LIFE INSURANCE AND ALCOHOL

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22372, 8 April 1938, Page 14

LIFE INSURANCE AND ALCOHOL

VIEWS OF PRESIDENT OF ALLIANCE

PREFERENCE IN STATE PLAN SOUGHT FOR ABSTAINERS (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, April 7. “The beverage use of alcohol is responsible for a large amount of sickness, invalidity, and death, which for various reasons is not attributed to it by the death certificates,” was the conclusion reached by Mr J. Malton Murray, representing the New Zealand Alliance, in giving evidence before the Select Committee on National Health and State Superannuation this afternoon. Mr Murray, who was accompanied by Mr K. W. Milner, general superintendent of the alliance, read several extracts from reports by leading public health experts and others on alcohol and national health, and alcohol and life assurance.

Referring to the Government’s proposal for extended health education, Mr Murray contended that the efforts in this direction were met with almost instinctive hostility when cherished usages such as the consumption of alcoholic liquor were assailed by new knowledge. “The beverage use of. alcohol is a custom encrusted with illusions concerning the effects of alcoholic beverages on the human body and mind, but it is reasonable to hope that an adequately instructed people will learn to discard habits that* are manifestly injurious to individual and therefore national health.”

Mr Murray said that insurance experience had established the superior longevity of total abstainers, compared with even moderate users of beverage alcohol; and on the sickness and invalidity side, it was probable that abstainers were less likely to make demands on the funds for accident and sickness benefits. He thought abstainers might reasonably expect some preferential treatment under the national health insurance scheme. “The educational effort in this case should be widespread and continuous.” Mr Murray concluded. “Three principal obstacles have to be overcome: first, general indifference and inertia; second, the self-deception that makes us regard good advice and warnings as directed to the other fellow; and third, forgetfulness.”