WINE DRINKING FRANCE.

White Ribbon, Volume 40, Issue 467, 18 August 1934, Page 14

WINE DRINKING FRANCE.

France consumes annu*. U\ l’ii litres of absolute alcohol per head, that is. one third more than any other country. Yet wo are told there is no drunkenness in France. Does France not suffer from this heavy consumption of alcohol? Listen to M. F. Human, Secretary of the “National League Against Alcoholism," and you will gel the answer to your question. In England the average death rate is 12 per 1,000. In Germany it is 13, and in France it is 17. That means that if France’s death rate came down to that of Germany or England. France would gain more than 200,000 inhabitants per year. There is plenty of room in France for its people, i has only 71 inhabitants to the square kilometre, England has 182. Italy 130, Ger many 133 This itself constitutes a constant temptation to invasion by neighbours more numerous than itself. French tiabies, under one year, die in greater numbers than In England, where the figures are 7*> deaths per thousand. In France, they are If* more 90 deaths per thousand. Yet France is a civilised country, a rich country, and the French love <*l children is well known. The climate is very healthy, many of its people are engaged in healthy country occupations, owning their own houses and some acres of land. Why so main deaths of children and adults?

Poisoning the Ituce. Th“ answer is that the consumption <»f 20 litres of alcohol per head demandthe payment of the price. That pri<> is m high infant mortality, high death rate of adults, and, in the cities espc ially, bad housing and wide-spr« <1 tuberculosis which alcohol always encourages. M. Louis Forest, not himself an abstainer, has declared, “Whosoever tries to promote public well-being without concerning himself with the question »f alcohol is a self-deceiver." France, indeed, is the outstanding proof of Dr. Saleeby’s famous dictum: “Alcohol is a race poison."