ENGLAND’S LIQUOR BILL.

Evening Star, Issue 18020, 14 July 1922, Page 6

ENGLAND’S LIQUOR BILL.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Will you kindly publish the following striking paragraph that recently appeared in the ‘Manchester Guardian’? It carries with it a lesson on the economic waste of seven millions a year in this dominion in intoxicating liquors: “National habits, especially that which is expressed in the drinking of alcohol, change slowly in this country, and' Mr G. B. Wilson’s report on the national drink bill contains no shocks for anyone hardened to the idea that, at post-war values, wo are pretty captain to he coupling somewhere between 400 and 500 millions’ worth of alcohol annually. In 1920 the bill was £470,000,000. It was a year of advances in wages. Mr Wilson estimates the increase for tho year at gome £250,000,000 for 8,000,000 people. In 1921 wages came down. Mr Wilson’s figures are £300,000,000 for 7,000,000 people. Tho drink bill came -down also—by nearly £70,000,000. With the fall in tho common ability to purchase alcohol came also a diminution of drunkenness, as judged by police court convictions. In the metropolitan police area convictions sank by 2,500 out of a. total of nearly 50,000, so many people are there who are incapable of controlling themselves, so long ns alcohol remains within their reach, But HR Wilson’s most interesting comparison is between consumption m this country and the United States. The figures for tho United States in 1921 represent tho consumption for non-beverage (that is to say, medical, chemical, and other technical) purposes. Under this head 105,000,000 million people consumed 4,300,000 gallons of absolute alcohol, or 41 gallons per thousand persons; in our own country (England) 47,250,000 people accounted for 61,000,000, or 1,300 gallons per thousand persons. Part of tho American four million gallons was, of course, consumed illegally as a beverage, and there is a large addition to be made for smuggled liquor. In the towns and- along tho Canadian border it is probably a substantial addition, but over tho enormous internal area of the United States there is no evidence of extensive smuggling. Even if a generous allowance be made, it is clear that the United States people are consuming only a small proportion of the 120 or 130 million gallons of alcohol which, on the British scale, they would be drinking every year. The contrast is for us disquieting.” In the United States the Government Commissioner, Haynes, for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, says that “the total liquor import for the United States in 1921 for medicinal, manufacturing, and sacramental purposes (the only legal importations) is less than onehalf of 1 per cent, of the total consumption of beverage liquors in pre-Prohibi-tion days.” —I am, etc., Citizex. July 14.