But if the whole class of farm-labourers could be persuaded to become
teetotalers without substituting some new craving of equal force in the
place of drink, it is extremely probable that in all places where there
was an abundant supply of farm-labourers, the wage of a farm-labourer
would gradually fall to the extent of the sum of money formerly spent in
beer. For the lowest paid classes of labourers get, roughly speaking, no
more wages than will just suffice to provide them with what they insist
on regarding as necessaries of life. To an ordinary labourer "beer" is a
part of the minimum subsistence for less than which he will not consent
to work at all. Where there is an abundance of labour, as is generally
the case in low-skilled employments, this minimum subsistence or lowest
standard of comfort practically determines wages. If you were merely to
take something away from this recognized minimum without putting
something else to take its place, you would actually lower the rate of
wages. If, by a crusade of temperance pure and simple, you made
teetotalers of the mass of low-skilled workers, their wages would
indisputably fall, although they might be more competent workers than
before. If, on the other hand, following the true line of temperance
reform, you expelled intemperance by substituting for drink some
healthier, higher, and equally strong desire which cost as much or more
to attain its satisfaction; if in giving up drink they insisted on
providing against sickness and old age, or upon better houses and more
recreation and enjoyment, then their wages would not fall, and might
even rise in proportion as their new wants, as a class, were more
expensive than the craving for drink which they had abandoned.
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