AN OPEN LETTER TO A TEMPERANCE REFORMER.

Northern Advocate, 2 December 1911, Page 2

AN OPEN LETTER TO A TEMPERANCE REFORMER.

Sir, You are very much, exercised in your mind about what you call "the Drink Problem" ; but I doubt whether you have ever tried to define it clearly even to yourself. There is a "Drink Problem" which may very properly be so called; and this problem is not the problem of drunkenness. To call the problem of drunkenness "the Drink Problem" is as fantastic a piece of materialist absurdity as it would be to call the problem of arson "the Match Problem," or the problem of forgery "the Pen Problem." It is a moral problem, an ordinary problem of human excess, and belongs to the priest rather than the legislator. There probably never has been (nor ever will be) a time when certain men did not use fermented drinks. There probably never has been (nor ever will be) a time when certain men did not occasionally, or perhaps frequently, abuse such drinks by taking tco much of them. There is nothing particularly "problematical" about that; it is simply the old difficulty ot inducing men to practise moderation in respect to anything they particularly like.

Nevertheless there is something that may legitimately be called "the Drink Problem," in the sense that we speak of "the Housing Problem" ; and that is the practical material problem of the drink supply.

The "Drink Problem" is the problem of how to supply drink to the people, so that the supply may be as good, cheap, and wholesome as possible. There is a great 1 deal to be said and done in regard ip that problem; but nothing sensible will be sail nor anything satisfactory done, until we have got rid of the people who imagine that the Drink Problem is the problem of how to prevent, drink being supplied at all. To take a parallel, there was some years ago a "Water Problem" in East London, The supply given by the Water Companies was not as good a& it should have been. Many reformers, anxious to improve it, started a campaign with that object, and (though paying- a grossly excessive price) they more or less succeeded. But the efforts of these men would have been embarrassed and not aoai>- - i ed had there existed a queer sect backed by a great de;a of money and able, by means of its money, to acquire a very powerful "pull" on the political machine, which thought the use of water intrinsically wicked, and denounced the Companies not for supplying water badly but for supplying it at all !

• Now the of fermented drinks to the mass of the people is at present very bad, and it is most important that it should be improved. But there is no chance of its being improved. But tciir is no chance of its being improved until we make up our

minds that what we want- Is to improve it and not suppress it. You simply cannot try to do both at on<?e, and sporadic attempts to. do.'-.both ■ at once—with a preference for the latter because there is more money behind it—are just what has led us to the evil condition which we desire to change. ' Let me assume that you agree with me that what we want is the improvement of the drink supply. In what especial respects does it at present require improvement? Firstly, then} the mass of our population does' not get good liqubr. Its drink generally, and especially its staple, traditional, and national drink, beer, is adulterated, sometimes in defiance or evasion of the law, sometimes with the sanction of the law. The thing supplied as "beer" to our populace is not beer —is not what their ancestors meant by beer. It is & chemical compound made out of sulphuric aci 1, glucose, a little arsenic (not usually in fatal quantity) and other appetising ingredients; . and those who sell it to the public as beer are inflicting on their neighbors at once an injury and a fraud.

Secondly, iiei'mented liquors can only be sold in certain places and those places are almost always under the control of the aforesaid manufacturers of chemicals. The consequence is that they sell such chemicals in preference to good English beer. Also these places are far removed in type from the sort of place where a man naturally likes to drink. These are almost over-crowded, unwholesome in their atmosphere and full of provocations to excess.

So much for the evil. Now, who is responsible? Well, a good many people have a share, direct or indirect, ir the responsibility. The brewers who make tha stuff, the publicans who consent to sell themselves to the brewers and the brewers' chemicals to the public, the legislature that tolerates such c system and the people that tolerate such a legislature,—all these are in their degree to blame. But, if you want to know who has '.li«-: heaviest responsibility, who is primarily to blame, it is YOU ! Yes, you, the Temperance Reformer ! You aro responsible for th.- adulteration of the beer and the degradation of the public. They aro your work, and I hope you are proud of them. I will prove what I say.

It was you who put the cru&hir.g

weight of taxation on b-3f.r, till you had killed the farm-brawing uhi-jb had made English ale the best in the world. In one year your tax halved the number or brewets, though it did not reduce Mis amount of beer brewed. It was you who created the brewing monopoly.

It was you who gave that monopoly control of the retail trade. Your "settled policy" of reducing licenses has meant in effect the suppression of all free houses. Your heavy license duties can only be paid by great Trusts with unbounded financial resources ; they fall with an utterly crushing weight on the small publican who is struggling to preserve his independence. They force him to sell himself to the brewer.

Finally, your policy has been, In effect, to turn the liquor trade from a publican in the English to a publican in the Roman sense. You place on him an inordinate weight of taxation, and you practically tell him to collect it as best he can from his customers. Of course he is forced to get money in every way that he can, -straight or crooked, by adulterating liquor, by encouraging drink, by crowding as many people into as limited a space as possible. And for the evils that ensue, you are more to blame than he.

And now, you who are chiefly responsible, what have you to propose? I suppose more of the same sort of silly restrictions that have failed so grievously in the past..

Meanwhile the two or three reforms the necessity of ( which stares us in the fac-*, you either never think of or indignantly repudiate.

For instance, there is the quality of the liquor. Almost all the evil is involved in this. Our populace do not get drunk on: decent beer; it would be a thousand times better if they did. They are drugged with chemicals. Why should it not be a penal offence for a man to sell glucose treated with sulphuric acid with "not more than the usual quantity of arsenic" as beer, as it now is to sell margarine as butter?

Or, if this be too strong a measure, why at least should not part of the excise duty be remitted to a brewer who can show that he only uses genuine malt and hops. That at least would give a commercial. advantage to the firm that makes sound stuff, as well as incidentally helping the important industry of hop-growing.

Again, take the case of the tied house. The plain and righteous course is to make such agreements between pubJican arid brewer illegal

in every country. They are plainly against the public interests; they are plainly in restraint of trade; they "are plainly conspiracy. Their object is to create a monopoly to th*e detriment 0/ the consumer and of the community generally. Yet the State not only tolerates but even enforces them.

Of course, you will not listen to such projects. You will, as you have always done, instantly combine with the very brewers you denounce to resist all sane and popular reform. And you will go on proposing your absurd crochets and trying to force them on Ministers, and, if you have money enough, you will succeed, and more silly and oppressive Bills will be passed, and so it will go on, until the people at last revolt and resolve whatever others kind of tyranny they may have to put up with, they will put an end to you and yours for ever. I am, Sir, Your servant to command, JUNIUS.