TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE LAST PHASE.
ALL the signs show that the nations at war are approaching the final stage of the great conflict.. The beginning of the end has been reached. If students of war did not know on principle that now that the Allies have achieved a prepon- derant strength the decisive blow cannot long be delayed, they would certainly feel instinctively that the world has entered into such a state of frenzy as must be its own undoing from waste and exhaustion within a measurable period. Such con- ditions cannot last. As it is, the whole world is threatened with a lean time after the war during which dearness and scarcity will be prevalent till the unconquerable soul of man has restored the fortunes of the nations, as we are convinced it will, and life is re-established on a sounder and safer basis than would have been possible before these terrible years of proving. We were never more confident that the Allies will win, if their cause be not betrayed by the blindness and selfishness within their borders. As for continued sufferings after the war, it is already evident that they will fall chiefly to the share of Germany. That will be a judgment on her which could scarcely be averted even by the indulgence of the whole world which she has done everything to estrange and forfeit. She is destroying the ships that might bring her food in her time of need, and her mad effort to rule the peoples lies destroyed her credit so that she will not easily be able to pay the price to attract wandering cargoes to her shores. All this is already perfectly clear to the Germans, and their present actions are explicable only on the ground that they have reached the gambler's familiar point of insanity when he stakes everything in his hand on a wild chance. They played for supreme power, and feel now that they are losing ; their motives may be described almost exactly in Milton's words :- " The strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair. His trust was with th' Eternal to be deemed Equal in strength ; and rather than be less, Cai'd not to be at all."
A few weeks ago we compared the progress of the war to a race in which Germany was backing her power to starve us against our ability to defeat her decisively in the field before starvation unduly weakened us. By husbanding our strength, however, we shall have plenty of power, breath, and dash for the final spurt. That great test is at hand. Germany is known to have made all preparations she can to resist our onset. She has formed many new divisions which have depleted her reserves. She has accumulated ammunition, no doubt, as she did during the two previous winters. Our own preparations, we may be sure, are to match, and the money that has just been poured into the Treasury by the latest Loan is the expression of the whole-hearted determina- tion with which we approach the crisis of our fato. Our Armies never felt more sure of themselves, and the threat from the sea, which has caused misgivings in many minds, is now known, on the authority of the Government, to be no cause for panic even in the faint-hearted. But here a very strong reservation is necessary. For it is also true that if we dissipate our resources, if we do not keep the very strictest hold upon ourselves, if we do not act on the principle that for a self-respecting nation at war to labour is to pray, we may still give Germany the opportunity of winning her race. We might just be beaten on the post. But we cannot be suffi- ciently grateful for the knowledge that the power to win or to lose is in the hands of people at home. To cut off entirely the unnecessary margin of the consumption of necessary things, and to give up altogether unnecessary things—that is the only way to help the splendid Navy and the not less splendid Mercantile Marine in their saving work. They can continue to provide us with the necessaries of existence, as Lord Lytton and Lord Curzon assured the country in the House of Lords on Tuesday. Shall it then bo said that the people at home, when there was this ticklish balance between what our ships could perform and what they could not per- form, upset the balance and themselves defeated the Navy ? A truthful epitaph on a nation guilty of such perfidy would have almost to go outside the resources of our language to en- compass the shame. It cannot be too often repeated that the power to hinder or the power to make straight the work of our ships is with people at home. Lord Lytton said most clearly that the issue in this matter rests absolutely with them. Their co-operation in refusing to consume unnecessary things is the deciding factor. We have never had the case stated so plainly before. The words both of Lord Lytton and Lord Curzon are so important that we must extract two passages textually from their speeches. Lord Lytton said :- " It is now true to say that it is an absolute condition of our success that the whole available cargo supplies of the available ships shall to given up to absolute necessaries only. Some of the commodities carried cannot be reduced. Tho supply of munitions of war to our Allies cannot be reduced. Everything that can be dispensed with must give place to absolute necessaries. That would remain true if all the sub- marines were destroyed to-morrow. That is tho reason for the food restrictions which have been lately issued by Lord Devonport. I wish to say, from the point of view of the Navy, how essential it is that these regulations should be adhered to in the strictest possible manner. Every act of self-sacrifice at this moment in the matter of food consumption is a direct and very valuable assistance to the work the Navy is doing. It must not be forgotten that this is to a largo extent not merely a war of armies, but a war of peoples, and ultimate success will be achieved not only by the armed forces of the belligerents, but by the civil population behind them. It is upon their endurance, courage, and determination that the whole issue depends."
Lord Curzon said :- "Things that could not be done, or were avoided, a year ago will now have to be undertaken. At the present moment I am engaged with my colleagues in the Government in working out an important scheme for a further considerable restriction of imports and the total prohibition of non-essential commodities now coming into the country. I admit that this policy is one of great complexity and difficulty. It will raise difficult questions with our Dominions and Dependencies and with our Allies. It will further impose a great strain upon some trades and industries in this country, and in a way it will react upon every individual citizen in the country. But this is a case in which the smaller must yield to the greater needs, and so far as this country is concerned—and I believe the same spirit will be shown by our Allies —I think that we may appeal to that spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice which has not failed us at any stage of the war. Serious as the situation is, anxious as I am not to minimize it, there is no cause for panio. If we keep cosi, and if we trust the Navy, and do not bother and pester them, believing that they are, to the best of their ability, doing their duty, and if each of us in his own sphere plays his part without murmuring or complaining, I believe we shall reach a point at which the enemy will be disappointed in his design, and at which we shall defeat the greatest peril since the Napoleonic wars."
What is notoriously by far the most expensive source of waste in the country I Drink. What is the one unnecessary item in our national consumption by comparison with which everything else shrinks into absolute unimportance ? Drink. What is the one article by means of using which, or refusing which (if the words of Lord Curzon and Lord Lytton are true), the people have it in their power to turn the scale against or in favour of our arms ? Drink. What is the one article of consumption which reduces efficiency among our industrial army ? Drink. What is the one article of consumption which causes ninety per cent. of the troubles that harass Provost-Marshals and the military police ? Drink. What is the one article of consumption which is a distillation from food deliberately destroyed ? Drink. These are simple answers to very elementary questions, and nobody who reads statistics, or the reports of Police Courts or of Military Courts, could possibly give any other answers. We do not write as advocates of teetotalism in normal times. We write as plain men who want to win the war, and who take the words of Lord Curzon and Lord Lytton as sincerely intended and literally true. It may seem astonishing that neither Lord Curzon nor Lord Lytton thought it worth while to mention drink. But for our part we sssumed that they took the Prohibition of drink during the war for granted till we read the report of Wednesday's debate in the Commons. What a bathos was there I Surely the words we have quoted above are almost meaningless except on the assumption we made. They cannot literally mean that while unnecessary things in general are to be prohibited, the greatest of all unnecessary things is to be treated to a special dispensation and allowed still to occupy to some considerable extent the holds of ships, to block quays and roads, and to take up freight-room on railways. For that is what the Government will be con- senting to if they do not intend later to introduce Prohibi- tion for the war or undertake State Purchase. The greater part of the materials of the Trade comes in ships in the form of good food ; but on arrival this good food is not conveyed to the people to be eaten, but is trans- formed into drink at such a high loss of nutritive value that the good food may be said to be in effect destroyed. Then other ships have to be employed to bring more food in the place of the destroyed food. Thus is the work of the Navy and the Mercantile Marine undone in precisely the fashion against which Lord Curzon and Lord Lytton most earnestly wanted us. Lord Curzon is a master of language, and we shall refuse to believe that ho failed to make his meaning clear unless the event proves us in the end to be wrong. We cannot think that either Lord Curzon or Lord Lytton 'expects his words to be stultified. Wo refuse to abandon hope. If the Government act strongly and honourably, they may be sure of tremendous support. How many men in the country, if they were given the choice between their drink and the loss of the war together with the starvation of their children, would choose drink ? A despicable remnant might make that choice. Is this the revolutionary and dangerous crowd that statesmen speak of in awed whispers as being too desperate to be provoked ? Why, such men would be hooted in every assembly of decent people. The nation is ready to spring to the support of any and every measure that is neces- sary to win the war. The people want only to be led. They only await the word. Mr. Lloyd George could give the word beyond the possibility of failure. If he does not, he will be wasting on the platform the gift of Chrysostom with a captivating touch of humour added. He could persuade if persuasion were needed. But it is not needed. Britain is ready to put forth all her strength. All that the people require is to be told exactly what sacrifices they must make absolutely till victory is won.
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