CHARGE AGAINST STOWAWAYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3870, 15 May 1928, Page 5

CHARGE AGAINST STOWAWAYS.

WELLINGTON, May 8. When three seamen —Arthur Rowland Barrett, aged 25; Roy Hogarth, aged 27; and Alphonse Bailleul, aged 28 —admitted having stowed away on the Mahana, on March 23 (they were returned to New Zealand from Colon), counsel for the Shaw, Savill Company (Mr O’Leary) said these cases were very expensive to the company. The equivalent passage money in each case was £5O, so the total cost to the company was £l5O. “ The company wishes it to be made clear,” he said, “ that in all these cases where stowaways are discovered on board its ships, they will, irrespective of cost, be landed at the first port and returned to New Zealand. There is thus little possibility of reaching the destination they desire.” • Each was fined £5, in default seven days.

(Published by arangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.) THE VERDICT OF SCIENCE ON ALCOHOL.

By

Mr W. R. Wood (Winnipeg).

THE VALUE OF A VERDICT FROM SCIENCE. Living in a world in which knowledge has vastly increased, we naturally and rightly give much consideration to the results of scientific research and reasoning. The sciences are becoming increasingly complete and authoritative in their examination of the phenomena of Nature and of human life. Men specially trained devote themselves to special lines of research.’investigation, and experiment. Results are carefully compared and tested by every known means as to their validity. Science is in no hurry to reach conclusions. . THE WORLD WAR CALLED SCIENCE TO SPEAK. More than one of the nations engaged in the World War, 1914-1918, was compelled to recognise that the liquor trade constituted a tremendous handicap, and to take action to relieve its fighting strength of some of the burden. The Canadian Government War Committee, ni recommending prohibition, expressed itself as doing so “in order still further to (1) prevent waste, (2) to primate thrift. (3) to conserve resources, and thus (4) to increase national efficiency ”—- a very striking indication of the nature of the trade and of the effects that follow in its wake. In Great Britain the Government, recognising that efficiency in the war services was being seriously depleted by liquor, placed it under public control, and later very considerably restricted the production and the sale. Vt the same time it established an Advisory Board composed of eight distinguished medical men giving them as their task “ to consider the conditions affecting the physiological action of alcohol, and more particularly the effects on health and industrial efficiency produced by the consumption of beverages of various alcoholic strengths, with special reference to the recent orders of the Central Control Board, and further to plan out and direct such investigations as may appear desirable with a view to obtaining more exact data on this and cognate questions.” The report of this committee, presented in December, 1917, is described by the committee itself as a “ review of the existing state of scientific knowledge regarding the action of alcohol on the human organism,” and it announces that " the conclusions represent the unanimous judgment of the committee.” * Here, then, we have a statement by men of unquestioned scientific eminence, chosen by the Government of Great Britain for thei r special qualifications to deal with the subject, and a statement which embodies not merely a majority view, but a series of conclusions to which every man of the group sets his name in unqualified endorsation. They’ are not in any sense partisan in regard to the problems. They' are not known as temperance men there is no reason to think that any of them were total -abstainers; it is more than probable that none of them were prohibitionists. Their interest in the problem is the interest of the medical man who is concerned for the well-being of the physical organism, and of the scientist who is determined to secure as near]'- as he can the ultimate and absolute truth. In their report, “Alcohol: Its Action on the Human Organism,” we have the united expression of the world’s most eminent science as it was in 1917. A VERDICT UNCHALLENGED AFTER 10 YEARS.

The Advisory Committee issued its report in December, 1917. In the 10 years since that time it has been printed ■and circulated widely over the Englishspeaking world, and it can be said to-day’ that in that period no major conclusion expressed in its pages has been challenged either by’ the medical profession, the scientific world, or the liquor trade. The nearest approach to a challenge was the issue in 1923 by Professor E. IT. Starling, of University College. London, England, of a book entitled “ The Action of Alcohol on Man.” Professor Starling was an eminent physiologist, held in high esteem in the world of medical science for his researches in regard to the heart and blood vessels and the secretion of the pancreatic gland, and his book is an elaborate statement of the effects of alcohol in relationship to the various organs and functions of the human body. In the main he argues against prohibition and in favour of a very limited use of light alcoholic beverages, with meals. for their effects in producing a contented and restful mentality which is much to be desired in a nerve-wracking world like that in which we live.

In doing this several points must be noted. First, he explicitly warns against excess as being dangerous. Secondly, he recognises fully that the “ free and easy ” mind resulting from the use of alcohol is secured by the narcotisation of the higher control centres of the brain. Thirdly, he suggests no means by which the drinker may be safeguarded against excess when these highest control centres have been overcome. Fourthly, he suggests that the artificial buoyancy produced by alcohol is more to be desired than the dullness ” or “ forced merriment ” which characterises “teetotal” gatherings—a case of special pleading, not scientific reasoning. Fifthly, he does not -at any point in his treatise challenge any major conclusion of the report of the Advisory Committee, but specifically endorses most of its conclusions, and in some cases in language more emphatic than its own. It may be said, therefore, with the most perfect assurance, that since a man of the distinguished standing of Professor Starling, writing in favour of the use of alcohol, finds nothing to challenge in the report of 1917, that report stands as the last word of science on its subject, and that it may be taken as the most authoritative verdict which is possible for the time in which we live. (To be Continued.)