PROHIBITION.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I have been serving at the front since August, 1914, and should like to thank you for what you are doing to increase national efficiency by advocating less beer and spirits. I am not a total abstainer, but after what I have seen out here of the disastrous effects of alcohol on young officers, and on N.C.O.'s and men, I feel bound to support your campaign for State Pur- chase and, if necessary, Prohibition of spirits, with a reduction in the amount of alcohol in beer. The number of Courts-Martial, and the amount of waste, inefficiency, ill-health, and ill-discipline, that are the inevitable result of allowing men freed from the restraints of civil life to have alcohol must convince any reason- able man that your efforts, if successful, will at any rate be beneficial to the Army, and therefore to the national cause. Men at the Base do not need the rum ration, and from personal ex- perience
I should say that the pea-soup ration issued in the hot- food containers would be more beueficial to the men in the trenches than the rum. Rum by dilating the blood-vessels in the skin causes a rapid loss of heat and induces drowsiness. Neither of these two effects is desirable when men are actually in the trenches. Any one who has actually served in the trenches knows that it is impossible really to supervise the issue of rum there. ()wing to the number of absentees, wounded, sick, &c., and to the fact that there are many abstainers, those who are not abstainers are bound to get more than their ration. Personally, after two end a half years out hero I feel that drastic measures must be taken, and taken soon, both at home and in France, if we are to
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