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THE DKFII RCTCO U NCI I ;…

THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE.…

LOCAL SHOOTING NOTIONS.I

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I ,I jFINANCK (j()Mill¡'E!':.

FONEKAL OF MRS. PEEL, OF DANYBALLT…

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MR J. II. WILLIAMS AND HIS…

PIGEONS HOMING SOCIETY. I

FARMHOUSE, SEASIDE, AND COUNTRY…

MR.VALENTIN AND HiS METHODS.…

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MR.VALENTIN AND HiS METHODS. 1 II FURTHER LETTER FROM MR. J. H. WILLIAMS. I ■10 Tit f? EDITOR. I DIIAP. ill My last letter taken farewell (metaphorically at least) of Mr. Valentin and .cast his apology for a. reply to the limbo of the forgotten past, f will now answer Mr. Morgan's fetfce? a little more fully. He commences l.y asserting that I seem to confuse temperance with abstinence. [ am glad he to confuse" and thank him for this sm ili mercy, as it leaves the alter- native that. purinip3 after all the inability to distinguish between the two may rest with himself. fit nrder to stay this quibble ( wili give my definition of temperance in the words, as far as cm remember them, of the golden- mouthed Oicero—" Temperance is t lie participa- tion in moderation '»f good things and the total exclusion of all things essentially evil." That is my definitioi has Mr. Morgan a bettui- ? If so trot it out. Now with regard to quoting the brewer, Mr. Morgan has evidently misunderstood the quo- tation,as M i-, Buxton says the struggle of school library and ehnrch against the gin palace and beer shop is but one development &e. Here he asserts that the church, school and library strike at the root of the evil. Lopping the branches of this giant Upas tree is useless and here we have the evidence of even one of the plantersof it. Which will eventually be victorious does Mr. Morgan think ? by the "survival of the frtest." which will eventually survive ? Person- any I have not a doubt in this matter. I agree with Dr. Drysdale who says The future of higher civilisation I suspect is in the hands of total abstainers from Alcohol." Dr. Morgan's remarks about my quoting the "ipse dixit" of several individuals and news- papers &c. Will he kindly quote a. like number on the other side denying these evils of drink &c. His remark that statements of the kind without due evidence are not proof-granted. But in this instance they were not cite(I as proof but simply to refute Mr. Valentin's asser- tion which implied the party were devoid of common sense, as I hope by this time Mr. Morgan understands. Now we come to prohibition. He says :—" It is generally admitted that between two and three milllion people are engaged &c.'r Now just let us apply Mr. Morgan's axiom aforemen- tioned to his own assertion, nitmety.-Il State- ments of the kind without due evidence are not proof." This of course at once discounten- ances his statement; but I will not so deal with it as it has not sufficient strength to stand of its own accord as an argument against temper- ance. Again the revenue (a bug bear which exists only in the imagination of trade advocates), will not only be 27 millions but 85 millions." Is that so ? True, the gross revenue was 35 millions, but the exchequer receipts from the excise last year were £ 27,460,000. Did Mr. Morgan use 35,000,000 in the present instance to mislead his retders" Noue also the National Drink Bill for last year was £ 148.972.230 and I quoted as my estimate £ 140,000000. For proof, see speech of the Chancellor of Exchequer in last Thursday week's Budget. Now let us turn to the unem- ployed question. I will ask Mr. Morgan to kindly favour me with some proof that the employed of the drink trade number between two and three million, I personally consider three million as rather a high maximum estimate. Of course we don't want the exact amount as that is more than we could possibly expect. The unemployed here is,as it always has been, the trade cry. When looms were introduced, what of the unemployed P When the engines came into use, what of the unemployed, especially horses ? This last was lately used against motor cycles. This has always been the watch cry of the anti-betterment class here in this country as well as elsewhere. The unemployed can go back to other trades and will find plenty of employment as the 1:148,972,230 now spent on drink will be laid out in more remunerative—to the labourer— employment, consequently he will be able to get more and will thus create a greater demand for various other commodities. The following has been laid down as a Divine utterance, In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," or in the words of Paul. If any will not work, neither let him eat." Dr. Hopkins, Professor of Political economy, argues thus: "Since, under natural law, all men should labour, that capital is last employed, and last serves the creation and distribution of wealth, in whose reproduction the largest amount of labour is engaged, and in the returns of which labour has the largest share." Drink lessens the productive power of the workman which is in itself a breach of economic law, but we will discuss that later on. Now we will take a few tables. Dr. Hopkins has shewn that "in the manu- facture of malt liquors, but -61 per cent. of a man is employed for every 10,000 dollars ( £ 2,084 nearly), and but '12 in the manufacture of distilled liquors; while for every 10,000 dollars in retail value of useful articles produced by seven other industries, the average number of employed is as follows:— Bread and bakery products 3-36 Boots and shoes 5-03 Cotton goods 6-89 Silk goods 4-86 Woollen goods 540 Lumberand mill products 4'08 Iron and steel products 3 52 This is an average of 4-73 or nearly eight times the amount of labour employed in making malt liquor and nearly forty times the amount in making distilled liquor. Again, Mr. F. A. Coulter estimates as fol- lows:-For every hundred dollars spent on any product there is a certain portion of it goes to labour as wages for producing the article as follows:— dols. cts. Boots and shoes 21 71 Furniture .23 58 Carpentering and building 20 88 Bricks 32 75 Carpets 17 21 Men and women's clothing 17 45 Cotton and mixed goods 17 29 Woollen goods 1.2 8(5 Worsted goods 13 58 Sewing machines 2G 6(1 Printed matter 26 90 Bakery products 11 44 Wines, liquor and beer .1 (57 According to the above each workman gets an I average of 2010 dols. for each lOOdols. spent for articles enumerated above, except for liquor for liquor 1-6 dols. On the basis of a million invested he gives the following table to represent the number employed:— Boots and shoes. -'30 Bread and bakery 1150 Brick ann. tile 780 Carpentering Î03 Men's clothing (wholesale) ••• 1283 Foundry and inaebine shop., t">23 Furniture and upholstering 880 Masonary, bricks, &c. ••• 1283 Printing and publishing 994 Drink 128 "Thus we see that outside the drink business 955 men are employed for every million in- vested in the drink trade only 128 are given employment." r So by different methods of investigation hoth i Mr. Coulter and Prof. Hopkins have arrived at pretty nearly the same answer that other trades for the same investment employ eight times the number of men. Well, so much for Mr. Morgan's unemployed bogie this time. Let me further draw my readers' attention to the following significant fact with regard to License and Prohibition. Mr. Neal Dow (now W years of age) when writing to Mr Rapier a short while ago said "I sent you a little newspaper slip showing in reliable ifgures how much better the Prohibition policy is than License. Before Prohibition was had in Maine I' it had no savings banks, the people had no money to save they spent it all in drink. Now it is one of the most prosperous states in the Union, saving 20,000,000 dols. or £ 4,000,000 every year, which formerly was wasted in drink" The interest (Ill t4,000,000 at 3 per cent. is £ 120.000. The £ 4,000,000 saved is at the rate per each inhabit;ant-iuclndilig men, women and ebil(irei)-of L*f) per annum. Compare this thriving condition of things with two neighbouring licensed states. There a.re about 7i millions of inhabitants in Ohio and Ilinois States. They have together in the savings banks about Ili p(-.)uii(is, while Maine, the Prohibition State, with a population of oidy 661,000 has nearly 1% million pounds in its savings banks. Notice If the inhabitants of Ohio and llinois had the same amount per inhabitant in the savings ban ks as the people of Maine, instead of 11!- millions they should have 117 million pounds, but the poor dupes have chosen License to put their hard earned money into the pockets of brewers and publicans instead. On an averag e fJach inhahitant of Maine has in the Saving's bank £ 16 as compared with 30s. to each inhabitant in the drinking states. And probably much of this even belongs to teeto- tallers in these states. To sum np the economic aspect we bring the following charges against the trade as they are tabulated by Alderman G. White, J.P. Norwich. 1. Drink consumes between 50 and 70 millions per annum of the wages fund for an article in the cost of which wages form the smallest possible item, whilst the labour it does give is net only unproductive but destructive. 2. It takes the hard-earned wage* or the artisan and gives him nothing in return. S. It thus prevents the wages fund increasing faster than the supply of labour. 4. It prevents the purchasing power of the masses keeping abreast of production. 5. It destroys the constancy and efficiency of labour to an extent incompatible with the maintenance of our commercial prestige. 6. It lays burdens in rates, taxes, etc., upon industry which tend to handicap us in mpetition with other countries. 7. The poverty it produces drives into the labour market the competition of married women. 8. This poverty forces the purchase of the cheapest articles in clothing, fosters sweating, and endangers our position as a manufacturing nation. Finally, I say, Drink prevents the perfect development of the industrial resources of a nation and bars its intellectual progress. This I challenge Mr. Morgan or the trade Goliath, who is shortly to hiirst forth, on the Llanelly horizon, to disprove. I remain, Yours, Ac., J. H. WILLIAMS. London Hospital. P.S.—There was a slight mistake in my last letter. The sentence should be thus, &c., &c., who advocate the indiscriminate nse of alcohol even as a medicine" instead of even in moderation"—evidently a mistake to anyone who would carefully read.

A NEW WORK ON FINANCE.

ALL WHO SUFFER FROM RUPTURES.

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