We have pointed out elsewhere that even now the Government
could, if they liked, bring home to the nation the peril in which it stands by a complete reversal of their policy as regards the destruc- tion of Food by the Brewers—i.e., by insisting now, and at the eleventh hour, that till the Food Shortage is over not a grain of food should be used to manufacture intoxicants. Such a decree would unquestionably act like a vivid flash of lightning upon the mind of the nation, and make every man and woman realize that they were indeed on the edge of the precipice, and that the Govern- ment were in real earnest. The saving of a million quarters of malt, one of the most nutritive and stimulating of foods, would be in itself a tremendous gain, but an equally groat gain would be the awakening of the nation. They would see for the first time that the Government really mean business.
