20 A REPLY TO CRITICISMS OF THE 



mean wage of the father when both parents dririk is 

 24s. Sd. ; when one parent drinks, 25^. 6</., and when 

 neither parent drinks, 2^s. ^d. Or, grouping in another 

 way, when either or both drink, 25^., and when neither 

 drink, 25^. ^d! 



What conclusions did we draw from these results ? Not 

 the * chief generalization ' asserted by Sir Victor Horsley 

 and Dr. Sturge, that the wage-earning capacity and efficiency 

 of the drinker are at least equal to the sober, but that the 

 wages of the alcoholic are ' wholly inconsistent with a 

 marked mental or physical inferiority in the alcoholic 

 parent' (p. 31). 



In other words our object was, not to show the efficiency 

 of a workman in a state of alcohol (* clearly ', we had said, 

 ' the general tendency of drink must when it reaches 

 a certain intensity be to lower a man's wages ') but to show 

 that the drinking workman was not ab initio and apart from 

 his alcohol inferior physically or mentally to the sober. 

 Now this is the very point which Sir Victor Horsley and 

 Dr. Sturge will themselves have to demonstrate before they 

 can deduce any result from statistics of sobriety and in- 

 temperance. Until you have demonstrated general equality 

 of the germ-plasms of the two stocks as far as physique 

 and mentality go, it is impossible to assert that a differentia- 

 tion of the offspring is due to alcohol. That they have 

 not recognized the importance of this point is a measure of 

 their fitness to deal with such complex statistical problems. 

 Now Miss Elderton has been good enough to go through 

 the whole of the wages in the Report again. She has 

 divided the workmen into five classes : (i) Those in regular 

 employment, (ii) Those in irregular employment but whose 

 average wage was not given ; in this class were included 

 those who were stated to have been out of work or idle, 

 or for whom ' wages when working ' were given, (iii) Casual 



