PROHIBITION—A VOICE FROM THE FRONT. [To THE EDITOR or T7ea
" SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—I came across a Spectator the other day, and was delighted to see that you are advocating Prohibition during the war. I have lived in many parts of the world, I have had the oppor- tunity of intimacy with very varied grades of society, and I am more convinced every day that I live that drink is the greatest curse in the world to-day. I personally have suffered from it, and I do not know a single family which has not. Now or never is the time to tackle the drink question. Let us adopt the same principle over the drink question as we are doing out here. Let us go all out to defeat the drink curse. Surely the people who willingly give their sons, their husbands, and their fathers for their country can make this sacrifice—the giving np of alcohol for the period of the war. They will be thoughtful men, those Rho endure this war and come through, and I think they will hold very strong views on questions affecting the nation's vitality. Drink is at the bottom of almost every crime in the Army. The drinker cannot endure like the temperate man. The enforced abstinence from drink in the trenches makes his nerves shaky. Such men are only half men, and in their hearts, with sadness, they realize this fact. If every man were so constituted c.s to be temperate, then all would be well, but in fact they are not. Chivalry demands that the strong shall sacrifice and suffer for their weaker brethren. The strong will not whine—it is the shareholders who will whine and talk humbug about " good, honest beer." The working man has few pleasures and few relaxations, but deny him his " glass of beer " and in a few years he will have found for himself and for his family ten times the pleasures he now enjoys, and relaxation of a nature that does not carry with it the reaction drink does. I myself am not, and never was, a total abstainer, but I am convinced that Prohibition will shorten the war by one-half and fit our people for the big straggle, social, political, and economic, which will doubtless follow the conclusion of the war. To-day is the day of drastic action. We have shown ourselves unafraid of Prussianism. Let us right now show ourselves unafraid of the drink interest.— an, Six, h., AI OFFICER ON ACTIV1 6altvla 114 FRANI.
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