THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN'S TRIUMPH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 79

THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN'S TRIUMPH.

I)KCA\ OF THE DRINK HABIT. t>nt «i the commonest topk* of discussion an<l one that you will find 02 the aylj.abu.j- 01 almost every debating society is the time-honoured old question, "Is alcohol a luxury or a necessity?" I

■ in ..■■■■■■■■■■■ ■ iii.ni^iiwiii'wuMimu.-,, 1 suppose it is safe to sa\ thai for many yoais opinion on the subject has been ' ■ fairly evenly divided. Latterly, henv- , 'fever, several advances in m>edioal science, notably th-e use of oxygen as a restorative, have don« much t< supplant alcohol a*, a iwice&sity in cases ol sudden collapse, and thus its bupponters have had one of the jtrongcot planks in their argument torn u\v>y. It is not my purpose, however, t<- discuss the necessity of alcohol ; such ,v, 'rguineM must Largely depend on

what is a "necessity," and that- is a debate which mayi land us anywhere. Let us ask our*fc*»ies -the more serious question : "Is alcohol any longer a luxury:" The different Chancellors of the Exchequer have always thought so — the present one moire decidedly than any of his predecessors — but from the various evidences that surround us it appears that the glory of alcohol's day has departed, and that a new dissipation has come from the East. The proof of this may easily be supported by figures. The decline of England/s drink bill is -well known, and only a day or two ago the Board of Trade gave us the "tea" returns for 1908 at 323,469,3331b, valued a,t £10,734,415. It is, however, more interesting to take the human evidences which surround us in the streets, the clubs, and the publichouses than to bore ourselves with tha tedious veracity of rows of figures. Such evidence is root far to seek. So conspicuous is it that the decay of the drink habit has bscome an almost permanent topic of discussion vrherovei men gather together. — The Great Revolution. — The more I talk with members of my own generation — and my own generation, includes all those who are at present in. the late thirties or the es.rly forties — the more it appears that we of the jundor-middle-age group have lived through one of the most remarkaible social revolutions in history. I doubt if any two decades in all the centuries we know of have wrought such an extraordinary change in the ordinary lives of ordinary middle-class men as the last 20 years have. This fact becomes immediately evident to anyone who is old enough to compare the men of to-day with the men of 20 years ago. No one can deny tha-t we are a cleaner, healthier, fitter,, and more wholesome lot of people than we used to be. To offer reasons for this very excel! eni advance in our well-being is a simple matter. A dozc-n or more suggest themselves at once. We take moce exercise ; we live more in the fresh air ; we get about more quickly and more easily ; we are better off and life has more c^n> venienoes. But -all these are mti'lj manifestations, corollaries, or recalls oJ the great revolution — one might almosi say upheaval— which has changed us ir a short SO years from a slightly intern perate to an almost stnictly temjMj-.att nation. And I claim thai we i:>icV.le ; aged men. of to-day have been the hvdprs of this great and silent revolution. W< came into manhood's estate some 20 year; ; ago when the exclamation ''Helio !" toj j invariably followed by the invitation i "Gome and have a drinlc !" We wer< j junior members of our. clubs when whisky ' diiinkinig was an established cult. Wi I grew up into a 'V;orld' where the tee i'totaller was a freak — a marked man. Now . ad-ays it is unnecessary to c'tink whriskj j to mark one's gladness at nice-tang ai | 01.l friend ; we can spend hours In cvi 'dubs without the support, of alcohol ; ant [ 'the freak — tbe marked mar. — is he v. lv • still adheres- to the old-fashioned fult c ■ "nipping." —The New Sobriety.— Let anyone who desires further proo of our new sobriety look about him. Tin sad-faced seci<etaries of the clubs in Pic I cadjlly and Pal! Mall wath their deplet i ing liquor revenues in despair. 'iha ! cheerful figure of rcid-VictoTku da\s— J Mine Best of tile Public-house — has 'dis ; appealed. It is a thin, hard, carewon man who caters for the few straggling roysterers of to-day, and his grim eageT ness deadens the Laughter on their lip.* See, in the streets, the great, lumbering vr.ins of breweries that with difficulty pai 3 per cent., a-nd coenpare the nurn!) i r o them with the dapper little vans of tin gieat teashep companies paying an er-si 40. tieairdh Piccadilly at midnight fo: a drunken man, or any of the <iTe.it a;c&: mhabitated by the upper and middle classes and your search will be unrewarded ; v.hi\< in tlie East Enr 1 and in other v nling class centres a real, rollicking, oM-timi "drunk" ''s so rare that he ranks ps ; j "sight" with j fire :>r a street accident. j In a short 20 years we middle-a^c-men have made temperance fashionable We have popularised a habit that u-cd t< be rr, yarded as a displace. We h.ivi wiped the slur off sobriety and .-ho\w that it is neither diisma) nor dull. AVi can raise the chorus of "For he> ;t; t full; good- fellow" on no stronger stimulant thru barky water. We have fonjottcr the -words of "We won't go home ti! morning," a.i)d it is doubtful if the youugei generation has e v er heard them." Sp( a train-load of us proin^ home aft^r «- "tiheatire-and-supper ni^lit" in town, anr yor will admit that we Icol: as fresh as i: we were just coming in to business. ' — Nature's Reaction. — Tliis has been no orj;ani=-ed tevolution. Organisation would have meant failure, for th»re is even to-day no more unpopular thing than to pr*acl> tcetotalisni or to conduct a t»mpera.nc» cdinpaisjn. We cannot like a rran who to condemn our own faults mu*-l presuppo-s hi.<= own perfi'etiMi. Ko. tliih revolution cf ours Mas perfectly natural. P-cr-onally, 1 think it vas a re-actic:: — one of those wonderful reactions which Nature supervises heiself when she th'iiks tha psychologic l moment has arrived. This sudden ebbing of the alcoholic tide may be connected in fom« way with the flood t:d> which began to rise soni3 200 yea is ago. whan tlioe hai'driding, hard-drinking o!d squires set th« pace and the morals of England. Their descendants inherited their tastes and passed them on. Drinking habits grew and grew as they came down th« generations, until at last there was some danjjer of permanent harm to the nation. Our physical condition was threatened, and our physical condition belongs to Nature's own special department. So Nature came to our salvation and set about breeding the class of man »vho would force the reaction. We — the middle-aged men oi

• to-day — are the men. she bred. We are ' bar humble instruments. Instincitvely we , played a great part, for we were reformers | born. ' ! j Our victory would have been complete • • by mow were it not for these crassly ConI servative Chancellors of the Exchequer ■ (th© present one the most hide-bound Tory of them all), who persist in giving alcohol the false standing of a luxury. Bolstered ' up by ridiculous taxss, it is made expensive, and thus deludes the more ignorant public into th* belief that it is a thing of ! value. (What an awful world it would ' be if all the valuable thinga »rere expensive!) If alcohol were only free its doom i would be ssaL&d, and an enlightened Chan1 cellor of the Exchequer, anxious to put j 1 the burden of taxation on the broadest back, would arrange a new set of graduated licenses for ter shops, and give tea its proper rank as our modern luxury, and its proper price of at least one shilling a j cup. — J. C. X. M'Kenna, in the Daily • Mail. ! _______