Part 1

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THE FIDDLERS

Drink in the Witness Box

by

ARTHUR MEE

_If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, “Behold, we knew it not;” doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? And shall not He render to every man according to his works?_

Published by Morgan & Scott, Ltd 12 Paternoster Buildings, London, E. C. 4

First Hundred Thousand May 15, 1917 Second Hundred Thousand June 1, 1917

Reprinted in the United States by The American Issue Publishing Company Westerville, Ohio

The Wages of Sin

The time has come when it should be said that those responsible for our country now stand on the very threshold of eternal glory or eternal shame. They play and palter with the greatest enemy force outside Berlin. The news from Vimy Ridge comes to a land whose rulers quail before a foe within the gate.

Not for one hour has the full strength of Britain been turned against her enemies. From the first day of the war, while our mighty Allies have been striking down this foe within their gates, Britain has let this trade stalk through her streets, serving the Kaiser’s purposes, and paying the Government £1,000,000 a week for the right to do it.

She has let this trade destroy our food and bring us to the verge of famine; she has let it keep back guns and shells and hold up ships; she has let it waste our people’s wealth in hundreds of millions of pounds; she has let it put its callous brake on the merciful Red Cross; she has let it jeopardize the unity and safety of the Empire—for it may yet be found, as Dr. Stuart Holden has so finely said, that the links that bind the Pax Britannica are solvable in that great chemist’s solvent, alcohol.

The witnesses are too great to number; we can only call a few. There is no room for all those witnesses whose evidence is in the House of Commons Return 220 (1915), showing the part drink played in the great shell famine, in delaying ships and guns, and imperiling the Army and the Fleet.

But the indictment is heavy. I charge this trade with the crime the King laid at its door two years ago, the crime of prolonging the war; and the witnesses are here at the bar of the people. The verdict is with them, and the judgment is with those who rule.

_The wages of sin is death: What are the wages of those who fail in an hour like this?_

Fiddling to Disaster

We are not going to lose the war through the submarines if we all behave like reasonable human beings who want to save their country from disaster, privation and distress.

_The Prime Minister_

_What are we to say of a Government that plays with war and drink and famine while these brave words are ringing in our ears?_

If the situation is so desperate that we must all go short of food, it is desperate enough for the Government to be in earnest. But what are the plain facts? No reasonable man who knows them can say that the Government is in earnest.

It is not denied by anybody who knows the facts that drink has been the greatest hindrance of the war. There is not a doubt that it has prolonged the war for months and cost us countless lives. It is the duty of the Government to face a dangerous thing like this; it is its duty to pursue the war with a single eye to the speediest possible victory. But the records of our war Governments in dealing with drink have been records of fiddling and failure, and we stand in the third year of the war with a Government fiddling still.

One thing will be perfectly clear if disaster and famine come. It will be known to all the world that the Government knew the facts in time to save us. We are in the war because we would not listen in times of peace. We are in the third year of the war because we would not listen in the first. We are faced with famine because we would not listen in times of plenty, when drink was breaking down our food reserves. And we are drifting now, nearer to disaster every day, because the Government surrenders to the enemy worse than Germany.

It does not matter where you look, or when; the evidence of the fiddling is everywhere about you. Take the week before the Prime Minister’s grave speech about submarines—ending May 19.

_Submarines destroyed 27 British cargoes, mostly over 1600 tons._

=Brewers destroyed 27 British food cargoes, totaling 9000 tons.=

_The granaries of Canada were crammed with wheat waiting for British ships, but there were no ships to bring this people’s food._

=The rum quay at London Docks was crammed with casks of rum to last till 1920, but a ship arrived with 1000 Casks more.=

_A woman was fined £5 for destroying a quartern loaf._

=Brewers were fined nothing for destroying millions of loaves.=

_Poor people waited in queues to buy sugar in London._

=Cartloads of sugar were destroyed in London breweries.=

And so we might go on, looking on this picture and on that till the mind almost reels with the solemn farce. The Prime Minister has suggested that the farce does not end because those who demand its end cannot make up their mind. It is the Government that cannot make up its mind.

It tells Parliament that no more rum is to be imported, and goes on importing rum for years ahead.

It forbids the use of spirits less than three years old, and reduces the three years to 18 months.

It restricts beer to 10,000,000 barrels, and tells us one day that it is all-inclusive, and the next day that the Army Council can order as much extra beer as it likes.

It issues a report saying that hops are not food, and gives up hundreds of thousands of feet to shipping them; 23,000 cubic feet the other week.

It tells us that not an inch of shipping is wasted, and wastes shipping on bringing brewers’ vats from America and taking gin to Africa.

It tells us that the Drink Trade gave up its distilleries patriotically, and leaves us to discover that it was made the subject of a bargain by which bread was being destroyed for whisky as late as May this year.

It is quite clear that the Government is desperately in need of a scapegoat, and desperately in need of a defense. Prohibition Russia is not mightily impressed with our drinking; serious Canadians are asking how long they are to sacrifice their manhood to our brewers; America is asking already why she should go short of bread in order that England may drink more beer.

A Government must clearly say something in view of these things, and it has put its defense in the care of one of the sanest and cleverest men in the United Kingdom, Mr. Kennedy Jones. If Mr. Jones does not make out a case for it, there is no case to make. What does he say?

1. _We are told that only five per cent. of malt can be mixed with flour for bread._

All over the country this explanation is supposed to satisfy those simple, honest people who know little about percentages but ask plain questions at Food Economy meetings. It is preposterous nonsense. If we have 200,000 tons of malted barley, what on earth does it matter whether we mix it at fifty, or five, or two per cent., so long as we do mix it? _It adds 200,000 tons to our bread in any case._ This talk of five per cent., puzzling to people who think it means that only one-twentieth of this malted barley can be used, is pitiful evidence, surely, of the straits to which the Food Controller’s Defense Department is reduced.

2. _We are told that the barley destroyed for beer would give the nation only ten days’ bread._

It would actually last us a fortnight. Drink, which has taken a quartern loaf from every British cupboard in every week of the war, is taking still a quartern loaf a month from every cupboard, and the desperate appeals of Mr. Kennedy Jones will be more effective in saving crumbs when he can tell us that he has stopped this monstrous destruction of over 1,000 tons of grain a day.

3. _We are told that our munition workers are dependent on beer._

It is an astounding slander. However true it may be of Governments, it is not true of our workmen. For four months the workman has been the scapegoat of this Government in its surrender to this trade, and we are asked at last to believe that these men who saved us from the Shell Famine are willing to drink us into a Bread Famine. Does the Government never pause to ask how millions of munition workers in America and Canada and the United Kingdom manage without beer? Does nobody in the Government know that the greatest steel furnaces in America are under total Prohibition, and that two million American railwaymen are subject to instant dismissal if they touch drink while on duty? Has the Government not read its own report of the Royal Society Committee which had this point in mind six months ago, and told us, on the highest authority in this country, that soldiers march better and keep fitter without alcohol; that men do more work on less energy without alcohol; and that “the records of American industrial experience are significant in showing a better output when no alcohol is taken by the workmen”?

4. _We are told we need this trade for yeast._

We need not bother overmuch about that. Industrial alcohol will give us all we want, and there is no need to carry on this dangerous trade for the sake of yeast. We do not need a single ounce of brewer’s yeast, and we can do without distiller’s yeast as well by setting up a thousandth part of the machinery we have set up in the last two years. Or, while we must have yeast, we need about 30,000 tons a year for the whole United Kingdom, and since the prohibition of hops in June last year _we have given enough shipping to hops every fortnight to bring in enough yeast for a year_. A Government with shipping to spare like that, with room on its ships for mountains of hops, for enormous brewers’ vats, and for rum for 1921, can find room for 100 tons a day of the people’s bread. It is a monstrous perversion of the facts to suggest that we must maintain this food-destroying trade, with all its hideous tragedy and ruin, in order to make bread.

It cannot be said that a Government with such desperate excuses is in earnest. We do not wonder that a great American farmers’ paper, with no axe to grind except that it is sane and patriotic and believes in the war, is asking plain questions as America prepares her Prohibition Army, her Prohibition Navy, and stops the destruction of grain for drink in order to enter the war at full strength.

Let the Food Controller, the Prime Minister, and every responsible citizen of the United Kingdom read this—it is from the most influential flour-milling paper in the world, the “North Western Miller,” published in Minneapolis:

“=Since the United States will be called upon to make food sacrifices on behalf of the Allies, it is certainly in order to call to account the stewardship of Great Britain in regard to food supplies. Ordinarily America would have no right to demand such an account, but Americans are now asked to deny themselves that Britain may have sufficient.=

“=Britain has not seen fit to prohibit the use of cereals in the manufacture of drink, notwithstanding that the world’s food supply was obviously short. Are Americans required to forego a part of their accustomed ration of bread in order that their British Allies can continue to have a plentiful supply of beer and whisky? If not, then Britain should lose no time in putting its house in order, quitting the drink to add to the common store of food upon which the safety of all the Allies depends.=

“=The food supply for the Allies is no longer a purely local proposition, to be used as a football in British politics; it deeply concerns the people of the United States, who are certainly not called upon to deny themselves bread in order that Britain shall have drink.=”

What is the Government’s answer to this? “We owe a very considerable debt of gratitude to the great American people for the effective assistance they are rendering us,” says the Prime Minister. _Is this the way we pay them back?_ It is an ugly question for our great Ally to have to raise as she comes into the war, flinging her Prohibition Navy in to smash the drink-made menace of the submarine. It is unthinkable that the Government can read these bitter words unmoved, or can leave this stain on our history in the face of all these questionings.

There is another question, too, that comes across the Atlantic. What is the Government going to do with the soldiers of America’s Prohibition Army, and the sailors of America’s Prohibition Navy, when they come over here? Are they to be broken in their thousands, made useless and degraded as thousands of men from Prohibition Canada have been, by the enemy that traps them before they reach the war?

They are questions for the Government and the nation, and they must be answered in the interests of the nation, and not to please the trade that helps the Germans every day. We cannot afford to pay the appalling price the future will demand unless our fiddlers change their tune.

The Drink Trade and Our War Services

=It is not possible to measure the strain the Drink Traffic has imposed on our war services.=

The Food Controller’s Organization, with its great offices and staffs, would not have been needed had we saved the food destroyed by drink.

Rationing already involves 1,200 committees, and may mean 50,000 officials and 50,000,000 tickets weekly. It could all be avoided. Prohibition would save more bread without food controlling than all the food controlling can save without Prohibition.

The National Service, with its network of officials, its costly advertising, its absorption of paper and printing, could all have been avoided under Prohibition. About 200,000 men have enrolled, but Prohibition would give us twice that man-power any day.

The strain on a host of men and women looking after soldiers’ children neglected through drink, soldiers’ wives spending allowances on drink, is incalculable.

The strain on war charities and the strain on the police arising from drink are both very great.

The strain of drink on doctors, nurses, and hospitals is beyond belief. Prohibition would set free for the Red Cross thousands who waste their time on the great drink trail.

The strain on transport is seen in the long lines of wagons drawn by strong horses carting beer to public-houses. This year alone the handling of drink must equal the lifting of at least 9,000,000 tons, and the barrels of beer would fill nearly all the railway wagons in the kingdom. As to ships, drink materials during the war have used up 60 ships of 5,000 tons working all the time.

On Lord Milner’s estimate of 19 barrels to the truck it would require 4,500,000 railway trucks to carry the 17,000,000 tons of beer manufactured in the United Kingdom during the war.

=It can be proved from official figures that the weight of drink-stuff carried about since war began has been equal to the weight of solid material carried by the Navy to all our fighting fronts.=

It is a crying shame that the strength of Britain should be destroyed like this in such an hour as this.

The War-Work of the Food Destroyers

There are hundreds of great Food Destructors in the United Kingdom. The man-power at their service, spread over our breweries and distilleries, numbers hundreds of thousands of men; their capital is hundreds of millions. This is a summary of the work they did in the first 1,000 days of the war:

=They sacrificed 4,400,000 tons of grain and 340,000 tons of sugar, enough to ration the whole United Kingdom with bread for 43 weeks and sugar for 33 weeks.=

=They took from every kitchen cupboard in the land 600 pounds of bread and 76 pounds of sugar.=

=They destroyed bread and sugar to last every child under fifteen for every day of the war.=

=They took from our people over £512,000,000.=

=They used up labour and transport for lifting over 50,000,000 tons. By sea they used up 60 ships of 5,000 tons; by rail their raw materials and the finished products would make up a train long enough to reach nearly round the world.=

The Food Now Being Destroyed for Beer

Look at the actual facts about beer alone. We will ignore distilling, as it gives us munitions and yeast. Had the Government tried to solve the yeast question it could have solved it easily in these three years; it would have had no more trouble with that problem than Russia and Canada and America have had. But as the Government is still investigating the yeast question, we will confine our figures to beer.

=Brewers are destroying 450,000 4-lb. loaves a day.=

=This year’s food destruction for beer alone will equal five weeks’ bread rations and four weeks’ sugar rations for the whole United Kingdom.=

=We have seven critical weeks in this summer, and this year’s destruction of food would carry us through.=

=Beer alone is taking 10 pounds of sugar a year from every kitchen cupboard, and an ounce of sugar a day from every soldier.=

That is what drink is doing at this moment with the shadow of famine creeping on.

“_He who withholdeth the corn the people shall curse him._” Proverbs.

The Shadow of Famine

The Government came into office with the food shortage in sight; it was its first duty to build up the great reserve of food we might have had now in our granaries if the drink trade had not destroyed it. We could have laughed at submarines, for our barns would have been filled to overflowing, and we could have lived in comfort for a year if no ship reached us.

Let us see how much food drink has destroyed during the war. We will take it from August 4, 1914, to April 30, 1917. It is 999 days of the war. The grain and sugar destroyed for drink have been:

Grain 4,400,000 tons Sugar (for beer alone) 340,000 tons

It is not easy to realize what this means, but it will help us if we think of one or two examples.

=The biggest thing ever set up on earth is the Great Pyramid. It is 80,000,000 cubic feet. The food destroyed by drink during the war would make two Great Pyramids, each bigger than the Pyramid of Egypt.=

=The longest British railway is the Great Western; it is over 3,000 miles, but it would not hold the food destroyed by drink since war began. If every inch of it were crammed with wagons, the Great Western Railway would need hundreds of miles more line to hold the train-loads of food destroyed.=

=There are about 750,000 railway wagons in the United Kingdom, but if the Drink Trade had them all they would not hold the food it has destroyed.=

=There are about 30,000 engines on our British railways, and if the food destroyed were made up in trains of 125 tons apiece, all our engines would not pull them; we should still want 10,000 more.=

So vast is this incredible quantity of food destroyed by an enemy trade while famine has been coming on. We should have saved it all if Parliament had followed the King, and it would have given the whole United Kingdom its flour rations for nearly a year. Take it at its minimum scientific human food value, and on the basis of our rations in May, 1917, it would have given us:

Flour for the whole United Kingdom 43 weeks Sugar for the whole United Kingdom 33 weeks

Our three war Governments, confronted with the increasing certainty of at least a three-years’ war, have allowed the Drink Trade to destroy this vast reserve of food.

The full toll of this trade upon our scanty food supply, growing shorter and shorter while the queues outside our food shops grow longer and longer, is staggering indeed, even now with drink about three-quarters stopped. We must remember that it makes no difference that the barley has been malted; it is still good human food, and every ounce of it should be mixed with grain for making bread. Let us remember, also, that _brewer’s sugar is a good pure sugar_, the objection to it being largely the objection most of us have to standard bread—its colour. Malt or sugar, every ounce a brewer destroys is food stolen from the people. Let us take expert opinion on the subject.

The Food Value of Brewer’s Sugar

We do not, of course, use this dark sugar when white sugar is cheap and easily procurable, but during the war we have used it for coffee, cocoa, and tea; and for puddings where colour did not matter. We have used it a good deal in our bakeries for chocolate goods, where colour again does not matter. It is a good, pure sugar, and the colour is the principal drawback.

_Letter to Arthur Mee from a London caterer_

The Food Value of Brewer’s Malt

Malt flour can be used to make excellent cake with 50 per cent. wheat flour. It is sweet and pleasant to taste without the need of any sugar. Good scones can be made with 25 per cent. of malt flour. Its use in bread made with yeast causes too much fermentation in the bread, but it has no effect on baking-powder. The Food Controller’s Department is aware of the practicability of using malt flour, but the sale is restricted in order to limit its use for making beer. Brewers and maltsters are too patriotic to wish to use for beer what could be applied to food in case of a serious shortage, and the large stocks of barley and malt can supplement the supply of wheat flour.

_Letter from a Brewer in the “Times,” April 11, 1917_

Yet we have seen our Government holding up sugar for brewers; we have seen our Food Controller refuse to release a caterer’s sugar unless it were sold to a brewer; we have seen a Government short of food-ships bringing in brewers’ vats and casks of rum; and we see the Government still holding up this malt that would feed a people asking for more bread.