WET CANTEEN ON CHURCH PREMISES.
(To THE EDIT. or rim " Serum-ea")
Srs,—It is the last duty of a patriot fn these days to complain of the action of any military authority, but the commandeering of Church property for the purposes of a wet canteen is beyond the bounds of reason and right feeling. That trespass has occurred at Doncaster, on trust premises held by the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Respectful and reasonable protests to the War Office are so far without avail. In asking the Press to give publicity to the case, I have the approval of the Rev. J. H. Bateson, Secretary of the Wesleyan Army and Navy Board, than wham few Englishmen have toiled harder for the comfort and recreation of the King's fighting men. Mainly under his direction, the Wesleyan Church, like other Church., has entirely subordinated denominational to national interests ewer since the outbreak of war. For myself, a Wesleyan minister, my pride is that my two sons enlisted at the earliest possible moment. In the first winter of the war my drawing-room was a free-and-easy meeting-place for soldiers. I have never remitted a keen interest in their welfare. In matters or temperance I am not even a Prohibitionist. We are fighting for liberty. Is it a quite worthy use of liberty to ignore the traditions and sentiments of a law-abiding and enthusiastically
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