(To THE EDITOR or TEE SOE0TATOR.") Sea,—In the course of
your leading article under the above heading in your issue of January 25th you state that, with reference to the introduction of State Purchase in this country, "in April, 1915, a fair and practicable scheme was drawn up by a mixed Committee of the Trade and the Teetotalers." Now, the only Committee to which you can refer was that presided over by Mr. Herbert Samuel and consisted of the following, Mr. Herbert Samuel (Chairman), Lord Cunliffe, Sir John Simon, Sir John Bradbury. Sir Ed. F. Coates, Sir J. S. Harmood-Banner, Sir William Pleader, Mr. Philip Snowden, and Sir Thos. P. Whittaker. I am sure that you will readily admit that, however strong the personnel of such a Committee from a Governmental point of view, it can hardly be described with any degree of accuracy as representing in any manner the Trade and the Teetotalers. Whatever may have been the posi- tion of Sir Thomas Whittaker with regard to the Teetotal Party, the representative of the Trade is conspicuous by his absence, while the Trade as a whole has certainly never ex- pressed the view that the scheme brought forward in the unani- mous vote of this " mixed " Committee was either fair or practicable. I am convinced that you would not desire to
suggest, espeCially in connexion with a matter of such im- portance, that any agreement had been arrived ut where such a conclusion would prove foreign to the facts:-.I am, Sir, Lc,
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