"DOWN GLASSES ! " E VERYTHING that was said about economy
by Mr. Asquith, Mr. McKenna, and Mr. Runciman at the Con- ference of organized Labour on Wednesday was admirable in substance and effect. The case for economy could not have been better stated, and the means of economizing, so far as they went, were excellently explained. But there was one perfectly bewildering omission. Nothing—unless there were some glancing allusion which we have missed—was said about drink. Imagine a Martian descending from his own planet to this earth with a notebook in his hand In order to take account of how the problems which beset the art of Mars are being handled on this globe of ours. He would notice that modern war is unlike all other wars of past centuries in that it is related much more intimately to finance. Good economic management will win a war over bad economic management every time. Having noted this general fact—which may have not yet presented itself in Mars or may have been disposed of by the common- sense of the Martians aeons ago—the visitor would proceed to ask in what directions economy could be effected. Mr. McKenna, if he spoke to him as he spoke to the Conference on Wednesday, would say that it was a very great evil for men who were receiving much higher wages than usual to force up the amount of foreign imports, er to use too much sugar, or to buy pianos, or to give their wives more Money for dress (though a little bit of extra finery was natural enough when the Jimmy was coming in so freely), and so on. The visitor would then want to run over all the various items of personal expenditure and ask what amount was spent on each. Having been instructed on these points, he would certainly remark that an enormously larger sum was spent on intoxicants than on any other item of human consumption. " I take it," we can imagine him saying, " that this item of about a hundred and seventy millionsa year cannot be cut down. No doubt it is essential to the making of war, and you have reduced the cost to the minimum. May I assume that it is indis- pensable ? It is obviously some form of super-food without which your people cannot fight or work." What answer would Mr. McKenna give, what excuse would he make for his omission ? No doubt he would hesitate a good deal, but when all had been said in defence of the expendi- ture of one hundred and seventy millions a year it Would amount to this—that the people liked their drink and did not want to give it up, though they were really quite ready to do so if they were told. Viet this was necessary to win the war, but that the trade " which supplied the drink was very powerful and had numerous political friends upon whose support some leading statesmen supposed that the Government depended for their existence. There was no question of super-food. All the doctors said that the war would go on much better, as a matter of fact, without the drink, except when they ordered it as a medicine. The Martian would look extremely puzzled. " What inexplicable people you are I When I came down here I thought you meant business. You certainly looked like it. No one could have spoken more earnestly or used graver words than you have done. But you tell me that the one item of national extravagance which is weighing you down— an item beside which nothing else seems to matter—cannot be got rid of. You tried to raise a cry of Down glasses I ' but somebody .else shouted back, ' Hands off the trade ' and you immediately became dumb. Forgive me if I say, though I am not very conversant with your ways, that the whole situation seems to me utterly incredible."
We call it incredible too. As Mr. Asquith said on Wed- nesday, the total amount voted for war purposes since August, 1914, is £1,662,000,000. It is therefore, to use his words, " absolutely essential that we should make the largest possble proportion of the national resources avail- able for the conduct of the war and for the maintenance of our export trade. " Since the war began about four million and a half working people have obtained, on an average, a rim in wages of about 3e. Gd. a week. Mr. Asquith appealed. to the delegates at the Conference on patriotic grounds to refrain from making any general demand for a further rise in wages. lie did not appeal to them on patriotic grounds to dispense with the one item of expenditure which runs away with the greater part of the savings in the country. If there were prohibition of drink for the period. of the war, the wages at present being received would be comparative wealth. The same omission to recommend the most obvious of all patriotic courses vitiated the conclusion of Mr. McKenna's remarks. The excess profits of manufacturers are to be taxed. 50 per cent., and it is reasonable to ask the workers to put by 50 per cent. of their excess earnings. This will not be lost to them. It is not taxation. If the savings are put in the War Loan, they will be returned at the end of the war with the ample interest added to them. But why, in the name of reason, was Mr. McKenna unable to say that saving for the good. of the country and for the winning of the war would be made easy by the removal of all the temptations to drink One might think that the Government belonged to scme seat given to practising mysteries, and professed some secret creed. which forbade them to breathe the name of the most sacred object of their cult. Everybody knows what their object is. But you can search their sermons in vain for a mention of the one key to the mys- teries. The name of drink, which focusses and solves all problems of economy, must not be profaned. It cannot be mentioned. We do not write as fanatics. We are not extremists on the liquor question. We would not encourage any of our more ecstatic correspondents to think that we denounce all alcohol as necessarily an evil in itself. What we do say is that drink is a terrible impedi- ment in the way of winning the war. The brewer's dray blocks the path of the ainmunition wagon. We are doubtful whether we shall win the war unless we consent to the wholesale economy in drink which we recommend. Drink is an enervating and numbing drug for a nation that would reach the top of its capacity for waging war. Let us have prohibition for the war. We shall not save all the £170,000,000, but we shall save a very large part of it in actual money. And we shall save in other ways. Drink is good food gone wrong. Misconduct will gener- ally disappear. Look at the amazing response of the Police Court figures to every new restriction on drinking. Teetotal fanatics are said to be restless people. But we should all be the better for a little more restlessness in applying our energies to the war. A patriotic public man said to the writer recently : " I am absolutely convinced that we must shut down the drink during the war. I never thought I should conic to this conclusion, but I have. I should like to see a solemn league and covenant formed among allpatriotic men and women on sporting lines to get prohibition. If the condition of membership were that we must all get drunk when peace is signed, 1 would agree to it." We must apologize for the flippancy, but the meaning behind it is clear and sound. We want prohi- bition, not because we are fanatical teetotalers, but because we want to win the war.
Previous page
