24 FEBRUARY 1917, Page 3

We have received too late for our correspondence columns the

following letter from Sir Charles Bruce, G.C.M.G. Our readers will doubtless recall his career as a distinguished public official in the

service of the Empire :—

"May I, as an active supporter of the Strength of Britain Movement, ask you to give the publicity of your columns to the followingstatement published in the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch of February 20th :--- ' As a result of a remarkable allegation made yesterday afterneen by a lodging-house keeper, who asserted that one hundred and fifty of the two hundred lodgers are helplessly drunk every Saturday night, the Sheriff of Glasgow has agreed to call the attention oft he Boardof Control to the matter. The lodging-house keeper further asserted that most of his lodgers are engaged on munition work.'

I make no comment on this statement except to urge it in justification of the Spectator's consistent policy in supper:: of the Premier's emphatie and repeated declarations on the gravity of the positicn."