Labour and Drink.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7718, 21 January 1905, Page 3

Labour and Drink.

JOHN RURNS' APPEAL TO THE . WORKING CLASSi

Mr John Burns, Ml'., recently adsdressed 5,000 people in tho Froa Trades Hull at Manchester, his sub jeet being ' Labor atttl Drink.' Miliums said the drinking hatbils of the poor in every climate bad contributed to their political depen dence, industrial bondage, civic inferiority, and domestic misery Throulghout the centuries the tavern had been the ante-chamber of the workhouse, tho chapel of ease of the asylum, the recruiting station of tlte hospital, the rendezvous for the gamblers, and the giatherJnfcHground for the gaol. He appealed to every workman to decree that liquor was useless and dangerous, and ought to bo abolished. It dissipated charac ter as no other form of surfeit *id Two-thirds of the drinK bill was paid by the working classes, who composed threeiqUarters of the population, and 'they coul* not afford th expenditure. The drink sterilised that holy discontent which, but for l'Wuor, would take a more pract'ieal form in securing the amelioration of the conditions of the people. They were promised from 2d to 2Jd per week per family to tax bread from abroad, Why did they not do it ■quicker and more wisely t They could gain ssi to 6s per week by leaving oil beer at home.—(Cheers.) In 1901 £-1,000,000 was spent on 648 strikes and lock-outs, and for that sum the return was £24,000,000 more in, wages and 11,000,000 fewer hours of work. During the past year drink and gambling wasted from thirty to fifty millions'. What a contrast ! London had 16,000 policemen. But for drink they could do with five.—(Laughter.) Of these policemen, 1,655 were assualted last year by drunken men 68 were bitten by mad dogs, and forty <JiHre injured by runaway horsesproving that mad dogd and runaway horses were nothing compared with drunken man. As for a drunken I woman, language would not describe I her. Drinking made trade depression much worse than it otherwise would be. The man that drank had no margin on which to rely. He could not pay to a union. Nearly all blacklegs were , boozers. Hopeful signs were that during the last twenty years recurring intervals of good trade had (been marked -by a lessening in the excess of drunkenness. Bestial drunkenness was disappearing, and, bad as things' were, relatively they were improving as tlte years went on. Some said the traffic should be municipaliswl. He was -dead aglai-nst that. Believing that drinkinigi was a transient caprice, he altogether objected to its being stereotyped'. As a counter-at-traction to the puiljHc-housOii he would suggest better and larger homes and rapid -traction. Tramways were the best antidote to the public-house that he knew. He asked his fellow-workmen to give their, leisure hours to sober pleasure, and their treasure to a happier home life and a wider ordered temperance than t-hoy at present displayed. If the people were to occupy the political judgment seat they must be more soJber, more thirfly, ni o re wisely temperate than those who now held power. On the motion of Sir Wil-ii-ed Lawsoii Mr Burns was thanked *"r his a'ddrestr.;