"Some time ago we heard a good deal, both in and out of Parliament, about the debenture widow whose little all is invested in brewery securities. There is, on the other hand, the widow so made by alcohol. I am not aware that anyone has attempted to estimate the approximate number of each of these two classes. The following is merely a rude approximation.
It has been stated that there are half a million persons who have invested money in the licensed trade. Let us allow that half of these are men. The death-rate of all males, above fifteen years of age, is slightly over sixteen per 1,000. At the census of 1901, 536 in each 1,000 males aged fifteen years and upwards were found to be married. Ignoring the differential death-rate of the married as compared with bachelors and widows, it follows that about 4,100 male investors in the licensed trade die each year, of whom some 2,197 will be married men, leaving behind them the same number of widows entirely or partly dependent on these investments.
The widows made by drink are nearly six times as many.
Numerous inquiries at home and abroad agree somewhat closely in stating 14 per cent. of the entire death-rate to be due to alcohol. The proportion of one in seven is accepted by Dr. Archdall Eeid, who considers that all efforts to restrain drinking increase drunkenness. I do not think the justness of this figure can be disputed at all, except as an under-estimate. We are here dealing with male deaths only, and I will do my contention the obvious injustice of supposing that the proportion of deaths due wholly or in part to alcohol is no higher amongst men than amongst women. If one could allow for the existing difference, the result would be even more terrible.
Taking the figures for 1906 for England and Wales alone, we have 167,307 deaths of males over fifteen; 23,422 of these wholly or partly due to alcohol, and of this number 12,554 were married men (i. e., 536 per 1,000). The average size of a family in England and Wales is 4.62, according to Whitaker. If we multiply the number of widows, 12,554, by 3.62, we shall have an approximation to the number of widows and orphans made by alcohol in 1906. There were 45,445, or over 124 widows and orphans made by alcohol every day in the year.
We may now note some further data helping us to compare the 12,554 alcohol-made widows with the 2,197 whose husbands' fortunes were wholly or in part bound up with the welfare of the licensed trade. (Of these latter, also, of course, a large proportion would be alcohol-made.)
Dr. Tatham's recently published letter on occupational mortality in the three years, 1900, 1901, 1902, informs us as to twenty-one occupations in which the alcoholic death-rate is grossly excessive. In these twenty-one occupations selected by Dr. Tatham as having an alcohol mortality which exceeds the standard by at least 50 per cent., we can work out the alcohol factor and find that it amounts to 24.5 per cent. The table would take up too much space for me to ask you to print it, but it is ready on demand, public or private. The figures work out to show that 5,092 married men in these twenty-one trades died in each year from alcohol. (I have taken 24.5 per cent, of the whole number of deaths in the three years, and reckoned the married proportion of these.)
The calculation shows that in these twenty-one occupations the comparative alcohol mortality is 24.5 per cent., as against only 12 per cent. in all other occupations.
Amongst the occupations in Dr. Tatham's table may be noted coalheaver, coach, cab, etc., service, groom, butcher, messenger, tobacconist, general labourer, general shopkeeper, brewer, chimney sweep, dock labourer, hawker, publican, inn and hotel servants. A glance at the table will show that in most cases the men who are dying are "industrial drinkers," who frequent public-houses in the districts where the reduction in the number of the licenses under the present Bill will occur. Often nowadays the widows are heavy drinkers, and the lives of their children centre round the public-house.
If the only wealth of a nation is its life, and history teaches no more certain truth—and if, since individuals are mortal, the quantity and quality of parenthood—or of childhood, according to the point of view—are the supreme factors in the destiny of nations, do not the foregoing figures warrant the contention that he who at this date is for alcohol is against England?"