The fact remains that a great number of people, many
of them excellent people, and individually quite as good as those who live upon other trades, are dependent for their lives and the lives of their wives and families upon the liquor trade. Some means has got to be found for satis- fying their claims before we can get a free hand for dealing with the liquor problem. The only way of doing that, and doing it quickly, is by State purchase on reasonable terms. The existence of a large body of people, the vast majority of them perfectly innocent even from the extreme temperance view—which, of course, is not our view—who unconsciously claim a vested right in the drinking habits of their countrymen, is an evil at all times. It is an appalling evil in war time, as present circumstances have shown us. We must get rid of it. If those who live by the trade are wise, the present crisis should be a revelation of the true position, and should make them understand that it is to their beat interests to come to terms and at once get out of a business which, say what its advocates may, must under modern conditions be a wasting and rapidly wasting security.