LIQUOR AND LIQUIDATION

Waipukurau Press, Issue 3, 2 January 1906, Page 2

LIQUOR AND LIQUIDATION

—Q — The best that teetotal orators will ever admit about alcohol is that it saved the lives of a great number of people in the same way that the small boy essayist credited pins with having done so when he explained that it was “ through the people not swallowing them.” But it is necessary to swallow some kind of fluid ull the same, and another authority reminds us that Many a man, both young and old, Has gone to his Sarcophagus Through pouring water icy cold Down his Oesophagus. Without, however, going into the relative merits of different beverages, it may be said that strong drink has just stopped a serious panic on the European Bourses, and steadied the balance of power iu a manner that for aught we know may have saved the lives of millions, including some of the most fervid temperance men in the world. There was a run on the Russian securities caused by a rumor that the country was about to default, This would lead to intervention on behalf of creditor nations, from which nobody can guess what complications would follow. At the critical moment, however, a proposal was made to mortgage the liquor monopoly, a concern yielding a net profit of £50,000,000 a year. The Czar is the greatest publican in the world, running every hotel in Russia, and' this is what he makes out of it. What he practically says to the Powersis, “Take a lien over business on the tied house system £ and there is liquid security for nearly twice the amount owing.” The interest on Russia’s debt is only a trifling matter of thirtythree millions a year, and Ivan drinks enough vodka to enable the Imperial publican to net fifty millions out of supplying him. Suppose Ivan swore off, and thereby saved the whole of his money ; bis Government would get it out of him all the same, unless the result was to so clear his muddled brain that he decided to do his own governing. however that may be, the Czar’s public-houses saves the European situation for the time being, and the extent of our indebtedness to it on that account may be much greater than many people think.