[To THE EDITOR. OF THE " SFECTILTOR."1

Sue,—Absence from England on a visit to the Belgian battle. fields has prevented me before this sending a reply to Mr. Wilson's criticism•of my letter. Unable to fairly face or refute any one of my contentions or to impeach the reasoning which you were kind enough in an editorial note to describe as " perfectly sound," the Secretary of the United Kingdom Alliance, first crediting me with having instituted a parallelism, which was, however, clearly expressed by me to be a contrast, de. scribes my letter as " a mixture of analogies." What I

demonstrated was that the ordinary arguments used against the nationalization of other things, and particularly employed against that of the coal industry, could not possibly be used against the State purchase of the liquor trade. I further showed that such reasons as are customarily advanced in favour of the Government taking over the mines can with equal force be urged in support of liquor nationalization. Most, if not all, that Mr. Wilson wrote about the wastefulness and dangers of the liquor trade as existing under the private profit monopoly system constitutes in itself a powerful reason for the State acquiring over it that complete control of which State Purchase alone affords any prospect.

The Alliance Secretary repeats the hackneyed declaration that "you cannot promote temperance by selling drink," and might in such a connexion with equal pertinence and sagacity ray " You cannot promote peace by war," although great numbers of the world's noblest and bravest have gone to their graves to promote the world's peace by waging war. If we areas, indeed, we all are at present—shut up to a choice on the one hand of selling an ocean of drink under the most mischievous of conditions—ever under the drive of that economic stimulue which in other industries is so valuable and in the drink industry so disastrous—and, on the other hand, of selling very much less drink under vastly improved conditions, by disin • terested and responsible State officials, we are promoting temperance by making the second alternative our choice.

Once more the Alliance Secretary sneers at the beneficent operations of the Liquor Control Board. If one thing seems more certain than another it is that if only the Board had been armed with the powers which State purchase would give we should as a nation have already made a gigantic stride towards that lasting temperance reformation which all gooS men desire. It is most significant that the members of that Board, representing so many different views and interests, should every one of them, through their experience on the Board, have been constrained to declare in favour of the State purchase of the liquor trade.

A Royal monogram on the chairs of an improved public,

house at Carlisle-seems to distress Mr. Wilson as one of the results of a local limited. experiment in State purchase. May I remind•him that in Russia, under the Government monopoly., while it lasted, vodka was sold not with the thirst-inducing labels of the private liquor-sellers, but with a skull and cross. .bones on the bottles. Under Government ownership here s vast hostof meretricious attractions and perilous practices

e hich mark the private profit conduct of the trade, ranging from goose clubs to baby shows, would instantly disappear. By quoting the words " a business the owning and carrying on of which as a business the State should net touch with its fingertips," after the manner of Mr. Pecksniff at his worst, Mr. Wilson once more in effect raises the discredited contention that State purchase would involve us in some guilty complicity with the Trade in which we are not yet partners.

I might quote numberless passages from famous Alliance leaders, from Sir Wilfrid Lawson downwards,: to prole that they regarded us' as being alreadyin • partnership with the Trade, but I will content myself with the declaration of my esteemed successor in the position of Honorary Secretary to the United Kingdom Alliance. The Rev. Canon Masterman, speaking at the very council meeting which Mr. Wilson mentions in his letter, said: " I am perfectly certain that we are hampered immensely in dealing with the liquor traffic because we are in some kind of sense partners in that traffic. At all scents, we agree to share the loot though we regret the burglary."

As the State now actually takes the largest share of the proceeds of the drink sale, not to mention the hundred ways in which it protects, supervises, deals with it, and takes it to its bosom, it is too lute in the day to talk about not so much as touching it with finger-tips. Mr. _Wilson expresses his belief that the pressure to destroy the war restrictions on the sale of drink " has come quite as much from certain well-known agitators as from the trade." Where would these agitators he but for the resources, Press, and propaganda which the private profit system of drink sale plaCes at their disposal? He fears under State purchase " electoral pressure by the vast army of employers in the Trade," ignoring the fundamental fact that under State ownership this " vast army " of financially interested men dependent for livelihood on the extension of their trade, and always at the service of the political party championing their trade interests, would be replaced by a small body of disinterested officials whose chief object would be not the creation of dividends for their hard masters, but the avoidance of discredit and disgrace by running their houses as harmlessly as possible. Can anyone honestly affirm that public control at its worst would not be better than the tied house system at its best? Henry Ward Beecher was wont to declare. that slavery was never beaten until the political power of the shave-holders was broken, and State purchase alone gives promise of removing that political menace which all enlightened citizens of every party alike deplore. As ever, the Alliance Secretary avoids the crucial issue of compensation, and fails to hint how this problem is to be faced without State purchase. Seemingly he thinks it would be right and practical to refuse any compensation when the State for its own benefit takes , over the property of private individuals if they be licensed traders. Is he prepared to treat the Licensing Act of 1904—under the sanction of which for a period of some fifteen years hundreds of millions have changed hands—as " a scrap of paper "?

One golden opportunity has been lost of making the most magnificent investment which the nation ever had within its grasp by the Alliance refusing support to Mr. Lloyd George in 1915. In 1871 the capital value of the trade was estimated at 1117,000,000, about thirty-five years later it was estimated at £240,000,000, and in 1915 the Government Committee appointed by Mr. Asquith fixed the figure at £350,000,000. It is now generally estimated at about £700,000,000. Roughly speaking, the appreciation in trade values since Mr. Lloyd George's proposals were turned down has reached a figure which would have much more than sufficed to make the people master in their own house, got rid of all the vested interests, and for ever broken the back of the liquor evil in this land.• 'Is there not a lesson here for the Alliance in the story of the Sibylline books? Mr. Wilson, as one who was once himself a practising solicitor, knows full well that the legal position in the United States of America, to whose example be makes reference, has From the first decisions of their Supreme Court down to date always been entirely different from what has prevailed here, and there has been no compensation difficulty there, because no vested interest in licences has ever been created or lecognised by law.

It is easy to draw an alluring temperance programme, but until the barrier of vested interests existing in this country be' surmounted—and State purchase alone provides the means —the present pOlitical policy of the Alliance is doomed to' futility. As Mr. Lloyd George has well said : " To get Mr's-where you must first.find a track to it." Why, after more titan sixty years of struggle, is the Alliance at a lower ebb than ever before, and the Trade more formidable? Until the only available track be used, all efforts to reach the reforms upon which Mr. Wilson's heart and mine are equally set is little better than rainbow-chasing. The Alliance Secretary is most niafor

tumite, too, in his reference to a meeting of the-General Cotinell of the organisation held nearly three years ago. ' lie writes, quite inaccurately, of that .Counfil having rejected my plc posals—',` even after hearing Mr. Batty's arguments at great length." Mr. Wilson has forgotten that the sentences I was

allowed to. make were continuously interrupted „(I make no

complaint of this), and that there was no opportunity for any. full or elaborate argument. I was able to do little more than point out, every word I then said having been vindicated, the hopelessness of progress so long as the Alliance maintained

towards who purchase the, extremist attitude assumed by.

those who were then and still are its leaders. When I ven tured to point out how all the great temperance and progressive " dailies " were against the Alliance policy—such metropolitan

journals as the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle, and auch. provincial organs as the Manchester Guardian and the Liverpool Daily Post—and went on to mention "the weeklies "—such as the Observer and the Spectator—a genial enthusiast shouted out, " They are all bribed! " Ex uno disce mimes!

On the reports of the meeting appearing in the Press, I received a very large.nuthber of letters of sympathy and support froth all parts of England and Wales, mainly from strong

temperance workers, who dread going to their graves with nothing substantial achieved through their long lives of strenuous toil, by reason of a misguided and doctrinaire policy out of touch with all the realities and necessities of the case.' No small number of those leaders to whom the Alliance has owed most in the past are strong supporters of State purchase.

Need one name more than Sir T. P. Whittaker, M.P.,and Lady Henry Somerset? Even amongst its present officers there can be counted in its list of Vice-Presidents those who have also de-' dared for State purchase, such as Mr. Alexander Guthrie and Mr. T. R. Ferens, household names in the temperance world.

Despite my views of their political blindness, I have the pro.foundest regard and affection for the men who at present control the Alliance. The organization has in the past rendered great public services, and its educational work has been beyond praise. The ultimate ideals of its leaders are mine, and as soon as they modify their present attitude to State purchase with no sacrifice of principle whatever, but simply with a change of attitude in accord with its best traditions, I belieie it could sweep the country.' I cherish the faith that as evi7.

dences go on fast accumulating in favour of State purchase.

the 'men and 'women 'whose heroic perseverance in the fight against alcoholism has won my heartfelt admiration will yet' see in the method I support what Mr. Gladstone, in hiS last words on the temperance question, said " offered the sole chance of escape from the present mischievous and alniost contemptible predicament, which is a disgrace to the country."

am, Sir, &c., ROBERT B. BATTY. Hillside, Buxton.