10 



more purchasing power was wanted, but the people did not 

 possess that power." I maintain that the Hon. Gentleman was 

 mistaken, the people do possess that power if it was spent in 

 needful food and useful articles of clothing, furniture, <^c., as is 

 abundantly shown in Mr. Blackley's statement above. Can we 

 be surprised that not only agriculture, but that trade and com- 

 merce generally should be depressed, when we think of the 

 wicked waste of wealth spent in purchasing intoxicating drink, a 

 crime, poverty, and disease-producing element ? Take for example 

 the year 1878. Over ^142,000,000 was spent in that one 

 article, an amount equal to 8s. per week for each family, or 

 ^4: 4s. per annum for each man, woman and child in the 

 country. These figures are taken from the government returns, 

 but they by no means represent the total expenditure, for I need 

 not attempt to prove that spirits and other drinks are consider- 

 ably added to after they leave the manufacturers. Then if we 

 add to this the indirect loss, which is considered by the best 

 authorities to be almost as much as the amount spent, 

 making the total ^284,000,000, considerably more than all the 

 foreign trade of the country. Mr. Caird in his work entitled 

 " The Landed Interest" (see page 14) shows that the entire value 

 of all the produce of all the land in the country is only about 

 ;^335,000,000, or only about ^50,000,000, more than the loss 

 caused to the country by its drinking. If we take the seven 

 years, from 1871 to 1877, we get the frightful amount of 

 ^964,037,836 spent in drink, ^210,000,000 more than the 

 whole of the national debt. During that same period 3,334,110 

 persons were convicted of crime, and ;^10 1,1 44,718 was paid in 

 poor and police rates, and in that some period 1,271,838 

 drunkards were apprehended. During 1879, 3,000,000 persons 

 were upon the books of the Poor Law Unions, and it has been stated 

 before the Social Science Congress and the British Medical Asso- 

 ciation, by Dr. Norman Kerr, that about 120,000 persons lose 

 their lives in this country annually through drink, either directly 

 or indirectly. Was there ever such a state of things as this in 

 any country in the world before ? May we not adopt the lan- 

 guage of the prophet and say " The land is full of 

 bloody crime and the city is full of violence." With these 

 facts before us we cannot be surprised that agriculture is 

 depressed, that purchasing power is weak, trade generally bad, 

 and that we are not able to compete with our foreign neighbours. 

 No doubt much harm has been done to trade by strikes and 

 contentions between capital and labour of late years, but I repeat 

 that the drink system is mainly, if not wholly, responsible 

 for all this. Men will strike for two or three shil- 

 lings more money per week, at the risk of ruin- 

 ing a firm and driving trade from the country, while they 

 think nothing of spending two, three, or perhaps four or five times 

 that amount in drink. Men in this condition are easily led 

 by any agitation that may arise, with a plausible idea of doing 



