prosperous to allow <of unemployed complaining of want of work. But the expense of the liquor cr&mc and the national loss through it, is not

the only or the most lamentable thing about it. The disease, bloodshed, crime, and dreadful cruelty practised in thousands of homes on women and helpless children are graven and more distressing features. And yet there are those who affect to have the public welfare at heart, but whose pen is never used to denounce the evil and give a warning word. “ Doing nothing is doing ill,** says an old proverb. So it is. If a man allows a blind person to walk over a precipice oc into a river without giving warning, he is morally guilty; and if one sees a child on the railway line when a train is approaching and does not try to save it, he is morally guilty of murder. It is so with the drink evil. Journalists who pose as seeking the country’s good, but who see the wreckage wrought by the liquor traffic and never break their morally guilty silence, how can they have the people’s welfare at heart ? Edmund Burke, the apostle of Justice and Liberty said with truth : “ There are times and circumstances in which not to speak out is at least to connive.”