The immediate cause of the King's message to the nation,
for so in fact it is, was the deputation from the Shipbuilding Employers' Federation which waited upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary for Scotland on Monday to ask in plain terms for the total prohibition of the sale of intoxicants during the war. Neither prohibition in specified areas nor restricted hours would, they declared, be sufficient. Again, they did not ask for the prohibition of spirits only, but of beer as well. The firma represented were the greatest in the country, and
no one could possibly accuse the able and enterprising captains of industry who attended at the Treasury of being faddists or visionaries. Not one of them, we are-glad to note, was a teetotaler—a fact which, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer was quick to point out, adds very greatly to the importance of their demand. We do not want to accuse teetotalers generally of prejudice, but, feeling as they de about the drink traffic and the one of intoxicant., they would be almost certain, evidence or no evidence, to find that oar difficulties in the way of providing munitions of war were due to the use of alcohol.
