STATE PURCHASE—AND WITHOUT DELAY.
WE desire to urge upon all Ivho have hitherto supported us in our policy to follow our example, and to let the Government know that they will agree to Purchase, confident that when the Government have got the Trade in their hands the force of circumstances will compel them to adopt the policy of " Down Glasses during the War " in fact, if not in name. This appeal we must enforce by a warning which we trust our readers will recognize as no bogy invented to frighten them into doing what we want, but as founded on a fact of the first moment. The opportunity which is now before us of acquiring the Trade—that is, of eliminating private profit from the sale of intoxicants—will never occur again, or at any rate not in our generation. It is a measure which in all probability the Government, the extreme section of the Tem- perance Party, and the Trade could only be got to assent to in war time and under the pressure of a great national peril. We must take occasion by the hand and at once. It is a case of " Now or never " if ever there was one. This argument applies with quite as great a force to those who agree with the Trade as to those who agree with us. The producers and retailers have an opportunity of getting out of a doomed business on just and reasonable terms. If they obstruct instead of seizing it, they may win the day, but it will be one of those fatal triumphs which injure the victors more than the vanquished. They will save the Trade, but only to ensure its final ruin. Remember that the change in publics habits and customs and the change in the attitude of the medical profession towards liquor are tending to reduce to the vanishing-point the distillers' and the brewers' profits. Again, the demands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Local Authorities upon the Trade are sure to be increased when the settlement of the war bill is reached. Lastly, the Trade is bound to find in the lean years of peace a great falling away in the purchasing-power of the nation. There will be no separation allowances for them to draw on, and no workmen's salaries running into £10 or £15 a week. We admit that such arguments as these may seem to come badly from us, but in spite of that we cannot refrain from pointing out that the shareholders will be mad if they do not exercise all the pressure they can upon the directors to make the best terms they can, and so save the situation. And here let us say that, while protecting the interests of the share- holders, we shall be very foolish and also very unjust if we do not also extend some measure of protection to those who, though they have no exactly purchasable interest in the pro- duction and sale of intoxicants, may yet suffer a serious pecuniary injury by the taking over of the Trade. To put it quite frankly, there is a great army of permanent officials on whose advice the shareholders will depend in the matter of accepting or rejecting proposals for State Purchase. These per- manent officials must not of course be bribed into giving their advice for Purchase, but at any rate they must not be placed in such a position that advice to purchase would mean de- struction for themselves, their wives and families. A lawyer of great experience once gave the present writer the following practical advice : " If ever you have to settle a difficult busi- ness problem which involves solicitors' costs, always make it clear from the beginning of the negotiations that which- ever way things-go, those costs will be fully paid. If you neglect to make that clear, you are very likely to find yourself up against a brick wall. If you make that provision, which is after all very often a just provision, you will find your course greatly facilitated." Don't let us allow a scheme so beneficial to the country to be ruined by what will in effect be a squabble over costs. Let the principle of Purchase involve the principli that- acquisition by the State shall not, as far as possible, mean the financial ruin of any individual. The nation must shoulder its own burdens, not lay them on the backs of others.
If the failure to seize the present occasion for the solution of the problem will ruin the hopes of those who feel as we do on the war aspects of the Liquor question, and if it will also bring destruction to the Trade, still more strongly do we feel that failure to seize that opportunity will involve the ruin of the present Government. That Government entered upon their prosecution of the war with high hopes, and now that they are established we desire to support them to the very best of our ability. Our readers will at first think our warning to the Government exaggerated. Yet we are certain that if the Government now refuse to adopt a policy of Purchase—the policy of acquiring the key and placing it in the lock of the door—their tenure of power will be short and precarious. Any one who can use his imagination will soon see that we are right. We can assure the Government that the demand for " Down Glasses " is not going to stop. If the Government should unhappily say that, in spite of the Prime Minister's well-known views as to Purchase, the problem is one upon which they cannot agree, and that therefore they cannot carry out Purchase even though the country and the Trade have con- sented, then the demand for Prohibition pure and simple during the war, a demand already made by the employers in the ship- building trade and endorsed by the foremen, and still more a demand made by those who are faced with the food shortage, will be carried on with redoubled vigour. To put it quite plainly, the people of Britain are not going to risk a famine which the Government have themselves brought home to men's minds, or hinder the only action which may prove effec- tive in meeting the submarine peril—the building of a new ship for every old ship sunk—because the Government have not the strength to tackle the Liquor problem. Imagine the effect on a Conference called between those who feel as we do about the food problem and the shipbuilders and other workers at necessary trades. If the members of the Conference were to tell the country, as undoubtedly they would then tell it, the whole hideous truth about the way in which our national efficiency is being impaired by whisky and beer, we do not believe that this or any other Government, however strong, would be able to stand up against the anger of the people. The Government will have oo answer because it was they who in the first place warned us of the peril ; or rather, their only answer will be that which has already been given, and which we may call the roast-pig answer. We are to go on turning food into intoxicants, and to allow the shipping yards all over the country to be twenty or thirty thousand men short on Mondays, because the brewers' offal is such nice food for cows I The burning down of houses to produce roast pig and tasty crackling is really a joke compared to keeping the Trade going in order to improve the milk supply. We do not want to distort this argument, but its employment by able men is in effect a form of flinging up the argumentative sponge.
To state the matter once more: We are convinced that if the Government refuse to allow the Prime Minister to do what it is an open secret he wants to do—i.e., carry out State Pur- chase—they will ultimately, though very possibly after a fierce struggle, be forced into doing it. But the policy of resisting and yielding, as the late Government found, is a sure way to bring down a Ministry. A War Government must lead the nation, not be kicked from behind into doing their duty. Depend upon it, if the Government miss the opportunity which now confronts them, their fate is sealed.
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