INDIA UNDER CONGRESS [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
do not think Mrs. (or should it be Miss ?) Barr strengthens her argument by misrepresenting mine. I did not write about Prohibition with a big P but discussed the reasonableness of prohibiting various drinks and drugs. So far from deprecating the prohibition of noxious liquors and habit-forming drugs, I should welcome it.
What I did and do deprecate is the prohibition of toddy, which my much longer experience has shown me is not by itself a harmful beverage. It is almost impossible for anyone to drink enough good toddy to make himself either drunk or ill, though drinking sour toddy is as bad for the digestion as overbrewed tea. It is when arrack is drunk on top of toddy that intoxication quickly follows, and then the toddy is blamed.
It would be " absurd " to cut down all the palm trees, but that is just the absurdity I have heard English and American prohibitionists in India advocate.
Everyone knows sugar can be got from palmyra juice, a less amount from coconut, and only a negligible quantity from the date palm.
In each case fuel for boiling is required, and that is often only obtainable by cutting down other palm trees or by importing wood at prohibitive expense. Such sugar making is rarely practicable in a village and is only remunerative when done on a large scale in a factory. If the Indian labourer can be supplied with something pleasanter and as cheap as toddy to mitigate his hardships, well and good, but meanwhile why deprive him of one of the few alleviations of a very dreary existence which is within his means ? What is really wanted at the moment is a campaign for the supply of pure freshly- brewed toddy. The present system of control does not allow of that in many places.—I am, yours faithfully,
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