THE DRINK BILL

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 February 1911, Page 3

THE DRINK BILL

AS COMPILED BY A PROHIBITIONIST. AN INTERESTING RETURN. [BY TELEGRAPH —SPECIAL TO THE STAR.] CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The following statement showing the “drink bill” for 1910 has been prepared by the Rev. Edward Walker, who for seme yams past has annually calculated ;d published the Dominion’s expenditur icoholic liquors. THREE MILLIONS IN DRINK. The drink bill of the Dominion for 1910, calculated as usual at per gallon rates, on the quantity which passed trough the Customs and excise, amounted ) £3,803,438, being an increase on the previous year of £1175,301, or £3 13s r head 'of population, being an increase v head -on the previous year of 2s o|d. The bill is like a barometer for showing the current spending power of the people. Anyone may form his own estie of what the figures would be if the returns related to the ransactions over ho' bar and were not based on the Cusnnd excise returns. Probably t> 300,000 and £5 ner head of the population or £25 per household, is less than was really spent on liquor in New Zealand * v"-u\ considering that it would have cost if the whole community had been been less harmful and saved many after dropped into the sea as soon as purchased. 'l, no folly of such a costlv way of con"■■■'iug national revenue should be plain -> the most ordinary intelligence. The fact that so many whole families .are ab•rs and have taken no part in this '■nliture, shows how utterly reckless Us wastefulness the liquor habit is. The Customs, and excise revenue from 't was £799.634, not nearly enough to cover the direct and indirect cost of its banefid effects, so far as these are measured in money, and utterly negligable in ■" r of its blighting and blasting effects on its victims and their Homes. It is not surprising that the nations nre rising in their wrath to pronounce the liquor ■raffic’s doom. It is evident that the expansion of the drink hill in these prosperous times would have been enormously -renter but for the temperance props, mda. COMPARATIVE TABLES. Eor purposes of compnj'is'on the oxpenliturds for both 1909 and 1910 may be inoted, the figures covering the period ■■om January ,Ist to December 31st in-

Average ’ .. £3 13 U£3ll 01 Tito population is calculated by taking tlie menu of the four quarterly estimates issued by the Registrar-General, and adding Maoris 47.731 as par last census (but not the population (12.430) of the Cook and other islands in the Pacific annexed o the Dominion in 1901. The slight apparent increase in the totals is accounted for, but unexpressed by fractions of a, farthing in the amounts standing over them. ' 41 YEARS’ DRINK BILL. Mr G. M. Gray, of Christchurch, who for a number of years calculated arid v,'.Wished the annual drink bill, estimated Tom the Customs and excise returns that or the sixteen years from 1870 to 1885, inclusive. it averaged £2,599,553 per annum. This would give for the fifteen /cars from 1870 to 1884, inclusive, a otal of £38,997,295. Following this are given below the nnrual expenditure for the twenty-six rears which have since elapsed to 1910 inclusive. The estimated population prior io 1896 was exclusive of Maoris, but in 1896 and onward has been inclusive of them. For 1897 and onward the year’s expenditure is the record for the twelve months from January Ist to December 31 (inclusive), but for the vear 1896, for the twelve months from March 30th, 1896, to March 30th, 1897, and similarly for the /ears prior thereto.

“IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS.” Prior to 1870, in the days of the diggings, the drink bill per head of population was much heavier than it has been since, cheques and gold being “knocked lown” with the utmost recklessness, so that in the absence of the figures it is difficult to form an estimate of the drink expenditure on the cost per gallon basis for the thirty years of the country’s history up to 1870. An estimate which would bring the total to the present time up to £125,000,000 would probably, be much within the mark. It must be remembered that this cost is estimated upon the actual quantity of which the Customs and excise has taken cognisance aid as if the customers purchased it all by the gallon at ordinary per gallon rates, and takes no account of dilution and adulteration, nor of the much greater cost of a, gallon to the consumers when it is served to them by the glass or the nip, nor of the cost, to the man who knocks down his cheque for just what he may get when he is drunk and helpless. It is obvious that £250,000,000 might he a moderate estimate of the amount that has been squandered for liquor involving many millions more cost to the State to cope with the consequences. EFFECT ON CRIME. The worst feature’ of it is not its destruction of hard material, wealth, private and public, but its worthless destruction of manhood; its wreckage of character, happiness, home and life. The enormous extent of this is suggested only by the following figures taken from the police reports annually laid upon the tabic in Parliament:

If they were not official police figures, 'his one black record ot a single form of the evil fruit of the liquor traffic would seem incredible, and it must be remembered that ours is recognised to be one of the most sober countries. Who can measure the heartache and heart break lying behind it all and yet only a fraction of the offenders reach the Courts. The Trade itself can hardly be surprised that national prohibition is impending. •THE NO LICENSE ADVOCATE. Lt is obvious that if we had the figures for 1910 the last ten years would show over 50,000 separate persons brought before Mm court for drunkenness, against whom Mime was not, trine-able any previous (,’uiivictioii. bnch expeiience, il taking the present population roundly at

TELEGRAMS.

a million (it was only about 823,000 in 1901), and allowing for those who have come and gone in the ten years, we were to make so large an allowance that these 50,000 have been taken from a population of 1,500,000, that would mean one person in every thirty each fresh year, producing its new thousands of the liquor traffic’s victims. In this young country, shall this year’s national prohibition vote arrest this wreckage and gladden hearts that are breaking? Until Parliament does justice to the people by altering the law to a simple majority, 60 per cent is the vote needed to carry national prohibition as also to carry no-license. At the last biennial poll the vote for no license throughout the Dominion was 53.45 per cent of all who voted. Temperance reformers should use their full power of voting for both local no license and national prohibition.

* in si vo : I tom. 1910. 1909. Spirits .. 757,617 719,130 Wines .. 153,418 138,679 Imported beer .. 271,600 252,450 Local beer .. 939,944 918,592 Total: £3,800,430 £3,628,137 The average cost per head of population was as follows :— 1910. 1909. Spirits 1 9 6 1 18 2 Wine 0 5 10J 0 5 5 Imported beer 0 1 61 0 1 bl Local beer 116 li 1 15 11*

Year. Est. Cost. Cost per head liquor consumed. population. 1885 .. 2,289.514 £3 16 0 1886 .. 2,154.855 3 11 9 1887 .. 2,093,430 3 9 5 1888 .. 2,085,162 3 8 8 1889 .. 1,911,788 3 18 0 1890 .. 2,111,498 3 7 6 1891 .. 2.083,898 3 5 9 1892 .. 2,169,166 15 6 8 1893 2,198,335 3 5 5 1894 .. 2,09.552 3 11 1895 .. 2,129,118 3 0 5 1896 .. 2,265,900 2 19 8i 1897 .. 2.371,738 3 2 ?4 1898 .. 2,458.998 3 3 4 1.899 .. 2,557,968 3 4 9 1900 .. 2,747,170 3 8 1901 .. 2.922,982 3 11 0i 1902 .. 2,953,298 3 10 3| 1.903 .. 3,056.590 3 10 71, 1904 .. 3,152,849 3 10 10i 1905 .. 3.120.705 3 8 2i 1906 .. 3,360,121 3 11 1| 1907 .. 3,667,379 3 15 10 1908 .. 3,751,968 3 15 5J, 1909 .. 3.628,137 5 11 1910 .. 3.803,438 3 13 U Total —£108,138,353.

Year. Charges. Not prev. convicted 1901 .. 8,032 4,456 1902 .. 3,244 5,202 1903 .. 8.815 4,744 1904 .. 9,615 5,268 1905 .. 8.707 5,141 1906 .. 9,210 5,144 1907 .. 10,203 5,809 1908 .. 10,343 5,840 1909 .. 10,657 6,042