[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") do not ask
for your valuable space in order to state the arguments—so often repeated—for that national control of the liquor traffic which can only be fairly secured by a State Purchase Bill. Those arguments have convinced me that every effort should be made to promote such a Bill in Parlia- ment at once. Prohibition lies, like the Millennium, in the future. And while its advocates are convincing the con- stituencies the opportunity slips away. We have seen the definite gains that were secured by the Liquor Control Board daring the war. If such a control could be maintained in time of peace the object of Temperance Reformers might be gradually achieved. But while the huge liquor interest remains in private hands there is little probability of such a stringent and salutary control being continued. Only, as it seems to me, can that control be permanently secured if the principle can be once for all settled that the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks must never be left in the power of private interests. The State must have the absolute control of an industry which is capable a working Such disasitrous mischief in the modern world. If the State, and the State alone, may decide what shall be produced, and how and where the produce shall be sold, the country has its fate in its own hands. At present the fate of the country (in this respect) is determined by a powerful money interest which no Govern- ment is strong enough to resist. A wise State Purchase Bill seems therefore to me the necessary preliminary to any effective dealing with the drink evil.—I am, Sir, &c., ROBERT F. HORTON. Lyndhurst Road Church, Hampstead, N.T. 3.
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