ABSTRACT
The canteen profits, whether or not they are used for ‘good works’, are obtained at horrendous social cost. Men and women are literally drinking themselves to death and in the process community life is destroyed. Indeed one can say unequivocally that community life has been destroyed. Soon there will be no old people. There are many people who look old but they are only in their forties or even younger. Many heavy drinkers either have bulging bodies or are very thin and are dragging themselves about. It is obvious who does not drink by their healthy appearance. Recently the community undertaker remarked to me, with only a slight degree of exaggeration, that he never buries old people but only young people. The reason is that the old people either do not drink, or they started drinking when they were in their fifties when they had a strong body built up by bush food and hence the ravages of alcohol have not had time to take effect as it has with young people. We are now reaching a stage, if we have not already done so, where there are in effect only two generations.
