ALCOHOL AND CHILD LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 14053, 7 May 1909, Page 3

ALCOHOL AND CHILD LIFE

. On the initiative of the Committee of the National Temperance League, a conference of social workers was recently held in the hall of the London County Council to consider the subject of ‘ Alcohol in Relation to the Problems of Child Life.’ The Lord Chief Justice presided, 'and among others present were the Bishop of Kensington, Sir John Gdrst, Sir John Kirk, Mr A. Pearce Gould, Dr Rutherford, M.P., and Mr Gooch, M.P. ' The Bishop of Kensington said that alcohol was the anti-philanthropic influence of' the age. It threatened every movement for the improvement of child life, and yet it was responsible for the necessity of those movements. He advocated the teaching of the effects of alcohol in every school; the prevention of the marriage of habitual drunkards; the conversion to total abstinence of the mothers of the country, and the assumption by the State of the responsibility for the children of habitual drunkards.

Sir John Gorst said that he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that nothing but a great upheaval r of the pubHc conscience would ever lead the' people who made and administered the laws of this country to recognise their enormous responsibilities in this matter. Unfortunately, the conversion of the great breweries and distilleries into limited liability companies bad enormously spread the number of people who were interested in the profits of that trade. He knew many other sincere reformers who had reluctantly and sadly come to the conclusion that it would be difficult to carry any sort .of social ‘reform which affected the interests and vested rights of the richer classes, while a branch of the Legislature, which did not represent the people, but for the most part the interests of the richer classes, had got a right to veto any project of reform, by however enormous a majority it had passed the House of Commons. The Lord Chief Justice of England said that the point that must be essentially kept in view was that if they did not attack the problem -as it affected children they would do very little good at all. They would do more good if they succeeded in instilling into the minds of young children that they ought to avoid alcohol in every shape than by doing anything to prevent their getting alcohol after they had acquired a taste for it. He had no doubt whatever, from his experience of trials of criminal cases, as to the enormous percentage of crime which was due directly and indirectly to drink. He believed the percentage was so high that it approximated to 80 or 90 per cent. He was glad that the public mind was being directed to the question of heredity. The more he saw of the feeble-minded and the more he saw of the extraordinary recrudescence of crime La boys and girls between ten and eighteen years of age, the more he was satisfied that the question of heredity had not been sufficiently considered from the point of view of the education of the child. It was their duty to the nation to remove, as far as possible, the evil at its source, so that'those who came after might be better, nobler, and truer specimens of what the human race ought to be. He thought many people who dealt with the question in detail were mot sufficiently alive to the evil that was done to young children as well as to grown-ups by the drinking of spirits, as distinguished from the drinking of beer. They bad no idea, unless it had been forced upon them by the experience of cases coming before them, how constantly this craving was set up by the giving of drops of spirits to children. It had been forced home to him that the question of the drunkenness of women had not been sufficiently grappled with. Prom the point of view of heredity and example it had more effect on -the home than almost anything else, and some of the most lamentable cases that had ever been brought before him were those of the drunken wife and the sober husband, leading often to crime of a terrible character. As suggestions had been made about the reduction of he number of publichouses, he asked them not to overlook the question of grocers’ licenses. He was perfectly satisfied from information brought be--fore him that secrete drinking was largely fostered by that traffic. In dealing with that question, they overlooked a little the wants of the poor in the miserable state in which they bad to live. They had to consider the reform of the refreshment-house, and the children must be kept out of the streets. Next to drink, he knew of nothing which so much corrupted the mind of the lad or young girl as being obliged to take their exercise and amusement in the streets. Places of healthy recreation must be supplied for the children, for if they got them out of the streets they would be safeguarding them from the temptation which otherwise surrounded them.