THE DRINK QUESTION
The Drink Question : Can it be Solved ? With Foreword by the Bishop of Oxford. (Longmans and Co. 6d.)
THIS is an able and interesting little pamphlet and should be consulted by all those who are interested—and who is not ?—in the Drink Question. As our readers know, we are anti-Prohibitionists, but also strongly anxious that the making of private profit should be eliminated from the manufacture or sale of intoxicants. Production and distri- bution here should be solely in the hands of the State. Nobody must make a profit by selling to a man more liquor than is good for him. The trade in intoxicants differs from other trades. If you induce a man to drink a pint of beer you may do him no harm. If you induce him to drink six or seven you may ruin him body and soul. If we can induce people to take three or four copies of the Spectator by skilful trading we do them no harm ! That is why the stimulus of private profit has got to be eliminated from intoxicants, and- that is why the Carlisle Scheme has been so huge a success. You can get your beer, but no private person is stimulated to make you drink by the possi- bility of a profit. But, though the Bishop of Oxford's Bill is not exactly a State Purchase Bill, it is, in our opinion, the best of the other alternatives to State Purchase.
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