TOPICS OF THE DAY
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"DOWN GLASSES "—THE TEST CASE.
DO Mr. Lloyd George and his Ministry of all the Energies, for such we gladly and hopefully acknowledge it to be, mean business ? If they do, the whole nation, the whole Empire, and indeed the whole civilized world, will rise up and call them blessed. If they do not mean business, if they are going to talk about winning the war and are not willing to Ian what is necessary to win it, they are accursed. They will be standing between the nation and victory.
What test can we apply? How are we to ascertain whether they are a Ministry of talk and profession, a Ministry governed by political finesse, a Ministry with a House of Commons conscience, or a Ministry intent on action, sincere and courageous, a Ministry who have put aside doubts and hesitations, who understand what the nation ought to do and mean to make them do it, without any thought of whether this great interest, or that powerful Parliamentary group, will be offended ? The test which we seek is to be found in the way in which the new Ministry handle the question of "Down Glasses," of Prohibition during the War. If they handle that question fearlessly and thoroughly they will have given proof that they are a truly national Ministry, a war-winning Ministry, and they will in a stroke have achieved the confidence of the nation. If they do not stand the test but give in to the opposing forces, what hope is there that they will not succumb to our enemies ? If they cannot kill the rat, is it likely that the tiger will fall before them ?
We shall be told that we are exaggerating. The Spectator, it will be said, happens to have a temperance fad at the moment, and most unfairly insists on making agreement with this fad the test of Mr. Lloyd George's capacity. We admit that this sounds a plausible argument. Yet it can be shown beyond all doubt that his handling of the "Down Glasses" problem will prove or disprove the Government's sincerity. Remember we do not say for a moment that they have yet proved themselves insincere. We only say that they are on trial and that they cannot evade the test. Our fervent hope is that they will meet it and come triumphant through it. But not only is it a test. It is also a matter of the most urgent and practical importance. The Government have proclaimed in trumpet tones certain facts which point to the policy of Prohibition during the War and to nothing else. Facts within every man's own knowledge endorse the truth of that proclamation. Mr. Lloyd George and every member of his Administration concerned with the matter tell us that the food question is of the utmost gravity. What does this mean ? It means that we are face to face with the possibility of national starvation if we cannot do two things. If we cannot economize in the foodstuffs which we have in hand, and if we do not somehow increase the ship- ping which brings them to us from oversee, the nation must perish or submit to its enemies. These are not prophecies, or fore- shadowings. They are hard facts, facts so brutal indeed that one sees the men who state them shrinking from the appalling task of forcing them on the attention of a half-awakened nation. Consider the action to which they point. If foods are used for anything but feeding human beings, or feeding the animals upon which men live, that grave misuse must instantly be stopped. Next, if anything interferes with the use or production of 'ships able to bring food into what the Minister responsible has called "the beleaguered city" of these islands, that interference must be crushed as if it were treason. These are the inferences which must be drawn from the words of the Government. Can it be said, then, that we are treating Ministers unfairly by insisting that their intentions must be tested without delay ? Here is our test. The manu- facturers of intoxicants are every day destroying large quanti- ties of food in the manufacture of what is not food, or can only be called food by a specious use of language.—There is no doubt some nourishment in beer, but it is nourishment produced under conditions so wasteful that to use the argu- ment that foodstuffs are being put to good use when they are being turned into beer is a derision.—We are destroying all sorts of grain which is needed for our bread, and for sugar which is wanted so urgently to keep our people in health and to make our children grow strong, in order to keep the breweries going. Take this sentence fie m the Grocer of October 14th, which is set forth in one of the admirably drawn advertisements of the " Strength of Britain " movement : " From the recent official intimation it is intimated that future arrivals [of the better grades of low cane sugar suitable for grocery purposes] must be devoted solely to the use of brewers or brewers' sugarmakers." Here are some more facts in regard to the way in which food is now being wasted in the manu- facture of intoxicants. Sixty-five million bushels of grain are every year being turned into beer, while three hundred and sixty million pounds of sugar—enough to supply every family in the kingdom with forty-five pounds—are used every year by the liquor trade. To put the matter in another way, "three million acres of arable land are devoted to the growth of foodstuffs to be converted into alcoholic liquor. These acres would grow enough wheat to keep the whole of London supplied all the year round."
And remember that not only does the liquor trade seize the grain and the sugar that might go to feed the people. It uses up tonnage, railway trucks, and coal, all necessary and in urgent demand for the transport and preparation of our food supplies. The brewer's van stands between the people and the bread-cart. The brewery is wasting in the production of an unnecessary luxury the very life of the people. Here is no question of morals, of temperance fads, or whether it is a good or a bad thing that people should be allowed the gratification of the senses which admittedly they find in a moderate use of intoxicants. We are no teetotal cranks.
We do not want to interfere in normal times with people's personal habits—hygienic or non-hygienic. On matters of health let them judge for hemselve-:. All we say is that when it is certainly a question of food shortage, and may be a question of actual starvation, it is madness, it is a crime, for the Government to allow our daily dwindling supplies of wheat and sugar and coal to go in the manufacture and tran port of drink, and at the same time to allow the depletion of our man-power caused by the employment of hundreds of thousands of men in making, selling, and moving beer who might be doing war work.
These arguments, if they stood alone, would be over- whelming. But they do not stand alone. If intoxicants could be distilled from the clouds without the waste of a single quarter of wheat or of one ounce of sugar, we have no business to use them during the war. We call liquor a stimulant. In truth it is for the mass of men a drug, a sedative. It slows down he human machine, and so interferes with our power and efficiency. When you want the last ounce of work out of a man you must feed him with all the strength- producing material at your command. You must not dope him with alcohol. This is no temperance bombast. See what a body of non-temperance business men say on this matter. The shipbuilders of the Clyde, men who are deeply impressed by the need of more shipping, and who are strain- ing every nerve to give us the tonnage without which we shall perish, last Saturday telegraphed to the Government a message which, if we are not blind or sunk in moral idiocy, we must listen to. They declare that " the first essential step is the immediate total prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquor throughout the United Kingdom, applying to all classes and individuals alike."
How easily the Government can carry out the policy of "Down Glasses" no man knows better than Mr. Lloyd George, for two years a o he formula., ed a perfectly practicable plan for accomplishing it. Shortly, this was to take over the Trade during the war, as we have taken over the railways. The Government pay the distillers and brewers the averag . interest which they got from their businesses in the three years before the war. In addition, compensation is found for retailers where they cannot be put to other remunerative work, for no one need be or ought to be ruined by the change. The distilleries that are not wanted, though most of them are wanted, for the manufacture of alcohol for explosives or for manufactures or for transport, can shut down till the final decision at the end of the war. As for the brewers, let them brew, as they perfectly well could, beers with less than three per cent. of alcohol- i.e., with less alcohol than ginger-beer—from hops. Hops, remember, are not a food. They cannot answer " Ruin," for the Government will guarantee their interest. The thing is perfectly simple, and can be done without imposing any impossible burden on the State, though in all this business we demand just compensation as strongly as the Trade. Once again, their action over " Down Glasses" is the test of the Government's professions. If when things are in the state in which they are the Prime Minister means to tell us that he must leave the liquor question alone, who can believe in his sincerity or that of his colleagues ? If he accepts the test and comes through it, as we hope and believe he will, he will have taken the longest step yet taken towards victory. The notion that the working men will rise in rebellion to secure their liquor is wild nonsense. If the Trade is properly compensated, as we insist it shall be, we shall hear no more talk about "No liquor, no muniticns."
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