TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4325, 21 January 1893, Page 2

TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

The Drink Question in Getmany, An abstract of the Imperial statistics bearing on this subject for the year 1889-90 has just been made by . Dr Wilhelm Bode, It is the first study of the Mod made in Germany, It appears that the production of tho material manufactured iuto beer, wine, and spirits in Germany occupied in 1889-90 just about one fifteonth of tho cultivated land of tho whole country—a territory somewhat larger than the Kiugdom of Baxony or the Grand Duchy of Baden, and somewhat smaller than the kingdom of Wnrtomberg. If this field, thus devoted to tho liquor t®c were diverted to tho production of food, there might be raised on it in a year 1,687.000,000 of kilograms of rye—a quantity sullioient to make 8,272,000,0001b of bread, on which the pooror classes -chiefly live. The fifty millions of people of Germany would he able to have of this bread BSMbs apiece, or a family of eight persona 6?4lb—enough to give them their entire food for Bix or seven weeks. Tho loss in money may be estimated at a total of 458 millions of marks, a loss to each inhabitant of 9 marks 17pf, or to a family of eight of 73 marks, —enough to pay all the expenses of a weaver's family for about eight woeks, In the direot sorviou of the liquor tvaffio, agriculture,manufacture and retailing about 1,500,000 men are engaged out of the 20,500,000 occupied in all the industries of tho land. In other words, quite a fourteenth of the productive energy of tho country is devoted to this business, The consumption of drink per head of the population in 1889-90 gave tho following figures: Wine 6,44 litres, distilled; 4,64 litres (pure alcohol); beer, 108.3 litres. The drink question is thus beaoming an important factor in the economic situation of Germany, Professor Bohmoller, of Berlin, one of the ablest leaders of tho younger political economists of Germany, thus writes " Among our working people the conditions of domeatio life, of education, of prosperity, or degradatioa are all dependent on tho proportion of income which flows down the father's throat, The whole cm&l dition of our lower and middle Mftia —one may, oven without tion, say the future of our nation'— depends on this question, If it iB true that half our paupers become bo through drink, it gives us Borne estN mate of tho costly burden whioli wo tolerate. No other of our vices bears comparison with this," IHorry, Drink and Lunacy, It is no new thing to hear of the close conneotion between indulgence in alcohol and tho development of insanity (observes thoLondon Lancet), Accordingly, we feel no surprise at a statement by Dr Augustine Planus that a largo proportion of tho cases of lunacy registered in Paris of late years are attributablo to this form of excesa. Far more significant ia bis observation that drunkenness hag inoreased very markedly in the Frenoh capital. This effect is, of course, duo to a variety of causes, Among tbeaa one is of from its bearing upon teprafrj aepeot of tlie alcoholic dysorasia, It is tbe pressure and worry of overwork, pro-, bably combined, as usual in the like circumstances, with irregular feeding and want of Bleep. Though felt by all classes of workers, an important characteristic of its action as a causa of alcoholism in its increasing influx ence among those who labour with their brains. Artists, authors, and especially journalists— a group of persons by no means usually given to excess-are enumerated asliaving succumbed to the subtle poison; and tliis result has, doubtless With truth, been attributed to the craving depressionof mental fatigue. It is not difficult, indeed, to trace a conneotion here, and wo may aooept it as a warn-ing-that forced labour is over prone to become the natural parent of othei>— and worse excesses, The beat ray, however hard, is always metbofiHl enough to permit of timely rest antf — of regular nutrition, and the fall recognition of this fact is a mere ques> tion of publio utility which we hope to sea more and more widely admitted in practice.