11 MAY 1918, Page 3

It is useless to say that the brewers can always

be taxed more heavily, because if a brewer be taxed more heavily, he can make his profits only by corrupting the nation—by forcing more and more drink upon the people. This would not be permitted in the case of anything but drink. A man who began selling °pie, as a remedy for sleeplessness, using harrowing or sentimental advertisements, and imploring sleepless persons for their own comfort to purchase his "Poppy Cordial," would soon find himself put away for the public good. Drink is not opium, but in a different degree it is, or may at any moment become, an agent of demoralization so long as the Trade is in private hands.