TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7395, 22 February 1902, Page 4

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

\Fub(/ished by arrangement with the \ Temperance Party.]

At an annual conference of -workers in tbe Church House, London, on October I7tb, the Rev. Canon Duckworth, one of the earliest members of the C.E.T.P., presided. He eaid : — •'Familiar as the facts of the drink question are, we may b<3 grateful to those who present them afresh ; they need re-iteration, and there is a special need for such re -iteration at a time when the men of our race are quaffing the heady wine of Imperialism, and exultiug in the power, the greatness, and the expansion of England. At such a time it is well that those who wish to know what the ingredients of true prosperity are should pause and ponder the word of a keen observer of our social state when- he tolls us that 'Drink is threatening our national existence' The author of that statement goes on to support it by showing in detail how the main factors of national health and strength are still affected to a ruinous extent by the national intemperance. He points, first of all, to the terrible diminution of the physical strength of the people, quoting, among other evidences, the startling fact that out of 11,000 who offered themselves for enlistment at Manchester when tha South African war broke out, only 1072 were found to be fit for service ia the Regular Army, and of those rejected the large majority were disabled by feebleness of constitution traceable either to their own intemperance or to that of their parents. " He points next to the evidence of our hospitals, which we are wout to regard with pride, but which are in one sense a national reproach. At the present moment there are many thousands of Englishwomen within their walls who are lost through disease to the national service. Doctors tell U3 that 70 per cant, of these inmates of our hospitals are the victims of intemperance. Every sick person, let us remember, is a double loss to the nation. He not only subtracts his own strength, but the care which has to be bestowed on him absorbs the strength of the strong. Sii Andrew Clark said that he was well within the maik when he reckoned that seven out of every ten of his hospital patients owed their ill-health to drink, and added that, as he watched the ravages of this poison, he often felt tempted to throw up his profession and go forth upon a holy crusade, preaching to all men, 'Be ware of this enemy of thd race! It is often said, as you musi know, that were Temperance tc become the rule and drunkenness tbe exception, we might close hali the wards of our hospitals. Yes, the gain to the health of the country which v true Temperance, reform would bring about is simply incalculable. "And then there is that awful drain upon the national vitality which we know so well under the name of "pauperism." Intemperance is notoriously the mak cause of it. Those who know the workhouse, those whose business it is to look into the lives of the poor, will not be disposed to questior the assertion that 75 per cent of oui English pauperism is directly due tc it. Here in London we are told that one million and a third of men, women, and children, if not actually paupers — dependent, i.e., entirely, upon the support of the community — are sunk in more or less squalid poverty, and engaged in a dire struggle for daily bread. Mi C. Booth knows more than most people about the London poor, and what does he say ? ' Drink is the most prolific of all the causes ol poverty, and it is the lease necessary.' It is estimated that the working classes spend upon drink more than the whole amount ol their rent. Intemperance is the close ally of improvidence, and so it is not surprising that the English people are the most extravagant and thriftless in the civilised world. It is sickening to think of the millions that are being squandered year by year — millions which would add incalculably to the strength of our position, and enable us to bid defiance to any combination of foes."