A LETTER TO THE PREMIER.

White Ribbon, Volume 36, Issue 432, 18 July 1931, Page 1

A LETTER TO THE PREMIER.

The following letter has been sent to the R.ght Honourable George W. Forbes, Premier: — IVar Sir, — I beg to conclude the appeal to you begun before the Emergency Session. It is the straight, practical words of women you are requested to note, in a time when nothin# but stem truth can touch the realities of a world-wide economic crisis, significantly coincident with a moral reaction disturbing the worldorder to which we iielong. The first duty of States to-day, as .vomen sec* it, is conservation. All nations now r profess to seek economic conservation. We believe that savin# should l*»gin first on that w hich wastes most health wealth, and morale—Alcohol. This savin# must begin at once. When earth was wide, each nation muddled and wasted to its content. Now earth is narrow and hotly contended for; the weakened and wasteful go to the wall.

Alcohol is now counted wholly as a luxury, being proved neither food nor medicine, nor yet safe stimulant. A nation which, like New Zealand, sjiends on one luxury twice as much as on its schools and four times as much as on its hospitals, is heading for ruin. Undoubtedly a special peril threatens the Britannic States to-«lay. Its causes are many, but Alcohol, with its attendant evils, has become the key factor. We seem in n state of stupor over it, indifferent to the fact that both England and New' Zealand have recently been pronounced CS nations. As a matter of course, men drink equally on the English dole and on the New Zealand relief wage. Moral conviction is a generally sound principle; but we do not fight opium and smallpox on suasion.

New Zealand s last Drink Bill was £8,116,894, a rise of f 550,662 on the year before. Deducting revenue, a luxury bill of £6,360,045 remains. Spent normally, this sum w'ould help trade, found new industries, endow child welfare, and conserve health, morality, and home life. As spent now', it throttles trade, restricts industry, destroys childhood’s chances, sai»s health and morality, and breaks up home life. It is calculated that the net Drink Bill would provide 20,387 workers with an income of £6 per week, and. allowing each worker to maintain a wife and two children, would support 81,548 persons Adding in workless women and l>oys. you will find difficulty in providing relief for a number somewhat smaller than this. It is computed that the net Drink Bill would pay for our total expenditure on education and all our pensions anil family allowances. It would pay half the wages of our factory workers. For every £1 spent on Health, we are spending £32 16s. on Alcohol. Turn to the vital cost of this luxury. Of lives lost by alcoholism, there Is no exact record: only the poor and friendless are thus branded in death Sociologists hazard a likely numt< r; adding in a proportion of suicides, they name 250 a year. This does not, I think, include deaths by accident, motor and other, due to alcoholic influence. It is thus seen that w>* lose more lives by drink every year than were lost in the Hawke’s Buy earthquake. The money loss was counted as £7,7*5,812. Every > ear, New Zealand drinks the equivalent of a gigantic earthquake disaster. What are we doing about it? Seemingly nothing. Business men, vocal in war time, do not report these fact 1 now. Doctors are silent about them, even In Health Week. The Churches no longer

declaim them. They are too “controversial ’ for papers to publish in poll year. Only the “Vanguard,” the “New Zealand Hecliabita,” and the “White Itibbon” publish full facts and presentments. 'l’lie men of the New Zealand Alliance and minor temperance organisations stand to their guns yet, but the burden of nation-wide propaganda and ceaseless activity from poll to poll rests upon the Women s Christian Temj>erance Union. These women know’ no defeat, sec* nothing but one ordained goal ahead. Do New Zealand statesmen know less than these women of the money loss and human wastage that goes pitilessly on? Are they Blind to the swift rising of the non-alcoholised. highly industrial Oriental nations? Will they leave the women to pluy the pat riots' pail ulone? 1 do not write without warrant. lamg in membership with the National Council of New Zealand women, and an office - bearer In the Women's Christian Temperance Union, in personal touch with the Australian leagues, and for twenty years New Zealand correspondent for the Intel-national Woman Suffrage Alliance, I dare to speak for the constructive motherhood of the world. You have initiated a sound, courageous economic scheme. Firm, concerted Cabinet action to rouse and enlighten the country on its greatest danger will set upon that scheme the seal of vision and sincerity. I am, dear Sir, Yours respectfully, JESSIE MACK AY. Cashmere Hills, Christchurch, May 30, 1931.