To show how far the Irish veto on touching the
sacred liquor trade goes, we may quote from an address on national thrift delivered by the Roman Catholio Bishop of Ross end issued with the compliments of the Irish War Savings Com- mittee, an official or semi-official body set in motion by the Government. The Bishop, after a passing declaration that there should be "no betting and no drinking in war time," tells us that what we have got to economize in is dress. "Much more money is wasted on dress than on drink, and with consequences equally injurious to the temporal and spiritual welfare of the people." Yet the drink bill of Ireland is some fourteen millions a year. Can the Bishop, we ask, point to a single example of a working-class or peasant family being ruined by dress as they are ruined by whisky P If this is the kind of teaching circulated by the Irish War Savings Committee, the sooner that body goes out of business the better.
Previous page
