SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE DRINK PROBLEM.
(To TES EDITOR or nic " SPEcraroic."1 S114—I think the following facts may interest your readers in regard to the many problems connected with the national expendi- ture on drink. This expenditure is given as 1182,000,000 a year. &sell a figure cannot appeal to many minds, and it Would be well to compare it with one or two of the great railway enterprises in the country. For instance, the expenditure on the system of the London and North-Western Railway is as follows :—
Ordinary Stock... Debenture Stock Guaranteed Stock Preferred Stock Total ... £128,000,000 This has constructed the entire system from London to Carlisle, also to Chester, Holyhead, and many places in Wales; also to Northampton, Birmingham, Shrewsbury, and many branch lines. It includes all the North-Western Company's &mice in Liverpool; Greenore, &c., &c.; all the locomotives and rolling-stock, work- shops, and their fleet of steamers, &c. This expenditure has been spread over a period. from 1832 to 1916, or eighty-four years, and has given an enormous amount of employment to all classes and grades. And yet this huge expenditure is equalled in drink in eight and a half months !—money which to a very large extent is not only absolutely thrown away, but is often productive of illness, outrage, slackness in work, and general depravity. The expendi- ture on the Great Western Railway is not so large, but could be dealt with on the same lines. Or to turn to the artistic and religious side of the question, a great Cathedral such as Liverpool may probably run into two or three millions before it is com- pleted. Consequently the drink bill could construct sixty Each
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... £43,000,000 ... 39,000,000 ... 15,000,000 ... 31,000,000 fabrics every year.—I am, Sir, &c., , Z.
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