LIQUOR AND REVENUE.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 286, 10 May 1898, Page 3

LIQUOR AND REVENUE.

TO THE EDITOH. Sir,—As several have expressed a desire for other facts in connection with the revenue derived from the liquor traffic, I would like you to insert another quotation from my sermon on that subject, with prospective thanks.—l am, etc., John Hosking. Suppose we take a certain y ear as the basis of our calculations. The total expenditure, according to our blue books for the year ending March 31st, 1895, was £2,129,119 ; being an increase of £29,567, over the previous year. The income was £496,000 ; made up as folowa :—From customs, £379,000 ; duty on New Zealand beer, £62,000 ; license fees, £55,000. In estimating the pain of the liquor traffic to the country, we must consider all the expenses to which it puts the country. This is very difficult to tabulate. Political Economists have said, over and over again, that the traffic is no advantage to the country. Adam Smith, the father of Modern Political Economy, once said, that, " All labour expended in strong drink adds nothing to the wealth of the com munity." Gladstone once said, " Give me 30,000,000 of sober people and I will answer for the Exchequer." They spend something like £140,000,000 in liquor per annum in England. In 1834, when the expenditure per head of the population of the United Kingdom ou liquor was less than it was last year, a Parliamentary Committee reported, after careful consideration, that the nation's loss of productive labour through intemperanceamounted to no less than £50,000,000 annually. Lord Derby, in 1880, said . " Suppose only one quarter of the sum spent in liquor or tobacco to be saved, that implies a reduction of £10,000,000 to the revenue ; and do you suppose any Chancellor of the Exchequer would go to work to put on those £10,000,000 again by taxation ? Not he ; he would learn to do without them." The present Colonial Secretary, Mr Joseph Chamberlain, who is acknowledged to be a friend of brewers, said not long ago : " If I had an enchanter's wand and could destroy to-morrow the deßire for strong drink in the people of England, what changes would we see ? We should see our taxation reduced by millions sterling a year ; we should see our gaols and workhouses empty ; we should see more lives saved in 12 months than are consumed in a century'of bitter savage war ; we would transfigure and transform the face of the whole country." Mr Mott, giving evidence before a Poor Law Commission some years ago, said, " I have made pauperism my special study, and, after careful examination, I am convinced that nine-tenths of the cases are caused through strong drink, directly or indirectly." The late Mr C. Buxton, who was once connected with the well-known firm of brewers, said, •' But for intoxication pauperism would be nearly extinguished in England." Dr. Baron, a French writer on pauperism, says, " Of all the causes of pauperism the most potent, more potent probably than all other causes put together, is diink, as well in France as elsewhere." The late Dr. Guthrie, the eminent Scotch divine, calculated that 99 per cent, of the destitute children owe their destitution to the drink. Dr. Barnado, who feeds 5000 children every day, and requires £l4O to do it with, thought Dr. Guthrie's calculation far too high. He went into the facts, and decided that the minimum ought to be fixed at 90 per cent. ; and he became a prohibitionist forthwith. General Booth says that " Ninctentha of our poverty, squalor, vice and crime spring from this poisonous taproot." Coming nearer home, we find two of our leading Tiustces of the Wellington Charitable Aid Board attributing 90 per cent, of New Zealand pauperism to the drink traffic. In 1894, there were 1555 " neglected and criminal children " in our industrial schools. On the 90 per cent, basis, about 1400 of these little outcasts owe their neglected and criminal condition to the drinking habits of their parents. Now, if the liquor traffic is reeponsible for 90 per cent, of the pauperism of the country, then we ought to debit the revenue from the traffic with 90 per cent, of the cost of pauperism, such as charitable aid rate, hospital rate, etc. But suppose we fix the percentage at 75, which is low, we find the rate to be for the year I am,speaking of at £163,000. On the 75 per cent, basis wc must debit the liquor traffic revenue with £122,000.