We publish to-day an article on the Drink Question. Here
we want to remind the more reasonable and far- seeing of those engaged in the Trade of the risks of the future. Some day there will be a demand to take over the Trade without fair compensation, either through a lightning stroke in favour of Prohibition, as in America, or through Socialistic nationalization. Holders of brewery or distillery stocks should become the strongest advocates of a change that would make their investments secure—i.e., get it out of a threatened trade which may ultimately be beaten in a struggle against teetotallers combined with advocates of high taxation. An alliance between teetotallers and a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer is quite conceivable. We do not count the shareholders evil people or wish them ill, but we hold that they should carefully consider the trend of politics as it affects the Trade.
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