CAP-OPENERS AND GLASSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23598, 7 September 1938, Page 12

CAP-OPENERS AND GLASSES

TO THE EDITOR Sir. —So your correspondent “Facts” blames “a lack of purchasing power for the disgraceful scenes which take place at Carisbrook every time a football match is played there— namely, scores of children waiting to collect bottles from hundreds of semi-drunken men. He goes on to say that, the children are forced to do this so that their parents may benefit by the money they raise. If there is such a want of purchasing power, how is it that hundreds of men are able to take an afternoon off to attend these matches, and thousands of them make the trip to Invercargill for the same purpose? If the children have to earn money this way it is not because of the . lack of money earned by their parents, but because these same parents, chiefly fathers, spend so much in drink —numerous women have told me that, since the 40-hour week was introduced, less and less money is coming into their homes because their husbands spend Saturday m drinking bouts. One has only to read the balance sheets of breweries and observe the great increase in beer duty to see the deplorable way drinking has developed. That one firm purchased over 1500 bottles from children after a match is surely proof of the enormous amount of drinking which takes place at them—not a lacic of purchasing power, but surely a lack of self-control is the reason why men, who have never earned so much money before, now spend it on drink, regardless of the needs of their wives and children. —I am, etc., True Facts.