If the Government had asked the people for an act
of self- sacrifice in order to give our soldiers the maximum of support, they would have received an instant response. Every glass would have been turned down empty till the war was over. It is a very different thing to introduce a programme of fiscal pin- pricks for moderate drinkers. We should not be in the leash surprised if the new scheme were defeated and the Ministry obliged either to abandon it or resign office. The result of the latter alternative meet, of course, be a Coalition Ministry formed to carry on the war with vigour out of all the best elements in public life. We do not, we need hardly say, desire such a result. We should greatly prefer to see no change of Government during the war, but behaviour like that of the Cabinet over the liquor trade gives one pause.
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