WOMEN AND THE DRINK TRADE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR.—Though various Prohibitionist agencies draw much e their emotional appeal from the misery which drink now causes to working-class mothers and wives, they appear to make little serious effort really to understand what is at the bottom of the minds of these women with regard to the drink question, and generally, though no do bt without intention, they misinterpret that mind.
With some fifteen years of intimacy, with working women in all parts of the country to guide me, I can say with certainty that as a community suchwomen have little or no sympathy with Prohibition, and that, though they dislike and fear excess, they look with 'sympathy or even with approval upon the moderate indulgence of their men friends. The poorer and more elderly women are 'almost all moderate drinkers, and the cup of beer which they drink en faniille to the accompaniment of a little bread and cheese in the late evening has attained to a sacramental significance. To forbid them thus to temper their austere standard of living would be as cruel as it is inexpedient, and any attempt to do so would arouse a depth of resentment of which most Prohibitionists have no idea. But I have no doubt that working women would approve a policy which aims at the regeneration and cleaning up of the drink trade. The poor wife and mother is able to draw a distinction between the public-house as an institution which separates her from and debauches her husband and sons, and the place of entertainment and reunion which, if it were under public auspices and if a motive of public service inspired it, the public-house might easily become.
The Prohibitionist who disposes of the drink trade in a pamphlet does not reckon with the feeling for collective enjoyment which is one of the strongest and most enduring instincts among working-class communities, and which is especially deep-rooted in women whose lives are unbrokenly monotonous and drab. Thus Prohibition digposes of'itself as a practicable reform, and thus it leaves the stage free for the policy of public ownership and control, in which, notwithstanding a personal bias towards total abstinence, I have come to believe.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A WOMAN TRADE 'UNIONIST.
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