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diff --git a/old/53733-0.txt b/old/53733-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5cb14fa..0000000 --- a/old/53733-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3385 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fiddlers, by Arthur Mee - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: The Fiddlers - Drink in the Witness Box - - -Author: Arthur Mee - - - -Release Date: December 15, 2016 [eBook #53733] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIDDLERS*** - - -E-text prepared by MWS, ellinora, and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 53733-h.htm or 53733-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53733/53733-h/53733-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53733/53733-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/fiddlersdrinkinw00meea - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Italic text is represented by underscores surrounding the - _italic text_. - - Bold text is represented by equal signs surrounding the - =bold text=. - - Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPITALS. - - - - - -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 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -[Illustration: - - DRINK LEADING FAMINE IN - - The Drink Trade gave Germany her greatest weapon in the war by helping - to make the bread famine. - - It was the wilful destruction of 4,800,000 tons of food, depriving the - nation of her reserves, that led to the appalling gravity of the - submarine menace.] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -[Illustration: - - Drink, What did You do in the Great War? - - This impressive picture of Britannia is from - the splendid 1916 issue of Bibby’s Annual] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -[Illustration: - - THE ALLIES AND PROHIBITION—STOPPING DRINK TO WIN THE WAR - - The Drink Map before the War and on the 1000th day of the War - - CANADA—Prohibition almost from Sea to Sea - FRANCE—Total Prohibition of Absinthe - RUSSIA—Prohibition Everywhere - BRITAIN—120,000 Drink shops open daily] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - 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 - -[Illustration: - - How Canada sees it—A Canadian cartoon of the callous destruction of - bread for beer and whisky] - -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. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - The Tunes They Play - - -Strange tunes we hear the fiddlers play, but their music does not charm -away the troubles of a famine-threatened land. From morning till night -the prayer of the people rises, “Give us this day our daily bread,” but -the heart of Downing Street is hardened, and the nation’s bread goes day -by day to the destroyer. - -But all the time we see the measure of the courage of our rulers on the -hoardings in the streets. We know their posters by heart. - -_Defeat the enemy’s attempt to starve you_, by—not by stopping the -destruction of food, but by joining the National Service, and probably -helping to pick hops. There was a man in a co-operative store who -volunteered for National Service, and last month he received -instructions _to leave the grocery store and take up duty in a brewery_. - -_Sow your window-boxes and plant your back gardens_—and Mr. Prothero -will see that the soil of a million back gardens is wasted on hops. - -_We have not enough food to last till the harvest_—why not go out and -catch rabbits, asks Lord Devonport—and sit and wait for sparrows? - -_We must save every pound of bread we can to get over our critical -weeks_—not by saving the quartern loaf that beer is taking every month -from every British cupboard now, but by going hungry so that drinkers -may not thirst. - -_We must not eat more than our share, on our honour_—but the man across -the table can eat his share of bread and drink somebody else’s too. - -_We must eat less and eat slowly_—so that brewers may waste more and -waste quickly. - -_We must keep back famine_—but not by using malt, says Captain Bathurst: -that would cost three times as much as letting famine come. _But why not -keep the malt till bread is as dear as gold?_ - -_Let all heads of households abstain from using grain except in bread_, -says the King’s Proclamation. But let the brewers waste 8,000 tons a day -for beer, says the Government. - -_God speed the plough and the woman who drives it_—yes, and God help the -woman who drives the plough to feed the brewer while her little ones cry -for bread. - -_Let us fine £5 whoever wastes a loaf_, says the Food Controller—but -not, of course, the brewers who waste 450,000 quartern loaves a day. - -Hops are no use as food to anybody, says the Board of Trade Scientific -Committee. “_Then let us grow only half as many_,” said Mr. Prothero. - -Mr. Lloyd George says Mr. Prothero is working “in a continuous rattle of -mocking laughter and gibes.” Yes, it is the mocking laughter of a nation -that is not really amused by sights like this. The nation does not like -to see the bread rations of 70,000 men in France cut down while the -Drink Trade is destroying every week bread enough to last these men a -year. It does not like to see the Government sending letters out to -managers of factory canteens, begging them to be careful of bread, while -food flows through our beer canteens like a river running to waste. It -does not like to see Y. M. C. A. canteens denied supplies of sugar while -barrels of beer are stacked in great piles outside. It does not like the -calling up of discharged soldiers while thousands of strong men are -working hard all day destroying food or carting beer about the streets; -and it does net like the tragic comedies of Captain Bathurst, who warns -us that it really may become necessary in the national interest—and -then, perhaps, he drops his voice to break it very gently—it really may -become necessary, if these cake shops are not very careful, _to -whitewash the lower part of their windows_. - -Oh, these fiddlers! And now we have a new idea from the Food Control -Department; it is a coloured poster of a Union Jack and a big loaf on -it, and “Waste not, Want not,” printed in big type. It was being printed -on the day the Prime Minister told the nation that America had found it -is no use waving a neutral flag in the teeth of a shark. It is an -eloquent and true saying, but it is also true, that it is no use waving -platitudes from copybooks in the teeth of a wolf at the door. The Prime -Minister says he is taking no chances. Let us be quite sure. We once had -a Government of which men said its motto was “Wait and See.” _Are we -better off, or are we worse, with a Government that Sees and Waits?_ - -But there is no end to the fiddling. With Food Controllers who hold up -food for Food Destroyers; with Food Economy Handbooks that cry out loud -to save the crumbs but have no word to say about the tons we fling away; -with a Prime Minister praying for window-boxes and a Board of -Agriculture consecrating hopfields, we need not be surprised if the -nation is not mightily impressed. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - How the Allies Did It - - -All the world knows, except, apparently, the world that goes round at -Westminster, how Prohibition has helped the Allies. - -_With the Shell Famine at its height—largely made by Drink—the -Prohibition Army on the East held up the enemy while Britain fought the -Drink Trade for her shells._ - -_With the Bread Famine looming in sight—largely made by Drink—the -Prohibition Navy from the West flings in her power against the -submarines._ - -Oh, for the spirit of our Allies in this land! If France wants to rouse -the spirit of Verdun she strikes down her foe at home and puts absinthe -away. If Russia wants to be great and free she stops this drink and -orders out the Romanoffs. If Canada wants to give her utmost help to -Britain she stops this drink from sea to sea. If Australia wants to make -her soldiers fit she trains them in her Prohibition camps. If America -wants to beat the whole world at making shells she drives drink from her -workshops. If San Francisco has an earthquake she stops drink while she -pulls herself together. If Liverpool has a dangerous strike she shuts up -public-houses and keeps the city quiet. Oh, for a Government of Britain -that will see what all the world can see! - -History will do justice to the part the Prohibition policy of the Allies -has played in saving Europe, but a pamphlet has no room for these -things. We can take only one or two great witnesses to the mighty -achievements of our Prohibition Allies. Let us begin with France, and -call our own Prime Minister to tell us what they did. Mr. Lloyd George: - - One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris, and the - French Minister of Finance said, “I have to go to the Chamber of - Deputies, because I am proposing a bill to abolish absinthe.” - Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky plays in this - country, and they abolished it by a majority of something like ten - to one that afternoon. - -And how did Paris take this prohibition that men said would cause a -revolution? Let us ask Mr. Philip Gibbs, whose splendid letters home -have made his name a household word. Mr. Philip Gibbs: - - Absinthe was banned by a thunderstroke, and Parisians who had - acquired the absinthe habit trembled in every limb at this judgment - which would reduce them to physical and moral wrecks. But the edict - was given and Paris obeyed, loyally and with resignation. - -And now we come to Russia, to these mighty Russian people who in the -last year of vodka saved £6,000,000 or £7,000,000, and in the last full -year of Prohibition saved £177,000,000. We will call our own Prime -Minister again: - - Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing how unprepared she was, - said, “I must pull myself together. I am not going to be trampled - upon, unready as I am. I will use all my resources.” What is the - first thing she does? She stops drink. - - I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, and I - asked, “What has been the result?” He said, “The productivity of - labour, the amount of work which is put out by the workmen, has gone - up between 30 and 50 per cent.” - - I said, “How do they stand it without their liquor?” and he replied, - “Stand it? I have lost revenue over it up to £65,000,000 a year and - we certainly cannot afford it, but if I proposed to put it back - there would be a revolution in Russia.” - -How completely teetotal Russia became we read long ago in the _Daily -Mail_, to which Mr. Hamilton Fyfe sent this message from Petrograd: - - Try to imagine all the publichouses in the British Isles closed; all - the restaurants putting away their wine cards and offering nothing - stronger than cider or ginger ale. That is the state of things in - Russia. Strange it seems indeed, yet there is one thing stranger. - Nobody makes any audible complaint. - -Everywhere in Russia it was the same: a nation was made sober by Act of -Parliament. - - “Without a murmur of protest,” said the Moscow correspondent of the - _Times_, “the most drunken city in Europe was transformed into a - temple of sobriety, and we felt that if Russia could thus conquer - herself in a night, there was indeed nothing that might not be - accomplished.” And two years later, when the revolution came, we - read in the _Times_ this note from Odessa: “Perfect tranquillity - continues to prevail here, although for the moment Odessa is - practically without police. The satisfactory absence of crime may - largely be attributed to the sealing up of spirituous liquors.” - -We need not be afraid of Drinkless Revolutions. - -But the truth about Russia is almost too incredible to believe, for it -is Prohibition that made the revolution possible; it was stopping drink -that set 170,000,000 people free. We will let a business correspondent -of the _Times_ give evidence; here is what he said on April 21, 1917: - - In one respect it must be said that the Reactionaries saw clearly. - They always claimed that the Tsar had ruined himself by decreeing - the abolition of vodka. None but a sober people could have carried - out the Russian Revolution. - - The police were, on the other hand, the victims of drink. They had - seized the vodka at the order of the Government, and had kept - plentiful supplies for themselves. Thus the Revolution was in part a - struggle between drunken reaction and sober citizens. Sobriety - triumphed. - -The Russian people will not bow down and tie their hands to the thrones -of Europe: do we wonder if they scorn our quailing before this trade? - -Free Russia flings off the dynastic yoke: do we wonder Prohibition -Russia is not much impressed by a nation with a Drink Trade round its -neck? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - The Soldier’s Home - - -The things that will be told against this trade when all the truth is -known will break the heart of those who read. It is well for us that we -cannot know the full truth now; the burden would be too grievous to be -borne in days like these. But if you will go into your street, or will -talk of these things with the next man you meet from one of our pitiful -slums, or will pick up one of those local papers that still have space -to print the truth, you will find the evidence close about you. - -We are the guardians of our soldiers’ homes; we are the trustees of the -hope and happiness of their little children; but we let this drink -trade, that takes our people’s food out of their cupboards, turn that -food into the means of death, and sow ruin and destruction through the -land. - -But we will call the witnesses to these drink-ruined soldiers’ homes, -these homes that the enemy worse than Germany has shattered and broken -while our men have been fighting for your home and mine. We will call a -few here and there, knowing that for every one called are hundreds more -that can be called, and that beyond all these that are known there is in -this little land a countless host of tragedies as secret as the grave. - - A Tooting soldier whose wife had sent him loving letters to the - trenches came back to surprise her after 18 months. He found another - man in possession of his home and a new baby; and, overcome by the - discovery, he gave way to drink and killed himself. - - _Records of Balham Coroner, March 1916_ - - A soldier who had left a comfortable home behind returned from the - Front to find it ruined, with not a bed to lie on, his children - never sent to school, his wife all the time in publichouses. “I wish - I had been shot in the trenches,” he said when he arrived. - - _Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 10, 1915_ - - Outside a publichouse in Liverpool a man was dragging home his - drunken wife, the mother of eleven children. They rolled over and - over on the ground, the drunken women violently resisting the - maddened man. Then came up the eldest son, home from the Front, with - five wounds in his body. - - _Facts in “Liverpool Post,” March 2, 1917_ - - A soldier came back to his home in London to find his wife drinking - his money away, harbouring another man; one of his children cruelly - neglected and the other in its grave, perished from neglect; and a - drunken carman’s baby about to be born in his home. - - _Facts in Shaftesbury Society Report_ - - A Lance-Corporal heard in the trenches of his wife’s misconduct. His - commanding officer wrote to make inquiries, and the soldier wrote to - the Chief Constable a pitiful letter: “What have I to look forward - to at the end of the war?” he said. “Nothing, only sorrow. I never - get a letter to know how my loving son is getting on; I think it - will drive me mad.” - - He came home, opened the door of his house, threw his kit on the - floor, and declared that he would kill his wife. He put a razor on - the table, and his little boy hid it in a cupboard, but a week later - this boy of 12 went home and found his father and mother lying on - the floor, the father drunk, the mother dead. The soldier, drowning - his misery in drink, had strangled his wife. Rousing himself beside - her, he said, as the police found them, “Kiss me, Sally. Aye, but - tha are poorly.” - - He had been the best of fathers, said the little boy; the best of - soldiers, said his commanding officer; and the judge declared that - such a man, with such a character, ought not to be with criminals. - - _Record of Huddersfield Assizes, Autumn 1916_ - - A soldier asked a London magistrate if he could draw the allowance - instead of his wife, who was in prison for drunkenness and was - neglecting his four children. The magistrate said the only thing was - to send the children to the workhouse. - - The Soldier: “So I am to be a soldier for my King and country while - my children go to the workhouse?” The Magistrate: “That is so, - because you have a drunken wife. I am sorry for you.” - - _Facts in “Sunday Herald,” June 1916_ - - A seaman gunner, who had been torpedoed and had fought in the - trenches, arrived home to find his wife, in his own words, “filthy - drunk,” and his children utterly deplorable. He reclothed them, but - his wife pawned the clothes, though she had £7 a month. He took his - children away, but a crowd of women interfered with him, and the - police were powerless against the mob. - - _Facts in “Western Daily Mercury,” July 23, 1915_ - - A soldier just back from the Front was found in the street weeping - bitterly on discovering that his wife was in gaol through drink, and - his child, through her neglect, had been burned. - - _Statement by Marchioness of Waterford_ - - A soldier came home from the Front to find that drink had ruined his - home, and his children were being cared for by Glasgow Parish - Council. “Hour after hour we sit on this council,” says the - chairman, “listening to case after case, and the cause is - drunkenness, drunkenness, drunkenness. There are 2300 children under - the council, and two thousand of them have parents living.” “Our raw - material is the finished product of the public-house,” says one of - these workers. - - _Facts from Glasgow Councillors_ - - A motor mechanic at the Front, hearing that his wife, hitherto a - sober woman, had given way to drink, obtained leave to come home. He - found his wife, very drunk, struggling home with the help of the - railings in the street, and neighbours described her horrible life - with other soldiers. The husband obtained a separation for the sake - of his children, and went back to France. - - _Full facts in “Kent Messenger,” July 31, 1915_ - - A young soldier came from the trenches to spend Christmas in his - home in Sheffield—a teetotal home before the war. He found that his - wife had given way to drink, had deserted one child and disappeared - with the other, and that a baby was to be born which was not his. - - _Facts known to the Author_ - - A miner fighting at the Front came home to find his wife at a - publichouse, his home filthy, and his children cruelly neglected. He - was heartbroken. His young wife frequently left the house from - tea-time till midnight, and in order to keep the children from the - fire she had burned them severely with a piece of iron. A - respectable-looking woman, the mother pleaded for a chance, and was - led from the dock sobbing bitterly. - - _Facts in “Sheffield Independent,” February 21, 1917_ - - A young Yorkshire miner enlisted and left his wife, hitherto sober, - with three children. She took to drink, neglected the home, and is - now a dipsomaniac, with two children not her husband’s. - - _Facts known to the Author_ - - A soldier came home ill from France, hurried from Waterloo to his - home, and found the door locked. He knocked, and his little boy’s - voice came—“Is that you, mother, and are you drunk?” Hearing his - father’s voice the excited lad opened the door. “Where’s mother?” - asked his father. “Mother?” said the boy; “she’s drinking. She comes - home drunk night after night now and knocks the kids about. She - daren’t hit _me_; I’m fair strong, dad; but the other.... And as for - baby, she never does nothing for her. I and Freddy takes turns, but - I dunno what to give her to eat sometimes.” - - Midnight passed before the mother appeared, helplessly drunk. “Did - you expect me to sit at home weeping for you?” she said. The next - morning, broken with tears, she promised to mend her ways. The - soldier went into hospital, and there he had a letter from his boy. - This is part of it: - - “Dear Dad, I write to let you know mother is going on awful. She has - took all Fred and Timmy’s clothes to the pawnshop, and she hit - Selina on Saturday with the toasterfork and cut her face. She cried - all night, it hurt her so. She is drunk every night and some nights - dussent come back at all. She daren’t hit me, but I am getting - afraid about baby. We are all very hungry and miserable.” - - The soldier got leave, found his wife had disappeared, and, finding - charity for his four little ones, he left his ruined home and went - back to the hospital. - - _Facts in possession of the Author_ - - A working-man at Gravesend went to the Front, leaving behind a wife - and three children, the baby lately born. His wife started drinking - away her allowance, neglected her home, and, full of remorse and - shame for the disgrace she had brought on the man who was in the - trenches, she hanged herself. The man came home to find waiting for - him three motherless children, and one of the most pathetic letters - a man has ever had to read. - - _Records of Gravesend Coroner, 1916_ - - - Mothers and Children - -It is easy to understand the pitiful appeal of 500 women out of Holloway -Prison who begged the Duchess of Bedford to help to close all -public-houses during the war. They know in their hearts of tragedies -such as these, in which mothers and children die while the fathers fight -and the Drink Trade goes on merrily. - - A soldier’s wife in Sunderland drew £12 arrears of Army pay, and she - and her mother began to drink it away. She drew her pay on Friday, - was carried home drunk on Saturday, gave birth to twins on Sunday - morning, and died on Sunday night. The twins died a week or two - after, and a week or two after that the soldier came home from the - trenches to find his family in the grave. - - _Facts in Sunderland papers, 1917_ - - Two women went drinking in Chester on a Sunday night, a soldier’s - mother and a soldier’s wife. They had five whiskies each, and fell - drunk in the street. One slept all night on a sofa, and the other - lay on the floor, shouting and swearing. Her husband propped her up - with a mat, and for hours she lay shrieking. In the morning she was - dead. The publican was fined £5. - - _Facts in “Chester Chronicle,” February 17, 1917_ - - The wife of a Yorkshire soldier was drowned while drunk at - Sheffield. She started drinking with another soldier’s wife - disappeared with a drunken man, and her death was a mystery. - - _Facts in “Sheffield Independent,” April 26, 1916_ - - At an inquest on the bodies of a soldier’s twin children, both dead - from chronic wasting, it was stated that the mother had 34_s._ a - week, and both she and her husband drank. The mother had had four - children in fifteen months, and all were dead. - - _Records of Battersea Coroner, October 1915_ - - In one street in London where there were one day four convictions - for drunkenness, a woman carried a sick baby into a public house. As - she stood at the bar the little baby died, but the mother went on - drinking, with the dead child in her arms. - - _Records of Charity Organisation Society_ - - The wife of a highly-esteemed sergeant-major fighting in France was - found lying drunk. Her four children, shockingly neglected, were put - in a home, but she took them out, went on drinking, and received - soldiers at her house. In a few weeks her husband heard in the - trenches that his wife had died from drinking. - - _Records of West Surrey Coroner, March 1917_ - - A soldier left three children at home. He had been earning £1 a - week, but his wife received 32_s._ 6_d._ a week. She drank it away, - neglected the children, and died in an asylum while her husband was - in France. - - _Records of Claybury Asylum_ - - The little child of a soldier in France died in Guy’s Hospital from - burns. The mother said she could not buy a fireguard. While she was - absent the baby was burned, and the mother, returning in a drunken - state carrying a can of beer, said, “A good job!” - - _Records of Southwark Coroner, December 1915_ - - A soldier’s widow with six children, an Army pension of 30_s._ a - week, and her eldest boy’s wages of 30_s._, drinks every night with - a married man who has a respectable, clean, and sober wife with - eight children and a ninth lately born—born prematurely as a result - of her husband’s beating her. The child bore the marks of his - violence, and died in two months. - - _Records of Shaftesbury Society_ - - The young wife of a soldier was brought from prison to be tried for - manslaughter of her baby, who had died in the infirmary from - neglect. She spent her time in the publichouses, and laughed when - the children were taken to the infirmary. She went out one day to - fetch a bottle of whisky and as she drank with a neighbour she said - she knew the baby would die. The doctor said the child’s skin was - hanging in folds on the bones. - - _Facts in the “Observer,” January 23, 1916_ - - A soldier’s wife drank continuously while her child wasted away, - left the tiny baby alone in the house while she went for beer, and a - policeman found her lying drunk across the dead child’s body. - - _Records of Barnsley Coroner, November, 1916_ - - The mother of two children whose father was fighting in France gave - way to drink in his absence, neglected her children and left them in - grave moral danger, and committed suicide. - - _Records of an Orphan Home_ - - A soldier’s baby starved slowly to death as the mother drank away - his pay, and while the child lay in its coffin the mother was out - drinking. - - _West Bromwich Police Records, June 1915_ - - A munition worker at Newcastle was grievously upset by the drinking - habits of his wife. The police left a summons for her and she - disappeared. Two days later her body was found in the Tyne. The man - broke down at the inquest, saying, between his sobs: “She was such a - good wife to me for 20 years, and reared a good family before she - took to drink.” - - _Records of Newcastle Coroner, Summer 1916_ - - The wife of a corporation workman at Sheffield, home from the - trenches with six gunshot wounds and three pieces of shell in his - body, found that his wife had given way to drink and starved her - five children. She was sent to prison for six months. - - _Police Records of Sheffield, November 3, 1915_ - - A soldier’s wife who had spent the greater part of £100 Army money - in drink was sent to prison for neglecting her children. Almost - everything in the house was pawned, including the children’s - clothes; and the woman began to drink at five o’clock in the - morning, and went on drinking all day. - - _Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 10, 1915_ - - A soldier’s wife in Monmouthshire, with £3 9_s._ a week, was found - sodden with drink, while the soldier’s eight children were in rags - starving by day and huddling up in one bed by night. - - _Facts in “Westminster Gazette,” July 22, 1916_ - - A smart tidy woman in a London suburb, whose husband is fighting in - Mesopotamia, has £2 10_s._ 6_d._ a week. She used to love her - children and had a happy home, but she drinks away her Army pay, - lives with a married man who has six children, and has become a - drunken slattern. The other wife is beaten and neglected, and the - soldier’s children have gone to the workhouse. - - _Records of Shaftesbury Society_ - - The four children of a soldier in Dublin were found hungry and - shivering with cold while the mother was drinking. Several times she - had let her baby fall while reeling with it in the street. - - _Facts in “Dublin Evening Herald,” October 20, 1916_ - - At the trial of a soldier’s wife for drinking and neglecting seven - children, it was stated that a child of eleven was left in charge of - a baby a fortnight old while the mother was drinking. At night all - the children were heard screaming. The house was in utter darkness, - and there was an escape of gas. Some men went in and turned off the - gas, and at last the mother came stumbling out of a publichouse - across the road. - - _Facts in “Sheffield Star,” November 25, 1915_ - - “Your husband is fighting for his country, and his children have the - right to be protected,” said the Chairman of the Chesterfield Bench - to a soldier’s wife. Her children were found starving while she was - drinking, and one day the little boy of three was found crouching - naked inside the fender, trying to get warm. The police described - the house as foul from top to bottom, with a heap of horrible rags - for a bed, and a food cupboard that made the house unendurable when - the door was opened. - - _Facts in “Yorkshire Telegraph,” March 24, 1916_ - - The wife of a missing soldier was sent to prison at Chesterfield for - neglecting three children between 13 years and 16 weeks old. She had - gone astray through drink, and the youngest child, born under - terrible conditions, was not her husband’s. It was found lying on a - filthy bed, and its drunken mother, to satisfy its pangs of hunger, - had given it pennyworths of laudanum. Eleven people slept in two - foul bedrooms. - - _Chesterfield Police Records, October 9, 1916_ - - Five hundred children of soldiers are being cared for in the great - Homes founded by Mr. Quarrier in Scotland, and most of them are - there because of drinking mothers. - - _Facts in Reports_ - - A soldier’s wife at Biggleswade spent her allowance on drink and - left her three children locked up in the house for days at a time. - - _Police Court Records of Biggleswade, September 1915_ - - A soldier’s wife was found reeling in the streets of Dublin with a - baby in her arms. At her home were found four other children, - cruelly neglected. - - _Facts in “Dublin Mail,” August 16, 1916_ - - Nineteen hundred children of soldiers have come into the care of the - N.S.P.C.C., mainly through drink, since the war began. - - _Records of the N.S.P.C.C._ - - - The Ruined Wives - -Who does not remember the terrible rush for the last drop of drink when -Prohibition seemed to be coming with the New Year? Long queues of women -besieged the whisky shops in Glasgow. There were women of all ages, said -the _Daily Mail_, tottering in grey hairs, young wives with babies in -their arms, and men of the loafer type. “There was not a respectable -citizen,” says the _Mail_, “who did not deplore this discreditable -scene, but the remarks of passers-by provoked only torrents of insult.” -The promise of the new year and the new Government, alas, was not -fulfilled, and now in place of Drink Queues we have Food Queues. Let us -see what drink is doing among our soldiers’ wives: - - Of 3000 soldiers’ wives being cared for in South London, 2000 are - splendid, while 1000 are sinking daily to lower and lower levels - through drink. - - _Records of Shaftesbury Society_ - - A soldier’s wife, with a separation allowance of 32_s._ 6_d._ a - week, drank most of it away, ruined her home, neglected her - children, and became a lunatic. - - _Records of Claybury Asylum_ - - A young soldier’s wife, hitherto “quite an elegant type,” is rapidly - becoming a drunkard. Women hitherto sober have not the courage to - keep from women’s drinking parties, and young girls come out of - factories and go to publichouses in little groups. - - _Records of Charity Organisation Society_ - - Outside a public house in Dublin 15 small children were crying in - the cold, waiting for their mothers. Ninety-four drunken women came - out in 25 minutes. There were ten drunken soldiers, and two girls of - 15 were thrown into the street hopelessly drunk. - - _Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1915_ - - In Dundee over 170 wives of soldiers gave way to drink last year, - and cruelly neglected their homes. - - _Records of the N. S. P. C. C._ - - A soldier in the trenches received a letter from his little boy, - which he sent to London with a pitiful appeal for help. - - “Kindly do what you can for me and the well-being and welfare of my - four beautiful children,” the poor soldier wrote. “I am enclosing a - fearful letter I have received from my poor little lad, 14-1/2, the - first and only letter I have received from him. Sir, I shall be most - anxiously awaiting your reply, for this letter is the greatest blow - I have ever received.” - - This is the little boy’s letter: - - Dear Dad: Just a line to let you know how everything is at home. - Mother is drunk for a fortnight and sober for a week for months - and months. I’ve stuck it now for seven months, and can’t stick - it any longer. I tried to get into the Navy and passed all the - tests, but mother would not sign the papers, for which I am - sorry. If mum would sign I could go away to Portsmouth on - Thursday, but she will not. At the present moment she is half - drunk and keeps jawing me so that I could knife meself. I’ve - lost my new job because mum would not wake me in the morning, - and nothing for breakfast, and had to get mine and the - children’s tea at tea-time. It pains me to write like this, but - I can’t help it. I now seek your advice as to what to do. I hope - _you_ will enjoy Xmas, although there is not much hope for us. I - now conclude with fondest love, X. Your heartbroken Son, Leslie. - - A stream of nearly 15,000 men and women poured into 58 publichouses - in Birmingham in less than four hours; over 6,000 were women. Into - one house the people streamed at nearly 500 an hour. - - _Facts in “Review of Reviews,” October 1915_ - - For months some wives of soldiers and sailors in Scotland were never - really sober. “We have done our best,” says a worker among them, - “going to their homes and doing all in our power, but it beats us.” - In 23 families, with 178 children born, 61 were dead. - - _Facts told to Secretary for Scotland, July 1916_ - - Will some Member of Parliament please ask - -=whether the ships that have brought in food for destruction by the -drink trade could not have brought in a large proportion of the -3,500,000 tons of wheat now waiting for ships in Australia and the -2,000,000 tons waiting in Canada?= - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - The Roll of the Dead - - -No more pitiful record of the war is there than that unnumbered roll of -men lured from our armies by this liquor trade, and cast into -dishonoured graves. We can take only a few of them. - - A number of soldiers at Ormskirk came into camp drunk on Christmas - night. A request for quiet led to a fight, and one of the men was - struck two blows and was dead the next morning. - - _Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 28, 1915_ - - A Liverpool soldier, drinking continuously, had overstayed his - leave, and in a quarrel about this he stabbed his brother dead. - - _Facts in “Liverpool Courier,” April 20, 1917_ - - A soldier invalided from France, having recovered from his wounds, - gave way to drink, assaulted an officer, and hanged himself in his - prison cell. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” April 11, 1916_ - - A young lieutenant shot himself in an hotel near Trafalgar Square, - and among the documents read at the inquest was a letter striking - him off his battalion for drinking and gross carelessness. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” October 27, 1916_ - - A captain in the Army ruined by drink, with a fine record of - military service, started drinking on his way to a shooting range in - London, and in a struggle he shot a detective dead. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” September 20, 1915_ - - In the Scottish Express, between Doncaster and Selby, a drunken - corporal of the Coldstream Guards was showing his rifle to a friend - when it went off, the bullet killing a munitions works director in - the next compartment, and narrowly escaping a lady in the - compartment beyond. The corporal had in his pocket a bottle of - whisky, which was freely handed round. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” December 3, 1915_ - - A soldier who had been drinking heavily was placed in the guard - room, and died after a night of groaning, evidently as the result of - a fall. - - _Records of Greenwich Coroner, January 1, 1915_ - - A young soldier arriving from India on Christmas morning was - arrested three days later, after a drunken fight in which a man was - killed. - - _Westminster Police Records, December 28, 1914_ - - A soldier spent a day’s leave in Manchester, ate and drank very - heavily, and was found dead the next morning from choking. - - _Records of Manchester Coroner, December 28, 1914_ - - A soldier home on leave was found drunk with his wife. They had been - throwing pots at one another, and on Christmas morning the woman was - found dead with a wound in her head. - - _Records of Oldham Coroner, December 24, 1914_ - - Three gunners had four drinks each of rum, and at midnight lay down - to sleep in a garden at Lee, where one was found dying from alcohol. - - _Facts in Local Papers at Lee, June 1915_ - - A soldier died from alcohol in a house where drink was unlawfully - sold. - - _Facts in “Manchester Guardian,” April 8, 1915_ - - A private in the Welsh Fusiliers died from alcohol, cold and - exposure. He left a publichouse with a 4_s._ bottle of whisky, and - was found dead on the roadside next morning, with the bottle almost - empty. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” April 13, 1915_ - - An old man who was said to be in a drunken condition was wounded in - a fall with a soldier from Gallipoli, and died a few days after. - - _Facts in “Daily Mail,” January 17, 1916_ - - An elderly man, seeing a drunken soldier lying in the street, went - to his assistance, and was killed in a disturbance that followed. - - _Record of Yorkshire Assizes, November 21, 1916_ - - A soldier was found drowned in the Trent. He was described as a good - man at his work, but not steady, and had been drinking. - - _Facts in “Newark Advertiser,” August 4, 1915_ - - A terrible disturbance occurred in a camp at Portland Reservoir - after the closing of the canteen one Sunday night. A large number of - men who had been drinking created a disturbance, in which bricks and - stones were used, a tent collapsed, and the officers were called to - quell the riot. The captain, drawing his revolver, rushed with two - lieutenants into a hut where men were shouting and struggling, but - appeals had no effect—the men “did not appear to hear or recognize - their officers,” and one man raised his rifle and took aim at them. - At least fifty shots were fired, and a young corporal fired many - shots through the window into the darkness. In the morning a soldier - was found dead. Nobody knew who shot him, but the corporal thought - he must have done. - - _Records of Dorset Assizes, Spring 1915_ - - Will some Member of Parliament please ask - -=whether it is true that more food is being destroyed each week in -breweries and distilleries than by submarines?= - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - The New Drinkers - - -“_No complaints have reached the War Office of youths who were total -abstainers having become confirmed drunkards since enlistment._” - -So we are told in the House of Commons. The records of the War Office -are clearly incomplete, and the information from the camps may here be -supplemented by unchallengeable witnesses of what happens in the -horrible drink canteens run by the Army Council. - - A soldier who was wounded at La Bassée, a total abstainer until - then, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for killing his uncle while - drunk. He was a newsvendor, aged 21, and had no memory of the - tragedy in which he killed his uncle at a Christmas party. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” January 13, 1916_ - - A private in the Royal Scots Fusileers, aged 17, was charged with - murdering a bugler boy, aged 16, in his regiment. The private became - mad drunk in the camp canteen, went back to his hut, locked himself - in and fired two shots, one of which entered another hut and killed - the bugler. “Was there no one with power to say how much drink - should be given?” asked the judge, and an officer said there was no - one. “Then it was high time power was given to the commanding - officer,” said the judge. “Was there to be no restraining hand to - prevent young boys from fuddling themselves in canteens?” - - _Facts in the “Times,” November 21, 1916_ - - An old man sat in a tram in great distress. He had lost his boy at - the Front. When he joined the Army he had never tasted alcohol, but - when he came home on leave to see his mother he was drunk every - night. He was drunk the night he went away, and in three days he was - dead. “The last we saw of him,” said the poor old man between his - sobs, “was his going away drunk, and his mother, who is - old-fashioned in her faith, cannot get it out of her mind that no - drunkard can enter the Kingdom of God.” - - _Facts told by Dr. Norman Maclean_ - - Many young officers, called upon to share the wine bill at mess, - naturally say, “If I have to pay I may as well drink my share,” and - one man accounted for ten glasses of champagne. On a Guest night in - his mess several more “were under the table.” - - _Facts in “Dublin Daily Express,” April 1916._ - - A boy got his V.C., and came home wounded. The publican in his - street sounded his praises in the taproom, where they subscribed to - the bar for 120 pints for him when he arrived. He came home and - began to drink it, and was nearly dead with it before he was - rescued. - - _Facts related by Bishop of Lincoln_ - - When the Scottish Horse Brigade were at Perth whisky was literally - forced down the men, and they were inundated with floods of bad - women. - - _Brigadier-General Lord Tullibardine_ - - A teetotal household had two boys in an officers’ training camp, and - they gave pitiable accounts of drinking. Boys from school had a - drunken sergeant put over them, and a canteen in the midst of them. - “Our boys never saw drink before,” one father wrote. - - _From a letter to Dr. Norman Maclean_ - - A boy of 17, discharged from the Navy, spent 8_s._ one night on beer - and rum, and created a disturbance in a workshop at Sheffield. - - _Facts in “Sheffield Star,” November 11, 1916_ - - Mr. Justice Atkin, charging the Grand Jury at Bristol, said that in - nearly every case where a soldier was tried in the Western Circuit - the defence was drink. One lad of 18 was treated to eight pints of - beer in two hours, and did not know what happened. That sort of - thing, said the judge, must seriously impair the efficiency of the - troops when sent to the Front. - - _Record of Bristol Assizes, Autumn 1914_ - - Two boys, 15 and 17, were fined for being drunk in munition works. - One was discovered just in time to save him from carrying molten - liquid. - - _Birmingham Munitions Tribunal, Dec. 1916_ - - “A boy joined the Royal Navy as a carpenter, living in barracks and - working on shore. Every day he was given ‘grog’ for his rations, - although he never asked for it and never took it.” - - _Facts in letter to the Author_ - -Such are the tragedies of boys handed over in our camps to drink and its -temptations. What of the girls in our munition shops? They have learned -to drink in thousands since the war began—respectable girls leaving home -to go into munitions, respectable young wives alone at home. With no -restraining hand upon them, with new companionships and pocket-money -flowing freely, it is not surprising the temptation should be too strong -for them. We can take only one or two cases. - - The girl-wife of a Cardiff seaman died in the street from exposure - after drinking in publichouses with other girls. - - _Records of Pontypridd Coroner, December 27, 1916_ - - A publican at Lincoln was fined £5 for allowing children to be drunk - on his premises. Ruth Onyon, 14, and Rose Herrick, 16, were found in - his house with a soldier. They had been in five houses and had ten - drinks each and reached home helplessly drunk. - - _Facts in “Sheffield Daily Telegraph,” Sept. 1, 1916_ - - A number of cartridge workers were summoned for taking drink into a - munition works. One young woman was led to the surgery drunk at - half-past four in the morning; another was discharged because she - could not stand. Sixteen girls subscribed for four bottles of wine - and whisky. - - _Records of Leeds Munitions Tribunal, April 28, 1916_ - - Two girls of 16 and 17 were fined for being helplessly drunk in an - explosive works, the magistrates pointing out that their conduct - imperilled the lives of other workers. - - _Records of Coventry Munitions Tribunal July 24, 1916_ - - The men and girls at a large armament works drank all night. Girls - would lurch into the dormitory dead drunk at 2 a. m.; one lady was - up till 4 a. m. letting in drunken girls. As a result of drunkenness - there was an explosion at these works, two men being killed and six - injured. - - _Facts in “Spectator,” Jan. 20, 1917_ - - A Dublin publichouse was found full of girls and soldiers, all - drunk. Three drunken girls were taken away by six soldiers. - - _Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1916_ - - In half an hour 367 girls entered Birmingham publichouses, scores - under 18. Stout and beer were chiefly drunk, but whisky and water - also, and some port wine. Ten young girls were quite drunk. - - _Facts in “Birmingham Daily Post”_ - - Will some Member of Parliament please ask, - -=in view of the fact that American soldiers are not to touch alcohol, -what arrangements the Government proposes to make for them in this -country?= - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - Back to the Homeland - - -Everywhere we hope and pray for peace, for the day when the men will -come home; but we may dread the day if the men come home to drink and -its temptations. The sudden release of millions of men, the certain -reaction after the terrible stress of these three years, is fearful to -contemplate with the door of the tap-room open. There would be an end of -civilization itself for days and weeks and months, and for many a town -at home the Peace would be worse than the War. - -We owe it to these men to listen to the warning of the Prison -Commissioners who printed these words in their report last year: - -=When war is succeeded by peace there will come a time of trial for -those who have never turned their backs to a bodily enemy. With the -passing of military discipline our brave fellows will be tempted to -forget the hardships and miseries of the trenches in a burst of -uncontrolled pleasure and license, and, if trade be bad and work -difficult to obtain, the lapse may, if not checked, become a step on a -downward career.= - -It is not imagination merely. Judges, coroners, police, and all who face -the crime and misery of life, know well the bitter things that happen -when men come home without restraint. There are witnesses innumerable. -Let us hear a few of them. - - A captain in the Royal Flying Corps drove a motor-car through - London, knocked a man down, drove on, and ignored the police, who - eventually mounted the footboard and found the officer drunk. - - _Bow Street Police Records, June 3, 1916_ - - A lance-corporal on Chesterfield station was so drunk that he walked - off the platform and fell on the line as a passenger train came up. - - _Chesterfield Police Records, June 2, 1915_ - - A corporal of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, leaving the - Front with 150 rounds of ammunition and his service rifle, came out - drunk into the streets of West Ham and began firing his rifle. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” July 10, 1915_ - - A soldier who had received a cartridge from his son at the Front, - put it in his rifle, and while drunk fired it in the streets of - Manchester. - - _Manchester Police Records, January 27, 1915_ - - In the early hours of the morning two unarmed soldiers were fired at - in Woolwich by a drunken soldier, who chased them for a long - distance, firing shots all the time, until he was arrested. - - _Facts in “Alliance News,” February, 1915_ - - Drunkenness among soldiers and sailors is appalling. Unoffending - travellers are delayed by drunken sentries. Sailors landing after - weeks of arduous toil in the North Sea find it easy to get so drunk - that some are drowned, some die from exposure, and many return to - their ships in a condition of helpless inebriety. - - _Facts in “Inverness Courier,” May 1915_ - - Two drunken soldiers entered the parish church at Codford, set fire - to the vestry, threw down the altar cross and candlestick, broke a - stained-glass window, and tore leaves out of a Bible 200 years old. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” April 3, 1916_ - - A drunken soldier at Cannock was imprisoned for drawing his bayonet - in the streets. “If I meet a policeman I will murder the dog,” he - said, and, meeting one, he threatened to cut off his head. - - _Police Records at Cannock, March 1916_ - - 400 soldiers tried to get a drunken man from the police in Grantham. - - _Facts in “Grimsby News,” July 30, 1915_ - - A drunken sergeant was found forcibly detaining a girl at Hornsey. - On the police interfering, the drunken soldier drew his bayonet. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” September 7, 1916_ - - Three splendid-looking fellows, minesweepers, were traveling on the - Highland Railway. “All were married men,” said a fellow passenger, - “happy and proud of their homes, and they spoke with ache still in - their hearts something of their lives and work. Well, these men - succumbed during the journey. A change of trains was their - opportunity, and I left them in a nearly helpless condition.” - - _Facts in “The Spectator,” April 8, 1916_ - - A lady visited a soldier’s wife and found her at home with all her - clothes in pawn. Her husband and brother had both been home from the - Front, and in one week had spent £8 on drink. - - _Facts in the “Cork Constitution,” Dec. 10, 1915_ - - A labourer, home from tunnelling work at the Front, was fined 13_s._ - for drunkenness on his 33rd appearance, having spent £45 in seven - days. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” Oct. 11, 1916_ - - A disabled soldier was selling papers in Kingsway, London. He was - proud of his military record and the character his colonel gave him. - He was trying to compound for a pension; he thought he would settle - for £50. “Mind you,” said he “there is not a better character in - London than mine, and I shall get the £50. Then I shall have a - month’s booze.” “What, with that fine character of yours?” a - gentleman said to him. “Yes,” said the man, “when I came home, and - could leave the hospital, there was £50 due to me, and I had a - regular booze.” - - _Facts known to the Author_ - - A soldier with twelve years’ clean record in the Army was sentenced - for felony after being made drunk by his friends. - - _Police Records of Southport, January 9, 1915_ - -No Government has ever received more warnings than the three war -Governments have received concerning drink. There is no room for them -here, but we may call a few witnesses such as cannot be ignored by a -nation looking forward to the day when millions of men will be home -again. - - A house in Westminster reeked with filth and drink and drunken - overseas soldiers, “and it would be better,” said the Crown - Solicitor, “if power were given to the police to sweep such places - off the earth.” - - _Westminster Police Records, Aug. 1916_ - - A sapper seaman was found dead at the quay. Another seaman said his - friend had seven drinks. They left the publichouse arm-in-arm, and - went to the quay. There he saw a corporal, who was boatswain for the - night, and was drunk. Leaving the sapper, he got the corporal into - the boat, and went back for his friend, but the sapper had - disappeared. - - The lieutenant: “The deceased was one of the quietest boys who had - ever been on the ship, and one of the best oarsmen. The whole - trouble was that it was pay day.” - - The Coroner: “Prohibition during the war would be a blessing to all. - It seems to be a very rotten state of affairs.” - - The foreman: “Drink.” - - The lieutenant: “Prohibition would be the best thing.” - - The Coroner: “This poor man, unfortunately, is one of many.” - - _Facts in “Western Daily Mercury,” January 8, 1917_ - - A publican at Dover was fined £20 for selling a bottle of whisky to - a sailor. The Admiral said drink undermined the efficiency of the - patrol vessels, and those who supplied it directly assisted the - enemy, and might be the cause of the loss of very many lives. - - _Police Records of Dover, October 6, 1916_ - - A private in the Northumberland Fusiliers, aged 23, was charged with - burglary while drunk. His father and three brothers were in the - Army. He took part in the battle of Loos, was wounded at Salonika, - and was recommended for distinction for helping to save a wounded - officer. - - During the whole of Christmas leave he was drinking, made drunk by - his friends who were probably proud of his having held part of a - trench against a German bombing party. His captain described him as - a good soldier in peace, and brave in action—a man whose disgrace - would be felt by the regiment. - - Mr. Justice Rowlatt said everyone was hoping for the time when - millions of brave men would come home after facing incredible - dangers, and we must look forward almost with terror to having these - men exposed to drink and its temptations. What would be the state of - the country in such a case unless we could make a clean sweep of - drink? We should have to face this question over and over again, and - the sooner we faced it the better. - - _Records of Derbyshire Assizes, February 1917_ - - Whoever allowed soldiers or sailors to drink to excess, said the - Mayor of Tynemouth, should be tried by court-martial for treason. He - would be recreant in his duty to God, to himself, and to the - citizens, if he did not call attention to the brutalising of so many - townspeople and the callous conduct of the “waster” element in the - drink trade. He had no quarrel with those who conducted their - business properly. - - _Facts in Tynemouth papers, February, 1915_ - - The Aldershot command appealed for the closing of half the - publichouses, to save the men from temptation when the troops are - demobilised and return with their pockets full of money. - - _Record of Workingham Licensing Sessions, 1917_ - - The _Army and Navy Gazette_, in an article disapproving of the - Prohibition Campaign, issues a terrible warning which should be - printed on the door of the room in which the Army Council meets. - These are its words: - - “It is on record that towards the end of the siege of Sebastopol rum - was made too regular an issue, with the result that almost every - soldier who survived to return home became a drunkard.” - -The siege of Sebastopol lasted less than a year, and that is the work of -the rum issue for a few months. If rum does that in months, what will it -do in years? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - Into the Firing Line - - -Lord Kitchener is dead, but there are two things that are with us -still—that rare little note that he gave to his men as they went out, -warning them of drink; and that infamous note sent out by a drink firm -in London, begging our people to send out drink to our men. They can -guarantee it right up to the firing line, they say, and even when our -shells could not get there through drink, drink seems to have found its -way. It can get on to transports when the Ministry of Munitions is -waiting urgently for shipping space; it can commandeer our vans and -horses and trains when these mean life or death to us; it seems to get -past any regulation; it goes about with the power of a king, doing its -work where it will. - - It is regrettable that our troops at the Front cannot get more - British Beer. - - Managing Director of Allsopps, July 14, 1916 - - Dear Sir, In answer to your inquiry, the only limitation in the size - of cases consigned to officers in the Expeditionary Force is that - they must not exceed 1 cwt. - - We can guarantee delivery right into the front trenches. The cases - are handed over at Southampton to the Military Forwarding Officer, - and the A.S.C. see them right through. We are shipping hundreds of - cases weekly. Yours faithfully, - - _Letter from a Wine and Spirit firm in London_ - -So drink finds its way to the front, to weaken our troops, with all -their matchless heroism. Let us call the witnesses who have seen the -work it does. - - Soldiers at the front, tried for drunkenness, have declared that - they have received drink from home. Men sometimes receive flasks in - the trenches. They are exhausted, the stimulant revives them for a - minute or two, and the harm is done. “And then (says Col. Crozier) - they get about two years’ hard labour.” - - _Letter from Colonel Crozier, commanding 9th Royal Irish Rifles_ - - As a result of a Court-martial investigating charges of excessive - drinking among the officers of a regiment at the Front, the Army - Council removed the commanding officer from his post. - - _Records of Court-martials, 1916_ - - In the torrid climate of Mesopotamia, in defiance of all military - medical history, rum was issued to the men instead of food and - sterile water, and the presence of cholera, dysentery and other - diseases, was attributed to this by Sir Victor Horsley. “Our gross - failures and stupidity,” he said, “are in my opinion due to whisky - affecting the intellectual organs and clearness of our leaders. They - do not realise that alcohol in small doses acts as a brake on the - brain.” - - _Facts in a letter from Sir Victor Horsley, May 13, 1916_ - -[Illustration: THE JUNKER’S LITTLE BROTHER] - - Battalion Headquarters—colonel and chaplain present. Enter Adjutant: - “The rum ration is due tonight, sir; am I to distribute it?” The - colonel (nobly and in a voice audible all over the trench): “No! - Damn the rum! To hell with the rum!” - - _Chaplain’s letter in “Alliance News,” June 1916_ - - At a court-martial in Newcastle, a sergeant-major, charged with - misappropriating funds of the sergeant’s mess, pleaded that during - this period a resolution of the mess had come into effect, providing - free drinks during Christmas and the New Year. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” April 17, 1916_ - - “In the Flying Services one has seen more than one good man go to - the dogs through drink, or become fat and flabby and useless through - just the excess of alcohol which falls short of taking to drink in - the usual acceptance of the term. More men take to drink because of - the ‘have another’ custom than because they like or need alcohol, - and simple Prohibition would stop all this nonsense straight away. - This kindly note is not the outpouring of a teetotal fanatic, for I - suppose I have paid in my time rather more than my share of the - nation’s drink-bill; it is merely a perfectly sound argument in - favour of increasing the nation’s efficiency at the expense of its - chief bad habit.” - - _The Editor of “The Aeroplane”_ - - A lieutenant in the trenches, knowing that the rum ration made him - cold, threw his rum on the ground. His captain saw him, and - threatened to report him. “You do, sir,” said the lieutenant, “and I - will report you for being drunk on duty.” - - _Facts in possession of the Author_ - - A seaman serving on a ship in Cork Harbour died from alcohol. Found - drunk and unknown, he was put on a stretcher and died. - - _Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 9, 1915_ - - “Over three-quarters of the court-martials I have had anything to do - with are due directly or indirectly to drunkenness. Many thousands - of competent N.C.O.s and soldiers have been punished, and become - useless to the nation during their punishment, as a result of drink. - - “I have never been a teetotaler, and have rather opposed the radical - temperance agitation, but am now changing my views as I see our - success over here hampered and our progress towards victory retarded - so obviously by drink.” - - _Letter from a Lieut.-Colonel at the Front, seen by the Author_ - - The captain of a British merchant ship, drunk on the bridge, ordered - his chief gunner to fire 50 rounds of shell at nothing. The gunner - fired four rounds to appease him. Going through the Mediterranean, - the drunken captain ordered his gunner to fire at a British hospital - ship, and the incident led to a struggle for life, which ended in - the captain’s being put in irons, tried, and sentenced to five - years’ penal servitude. - - _Record of Devon Assizes, Exeter, February 2, 1917_ - - An officer was left in charge of a British ship. Mad with drink, he - went among the men and shot one dead. He is now in an asylum. - - _Case reported to the Admiralty_ - - The crew of a Dutch ship arriving in the Tyne was placed under a - naval guard after a drunken riot in which three were killed. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” September 14, 1915_ - - The captain of a Norwegian barque mysteriously disappeared, and the - vessel arrived in port from the North Sea. The mate, who had been - drinking heavily, was seen, with a hammer in his hand, with the - captain in a corner, bleeding from wounds about the head. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” April 8, 1916_ - - A seaman ashore in Glasgow, “wild with drink and passion,” was - terribly wounded in a quarrel in a public-house, and died the same - night. A youth of 19 was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude. - - _Records of Edinburgh High Court, Dec. 1916_ - - A barge-loader at West India Docks died from alcohol, and three - other men were removed in an ambulance after drinking rum. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” May 9, 1916_ - - Orders were given on a steamer for the boats to be swung out in - readiness for submarines. The first and second officer, having been - drinking, could not do their duty. - - _Records of Liverpool Marine Board, April 13, 1917_ - - The jury returned a verdict of murder against a youth of 19 who, - after drinking one night, went on to his ship and killed the second - officer. - - _Records of Hull Coroner, April 24, 1917_ - - A drunken captain in command of a drifter landed with an armed party - on the Isle of Man. He posted the men on the quay, and gave them - orders to allow no one to pass. Declaring he would shoot every - person who came within reach, he fired twice, and threatened to kill - two police officers. - - _Facts in “Times,” October 6, 1916_ - -Such is the work of drink wherever it finds a soldier to entrap—the -drink the Navy carries free from Southampton to the trenches; and from -America comes the news, as this page is being written, that the Army and -the Navy of our Western Ally, like the Army and the Navy of our Eastern -Ally, are to be under Total Prohibition. - - Will some Member of Parliament please ask - -=how much bread is destroyed each week to make beer for German -internment camps in this country?= - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - Drink and the Red Cross - - -If the full story could ever be told of the national tragedy of drink -and the war there would be no more ghastly chapter than that which would -tell how drink fought the Red Cross; how, without pity, it hindered the -work of mercy that is the general consolation of the world in days like -these. - -We are coming to a famine not only in food, but in doctors. The -death-roll has been heavy beyond all parallel; the strain on the medical -services has been almost too great to be borne, and we look anxiously -round to know where the doctors and nurses will come from. With -Prohibition the problem would be largely solved, for the ordinary burden -of life would be largely lifted from our doctors and hospitals, and -thousands of men and women would be free to give themselves to the war -instead of mending up and patching up the sordid effects of drink. A -rich brewer gave a donation for extending a hospital. “Ah! but we should -not have to extend if he would shut up his public-houses,” said a -doctor. - -It is easy to see how drink is telling all the time against our doctors, -our nurses, and our hospitals everywhere. Let us call a few witnesses. - - Somebody gave a glass of neat whisky to two wounded men at a garden - party in Tottenham. Both were drunk when the brake came to take them - home, and one died on the way. - - _Facts in “Sheffield Telegraph,” September 3, 1915_ - - Three wounded soldiers at Oxford were overcome by four bottles of - rum smuggled into the hospital by visitors, and one of the men died. - - _Records of Oxford Coroner, January 1916_ - - A wounded soldier asked for two hours’ leave, came back in four - hours drunk with whisky, and died after a terrible night in the - hospital. - - _Facts in “Daily Mail”_ - - Two limbless soldiers were found helplessly drunk on the pavement at - Brighton. A publican was fined £20. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” November 25, 1916_ - - A wounded soldier, mentioned in despatches, was charged with causing - the death of a soldier with whom he had been drinking. Reeling under - a heavy blow, the injured man was helped to bed, but when the bugle - sounded in the morning he was dead. - - _Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 21, 1915_ - - A soldier, aged 29, with a gunshot wound in his arm, died from - alcohol at Oxford. One Sunday night he and two other wounded - soldiers consumed four bottles of rum brought into the hospital. - - _Records of Oxford Coroner, January 10, 1916_ - - Three soldiers in hospital uniform were found lying helplessly drunk - on the tramlines of Sheffield. Two were back from the Dardanelles. - - _Facts in “Sheffield Star,” March 2, 1916_ - - Seamen on a ship bringing wounded to England from Boulogne were so - drunk that they interfered with the stretcher bearers, and one fell - across a wounded soldier lying on deck. - - _Police Records of Southampton, May 14, 1915_ - - There was a paralysed and helpless man who was found hopelessly - drunk in hospital after his friends had visited him. - - _Statement by Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred Pearce Gould_ - - An officer who has trained hundreds of men for the ambulance corps - declared that a large percentage of wounded are in a very nervous - condition, in which alcohol means collapse and almost certain death. - - _Quoted in “Daily Mail”_ - - Lying helpless at a London station, moaning on the ground in drunken - delirium, was a lad in hospital blue who had, in truth, been wounded - by his friends. Drink was taking him again through the worst of his - experiences, and his mental pain was pitiable to see. - - _Facts in the “Globe,” January, 1917_ - - Two drunken soldiers from Gallipoli made what a doctor described as - the most savage attack he ever saw on a civilian. They held a young - man’s head against a wall and pounded him unmercifully. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” August 19, 1916_ - - A party of soldiers were seriously injured in a struggle to arrest a - drunken private at Pontefract. The publican called on the men in his - taproom to rescue the private, but the sergeants drove them off. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” October 5, 1914_ - - A sergeant of a Welsh regiment, invited to drink by friends in - Waterloo Road, was picked up as he lay senseless, his pulse beating - feebly, his eyes wide open, and his body starving with cold. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” February 14, 1916_ - - A drunken man rushed from a publichouse and kicked a soldier - unconscious. The military police, chasing the man, were stoned. Four - soldiers were injured, one having his head cut open, and the - military were ordered to clear the place with fixed bayonets. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” August 11, 1915_ - - The medical officer in charge of the Mental Block of a large - military hospital said to the Colonel: “I have the worst job of all, - and it is through Drink, Drink, Drink! Men recover fairly soon from - shell shock, but officers, especially the younger ones, who - habitually take wines and spirits, are subject to relapses every few - days. It is awful!” - - _Facts in “National Temperance Quarterly,” May 1917_ - - Of the thirty war hospitals in Hertfordshire, with 8000 men passing - through them in the first thirty months of the war, there is not one - that has not had trouble with drink. - - _Facts known to the Author_ - - A doctor from a Canadian hospital said a large percentage of their - troops had had to be sent back to Canada rendered permanently insane - through the action of alcohol. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” October 31, 1916_ - -One terrible truth remains to be told of the crime of drink against the -Red Cross. The most blessed thing in all the world today is alcohol, for -it makes chloroform and ether, which soothe the pain of men. We cannot -get enough of either of these consoling drugs, yet we go on wasting -precious food to make more alcohol _to add to the sum of misery and -pain_. - - Will some Member of Parliament please ask - -=whether the bread ration applies equally to all; or if it may be -exceeded if the excess is drunk instead of being eaten?= - - and - -=how many brewers’ vats have been imported this year on ships which had -no room for urgent munitions of war?= - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - Stabbing the Army in the Back - - -All the world is learning now that the drink trade is the great -confederate of venereal disease. It leads a man into temptation, -destroys his power of resistance, and retards his chances of recovery. - -We can never know the truth about the extent of this disease, about the -way in which the liquor trade, by breaking down tens of thousands of our -men, has stabbed the Army in the back. But the number of soldiers -incapacitated by this disease through drink is enormously greater than -the number incapacitated by the most subtle or dramatic stroke devised -by the German staff. - -The lost man-power of the Army through this disease must be equal to the -whole of the original British Expeditionary Force. The Government has -given us figures for the Army at home last year, and they are 43 per -1,000—or over 100,000 cases for an army of 2,500,000 men. There were -7,000 cases in one Canadian camp alone. - -Here are the black facts revealed in a debate in Parliament on April 23, -1917, when two distinguished Army officers, speaking with great -restraint, sought to open the eyes of the nation to this plague fostered -in our camps by drink: - - “During the war we have had admitted into the hospitals of England - over 70,000 cases of gonorrhœa, over 20,000 cases of syphilis, and - over 6000 cases of another disease somewhat similar. I am quite - openly prepared to state that of these 20,000 cases of syphilis you - do not get much work out of them under two and a half years. I know - from what I have seen of the modern conditions of this War that you - may absolutely wipe them out, except for a few handfuls. - - “When you come to the great mass of casualties under this head ... - the figures mean that you have =a Division constantly out of - action=. If you have anything like 70,000 men enfeebled, you find - that you suffer to that extent also. It is not only that you lose - the men, and not only the men who are partially cured are suffering - for many months to come, but their chances of recovery from wounds - are not nearly so good. - - “I know of a hospital for venereal cases which it was found - necessary to expand from its normal accommodation for 500 or 600 up - to 2,000 cases, and they are continually full. It is a British - hospital in France. A figure I should like to submit to challenge is - that during the course of the war between 40,000 and 50,000 cases of - syphilis have passed through our hospitals in France. When you come - to gonorrhœa, the figure given me which covers that is between - 150,000 and 200,000 cases.” - - _Captain Guest in Parliament, April 23, 1917_ - - “Every Canadian soldier who comes to this country arrives here not - only a first-class specimen of a fine soldier, but as clean-limbed - and as clean a man as the Creator Himself could create. The fact - that in one only of the three Canadian camps in this country 7,000 - of these clean Canadian boys went through the hospital for venereal - disease in fourteen months is not only a great discredit to any - Government in this country but has an effect in Canada which I can - assure the House does not make for a better feeling with the Home - Country, and does not make for what we all desire—Imperial Unity.” - - _Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood in Parliament, April 23, 1917_ - -Those are unchallenged statements made in the House of Commons itself; -they stand as a terrible indictment of this disease, and it is not to be -denied that this evil could never have reached its present frightful -proportions if Parliament had followed the King. Let us look at a few -examples of the ravages of this vice allied so closely to the -public-house. - - It is not possible to tell the whole truth about drink; the language - in which it must be written would be offensive in a civilised - country. It must be said, simply, that soldiers in England have been - court-martialled for having been influenced by drink to commit - unspeakable offences against animals. - - _Facts in Records of Court-Martials_ - - A special constable in a harlot-haunted district in London describes - how these harpies carry off lonely soldiers to their rooms, make - them drunk, and finally innoculate them, as likely as not, with - disease. Is it not possible to hold in check these women who prey - upon and poison our soldiers? asks Sir Conan Doyle. - - _Letter in the “Times”_ - - One of the hot-beds of venereal disease to which drink leads our - soldiers, was kept by an Austrian woman in Lambeth, who was - receiving 15_s._ a week from the Austrian Government in April 1916, - and used to lure our soldiers when weakened by drink. All the men - seen to enter this house were either soldiers or sailors. - - _Police Records of Lambeth_ - - A soldier from the Front with £18 was taken by a married woman to - her home, where he was found after a drunken bout with eight women, - all drunk. The woman’s children were terribly neglected. - - _Police Records of St. Helens, November 30, 1915_ - - If you describe the Waterloo Road and the back streets as an open - sewer you will be somewhere near the truth. Not a day goes by - without bringing some soldier who has been waylaid. - - _Facts in the “Times,” February 22, 1917_ - - A soldier came from the Front to go home to Scotland. He got drunk - near Waterloo, losing all his money and his railway pass. He spent - his leave living on charity, and returned to the Front without - having been near either his home or his friends. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” February 14, 1916_ - -Here is the official proof of the relation of the drink trade to this -traffic in disease. It is from the Report of the Royal Commission: - - Abundant evidence was given as to the intimate relation between - alcohol and venereal diseases. - - Alcohol renders a man liable to yield to temptations which he might - otherwise resist, and aggravates the disease by diminishing the - resistance of the individual. - - Alcoholism makes latent syphilis and gonorrhœa active. - - Our evidence tends to show that the communication in disease is - frequently due to indulgence in intoxicants, and there is no doubt - that the growth of temperance among the population would help to - bring about an amelioration of the very serious conditions which our - enquiry has revealed. - - We desire, therefore, to place on record our opinion that action - should be taken without delay. - - Will some Member of Parliament please ask - -=if, in view of Lord D’Abernon’s statement that Prohibition has failed -in Canada, the Government will issue the figures showing the decrease of -crime and the increase of wealth?= - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - The Price the Empire Pays - - -It is a bitter irony that while the men of the Empire have come to -France to fight the enemy of mankind, this foe within our gates has -struck a blow at the British Empire that generations will not heal. How -many Empire men this private trade has slain we do not know, but we know -beyond all challenge that it has weakened the bonds that bind our -Dominions to the Motherland. This trade that throttles us at home can -pull the Empire down, and it has started well. It has struck its blow at -Canada. - -Let us look at the plain facts which in other days than these would have -caused a storm of anger that Parliament could not have ignored. Canada -has followed the King; arming herself with her full powers, flinging -herself upon her enemies with her utmost strength, she has swept drink -out of Canada almost from sea to sea. But even before she did this -Canada saw that alcohol must go from her camps if her men were to be fit -to fight for England, and long before the Prohibition wave swept across -the country, the Canadian Government removed all alcohol from the -training camps. It was the deliberate choice of a Government and its -people, and from that day to this there has been no reason for regret. - -So the young manhood of Canada, rallying to the flag, was guarded from -alcohol. She poured out her men in hundreds of thousands; they came to -us from Prohibition camps; they came in Prohibition ships, and even here -this trade that has us in its grip was not allowed at first in the -Canadian camps; the only condition that Canada made—a condition implied -but clearly understood—was properly regarded and obeyed. - -We respected the desire of Canada, and kept her soldiers free from drink -in their own camps. But a soldier cannot keep in camp, and in the -villages around the Drink Trade waits in every street. The military -authorities were willing for the Canadian Government to have their way -inside the camps, but drink was free outside, and in these public-houses -there was sown the seed that may one day break this Empire. The Drink -Trade was so rampant outside the Canadian camps that Prohibition inside -was almost in vain. We had to decide between breaking the word of the -Canadian Government to its people or dealing with this trade as Canada -herself has done; as Russia has done; as France and America are doing. -It was the Empire or the drink traffic, and the drink traffic won, as it -always wins with us. - -It came about in October, down on Salisbury Plain. During one week-end a -number of Canadian troops gave way to drinking in villages around the -camps, and it was then that the grave decision was come to that the -drink trade should be allowed to set up its horrible canteens in every -Canadian camp. The change was made at the request of a British General, -and we have the assurance of the Prime Minister of Canada that the -approval of the Canadian Government was neither obtained nor asked. In -handing the Canadian Army over to the drink canteens, in deliberately -reversing the policy of the Canadian Government and its people, there -was no consultation with Canada. - -It is important to remember that this decision, fraught with tragic and -far-reaching consequences for the Empire, was a pure and simple English -act. We may imagine the Canadian view from the remark of a Canadian -General, who said, “I know drink is a hindrance, but I can do very -little, because in military circles in this country drunkenness is not -considered a very serious offense.” - -It would have been surprising if there had not poured in upon our -Government a stream of protests, and from all parts of the Dominions -they came. The Dominion of Canada, giving freely to the Motherland -450,000 boys and men, was moved to passionate indignation that England -should scorn her love for them, should ignore the pleadings of their -mothers and sisters, and should put in their way the temptations from -which they were saved at home. Canada does not want our drink trade; she -lives side by side with the United States, she sees that great country -building up its future free from drink, and she sees America, splendid -ally in war, as a mighty rival in peace. - -And Canada is ready for the Reconstruction. She has followed the -Prohibition lead of the United States, and already she has ceased to be -a borrowing country. The very first year of Prohibition has seen this -young Dominion, for the first time in her history, financially -self-sustaining. Crime is disappearing; social gatherings are held in -her gaols; she has set up vast munition workshops, and instead of -borrowing money for her own support she has made hundreds of millions’ -worth of munitions for which this country need not pay until the war is -over, and then need never pay at all for the munitions the Canadians -have used. Canada is in deadly earliest. She kept her men away from -drink to make them fit; she has swept it away to make a clean country -for those who go back. - -And what is England’s contribution to this Imperial Reconstruction? _We -have scorned it all._ The Prime Minister has said that this drink trade -is so horrible that it is worth this horrible war to settle with it, yet -we have sacrificed the love of Canada on our brewers’ altar. We can -believe the Canadian who declares his profound conviction that but for -this Canada would have sent us 100,000 more recruits; we can believe it -is true that where responsible Canadians meet together in these days the -talk is of how long the tie will last unbroken that binds the daughter -to the Motherland. We can understand the passion that lies behind the -resolutions that come to Downing Street from Nova Scotia; we know the -depth of the yearning of those 64,000 mothers and wives of Toronto who -signed that great petition to the Government of Canada begging it in the -name of God to intervene. - -We can understand it all; but let us call the witnesses, and let us see -the price the Dominion pays for our quailing before this Kaiser’s trade. - - - Those Who Will Not Go Back - -It is the great consolation of Canada that, though their sons may fall -before this tempter’s trade in Britain, they will go back to a Canada -free from drink. But some will never go back, and they are not on the -Roll of Honour. They have been destroyed by the enemy within our gate, -this trade that traps men on their way to France and digs their graves. - - A young Canadian who had never tasted alcohol came from a - Prohibition camp in Canada, came to England on a Prohibition ship, - and was put in a camp with a drink canteen. He started drinking and - contracted venereal disease. Ordered home as unfit, in fear and - shame he sought a friend’s advice about the girl he was to marry. - “You can never marry her,” said his friend, and that night in his - hut the young Canadian blew out his brains. - - _Facts in possession of the Author_ - - A young Canadian officer was sent home disgraced. Sodden with - alcohol, he left the train and shot a railway clerk dead. - - _Facts in Montreal “Weekly Witness,” October 24, 1916_ - - A Russian soldier in the Canadian forces, described as a clean, - soldierly man, with a splendid character from his officer, was - charged with the murder of a Canadian private who tried to separate - two quarrelling soldiers in a bar. The prisoner had drunk much - whisky and remembered nothing of his crime, and was sentenced to - twelve months’ hard labour for manslaughter. The judge hoped he - might be used as a soldier _in the Russian Army_. - - _Record of Hampshire Assizes, February 1916_ - - A man from Prohibition Russia enlisted in Prohibition Canada, and - came to England. He spent 9_s._ on drink one day, and that night he - crept from his bed and killed his corporal at Witley Camp. - - _Police Records of Godalming, February 1917_ - - A Canadian soldier, aged 26, after a publichouse quarrel with - another soldier, was found dying on the pavement in Hastings. His - throat had been cut, and he died on entering the hospital. The other - soldier was charged with murder, and sentenced to 15 years. - - _Record of Hastings Assizes, March 1917_ - - A young Canadian soldier, aged 20, died from alcohol while in - training at Witley. He had a bottle of stout followed by nine or ten - “double-headers” of neat whisky in about two hours. He was carried - back to camp, laid unconscious on his bed, and died. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” March 22, 1917_ - - A Canadian lieutenant was tried for the murder of a canteen - sergeant. They arrived together at a house at Grayshott, where the - lieutenant asked for some strong drink and took a bottle of whisky - and two glasses. The sergeant was afterwards found dead in the - cellar, and the lieutenant carried the body into the stable. - - _Records of Grayshott Coroner, December 1915_ - - A man leaving a publichouse in company with a woman, with whom he - had been drinking, met a Canadian soldier not far from Charing - Cross. The soldier spoke, and the man struck him. The soldier was - carried to the hospital, where he died soon afterwards from a wound - two inches deep, caused by a knife. - - _Police Records of Bow Street, January 1, 1917_ - - The wife of a gunner in the South African Heavy Artillery died at - Bexhill from alcohol. The soldier said he bought 12 bottles of stout - and 12 bottles of beer, one of whisky, and one of port, which they - drank between Saturday night and Monday night. - - _Records of Bexhill Coroner, December 1915_ - - A soldier from Toronto, having been drinking away his pay in a - Carlisle publichouse, with another Canadian soldier and some married - women, failed to appear the next morning, and was found dead on a - footpath with a bottle of whisky in his pocket - - _Records of Carlisle Coroner, April 14, 1917_ - - A Canadian soldier, having drawn £20 from the Canadian office, - visited several publichouses, and was killed in a scuffle in London. - - _Facts in “Daily News,” December 2, 1916_ - - - The Men From the Prohibition Camps - -Again and again we have seen the peculiar temptations of drink among -Canadians. Officers, chief-constables, chaplains, newspapers, the men -themselves, have all borne witness that to these men from Prohibition -Canada the sudden temptations of our drink trade come with terrible -power, and often they fall not knowing. The finest manhood of the Empire -our tap-rooms and canteens destroy, not in isolated cases, but in a host -we dare not number. - -Of the soldiers who first came over from Canada, says a great Canadian -paper, many were emigrants from England, not yet securely planted in -Canada, and for their sakes especially drink should have been withheld -from them. Of the larger number of Canadian troops that followed them, -many were youths who had never known drink, and they were taken from -home at the most social and reckless age, to face drink with all the -temptations induced by the nervous strain, the hardships and social -abandon of the camp and the trench, and the free pocket-money when on -leave. - - In an officers’ mess of two double companies of Canadians only one - officer drank on his arrival in a canteen camp in England; within - three months there was not an abstainer in the mess. - - _Facts told at Society for Study of Inebriety, Jan. 10, 1916_ - - These men come mostly from districts in Canada where intoxicants are - prohibited by law, and many of them, being young lads, who perhaps - have never tasted liquor before their arrival, fall easy victims. - - _Chief Constable of Godalming_ - - Overseas soldiers come to our hospitals astonishingly cheerful and - fit in a general sense, and wonderfully receptive to treatment. Only - three per thousand die in our great hospitals. This is largely due - to the hardy life of the men and the fact that they are removed from - the danger of taking too much alcohol. The home troops have a much - higher mortality, partly because their use of alcohol diminishes - their chances. Re-admissions are largely due to drink on furlough. - - _Major Maclean, M.D., of the Third Western General Hospital_ - - A Canadian soldier, who had been wounded at the Front, was taken to - a house by women and left alone drunk. An officer gave him an - excellent character, and said he was on his way back to Canada. - These men experience temptations here (he said) that they would not - find in Canada, and there was too much of this going on. - - _Hastings Police Records, February 19, 1917_ - - I heard a sad account of the havoc of the wet canteen and a private - in a Canadian A.M.C. told us of a lad of 17 who is made so drunk - that there is rarely a night when he has not to be helped up to bed. - One of the soldiers here told me of his son in Canada being anxious - to join up, but after seeing the condition of things over here he - was doing all he could to discourage his son. - - _Letter to the Author_ - - The Canadians in most cases are entirely lost when they arrive in - this country, and are much more liable to the temptation which is - thrown in their way, but when you give a figure such as this—that in - one camp during last year, and two months of the previous year, - there were 7,000 cases—it seems to me that it is about time we - realised the magnitude of the evil. I do not know what has happened - to them, except that I imagine a large number have gone back to - Canada, and have not been able to play the part they had hoped to - play. - - _Captain Guest in Parliament, April 23, 1917_ - - - In Camp and On Leave - -Everywhere we find the trail of drink among Canadians—in camp and on -leave. - - A Canadian corporal, wounded in the Battle of Ypres, was found - terribly drunk after being missing all day from hospital. Confronted - with the surgeon after violent acts of insubordination, the corporal - broke down and cried like a child. - - _Facts in “Western Mail,” February 18, 1916_ - - In the first weeks of the war 42 Canadian soldiers disgraced - themselves, by excessive drinking, insubordination, and disorderly - conduct, to such an extent that they had to be sent back to Canada. - - _Facts in “Canadian Pioneer,” December 4, 1914_ - - A Canadian soldier, helplessly drunk, was seen at King’s Cross - station eating, tearing, and crumpling up £1 notes, and would have - lost about fifteen pounds but for kindly help from passers by. - - _Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” September 28, 1916_ - - A gunner from Montreal, missing from camp for several days, drank - himself delirious, and cut his throat with a razor. - - _Facts in “Canadian Pioneer,” December 4, 1914_ - - A Canadian soldier spent £70 in three weeks on drink and bad - characters. - - _Facts in “Daily Mail” August 10, 1915_ - - A Sergeant-Major from Canada declared that he had lost 20 per cent. - of the men of his battery through venereal disease. They had a - little drink, and were captured by the swarm of bad women at - Folkestone. - - _Facts in Letter to Author_ - - A woman was imprisoned for placing young children in moral danger. - Every night the girls brought soldiers home, and colonial soldiers - were frequently so drunk that they were carried in. - - _Records of Central Criminal Court, April 25, 1917_ - - - The Rising Storm in Canada - - =The thing cannot be justified. It is the blackest tragedy of this - whole war that, in fighting for freedom in Europe, the free sons of - the British breed have to face this war-time record of waste at - home, with its inevitable toll of debauchery and crime.= - - _Editorial in “Toronto Globe”_ - -While this book was being written one of the greatest meetings ever held -in Manchester was cheering a Canadian in khaki who declared that he was -not going hungry while brewers were destroying food, and he went on to -say, this soldier and sportsman well-known in the Dominion: - - “Great numbers of our men never saw France. Canadian boys cried - because they had not munitions. England reeled and beer flowed like - water while thousands of our boys went down into their graves. We - will never forget it in Canada.” - -We may be sure Canada will not forget. She will not forget her dead: she -will not forget that the Drink Traffic she has swept away at home struck -down her sons in the land for which they fought. “We must know who is to -blame,” says a Canadian paper; “we presume they will have no objection -to have their names placarded before the country, that every mother may -know.” Col. Sir Hamar Greenwood, M. P., has lately returned from Canada, -and this is what he tells us: - - “I met many fathers and mothers whose boys had been sent back to - Canada debilitated and ruined for life because they had been - enmeshed by harpies, and again and again these parents have said to - me, ‘We do not mind our boys dying on the field of battle for old - England, but to think that we sent our sons to England to come back - to us ruined in health, and a disgrace to us, to them, and to the - country, is something the Home Country should never ask us to - bear.’” - - _Letter from a Solicitor in Ontario to the Author_: - - I wonder if the advocates of the drink traffic in Britain appreciate - the contempt in which they are held in Canada. Before the war I had - a class of ten young men. Every one of them is now at the Front, and - one writes that when I told them of the drink conditions in England - he did not believe half of it; now he says I did not tell him half. - Letters from our Canadian soldiers are appearing in our papers, and - they are all amazed at the drinking habits of Britain. - - _From a Resolution received by Mr. Lloyd George from the Social - Service Council of Nova Scotia_: - - That we, representing the social, moral, and spiritual forces of - this part of the British Empire, who have proved our loyalty by the - thousands of men this small province has sent overseas, do record - our most earnest protest against Britain’s inaction in this matter, - which we are sure must result in longer and increased suffering for - the men we have sent to help her win the war; and do most - insistently plead with the British Government and the British - Parliament that they at once exercise the power vested in them to - strike the blow that will dispose of this enemy at home, and so give - mighty reinforcement to those who are bleeding and dying for Britain - and human liberties on the battlefields abroad. - - _Sermon by Dr. Flanders in London, Ontario, Feb. 25, 1917_: - - Canada has the right to make this demand on the Motherland from the - simple standpoint of political economics. That we might put the - Dominion into the best possible shape to give the utmost of our - strength in men and munitions, we have an almost Dominion-wide - Prohibition, and no intelligent person will deny that our - contributions to the war from the first have been multiplied and - intensified by that action. Why should little Johnnie Canuck abolish - drink that he might conserve his manhood and material resources in - the interest of the Empire’s war, and big John Bull refuse to - abolish the traffic to the great waste of his material resources and - the undoing of his efficiency? - - _A public man with three soldier sons wrote to the Toronto Globe_: - - Canada, for efficiency in war, casts out the drink evil. Is it too - much to expect Britain, in fairness, to do the same? Is it not a - mockery for the British Isles to face our common struggle with this - palsy in her frame? - - Here is the bitter pill, the embittering thought for many a Canadian - parent. Let me be a type. Three of my sons are in khaki. I gave them - a father’s blessing when they enlisted. But this thought strains, - most of all, the ties of my loyalty to the cause—to see my sons - fight and fall for a Britain that at home is saddled by distillery - interests, and misguided by a Press silent as the grave on this - entrenched evil. Why should our sons go from a country where booze - is banished to spend months on the way to the trenches in England, - where the vices of the liquor traffic are legalised? - - _We see the spirit of Canada in those great words of the Premier of - Ontario, Mr. Hearst, speaking of the giving up of drink_: - - In this day of national peril, in this day when the future of the - British Empire, the freedom of the world, and the blessings of - democratic government hang in the balance, if I should fail to - listen to what I believe to be the call of duty, if I should neglect - to take every action that in my judgment will help to conserve the - financial strength and power and manhood of this province for the - great struggle in which we are engaged, I would be a traitor to my - country, a traitor to my own conscience, and unworthy of the brave - sons of Canada that are fighting, bleeding and dying for freedom and - for us. - - _A letter from one of the most eminent public men in Canada_: - - “British Canada is intensely loyal to the Empire and the Allied - Cause, but at present recruiting is almost at an end. Why? Partly - because of considerable dissatisfaction with many of the conditions - which prevail. Suffering, wounds, death, are expected as inevitable - in war, but the evil influences, the lavish temptations of liquor - and bad women which sweep down upon our boys in England, are not - felt to be necessary, and the hearts of multitudes of Canadian - parents are hot with indignation at the apparent indifference of the - authorities to the moral welfare of our troops.” - - _Captain John MacNeill, with the Canadian troops in France_: - - “I say to you solemnly, if England should lose this war because of - drink, or if England should unnecessarily prolong the war with great - sacrifice of life in her effort to protect drink, or even if England - should win the war in spite of drink, you will have put upon the - bonds of Empire such a strain as they have never known before, and - such a strain as we cannot promise they will be able to survive.” - - _From the petition presented to the Prime Minister of Canada, signed - by 64,000 mothers and wives in Toronto_: - - 1. That Mothers and Wives of Canada in giving their sons and - husbands for King and Empire, asked and received from your Minister - of Militia this only assurance that, in sending them into the ranks, - we were not hereby irrevocably thrusting them into the temptation of - Strong Drink. - - 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 - - -[Illustration: - - The Great Pyramid of Egypt, the biggest construction in stone ever - made by the hands of man—80,000,000 cubic feet of masonry] - -[Illustration: - - The Great Pyramids of Food, the biggest wilful destruction of food - ever known—180,000,000 cubic feet of food destroyed for the Drink - Trade during the war] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - 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. - -[Illustration: TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION LABEL WESTERVILLE O.] - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - -Obvious typographical and punctuation errors were corrected. - -Inconsistencies in hyphenation were retained. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIDDLERS*** - - -******* This file should be named 53733-0.txt or 53733-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/7/3/53733 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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