Part 6

2. We appreciated from the depths of our hearts, your action in abolishing the Wet Canteen from the Canadian Militia. We believe the Wet Canteen established in the ranks of the front to be a double danger, robbing our King of the success in arms which in these days comes only to the brave heart that is controlled by a clear head, and robbing us and our Canada of the Manhood which we gave into our Empire’s keeping.

3. We do not believe that the King will refuse the aid of Canada’s sons; nor that he will appreciate your patriotic efforts the less, if you keep faith with us and make known to His Majesty, his Ministers and Commanders, that our boys are sent forth on the one condition that the dispensing of intoxicating liquors shall be prohibited in the ranks.

_From a Sermon preached in Ontario, February 25, 1917_:

“Thank God, if any of our Canadian soldiers return to us with the drink habit formed and raging, we can welcome them to a land nearly purged of the liquor traffic, where they may have a chance to recover their manhood.”

_Letter on the effects of Prohibition, from a business man in Ontario, published in the “Spectator:”_

“Men I have known for years to be regular promenading tanks have given it up, and are starting a decent life again. The Police Court is empty. England should try it. It would be, after the first heavy initial loss, the best thing that ever struck the nation. I cursed these temperance guys as hard as any, but all the same it cannot blind you from the truth.”

Your Share in the Food Crisis

The Food and Money Wasted on Drink in Our Great Towns

ESTIMATED FROM AUGUST 1914 TO APRIL 1917 INCLUSIVE by GEORGE B. WILSON, B.A., Compiler of the National Drink Bill

───────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬────────────── │ Drink Bill │ Grain Lost │Sugar in Beer ───────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼────────────── │ │ Tons │ lb. United Kingdom │ £510,000,000│ 4,400,000│ 762,000,000 London │ £83,000,000│ 693,000│ 120,000,000 Edinburgh │ £3,200,000│ 31,000│ 5,300,000 Dublin │ £2,600,000│ 29,000│ 5,000,000 Glasgow │ £10,500,000│ 101,000│ 17,400,000 Manchester and Salford │ £11,000,000│ 92,000│ 15,900,000 Birmingham │ £9,900,000│ 82,000│ 14,200,000 Liverpool │ £8,800,000│ 73,000│ 12,600,000 Sheffield │ £5,400,000│ 45,000│ 7,800,000 Leeds │ £5,300,000│ 44,000│ 7,600,000 Bristol │ £4,200,000│ 35,000│ 6,000,000 West Ham │ £3,400,000│ 28,000│ 4,900,000 Bradford │ £3,300,000│ 28,000│ 4,800,000 Hull │ £3,300,000│ 27,000│ 4,700,000 Newcastle │ £3,100,000│ 26,000│ 4,500,000 Nottingham │ £3,100,000│ 26,000│ 4,500,000 Portsmouth │ £2,800,000│ 23,000│ 4,400,000 Stoke │ £2,800,000│ 23,000│ 4,000,000 Leicester │ £2,700,000│ 22,000│ 3,800,000 Cardiff │ £2,100,000│ 18,000│ 3,100,000 Bolton │ £2,100,000│ 18,000│ 3,000,000 Croydon │ £2,100,000│ 17,000│ 3,000,000 Sunderland │ £1,700,000│ 14,000│ 2,500,000 Oldham │ £1,700,000│ 14,000│ 2,500,000 Birkenhead │ £1,600,000│ 13,000│ 2,200,000 Blackburn │ £1,500,000│ 13,000│ 2,200,000 Brighton │ £1,500,000│ 13,000│ 2,200,000 Plymouth │ £1,500,000│ 12,000│ 2,100,000 Derby │ £1,400,000│ 12,000│ 2,100,000 Middlesbrough │ £1,400,000│ 12,000│ 2,100,000 Stockport │ £1,400,000│ 12,000│ 2,100,000 Norwich │ £1,400,000│ 12,000│ 2,100,000 Southampton │ £1,400,000│ 12,000│ 2,000,000 Swansea │ £1,400,000│ 12,000│ 2,000,000 Gateshead │ £1,400,000│ 11,000│ 2,000,000 Preston │ £1,400,000│ 11,000│ 1,900,000 Coventry │ £1,300,000│ 11,000│ 1,900,000 Huddersfield │ £1,300,000│ 10,000│ 1,800,000 Halifax │ £1,200,000│ 10,000│ 1,700,000 ───────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────

PLAY THE GAME

There is one week’s bread in 18 pints of beer There is one week’s sugar in 16 pints of beer

The man who drinks 3 pints a day drinks another man’s rations.

THE FOOD PYRAMIDS DESTROYED FOR DRINK

How the Brewer Gets Our Food

THE MEN WHO BRING IT

It is easy to talk of a mine-sweeper. I wish the whole nation could understand what these men are doing. They are feeding the whole population, battling with the elements as well as with the enemy, battling with dangers overhead and dangers under the sea. The mine-sweeper is like the soldier daily over the parapet—he carries his life in his hand.

_First Lord of the Admiralty._

THE PEOPLE WHO WAIT FOR IT

A London caterer ordered a quantity of sugar from the Philippines. The mine-sweepers cleared the way for it and it reached the docks. The caterer sent for it, and was informed that it could only be delivered if it was for a brewer.

A provincial caterer ordered sugar _and paid for it_, but was told by the Food Controller that it could only be released if _it was sold to a brewer_.

A working man was discussing rations with his minister in the street. “It is very hard,” he said, “to keep to your rations when you have five strapping lads, but we are going to try it.” Then a drunken man lurched past. The workman pulled himself together, and said, in great passion: “I tell you what it is, sir, I am not going to let my boys starve as long as there is food to make beer for men like that.”

THE PRICE WE PAY FOR IT

Immense quantities of food are used for beer and spirits. All this grain is lost for food purposes. _If this grain were available for food, the prices of bread and meat would be lowered._

_War Savings Committee._

THE POOR WHO SUFFER FOR IT

“Rationing bread could not be undertaken without grave risk to the health of the poor.”

_Capt. Bathurst, M. P._

By what right does the Government

use our mine-sweepers to bring in food for brewers to destroy? allow brewers to increase the cost of living for every household? and allow the willful destruction of food supplies to imperil the health of the poor?

The Way for the Government

We do not want to be amused by fiddlers while our heroes fight and die.

What are the things we see? We see the Government silent in the presence of what the greatest paper in our greatest overseas Dominion calls “the blackest tragedy of the war.” We see a trade which the King declared to be prolonging the war in the crisis of 1915, prolonging it still in the crisis of 1917. We see our Prime Minister, who has declared this trade to be worse than Germany, allowing it to have its way. We see our Prime Minister, who has said we cannot settle with Germany until we have settled with drink, fearing to settle with drink. Then are we not to settle with Germany, and are we to surrender to the greatest enemy of the three?

There is one clear way before the Government; it is the only way of straightness and patriotism and honour. It is to wind up this enemy trade and move from our path the greatest hindrance to the winning of the war. It is to take our side honourably with our great Allies, to bring to an end the shameful isolation of Great Britain in the drink map of the great free countries that appears on the back of this book.

It is the sign of weakness everywhere that it seeks a scapegoat for its sins, and we hear the everlasting talk of Labour. But it will not do. It is time these slanders on our workmen ceased.

If the Government is afraid of the working man, let it say so, or let it try him. If it is afraid of temperance people, let it rally them to its side as one man on the platform where they meet. If it is afraid of the Drink Trade, then the time has come to say so, for we who send out our millions to fight a foreign foe are not going to starve for bread through fear of enemies within our gate. The Prime Minister gave the Army its munitions; the Army will use them in vain unless the munitions of life come into our homes.

Working men are tired of men who fool with food and liberty. They do not object to any equal sacrifice: they believe in the democratic policy of the King, who based Prohibition, not on class distinction as the Government did by closing tap-rooms 15 hours a day and leaving cellars and Parliamentary bars open always, but on the principle of the King’s own words that “no difference shall be made, so far as his Majesty is concerned, between the treatment of the rich and poor in this respect.” Let the Government follow the King, and the people will follow the Government.

In the highest interests of the nation and the war let this be said as plain as words can make it—_that there is no body of temperance opinion anywhere standing in the way of Prohibition_, but that the united moral forces of the nation would rally to the Government instantly on an act of a few words such as this:

=That the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages be totally prohibited in the United Kingdom for the period of the war and demobilization, and that a committee be appointed to deal with all the private and public interests concerned; and that it be resolved upon, here and now, that reconstruction be accompanied by universal local option.=

There would be no opposition the Government need count to a proposal like that.

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Transcriber’s note:

Obvious typographical and punctuation errors were corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation were retained.