The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-10-11 00:00:00

LORD ABERDARE on the TEMPERANCE
MOVEMENT.

Speaking on the occasion of the opening of a coffee
tavern at Neath on Saturday, Lord Aberdare said he
thought that the amount spent on drink in the
kingdom alone was very little short of 2150,000,000 a
year, and it was calculated that of that sum the work-
ing classes spent £100,000,000 a year. If this were i
spent in the education and clothing of children t
would undoubtedly be a great blessing to the country.
Referring to the remedies suggested for intemperance,
his lordship said the coffee tavern movement touched
only one phase of the evil, and was only one way ot
meeting the difficulty. One great step that would have
to be taken was that of putting responsible persons in
charge of the management of publichouses—persons
who would undertake the trust on what he called tem-
perance principles. The statistics of crime in this
country showed that drunkenness was sinking lower
and lower in the social stratum. The poorer classes
above the very lowest stratum were becoming more
and more sober, and it was perfectly clear that the
great mass of drunkenness existed in the lower enders.
He was afraid it was not that class of people who
would attend the coffee taverns. If they wanted to
reach the lowest stratum they need not attempt to do
so by absolutely cutting off their supply of liquor, but
by allowing them to have a certain amount of
reasonable indulgence without permitting them
to run into excess. There was a country where
some years ago the vice of drunkenness was twice
as bad as in England, and a great deal worse I
than in Scotland Sweden. Drunkenness had
been very rapidly driving down the character of one
of the very finest nations in Europe; but a law was
passed which enabled the local authorities to say
how many licences should be issued, and there had
been an enormous reduction in the drunkenness of that
country. He believed it was not by having two
publichouses where three had been before, but by
having one publichouse where five had been before that
any appreciable difference could be made. The first
town in Sweden that adopted the Gothenburg system
was a town of 70,000 inhabitants, and there the public.
houses were reduced from 163 to 36. A company
managed them, and managed them so as to obtain 6
per cent, on the outlay of capital. All the profits
beyond 6 per cent. went to diminish the rates. This
was found to pay, and he thought that every year
a very large sum of money was paid in over this
way —at least £lo,ooo to the Treasury. Mr.
Chamberlain induced the Town Council and Board of
Guardians of Birmingham to raise sufficient money
to purchase all the licences in the town, and they
proposed to reduce the 1,800 that there existed to
about 200. With this object in view, Mr. Chamber-
lain brought a Bill before the House of Commons, and
it grieved him (the speaker) to the bottom of his heart
that that measure was not passed. Whether the
scheme would have succeeded or not, it ought to have
received a trial. He was responsible for an Act which
had had the effect of adding from thirty to forty per
cent. to the value of public-house licences. Every
clause in that Act was conceived in justice and fair-
ness, and the result simply proved that no one indi-
vidual could grapple wish this question.
In conclusion Lord Aberdare repeated that the
drinking trade of this country should be left to the
management of local communities, and added that he
could not concur with Sir Wilfrid Lawson in a mea-
sure which was calculated to effect total suppression.
(Applause.)

ALL PREVAILING.—AII over the world the use of
narcotics prevails. Amongst those largely used may
be quoted tobacco, opium, and areka or betel nut.
This latter is an extremely interesting plant of the
palm species. Its slender stem shoots straight up to a
height of from fifty to sixty feet, and at the summit i
crowned with a fine plume of dark green leaves. The
fruit is of an elongated oval form, about two inches
long and of an orange colour, producing, as it nestles
itr the leaves, a most charming contrast. The kernel
is veined internally somewhat like a nutmeg; chewed,
it produces a pleasing effect on the system not unlike
that of opium, and is used by the native Indians
mixed with lime and rolled up in peppered vine
leaves,