The Incubus of Intemperance
IN a recent number of Cassell's Magazine is an article by Sir Thomas Whittaker, member of Parliament, on the cost and loss of drinking in the United Kingdom. He estimates that the expenditure on intoxicants during the last five years has averaged $825,000,000 a year. Deducting $175,000,000 as the average amount received during that time by the State in the form of duties, the direct cost of the liquor to the public is $650,000,000 a year, besides the indirect cost of poverty, crime, insanity, and disease caused by drink, together with the loss of the labor of those who are by this incapacitated. And he estimates that the indirect loss balances the revenue which the State derives from the trade, so that he puts the expenditure on drink down at $825,000,000 a year. He shows that if that amount were expended for the estimated tax revenue for national expenditure, the country would be free of all taxes. The housing or rent problem is a serious one in England; but as much is spent on drink as the annual value of every dwelling-house in the United Kingdom. The drink would have paid all the rents. More was spent on drink than all the railways took for passengers, goods, minerals, cattle, and parcel traffic, for all that they do, and for every service they render. The drink bill would pay the cost of everybody and everything that is now carried by rail, and leave a large balance to pay for those who would wish to travel. These facts ought to appeal to reasonable men. What is true in England is true in America. From the simple standpoint of economics alone, the drink traffic ought to be wiped from the face of the earth.