9 



of people in society are dying day by day, poisoned by alcohol, 

 but not supposed to be poisoned by it." 



I have never known a man fail that farmed on Temperance 

 principles, but I have known several labouring men, by those 

 principles, through God's blessing, raise themselves, and become 

 successful farmers. 



Farmers, like other employers, lose through the intem- 

 perate habits of their men, by loss of time, accidents, 

 inferior work, and in many other ways, such as poor 

 rates, county and school board rates, in having to 

 mantain the large prisons, lunatic asylums, workhouses, 

 industrial schools, &c. This is also true to a large extent, as 

 regards hospitals and a large number of other institutions, 

 whose existence is mainly due to intemperance, and have 

 to be maintained at a great cost by public subscriptions. 

 Taking all these together, they constitute a serious burden upon 

 the land, and if we can banish intemperance from our midst, four- 

 fifths of this burden would disappear. The Rev. W. L. Blackley 

 said at a conference in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, November 

 6th, 1880 :— " My parish has a population of about 400 souls, an 

 annual poor rate for the support oi the poor only, of ;£150, and 

 it contains three public houses, and one beer shop, supported, as 

 it happens, exclusively by the agricultural class. I assume that 

 to keep a landlord and his family, and to pay rent and hcense, 

 we must allow an average gain of at least thirty shiUmgs a week, 

 and, supposing that for the drink which gives him this profit 

 only to cost even thirty shillings, it becomes clear that to keep 

 up the drink trade in the four shops in my pariah, costs ;£12 a 

 week at the very least, or an aggregate of £624 a year, more than 

 four times the poor rate required to support our pauperism. 

 Now, who are they who become chargeable to poor rate 1 The 

 victims of the drinking customs and drinking habits to-day, and 

 the drinkers themselves by and by. If the labouring class (and 

 there are no other public-house customers) in my parish, can 

 afford to spend a pound in drink for every five shillings the rate- 

 payers are compelled to contribute for the support of those whom 

 drink ruins, it is clearly plain that, were the drink traffic m 

 general reduced by even 25 per cent., there would be no need of 

 poor rates at all, and, were that traffic abolishsd altogether, each 

 father of a family in my parish would have enough money in ten 

 years time, to buy himself, if he thought it necessary to his sense 

 of independence, the fee simple of two acres of the best land m 

 the place, and thus to solve the question once for all, of peasant 

 proprietorship of land in the only way possiJDle, except by the 

 exercise of spoliation at the risk of revolution." 



Then again the farmers suffer in consequence of not being 

 able to find a ready sale for their produce. I state this on the 

 authority of Col. Lloyd Lindsay, M.P. for Berkshire, who is 

 reported to have said in a public speech— "That the British 

 farmer wanted a quicker sale ibr his produce, or in other words 



