Michel Martin's interesting comments about drink and the control of time=20
and space in an industrialising society (the problems of modernity) are ver=
y=20
relevant to this question of bourgeois perceptions of=20
rational behaviour in the nineteenth century.  What I was surprised to see =
missing from the=20
list was temperance as part of the education of the public in 'useful=20
consumption'.  It wasn't just that employers wanted to discipline their=20
workers and enforce rationality in the workplace, but they also wanted=20
them to become 'economic men' in the market place as well.  My own=20
interest is in George White, an English shoe manufacturer, Liberal MP and=
=20
Vice President of the United Kingdom Alliance.  In 1894, White published=20
an address on Drink and its Relation to Work and Wages which asserted=20
1. Drink consumed =A350m p.a. on a product which paid minimal wages, whilst=
=20
the labour it did provide was unproductive and destructive.
 
2. It was useless expenditure.
 
3. It restricted saving and purchasing power.
 
4. It damaged the efficiency of labour.
 
5. It burdened rates and taxes by causing crime, ill health and pauperism.
 
6. The resulting poverty drove women into the labour market, reducing=20
   wages.
 
7. 'This poverty forces the purchase of the cheapest articles in=20
   clothing, furniture, &c., which are the great bane of the labour=20
   market, because of the small wages paid for their production, and=20
   generally it imperils our position as a manufacturing nation in the comp=
etition of the=20
   world'.  =20
 
Clearly what White wanted was for the majority of the population to stop=20
'wasting' their money on drink and to save for and then spend on, useful=20
consumer goods - like the fashion shoes, sports shoes or kids shoes which=
=20
his company made. =20
 
Barry Doyle
Dept. of History
University of Durham
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