MILK CONSUMPTION AND LIQUOR.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 55, 5 April 1930, Page 6

MILK CONSUMPTION AND LIQUOR.

H. W. MILNER.

(To the Editor.) Sir.-— I was interested in the reference in your paper yesterday to the consumption of milk in Scotland, and the exjerinient of supplying miik to school children and testing the results. There_ are some very interesting figures in this connection already avaiable, and I beg space to point out tha relation of milk consumption and liquor consumption, and leave your readers to weigh the relative value of each. The Scotch borough of Kirkintilloch (population approximately 13,000) went diy in 1921 (the vote last year showed a splendid .increase itt favour of and to retain the dry law). Since the abolition of the liquor traffiO milk consumption has increased froru 23,000 gallons to 153,000 gallons. Another interesting fact is that whil# the infantile mortality average fof Scotland was 115 per thousand, tha Kirkintillocli average was 136 per thousand in the wet days, but after it went dry, the average dropped to 85 per 1000 and finally to 71. Thia splendid and valuable increase in milk consumption corresponds exactly with what happened in America after the traffic was abolished, where the increase was 60 per cent reaching the point of 54£ gallons per head. In England consumption is at the tragio figure of 16 gallons per head, while the noble consumption of liquor. is 59 gallons per head. It is hardly ereditable that a nation like Britain should spend £300,000,000 on the latter and only £80,000.000 each on bread and milk. The figures quoted by Dr. Salter in the British House of Commons showed that his constituency of 120,000 people spent £180,000 "more per annum on liquor than they spend 011 rent, bread and milk combined, yet in that district of Bermondsey one person in every seven receives poor law relief. Ineidentally he pointed out that this liquor expenditure involved tlie employment of only 900 hands :.t an average of three pounds a week, but the same amount of money spent on building houses would employ 4670 men at an average of £4 a week, and would result in 2225 new houses every year, and goodijess knows Bermondsey needs the emplo.yment, the new houses. and the better health that this wiser expenditure could bring about. But what of New Zealand? My returns show me that nine sliillings is spent by every liome in New Zealand per week on liquor on ' the average, and it wonld he interesting to know what is spent on milk. There is a very interesting and important relationship between liquor consumption, un employment, health and milk consumption, and certainly ythe increase of the latter has an important hearing on the increase of small holdings, whieh, as your paper is constantly pointing out, is very desirable from many points of viaw — T nm P/hr»

Napier, April 3, 1930.