TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21102, 12 August 1930, Page 2

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council: “ Total abstinence makes for prolongation of life and the promotion of efficiency.”—The Lancet. “ Alcohol is the poison in beer, wine, and spirits. It only takes a few minutes after drinking to find its way from the stomach through the blood to the brain,” STEP BY STEP. But alcohol docs not ailcct the brain all over at once. The wonderful brain cells are groups, and it attacks—1. First, the "self-control” group. 2. Then the “ Reasoning ” group. 3. Then the “ muscle ” group. 4. Then the “lung” group; and, 5. Lastly, the " Heart ” group. It takes only a small amount of alcohol to upset the “ self-control,” so that, long before a man is staggering (muscle) “drunk.” his brain is partly paralysed, though he does not realise it. JTHE KINGDOM OF OUR DEAD. “THEY WITHOUT US SHALL NOT BE MADE PERFECT." In the Daily Telegraph (November 27, 1918) there was a remarkable leading article, entitled “ The Kingdom of our Dead,” in which these words occurred:— “We have inherited a great Kingdom—the Kingdom of our glorious dead— who, hazarding their all that the world might be free, lost, and losing helped to win the greatest victory of which human annals contain any record. . . These heroes will be the wiiicases at the judgment seat of history when the present generations, owing every thing to them, passed on. . . Canadians, Newfoundlanders, South Africans. Australians, and, New Zealanders, as well as Indians and others were not satisfied until the seas had been bridged and they were enabled to take their place beside the flower of youth of these islands. ... In facing the unknown future of a convulsed world, with its new and perplexing and its uncharted dangers, we must not forget in the council chamber of the nations, in the conduct of our own affairs, or in ordering our home-life, the healing power of these dead hands. 4 The dead do not need us, but for ever and ever more we need them."' These words, and especially the .last sentences, are true only in part. We dp need them, we need the inspiration of their heroism and unquestioning self-sacri-fice. We do.need constantly to remember how much they gave for England and the world. ‘ , , , But there is surely a wonderful inspiration in the inspired thought which lies behind and within our text. Brethren, try for a moment to catch the Vision 5 They who have passed through the gateway men call death, they who have passed from sight into the nearer presence of God, are linked together with us in the embrace of Divine redeeming t love, they with us going on to one ultimate perfection. It is surely a Wondrous thought. Therel in God’s paradise, those that men call dead, there .a great army, and among them he whose mortal remains lie buried within these sacred, walls. There! living, growing, entering ever more fully into the reality of Christ’s redemption. ■ But “ they without us shall not be made' perfect.” There are moments, surely, when we are caught in the paralysing grip of doubt and .difficulty -and perplexity; moments when the treacheiy. and falseness and self-seeking of men sicken and nauseate us; moments when we lost faith in ourselves and in others; moments when the forces of evil within and around us seem too strong. In such moments may the truth enshrined in our text help .and inspire us, truly .as the Great Apostle said: “Our citizenship is in heaven. A great truth so forcibly translated by Dr Moffatt; “We are a colony of heaven” (Philip iii, 20). Part of the Empire of the living God, ever growing, ever developing into its ultimate and final perfection when the kingdoms of this world shall have become the Kingdom of God and His Christ.” '

Or, to change the simile, think of a great army marching on to one final and perfect victory: ■' “ They without us shall not be made . perfect.” Every upward aspiration which brings you individually nearer God is raising the spiritual level of all the world around you; every hollow mockery or sham or convention which you expose is' making the world better lor those around you; every vested interest and degraded view of life which you attack is making life safer for others. 1 YeS, indeed; . But never forget, the influence of your life passes out into the Great Beyond, out to where the souls of the departed are waiting—waiting because “they without us shall not be made perfect.” This is then something of the spirit in which we seek to face the whole fact of alcoholic indulgence in the national life. We desire above all to make tbe world more worthy of this great sacrifice. ' We look out and. we see that the prevailing effect of such indulgence constitutes a constant menace of individual and national Aye and in the light of circulars which come to us through the post, we realise how easily selfish desire for gain may be a cause of international friction. The effect of alcohol indulgence constitutes what the president ot the British Medical Association terms one of the great national scourges. “ There are,” he said, “ five great national scourges: Cancer, consumption, rickets venereal disease, and -alcoholism.” Surely speaking in this place, in the light of the Incarnation, we remember the words of Jesus: “ I am come that thev might have life and have it abundantly, ana then modern science brings its own evertincreasinp evidence as to the way in which drink is militating against human life. All the recent evidence, the outcome of direct experimental work published under the Medical Research Committee of the Privy Council, emphasises* the point. It tells clearly and definitely how even small doses of alcohol can gravelv lessen accuracy in the performance of tests involving neuro-muscular control. I know it may be urged that these tests are under conditions which are not comparable in everyday life as it is lived; true, in a measure, hut remember these tests do show that even with small doses of alcohol there is a definite interference with self-critical judgment and self-con-trol.

Only last year one, of our leading physiologists described the" effects wrought by a glass of beer or a glass of champagne, and, leaving for the moment any criticism of his deductions, this fact emerges that he deliberately says. “All these results can be ascribed to a paralysing effect of alcohol, which is the first stage of its action ns a narcotic, and is due to a gradual diminution of control by the higher centres." Again later he says: “Alcohol in small doses diminishes control from above downwards, the first things to go are < those habits of thought and behaviour which he has acquired as the crown of his education." Such words as these enable us to understand that, in the words of the Lancet, “ total abstinence makes for prolongation of life and the promotion of efficiency.”

But let us leave this individual aspect for a moment, and it is when w e think of the damaged life of the nation we begin to see even more clearly the c|amant need for temperance reform. One of the great revelations of recent years has been the vast extent of damaged life in our midst. TAXATION AND ALCOHOLISM.

The British Journol of Inebriety for January contains a'n article by Dr H. M Vernon, M.A., one of the investigators for the Industrial Fatigue Research Board, in which he says that higli taxation of spirits in Great Britain has beau followed by definite decreases in the mortality from alcoholic diseases. Dr Vernon is an advocate of the high taxation of alcoholic liquors of high content, and lighter taxation for the lighter beverages. In the course of his article. Dr Vernon says that lawyers, doctors, and schoolmasters “ were so beneficially affected by increased taxation that then’ alcohol mortality in 1021 fell to less than half its 1910 level, though it was still considerably above that of all civilian males.” In other groups, the alcoholic mortality, compared with 1910, varied from 44 to 67 per cent., and for unskilled workers it was only 37 per cent, of the 1010 rate.,. Taxation had made the price of spirits three times and a-half mure in 1921-23 than they were in 1010-12, prewar years, and consumption of spirits fell 40 per cent, in consequence.