MR SPEIGHT'S LECTURE ON GOOD TEMPLARY.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2067, 19 August 1875, Page 3

MR SPEIGHT'S LECTURE ON GOOD TEMPLARY.

Mr W. J. Speight, G.W.C.T., last week delivered a. lecture on " The" Object of Good Templar/ and the Means of its Attainment," from which we have been permitted to extract the following, which certainly contains some figures calculated to arrest the attention of thinking people:—-

The following facts and figures I have taken from the statistics of the colony of as recent a date as I could obtain. The imports are those for the year 1873, the population is that of a year later, so that the deductions will be rather under than over stated, as the revenue from intoxicants, we were informed a few weeks since by a Minister of the Crown, is much in excess of the previous year. The importation of beer during the year ending December, 1873, amounted to 276,580 gallons,. paying duty amounting to £16,545. This, at a selling price of 5s per gallon, would show an expenditure on imported beer of £69,145. During" the same period there were 4,247,402 gallons manufactured in the colony. This, at a selling price of 3s per gallon, would give £637,110—0r a total cost for beer of £706,255—the price of 4,523,982 gallons. Of.wine ; and spirits there were imported' 678,168 gallons, paying duty to the amount of £333,888; this, at a, selling price of 30s per gallon, means an expenditure of £1,017,252. Of New Zealand, spirits there were., manufactured 65,920 gallons, paying (juty.i of £19,776. 1 his, at a selling price of 15s per gallon, Equals £49,215, or a total cost of spirits, home and imported, of £1,066,467, theprice of 744,088 gallons,' paying duty 0f ( £353,664. ." ; . "\ Adding the spirits and beer together we find a gross expenditure on intoxicants; amounting to no less than £i,772,722 r v yielding customs revenue of £3 70,209. The entire population of the. colony is close upon 300,000 persons ; of these 175,479 have reached the age of 15 years.; In charity we will suppose that,drinking habits do not prevail amongst those under tbatage. The figures I have quoted will therefore shew a consumption of 26 gallons of beer, at a cost £4, and of over four gallons of spirits, at a cost of £6, or a total of 30 gallons of intoxicants at a cost of £10 for every male and female in the colony over the age of 15 years. These are startling results, all the more so if we remember what a large number there are who consume none of these gallons, and the still larger number who consume but a small portion of the amount set down, thus leaving it to some of our fellew colonists to transform themselves into swill barrels of no mean dimensions, indeed, some of them bent deserve the name of hogsheads, and swinish, indeed, must be their habits— £1,800,000 poured down the necks of our people, and, political economists tell us, with good results, seeing that the Government gained £370,000 in duty. The entire Customs, Revenue from all sources amounted to but £965,800, so we swallow drink annually at a cost of nearly double the amount of the whole Customs revenue of the colony.