PROHIBITION IN SCOTLAND DURING THE WAR.
[To sea EtO708 or me "Srrer.tros.1 Sra,—The thanks of every one who cares anything for his country are due to you for your outspoken and timely article on this subject in your issue of last week. Would that it could be multiplied a thousandfold, and read and pondered throughout the length and breadth of the land ! The result would then, perhaps, be something different from what we now have to endure—the sight of a people who are "careful about many things" in connexion with the terrible war which is now scourging Europe, but strangely indifferent to the canker which threatens the life of this as of every other nation which is involved in the present struggle for existence. With Russia leading the way, Australia, Manitoba, and South Africa moving to save their young troops, and France also prohibiting the manufacture or sale of absinthe, it is appalling to think that nothing worth talking about is being even attempted in this country to stem the ruinous waste, to say nothing of the drunkenness, caused by the continued and indulgent toleration of the liquor evil in our midst. When Scotland has rid itself of the canker, then, as you point out, England and Ireland —to say nothing of Wales, which is surely " ripe, aye rotten- ripe, for change "—may perhaps be stirred to save their man- hood and womanhood ere it be too late. If the things which you mention BB having taken place in Glasgow be "done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry"—when hundreds of thousands of men come home from the war, and indiscriminate treating of them begins and goes on simultaneously with the inevitable dislocation of the social and industrial machine P It is, indeed, a case of " Wake up, England ! "—I am, Sir, &O., ALFRED T. Ravin. Reform. Club, Pall .11:fall, S.W.
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