We must make this comment : that the Government in
thinking that they can point definitely to a particular date when the issue of Bread versus Beer can be safely decided are running an enormous risk. If the time comes when the working man finds that his wife and children are being starved, he will have no mercy for a Govern- ment who did not warn him in good time, but preferred to tell him that beer was necessary to industry, and that he could drink with a clear conscience till, so- to speak, the maroons went off. Of mime. we know perfectly well that the- Government have long since let the golden opportunity slip by. At the beginning of the war, when the whole nation was asking itself in a puzzled way what war meant, it would have consented to any deprivations in that first flush of enthusiastic adaptation. If people had been told that war required prohibition " for the duration," they would never have questioned the decision, and would long since have become Perfectly accustomed to the new conditions. The effect on the habits of the nation would also-have been enormous, and probably lasting. But now that people have been encouraged to believe that such expenditure as Mr. Leif Jones pointed out is inevitable, they will of course be much leas easily convinced, however near and acute the coming crisis may be.
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