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} - .centerwide { text-align: center; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - @media handheld {body { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} } - @media handheld { .tnote { margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; - border:1px solid silver; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;} } - - h1.pg { font-weight: bold; - font-size: 190%; - clear: both; } - h2.pg { font-weight: bold; - font-size: 135%; - clear: both; } - h3.pg { font-weight: bold; - font-size: 110%; - clear: both; } - h4 { text-align: center; - clear: both; } - hr.full { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fiddlers, by Arthur Mee</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: The Fiddlers</p> -<p> Drink in the Witness Box </p> -<p>Author: Arthur Mee</p> -<p>Release Date: December 15, 2016 [eBook #53733]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIDDLERS***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by MWS, ellinora,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/fiddlersdrinkinw00meea"> - https://archive.org/details/fiddlersdrinkinw00meea</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<div class="body"> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='cover' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div> - <h1 class='c001'><span class='xxlarge'>The Fiddlers</span> <br /> <span class='xlarge'>Drink in the <br /> Witness Box</span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c000'> - <div><i>By</i> ARTHUR MEE</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c002'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><i>If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>If thou sayest, “Behold, we knew it not;” doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it?</i></div> - <div class='line'><i>And shall not He render to every man according to his works?</i></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>Published by MORGAN & SCOTT, <span class='sc'>Ltd</span></div> - <div>12 Paternoster Buildings, London, E. C. 4</div> - </div> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>First Hundred Thousand</td> - <td class='c005'>May 15, 1917</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Second Hundred Thousand</td> - <td class='c005'>June 1, 1917</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>Reprinted in the United States by</div> - <div>THE AMERICAN ISSUE PUBLISHING COMPANY</div> - <div>Westerville, Ohio</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/image002.jpg' alt='Old man in suit with skeleton crouching behind his back' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>DRINK LEADING FAMINE IN</p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c006'>The Drink Trade gave Germany her greatest weapon in the war by -helping to make the bread famine.</p> - -<p class='c006'>It was the wilful destruction of 4,800,000 tons of food, depriving the -nation of her reserves, that led to the appalling gravity of the submarine -menace.</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/image003.jpg' alt='woman in dress and helmet holding sword' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>Drink, What did You do in the Great War?</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>This impressive picture of Britannia is from</div> - <div class='line'>the splendid 1916 issue of Bibby’s Annual</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<img src='images/image004.jpg' alt='map of four countries' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE ALLIES AND PROHIBITION—STOPPING DRINK TO WIN THE WAR<br />The Drink Map before the War and on the 1000th day of the War</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>CANADA—Prohibition almost from Sea to Sea</div> - <div class='line'>FRANCE—Total Prohibition of Absinthe</div> - <div class='line'>RUSSIA—Prohibition Everywhere</div> - <div class='line'>BRITAIN—120,000 Drink shops open daily</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span> - <h2 class='c007'>The Wages of Sin</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The time has come when it should be said that those responsible -for our country now stand on the very threshold of eternal glory or -eternal shame. They play and palter with the greatest enemy force -outside Berlin. The news from Vimy Ridge comes to a land whose -rulers quail before a foe within the gate.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Not for one hour has the full strength of Britain been turned against -her enemies. From the first day of the war, while our mighty Allies -have been striking down this foe within their gates, Britain has let this -trade stalk through her streets, serving the Kaiser’s purposes, and paying -the Government £1,000,000 a week for the right to do it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She has let this trade destroy our food and bring us to the verge -of famine; she has let it keep back guns and shells and hold up ships; -she has let it waste our people’s wealth in hundreds of millions of -pounds; she has let it put its callous brake on the merciful Red Cross; -she has let it jeopardize the unity and safety of the Empire—for it may -yet be found, as Dr. Stuart Holden has so finely said, that the links that -bind the Pax Britannica are solvable in that great chemist’s solvent, -alcohol.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The witnesses are too great to number; we can only call a few. -There is no room for all those witnesses whose evidence is in the House -of Commons Return 220 (1915), showing the part drink played in the -great shell famine, in delaying ships and guns, and imperiling the Army -and the Fleet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But the indictment is heavy. I charge this trade with the crime -the King laid at its door two years ago, the crime of prolonging the war; -and the witnesses are here at the bar of the people. The verdict is with -them, and the judgment is with those who rule.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>The wages of sin is death: What are the wages of those who fail in -an hour like this?</i></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>Fiddling to Disaster</h2> -</div> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c008'>We are not going to lose the war through the submarines if we all behave -like reasonable human beings who want to save their country from disaster, privation -and distress.</p> - -</div> -<div class='small'> - -<div class='c010'><i>The Prime Minister</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c008'><i>What are we to say of a Government that plays with war and drink -and famine while these brave words are ringing in our ears?</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>If the situation is so desperate that we must all go short of food, it -is desperate enough for the Government to be in earnest. But what are -the plain facts? No reasonable man who knows them can say that the -Government is in earnest.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It is not denied by anybody who knows the facts that drink has been -the greatest hindrance of the war. There is not a doubt that it has prolonged -the war for months and cost us countless lives. It is the duty -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>of the Government to face a dangerous thing like this; it is its duty to -pursue the war with a single eye to the speediest possible victory. But -the records of our war Governments in dealing with drink have been -records of fiddling and failure, and we stand in the third year of the war -with a Government fiddling still.</p> - -<p class='c009'>One thing will be perfectly clear if disaster and famine come. It -will be known to all the world that the Government knew the facts in -time to save us. We are in the war because we would not listen in -times of peace. We are in the third year of the war because we would -not listen in the first. We are faced with famine because we would not -listen in times of plenty, when drink was breaking down our food reserves. -And we are drifting now, nearer to disaster every day, because -the Government surrenders to the enemy worse than Germany.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It does not matter where you look, or when; the evidence of the -fiddling is everywhere about you. Take the week before the Prime -Minister’s grave speech about submarines—ending May 19.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'><i>Submarines destroyed 27 British cargoes, mostly over 1600 tons.</i></p> - -</div> -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c009'><b>Brewers destroyed 27 British food cargoes, totaling 9000 tons.</b></p> - -</div> -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'><i>The granaries of Canada were crammed with wheat waiting for British ships, -but there were no ships to bring this people’s food.</i></p> - -</div> -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c009'><b>The rum quay at London Docks was crammed with casks of rum to last -till 1920, but a ship arrived with 1000 Casks more.</b></p> - -</div> -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'><i>A woman was fined £5 for destroying a quartern loaf.</i></p> - -</div> -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c009'><b>Brewers were fined nothing for destroying millions of loaves.</b></p> - -</div> -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'><i>Poor people waited in queues to buy sugar in London.</i></p> - -</div> -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c009'><b>Cartloads of sugar were destroyed in London breweries.</b></p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>And so we might go on, looking on this picture and on that till -the mind almost reels with the solemn farce. The Prime Minister has -suggested that the farce does not end because those who demand its -end cannot make up their mind. It is the Government that cannot make -up its mind.</p> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c009'>It tells Parliament that no more rum is to be imported, and goes on importing -rum for years ahead.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It forbids the use of spirits less than three years old, and reduces the three -years to 18 months.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It restricts beer to 10,000,000 barrels, and tells us one day that it is all-inclusive, -and the next day that the Army Council can order as much extra beer as it likes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It issues a report saying that hops are not food, and gives up hundreds of thousands -of feet to shipping them; 23,000 cubic feet the other week.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It tells us that not an inch of shipping is wasted, and wastes shipping on bringing -brewers’ vats from America and taking gin to Africa.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It tells us that the Drink Trade gave up its distilleries patriotically, and leaves -us to discover that it was made the subject of a bargain by which bread was being -destroyed for whisky as late as May this year.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>It is quite clear that the Government is desperately in need of a -scapegoat, and desperately in need of a defense. Prohibition Russia -is not mightily impressed with our drinking; serious Canadians are -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>asking how long they are to sacrifice their manhood to our brewers; -America is asking already why she should go short of bread in order -that England may drink more beer.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A Government must clearly say something in view of these things, -and it has put its defense in the care of one of the sanest and cleverest -men in the United Kingdom, Mr. Kennedy Jones. If Mr. Jones does -not make out a case for it, there is no case to make. What does he say?</p> - -<p class='c009'>1. <i>We are told that only five per cent. of malt can be mixed with -flour for bread.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>All over the country this explanation is supposed to satisfy those -simple, honest people who know little about percentages but ask plain -questions at Food Economy meetings. It is preposterous nonsense. -If we have 200,000 tons of malted barley, what on earth does it matter -whether we mix it at fifty, or five, or two per cent., so long as we do -mix it? <i>It adds 200,000 tons to our bread in any case.</i> This talk of five -per cent., puzzling to people who think it means that only one-twentieth -of this malted barley can be used, is pitiful evidence, surely, of the straits -to which the Food Controller’s Defense Department is reduced.</p> - -<p class='c009'>2. <i>We are told that the barley destroyed for beer would give the nation -only ten days’ bread.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>It would actually last us a fortnight. Drink, which has taken a -quartern loaf from every British cupboard in every week of the war, -is taking still a quartern loaf a month from every cupboard, and the -desperate appeals of Mr. Kennedy Jones will be more effective in saving -crumbs when he can tell us that he has stopped this monstrous -destruction of over 1,000 tons of grain a day.</p> - -<p class='c009'>3. <i>We are told that our munition workers are dependent on beer.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>It is an astounding slander. However true it may be of Governments, -it is not true of our workmen. For four months the workman -has been the scapegoat of this Government in its surrender to this trade, -and we are asked at last to believe that these men who saved us from -the Shell Famine are willing to drink us into a Bread Famine. Does -the Government never pause to ask how millions of munition workers -in America and Canada and the United Kingdom manage without beer? -Does nobody in the Government know that the greatest steel furnaces -in America are under total Prohibition, and that two million American -railwaymen are subject to instant dismissal if they touch drink while -on duty? Has the Government not read its own report of the Royal -Society Committee which had this point in mind six months ago, and -told us, on the highest authority in this country, that soldiers march -better and keep fitter without alcohol; that men do more work on less -energy without alcohol; and that “the records of American industrial -experience are significant in showing a better output when no alcohol -is taken by the workmen”?</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>4. <i>We are told we need this trade for yeast.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>We need not bother overmuch about that. Industrial alcohol will -give us all we want, and there is no need to carry on this dangerous -trade for the sake of yeast. We do not need a single ounce of brewer’s -yeast, and we can do without distiller’s yeast as well by setting up a -thousandth part of the machinery we have set up in the last two years. -Or, while we must have yeast, we need about 30,000 tons a year for the -whole United Kingdom, and since the prohibition of hops in June last -year <i>we have given enough shipping to hops every fortnight to bring in -enough yeast for a year</i>. A Government with shipping to spare like -that, with room on its ships for mountains of hops, for enormous brewers’ -vats, and for rum for 1921, can find room for 100 tons a day of the -people’s bread. It is a monstrous perversion of the facts to suggest that -we must maintain this food-destroying trade, with all its hideous -tragedy and ruin, in order to make bread.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It cannot be said that a Government with such desperate excuses -is in earnest. We do not wonder that a great American farmers’ paper, -with no axe to grind except that it is sane and patriotic and believes in -the war, is asking plain questions as America prepares her Prohibition -Army, her Prohibition Navy, and stops the destruction of grain for -drink in order to enter the war at full strength.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Let the Food Controller, the Prime Minister, and every responsible -citizen of the United Kingdom read this—it is from the most influential -flour-milling paper in the world, the “North Western Miller,” published -in Minneapolis:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<b>Since the United States will be called upon to make food sacrifices -on behalf of the Allies, it is certainly in order to call to account the -stewardship of Great Britain in regard to food supplies. Ordinarily -America would have no right to demand such an account, but Americans -are now asked to deny themselves that Britain may have sufficient.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>“<b>Britain has not seen fit to prohibit the use of cereals in the manufacture -of drink, notwithstanding that the world’s food supply was obviously -short. Are Americans required to forego a part of their accustomed -ration of bread in order that their British Allies can continue -to have a plentiful supply of beer and whisky? If not, then Britain -should lose no time in putting its house in order, quitting the drink to -add to the common store of food upon which the safety of all the Allies -depends.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>“<b>The food supply for the Allies is no longer a purely local proposition, -to be used as a football in British politics; it deeply concerns the -people of the United States, who are certainly not called upon to deny -themselves bread in order that Britain shall have drink.</b>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>What is the Government’s answer to this? “We owe a very considerable -debt of gratitude to the great American people for the effective -assistance they are rendering us,” says the Prime Minister. -<i>Is this the way we pay them back?</i> It is an ugly question for our great -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>Ally to have to raise as she comes into the war, flinging her Prohibition -Navy in to smash the drink-made menace of the submarine. It is unthinkable -that the Government can read these bitter words unmoved, -or can leave this stain on our history in the face of all these questionings.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There is another question, too, that comes across the Atlantic. -What is the Government going to do with the soldiers of America’s -Prohibition Army, and the sailors of America’s Prohibition Navy, when -they come over here? Are they to be broken in their thousands, made -useless and degraded as thousands of men from Prohibition Canada have -been, by the enemy that traps them before they reach the war?</p> - -<p class='c009'>They are questions for the Government and the nation, and they -must be answered in the interests of the nation, and not to please the -trade that helps the Germans every day. We cannot afford to pay the -appalling price the future will demand unless our fiddlers change their -tune.</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>The Drink Trade and Our War Services</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><b>It is not possible to measure the strain the Drink Traffic has imposed -on our war services.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>The Food Controller’s Organization, with its great offices and -staffs, would not have been needed had we saved the food destroyed -by drink.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rationing already involves 1,200 committees, and may mean 50,000 -officials and 50,000,000 tickets weekly. It could all be avoided. Prohibition -would save more bread without food controlling than all the -food controlling can save without Prohibition.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The National Service, with its network of officials, its costly advertising, -its absorption of paper and printing, could all have been avoided -under Prohibition. About 200,000 men have enrolled, but Prohibition -would give us twice that man-power any day.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The strain on a host of men and women looking after soldiers’ children -neglected through drink, soldiers’ wives spending allowances on -drink, is incalculable.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The strain on war charities and the strain on the police arising -from drink are both very great.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The strain of drink on doctors, nurses, and hospitals is beyond belief. -Prohibition would set free for the Red Cross thousands who waste -their time on the great drink trail.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The strain on transport is seen in the long lines of wagons drawn -by strong horses carting beer to public-houses. This year alone the -handling of drink must equal the lifting of at least 9,000,000 tons, and -the barrels of beer would fill nearly all the railway wagons in the kingdom. -As to ships, drink materials during the war have used up 60 -ships of 5,000 tons working all the time.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>On Lord Milner’s estimate of 19 barrels to the truck it would require -4,500,000 railway trucks to carry the 17,000,000 tons of beer manufactured -in the United Kingdom during the war.</p> - -<p class='c009'><b>It can be proved from official figures that the weight of drink-stuff -carried about since war began has been equal to the weight of solid -material carried by the Navy to all our fighting fronts.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>It is a crying shame that the strength of Britain should be destroyed -like this in such an hour as this.</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>The War-Work of the Food Destroyers</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There are hundreds of great Food Destructors in the United Kingdom. -The man-power at their service, spread over our breweries and -distilleries, numbers hundreds of thousands of men; their capital is -hundreds of millions. This is a summary of the work they did in the -first 1,000 days of the war:</p> - -<p class='c009'><b>They sacrificed 4,400,000 tons of grain and 340,000 tons of sugar, -enough to ration the whole United Kingdom with bread for 43 weeks -and sugar for 33 weeks.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>They took from every kitchen cupboard in the land 600 pounds of -bread and 76 pounds of sugar.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>They destroyed bread and sugar to last every child under fifteen -for every day of the war.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>They took from our people over £512,000,000.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>They used up labour and transport for lifting over 50,000,000 tons. -By sea they used up 60 ships of 5,000 tons; by rail their raw materials -and the finished products would make up a train long enough to reach -nearly round the world.</b></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>The Food Now Being Destroyed for Beer</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Look at the actual facts about beer alone. We will ignore distilling, -as it gives us munitions and yeast. Had the Government tried to solve -the yeast question it could have solved it easily in these three years; -it would have had no more trouble with that problem than Russia and -Canada and America have had. But as the Government is still investigating -the yeast question, we will confine our figures to beer.</p> - -<p class='c009'><b>Brewers are destroying 450,000 4-lb. loaves a day.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>This year’s food destruction for beer alone will equal five weeks’ -bread rations and four weeks’ sugar rations for the whole United -Kingdom.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>We have seven critical weeks in this summer, and this year’s destruction -of food would carry us through.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>Beer alone is taking 10 pounds of sugar a year from every kitchen -cupboard, and an ounce of sugar a day from every soldier.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>That is what drink is doing at this moment with the shadow of -famine creeping on.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>“<i>He who withholdeth the corn the people shall curse him.</i>” Proverbs.</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span> - <h2 class='c007'>The Shadow of Famine</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The Government came into office with the food shortage in sight; -it was its first duty to build up the great reserve of food we might have -had now in our granaries if the drink trade had not destroyed it. We -could have laughed at submarines, for our barns would have been filled -to overflowing, and we could have lived in comfort for a year if no -ship reached us.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Let us see how much food drink has destroyed during the war. -We will take it from August 4, 1914, to April 30, 1917. It is 999 days -of the war. The grain and sugar destroyed for drink have been:</p> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Grain</td> - <td class='c005'>4,400,000 tons</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Sugar (for beer alone)</td> - <td class='c005'>340,000 tons</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/image011.jpg' alt='Scales with bread on the left outweighed by beer and whisky on the right' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>How Canada sees it—A Canadian cartoon of the callous destruction of bread for beer and whisky</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>It is not easy to realize what this means, but it will help us if we -think of one or two examples.</p> - -<p class='c009'><b>The biggest thing ever set up on earth is the Great Pyramid. It is -80,000,000 cubic feet. The food destroyed by drink during the war -would make two Great Pyramids, each bigger than the Pyramid of -Egypt.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>The longest British railway is the Great Western; it is over 3,000 -miles, but it would not hold the food destroyed by drink since war began. -If every inch of it were crammed with wagons, the Great Western -Railway would need hundreds of miles more line to hold the train-loads -of food destroyed.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span><b>There are about 750,000 railway wagons in the United Kingdom, -but if the Drink Trade had them all they would not hold the food it -has destroyed.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'><b>There are about 30,000 engines on our British railways, and if the -food destroyed were made up in trains of 125 tons apiece, all our engines -would not pull them; we should still want 10,000 more.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>So vast is this incredible quantity of food destroyed by an enemy -trade while famine has been coming on. We should have saved it all -if Parliament had followed the King, and it would have given the -whole United Kingdom its flour rations for nearly a year. Take it at -its minimum scientific human food value, and on the basis of our rations -in May, 1917, it would have given us:</p> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Flour for the whole United Kingdom</td> - <td class='c005'>43 weeks</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c004'>Sugar for the whole United Kingdom</td> - <td class='c005'>33 weeks</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c009'>Our three war Governments, confronted with the increasing certainty -of at least a three-years’ war, have allowed the Drink Trade to -destroy this vast reserve of food.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The full toll of this trade upon our scanty food supply, growing -shorter and shorter while the queues outside our food shops grow longer -and longer, is staggering indeed, even now with drink about three-quarters -stopped. We must remember that it makes no difference that -the barley has been malted; it is still good human food, and every ounce -of it should be mixed with grain for making bread. Let us remember, -also, that <i>brewer’s sugar is a good pure sugar</i>, the objection to it being -largely the objection most of us have to standard bread—its colour. -Malt or sugar, every ounce a brewer destroys is food stolen from the -people. Let us take expert opinion on the subject.</p> - -<h3 class='c011'>The Food Value of Brewer’s Sugar</h3> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c012'>We do not, of course, use this dark sugar when white sugar is cheap and easily -procurable, but during the war we have used it for coffee, cocoa, and tea; and for -puddings where colour did not matter. We have used it a good deal in our bakeries -for chocolate goods, where colour again does not matter. It is a good, pure sugar, -and the colour is the principal drawback.</p> -<div class='c010'><i>Letter to Arthur Mee from a London caterer</i></div> - -</div> - -<h3 class='c011'>The Food Value of Brewer’s Malt</h3> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c012'>Malt flour can be used to make excellent cake with 50 per cent. wheat flour. It is -sweet and pleasant to taste without the need of any sugar. Good scones can be made -with 25 per cent. of malt flour. Its use in bread made with yeast causes too much -fermentation in the bread, but it has no effect on baking-powder. The Food Controller’s -Department is aware of the practicability of using malt flour, but the sale is -restricted in order to limit its use for making beer. Brewers and maltsters are too -patriotic to wish to use for beer what could be applied to food in case of a serious -shortage, and the large stocks of barley and malt can supplement the supply of wheat -flour.</p> -<div class='c010'><i>Letter from a Brewer in the “Times,” April 11, 1917</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>Yet we have seen our Government holding up sugar for brewers; -we have seen our Food Controller refuse to release a caterer’s sugar -unless it were sold to a brewer; we have seen a Government short of -food-ships bringing in brewers’ vats and casks of rum; and we see the -Government still holding up this malt that would feed a people asking -for more bread.</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span> - <h2 class='c007'>The Tunes They Play</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Strange tunes we hear the fiddlers play, but their music does not -charm away the troubles of a famine-threatened land. From morning -till night the prayer of the people rises, “Give us this day our daily -bread,” but the heart of Downing Street is hardened, and the nation’s -bread goes day by day to the destroyer.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But all the time we see the measure of the courage of our rulers on -the hoardings in the streets. We know their posters by heart.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>Defeat the enemy’s attempt to starve you</i>, by—not by stopping the destruction -of food, but by joining the National Service, and probably -helping to pick hops. There was a man in a co-operative store who -volunteered for National Service, and last month he received instructions -<i>to leave the grocery store and take up duty in a brewery</i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>Sow your window-boxes and plant your back gardens</i>—and Mr. Prothero -will see that the soil of a million back gardens is wasted on hops.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>We have not enough food to last till the harvest</i>—why not go out and -catch rabbits, asks Lord Devonport—and sit and wait for sparrows?</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>We must save every pound of bread we can to get over our critical -weeks</i>—not by saving the quartern loaf that beer is taking every month -from every British cupboard now, but by going hungry so that drinkers -may not thirst.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>We must not eat more than our share, on our honour</i>—but the man -across the table can eat his share of bread and drink somebody -else’s too.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>We must eat less and eat slowly</i>—so that brewers may waste more -and waste quickly.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>We must keep back famine</i>—but not by using malt, says Captain -Bathurst: that would cost three times as much as letting famine come. -<i>But why not keep the malt till bread is as dear as gold?</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>Let all heads of households abstain from using grain except in bread</i>, -says the King’s Proclamation. But let the brewers waste 8,000 tons -a day for beer, says the Government.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>God speed the plough and the woman who drives it</i>—yes, and God help -the woman who drives the plough to feed the brewer while her little -ones cry for bread.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>Let us fine £5 whoever wastes a loaf</i>, says the Food Controller—but -not, of course, the brewers who waste 450,000 quartern loaves a day.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hops are no use as food to anybody, says the Board of Trade Scientific -Committee. “<i>Then let us grow only half as many</i>,” said Mr. Prothero.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mr. Lloyd George says Mr. Prothero is working “in a continuous -rattle of mocking laughter and gibes.” Yes, it is the mocking laughter -of a nation that is not really amused by sights like this. The nation -does not like to see the bread rations of 70,000 men in France cut down -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>while the Drink Trade is destroying every week bread enough to last -these men a year. It does not like to see the Government sending letters -out to managers of factory canteens, begging them to be careful -of bread, while food flows through our beer canteens like a river running -to waste. It does not like to see Y. M. C. A. canteens denied -supplies of sugar while barrels of beer are stacked in great piles outside. -It does not like the calling up of discharged soldiers while thousands -of strong men are working hard all day destroying food or carting -beer about the streets; and it does net like the tragic comedies of Captain -Bathurst, who warns us that it really may become necessary in the -national interest—and then, perhaps, he drops his voice to break it very -gently—it really may become necessary, if these cake shops are not -very careful, <i>to whitewash the lower part of their windows</i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Oh, these fiddlers! And now we have a new idea from the Food -Control Department; it is a coloured poster of a Union Jack and a big -loaf on it, and “Waste not, Want not,” printed in big type. It was -being printed on the day the Prime Minister told the nation that America -had found it is no use waving a neutral flag in the teeth of a shark. -It is an eloquent and true saying, but it is also true, that it is no use -waving platitudes from copybooks in the teeth of a wolf at the door. -The Prime Minister says he is taking no chances. Let us be quite sure. -We once had a Government of which men said its motto was “Wait and -See.” <i>Are we better off, or are we worse, with a Government that Sees -and Waits?</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>But there is no end to the fiddling. With Food Controllers who -hold up food for Food Destroyers; with Food Economy Handbooks that -cry out loud to save the crumbs but have no word to say about the -tons we fling away; with a Prime Minister praying for window-boxes -and a Board of Agriculture consecrating hopfields, we need not be -surprised if the nation is not mightily impressed.</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>How the Allies Did It</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>All the world knows, except, apparently, the world that goes round -at Westminster, how Prohibition has helped the Allies.</p> - -<p class='c009'><i>With the Shell Famine at its height—largely made by Drink—the -Prohibition Army on the East held up the enemy while Britain fought the -Drink Trade for her shells.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'><i>With the Bread Famine looming in sight—largely made by Drink—the -Prohibition Navy from the West flings in her power against the submarines.</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>Oh, for the spirit of our Allies in this land! If France wants to -rouse the spirit of Verdun she strikes down her foe at home and puts -absinthe away. If Russia wants to be great and free she stops this -drink and orders out the Romanoffs. If Canada wants to give her utmost -help to Britain she stops this drink from sea to sea. If Australia -wants to make her soldiers fit she trains them in her Prohibition camps. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>If America wants to beat the whole world at making shells she drives -drink from her workshops. If San Francisco has an earthquake she -stops drink while she pulls herself together. If Liverpool has a dangerous -strike she shuts up public-houses and keeps the city quiet. Oh, -for a Government of Britain that will see what all the world can see!</p> - -<p class='c009'>History will do justice to the part the Prohibition policy of the -Allies has played in saving Europe, but a pamphlet has no room for -these things. We can take only one or two great witnesses to the -mighty achievements of our Prohibition Allies. Let us begin with -France, and call our own Prime Minister to tell us what they did. Mr. -Lloyd George:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris, and the French Minister -of Finance said, “I have to go to the Chamber of Deputies, because I am proposing -a bill to abolish absinthe.” Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky -plays in this country, and they abolished it by a majority of something like ten to one -that afternoon.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>And how did Paris take this prohibition that men said would cause -a revolution? Let us ask Mr. Philip Gibbs, whose splendid letters home -have made his name a household word. Mr. Philip Gibbs:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>Absinthe was banned by a thunderstroke, and Parisians who had acquired the -absinthe habit trembled in every limb at this judgment which would reduce them to -physical and moral wrecks. But the edict was given and Paris obeyed, loyally and -with resignation.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>And now we come to Russia, to these mighty Russian people who -in the last year of vodka saved £6,000,000 or £7,000,000, and in the last -full year of Prohibition saved £177,000,000. We will call our own -Prime Minister again:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing how unprepared she was, said, “I must -pull myself together. I am not going to be trampled upon, unready as I am. I will -use all my resources.” What is the first thing she does? She stops drink.</p> - -<p class='c009'>I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, and I asked, “What -has been the result?” He said, “The productivity of labour, the amount of work -which is put out by the workmen, has gone up between 30 and 50 per cent.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I said, “How do they stand it without their liquor?” and he replied, “Stand it? -I have lost revenue over it up to £65,000,000 a year and we certainly cannot afford it, -but if I proposed to put it back there would be a revolution in Russia.”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>How completely teetotal Russia became we read long ago in the -<i>Daily Mail</i>, to which Mr. Hamilton Fyfe sent this message from Petrograd:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>Try to imagine all the publichouses in the British Isles closed; all the restaurants -putting away their wine cards and offering nothing stronger than cider or ginger ale. -That is the state of things in Russia. Strange it seems indeed, yet there is one thing -stranger. Nobody makes any audible complaint.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>Everywhere in Russia it was the same: a nation was made sober -by Act of Parliament.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>“Without a murmur of protest,” said the Moscow correspondent of the <i>Times</i>, -“the most drunken city in Europe was transformed into a temple of sobriety, and we -felt that if Russia could thus conquer herself in a night, there was indeed nothing -that might not be accomplished.” And two years later, when the revolution came, we -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>read in the <i>Times</i> this note from Odessa: “Perfect tranquillity continues to prevail -here, although for the moment Odessa is practically without police. The satisfactory -absence of crime may largely be attributed to the sealing up of spirituous liquors.”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>We need not be afraid of Drinkless Revolutions.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But the truth about Russia is almost too incredible to believe, for -it is Prohibition that made the revolution possible; it was stopping drink -that set 170,000,000 people free. We will let a business correspondent -of the <i>Times</i> give evidence; here is what he said on April 21, 1917:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>In one respect it must be said that the Reactionaries saw clearly. They always -claimed that the Tsar had ruined himself by decreeing the abolition of vodka. None -but a sober people could have carried out the Russian Revolution.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The police were, on the other hand, the victims of drink. They had seized the -vodka at the order of the Government, and had kept plentiful supplies for themselves. -Thus the Revolution was in part a struggle between drunken reaction and sober citizens. -Sobriety triumphed.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>The Russian people will not bow down and tie their hands to the -thrones of Europe: do we wonder if they scorn our quailing before -this trade?</p> - -<p class='c009'>Free Russia flings off the dynastic yoke: do we wonder Prohibition -Russia is not much impressed by a nation with a Drink Trade round -its neck?</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>The Soldier’s Home</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The things that will be told against this trade when all the truth -is known will break the heart of those who read. It is well for us that -we cannot know the full truth now; the burden would be too grievous -to be borne in days like these. But if you will go into your street, or -will talk of these things with the next man you meet from one of our -pitiful slums, or will pick up one of those local papers that still have -space to print the truth, you will find the evidence close about you.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We are the guardians of our soldiers’ homes; we are the trustees -of the hope and happiness of their little children; but we let this drink -trade, that takes our people’s food out of their cupboards, turn that -food into the means of death, and sow ruin and destruction through -the land.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But we will call the witnesses to these drink-ruined soldiers’ homes, -these homes that the enemy worse than Germany has shattered and -broken while our men have been fighting for your home and mine. We -will call a few here and there, knowing that for every one called are -hundreds more that can be called, and that beyond all these that are -known there is in this little land a countless host of tragedies as secret -as the grave.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A Tooting soldier whose wife had sent him loving letters to the trenches came -back to surprise her after 18 months. He found another man in possession of his home -and a new baby; and, overcome by the discovery, he gave way to drink and killed -himself.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Balham Coroner, March 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier who had left a comfortable home behind returned from the Front to -find it ruined, with not a bed to lie on, his children never sent to school, his wife all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>the time in publichouses. “I wish I had been shot in the trenches,” he said when he -arrived.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 10, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Outside a publichouse in Liverpool a man was dragging home his drunken wife, -the mother of eleven children. They rolled over and over on the ground, the drunken -women violently resisting the maddened man. Then came up the eldest son, home -from the Front, with five wounds in his body.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Liverpool Post,” March 2, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier came back to his home in London to find his wife drinking his money -away, harbouring another man; one of his children cruelly neglected and the other in -its grave, perished from neglect; and a drunken carman’s baby about to be born in -his home.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Shaftesbury Society Report</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Lance-Corporal heard in the trenches of his wife’s misconduct. His commanding -officer wrote to make inquiries, and the soldier wrote to the Chief Constable a -pitiful letter: “What have I to look forward to at the end of the war?” he said. -“Nothing, only sorrow. I never get a letter to know how my loving son is getting on; -I think it will drive me mad.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He came home, opened the door of his house, threw his kit on the floor, and declared -that he would kill his wife. He put a razor on the table, and his little boy -hid it in a cupboard, but a week later this boy of 12 went home and found his father -and mother lying on the floor, the father drunk, the mother dead. The soldier, drowning -his misery in drink, had strangled his wife. Rousing himself beside her, he said, -as the police found them, “Kiss me, Sally. Aye, but tha are poorly.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had been the best of fathers, said the little boy; the best of soldiers, said his -commanding officer; and the judge declared that such a man, with such a character, -ought not to be with criminals.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Record of Huddersfield Assizes, Autumn 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier asked a London magistrate if he could draw the allowance instead of his -wife, who was in prison for drunkenness and was neglecting his four children. The -magistrate said the only thing was to send the children to the workhouse.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Soldier: “So I am to be a soldier for my King and country while my children -go to the workhouse?” The Magistrate: “That is so, because you have a drunken -wife. I am sorry for you.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sunday Herald,” June 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A seaman gunner, who had been torpedoed and had fought in the trenches, -arrived home to find his wife, in his own words, “filthy drunk,” and his children -utterly deplorable. He reclothed them, but his wife pawned the clothes, though she -had £7 a month. He took his children away, but a crowd of women interfered with -him, and the police were powerless against the mob.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Western Daily Mercury,” July 23, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier just back from the Front was found in the street weeping bitterly on -discovering that his wife was in gaol through drink, and his child, through her neglect, -had been burned.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Statement by Marchioness of Waterford</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier came home from the Front to find that drink had ruined his home, and -his children were being cared for by Glasgow Parish Council. “Hour after hour we -sit on this council,” says the chairman, “listening to case after case, and the cause is -drunkenness, drunkenness, drunkenness. There are 2300 children under the council, -and two thousand of them have parents living.” “Our raw material is the finished -product of the public-house,” says one of these workers.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts from Glasgow Councillors</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A motor mechanic at the Front, hearing that his wife, hitherto a sober woman, -had given way to drink, obtained leave to come home. He found his wife, very drunk, -struggling home with the help of the railings in the street, and neighbours described -her horrible life with other soldiers. The husband obtained a separation for the sake -of his children, and went back to France.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Full facts in “Kent Messenger,” July 31, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A young soldier came from the trenches to spend Christmas in his home in -Sheffield—a teetotal home before the war. He found that his wife had given way to -drink, had deserted one child and disappeared with the other, and that a baby was -to be born which was not his.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts known to the Author</i></div> -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>A miner fighting at the Front came home to find his wife at a publichouse, his -home filthy, and his children cruelly neglected. He was heartbroken. His young wife -frequently left the house from tea-time till midnight, and in order to keep the children -from the fire she had burned them severely with a piece of iron. A respectable-looking -woman, the mother pleaded for a chance, and was led from the dock sobbing -bitterly.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sheffield Independent,” February 21, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A young Yorkshire miner enlisted and left his wife, hitherto sober, with three -children. She took to drink, neglected the home, and is now a dipsomaniac, with two -children not her husband’s.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts known to the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier came home ill from France, hurried from Waterloo to his home, and -found the door locked. He knocked, and his little boy’s voice came—“Is that you, -mother, and are you drunk?” Hearing his father’s voice the excited lad opened the -door. “Where’s mother?” asked his father. “Mother?” said the boy; “she’s drinking. -She comes home drunk night after night now and knocks the kids about. She daren’t -hit <i>me</i>; I’m fair strong, dad; but the other.... And as for baby, she never does -nothing for her. I and Freddy takes turns, but I dunno what to give her to eat -sometimes.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Midnight passed before the mother appeared, helplessly drunk. “Did you expect -me to sit at home weeping for you?” she said. The next morning, broken with tears, -she promised to mend her ways. The soldier went into hospital, and there he had a -letter from his boy. This is part of it:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear Dad, I write to let you know mother is going on awful. She has took all -Fred and Timmy’s clothes to the pawnshop, and she hit Selina on Saturday with the -toasterfork and cut her face. She cried all night, it hurt her so. She is drunk every -night and some nights dussent come back at all. She daren’t hit me, but I am getting -afraid about baby. We are all very hungry and miserable.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The soldier got leave, found his wife had disappeared, and, finding charity for his -four little ones, he left his ruined home and went back to the hospital.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in possession of the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A working-man at Gravesend went to the Front, leaving behind a wife and three -children, the baby lately born. His wife started drinking away her allowance, neglected -her home, and, full of remorse and shame for the disgrace she had brought on the man -who was in the trenches, she hanged herself. The man came home to find waiting for -him three motherless children, and one of the most pathetic letters a man has ever -had to read.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Gravesend Coroner, 1916</i></div> - -</div> - -<h3 class='c011'>Mothers and Children</h3> - -<p class='c012'>It is easy to understand the pitiful appeal of 500 women out of -Holloway Prison who begged the Duchess of Bedford to help to close -all public-houses during the war. They know in their hearts of tragedies -such as these, in which mothers and children die while the fathers -fight and the Drink Trade goes on merrily.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A soldier’s wife in Sunderland drew £12 arrears of Army pay, and she and her -mother began to drink it away. She drew her pay on Friday, was carried home drunk -on Saturday, gave birth to twins on Sunday morning, and died on Sunday night. The -twins died a week or two after, and a week or two after that the soldier came home -from the trenches to find his family in the grave.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Sunderland papers, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Two women went drinking in Chester on a Sunday night, a soldier’s mother and a -soldier’s wife. They had five whiskies each, and fell drunk in the street. One slept -all night on a sofa, and the other lay on the floor, shouting and swearing. Her husband -propped her up with a mat, and for hours she lay shrieking. In the morning she -was dead. The publican was fined £5.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Chester Chronicle,” February 17, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The wife of a Yorkshire soldier was drowned while drunk at Sheffield. She -started drinking with another soldier’s wife disappeared with a drunken man, and her -death was a mystery.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sheffield Independent,” April 26, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>At an inquest on the bodies of a soldier’s twin children, both dead from chronic -wasting, it was stated that the mother had 34<i>s.</i> a week, and both she and her husband -drank. The mother had had four children in fifteen months, and all were dead.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Battersea Coroner, October 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>In one street in London where there were one day four convictions for drunkenness, -a woman carried a sick baby into a public house. As she stood at the bar the -little baby died, but the mother went on drinking, with the dead child in her arms.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Charity Organisation Society</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The wife of a highly-esteemed sergeant-major fighting in France was found lying -drunk. Her four children, shockingly neglected, were put in a home, but she took -them out, went on drinking, and received soldiers at her house. In a few weeks her -husband heard in the trenches that his wife had died from drinking.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of West Surrey Coroner, March 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier left three children at home. He had been earning £1 a week, but his -wife received 32<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week. She drank it away, neglected the children, and died in -an asylum while her husband was in France.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Claybury Asylum</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The little child of a soldier in France died in Guy’s Hospital from burns. The -mother said she could not buy a fireguard. While she was absent the baby was burned, -and the mother, returning in a drunken state carrying a can of beer, said, “A good job!”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Southwark Coroner, December 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier’s widow with six children, an Army pension of 30<i>s.</i> a week, and her -eldest boy’s wages of 30<i>s.</i>, drinks every night with a married man who has a respectable, -clean, and sober wife with eight children and a ninth lately born—born prematurely -as a result of her husband’s beating her. The child bore the marks of his -violence, and died in two months.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Shaftesbury Society</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The young wife of a soldier was brought from prison to be tried for manslaughter -of her baby, who had died in the infirmary from neglect. She spent her time in the -publichouses, and laughed when the children were taken to the infirmary. She went -out one day to fetch a bottle of whisky and as she drank with a neighbour she said -she knew the baby would die. The doctor said the child’s skin was hanging in folds -on the bones.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in the “Observer,” January 23, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier’s wife drank continuously while her child wasted away, left the tiny baby -alone in the house while she went for beer, and a policeman found her lying drunk -across the dead child’s body.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Barnsley Coroner, November, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The mother of two children whose father was fighting in France gave way to -drink in his absence, neglected her children and left them in grave moral danger, and -committed suicide.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of an Orphan Home</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier’s baby starved slowly to death as the mother drank away his pay, and -while the child lay in its coffin the mother was out drinking.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>West Bromwich Police Records, June 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A munition worker at Newcastle was grievously upset by the drinking habits of -his wife. The police left a summons for her and she disappeared. Two days later -her body was found in the Tyne. The man broke down at the inquest, saying, between -his sobs: “She was such a good wife to me for 20 years, and reared a good family -before she took to drink.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Newcastle Coroner, Summer 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The wife of a corporation workman at Sheffield, home from the trenches with -six gunshot wounds and three pieces of shell in his body, found that his wife had given -way to drink and starved her five children. She was sent to prison for six months.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of Sheffield, November 3, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier’s wife who had spent the greater part of £100 Army money in drink was -sent to prison for neglecting her children. Almost everything in the house was pawned, -including the children’s clothes; and the woman began to drink at five o’clock in the -morning, and went on drinking all day.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 10, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier’s wife in Monmouthshire, with £3 9<i>s.</i> a week, was found sodden with -drink, while the soldier’s eight children were in rags starving by day and huddling up -in one bed by night.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Westminster Gazette,” July 22, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>A smart tidy woman in a London suburb, whose husband is fighting in Mesopotamia, -has £2 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week. She used to love her children and had a happy home, -but she drinks away her Army pay, lives with a married man who has six children, -and has become a drunken slattern. The other wife is beaten and neglected, and the -soldier’s children have gone to the workhouse.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Shaftesbury Society</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The four children of a soldier in Dublin were found hungry and shivering with cold -while the mother was drinking. Several times she had let her baby fall while reeling -with it in the street.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Dublin Evening Herald,” October 20, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>At the trial of a soldier’s wife for drinking and neglecting seven children, it was -stated that a child of eleven was left in charge of a baby a fortnight old while the -mother was drinking. At night all the children were heard screaming. The house was -in utter darkness, and there was an escape of gas. Some men went in and turned off -the gas, and at last the mother came stumbling out of a publichouse across the road.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sheffield Star,” November 25, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>“Your husband is fighting for his country, and his children have the right to be -protected,” said the Chairman of the Chesterfield Bench to a soldier’s wife. Her -children were found starving while she was drinking, and one day the little boy of -three was found crouching naked inside the fender, trying to get warm. The police -described the house as foul from top to bottom, with a heap of horrible rags for a bed, -and a food cupboard that made the house unendurable when the door was opened.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Yorkshire Telegraph,” March 24, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The wife of a missing soldier was sent to prison at Chesterfield for neglecting -three children between 13 years and 16 weeks old. She had gone astray through drink, -and the youngest child, born under terrible conditions, was not her husband’s. It was -found lying on a filthy bed, and its drunken mother, to satisfy its pangs of hunger, had -given it pennyworths of laudanum. Eleven people slept in two foul bedrooms.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Chesterfield Police Records, October 9, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Five hundred children of soldiers are being cared for in the great Homes founded -by Mr. Quarrier in Scotland, and most of them are there because of drinking mothers.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Reports</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier’s wife at Biggleswade spent her allowance on drink and left her three -children locked up in the house for days at a time.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Court Records of Biggleswade, September 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier’s wife was found reeling in the streets of Dublin with a baby in her -arms. At her home were found four other children, cruelly neglected.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Dublin Mail,” August 16, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Nineteen hundred children of soldiers have come into the care of the N.S.P.C.C., -mainly through drink, since the war began.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of the N.S.P.C.C.</i></div> - -</div> - -<h3 class='c011'>The Ruined Wives</h3> - -<p class='c012'>Who does not remember the terrible rush for the last drop of drink -when Prohibition seemed to be coming with the New Year? Long -queues of women besieged the whisky shops in Glasgow. There were -women of all ages, said the <i>Daily Mail</i>, tottering in grey hairs, young -wives with babies in their arms, and men of the loafer type. “There -was not a respectable citizen,” says the <i>Mail</i>, “who did not deplore this -discreditable scene, but the remarks of passers-by provoked only torrents -of insult.” The promise of the new year and the new Government, -alas, was not fulfilled, and now in place of Drink Queues we have Food -Queues. Let us see what drink is doing among our soldiers’ wives:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>Of 3000 soldiers’ wives being cared for in South London, 2000 are splendid, while -1000 are sinking daily to lower and lower levels through drink.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Shaftesbury Society</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>A soldier’s wife, with a separation allowance of 32<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week, drank most of it -away, ruined her home, neglected her children, and became a lunatic.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Claybury Asylum</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A young soldier’s wife, hitherto “quite an elegant type,” is rapidly becoming a -drunkard. Women hitherto sober have not the courage to keep from women’s drinking -parties, and young girls come out of factories and go to publichouses in little groups.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Charity Organisation Society</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Outside a public house in Dublin 15 small children were crying in the cold, waiting -for their mothers. Ninety-four drunken women came out in 25 minutes. There were -ten drunken soldiers, and two girls of 15 were thrown into the street hopelessly drunk.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>In Dundee over 170 wives of soldiers gave way to drink last year, and cruelly -neglected their homes.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of the N. S. P. C. C.</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier in the trenches received a letter from his little boy, which he sent to -London with a pitiful appeal for help.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Kindly do what you can for me and the well-being and welfare of my four beautiful -children,” the poor soldier wrote. “I am enclosing a fearful letter I have received -from my poor little lad, 14-1/2, the first and only letter I have received from him. -Sir, I shall be most anxiously awaiting your reply, for this letter is the greatest blow -I have ever received.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>This is the little boy’s letter:</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Dear Dad: Just a line to let you know how everything is at home. -Mother is drunk for a fortnight and sober for a week for months and -months. I’ve stuck it now for seven months, and can’t stick it any -longer. I tried to get into the Navy and passed all the tests, but mother -would not sign the papers, for which I am sorry. If mum would sign -I could go away to Portsmouth on Thursday, but she will not. At -the present moment she is half drunk and keeps jawing me so that I -could knife meself. I’ve lost my new job because mum would not wake -me in the morning, and nothing for breakfast, and had to get mine and -the children’s tea at tea-time. It pains me to write like this, but I -can’t help it. I now seek your advice as to what to do. I hope <i>you</i> -will enjoy Xmas, although there is not much hope for us. I now conclude -with fondest love, X. Your heartbroken Son, Leslie.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A stream of nearly 15,000 men and women poured into 58 publichouses in Birmingham -in less than four hours; over 6,000 were women. Into one house the people -streamed at nearly 500 an hour.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Review of Reviews,” October 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>For months some wives of soldiers and sailors in Scotland were never really -sober. “We have done our best,” says a worker among them, “going to their homes -and doing all in our power, but it beats us.” In 23 families, with 178 children born, -61 were dead.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts told to Secretary for Scotland, July 1916</i></div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c000'> - <div>Will some Member of Parliament please ask</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'><b>whether the ships that have brought in food for destruction by the drink -trade could not have brought in a large proportion of the 3,500,000 tons -of wheat now waiting for ships in Australia and the 2,000,000 tons waiting -in Canada?</b></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span> - <h2 class='c007'>The Roll of the Dead</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>No more pitiful record of the war is there than that unnumbered -roll of men lured from our armies by this liquor trade, and cast into -dishonoured graves. We can take only a few of them.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A number of soldiers at Ormskirk came into camp drunk on Christmas night. A -request for quiet led to a fight, and one of the men was struck two blows and was -dead the next morning.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 28, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Liverpool soldier, drinking continuously, had overstayed his leave, and in a -quarrel about this he stabbed his brother dead.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Liverpool Courier,” April 20, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier invalided from France, having recovered from his wounds, gave way to -drink, assaulted an officer, and hanged himself in his prison cell.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” April 11, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A young lieutenant shot himself in an hotel near Trafalgar Square, and among -the documents read at the inquest was a letter striking him off his battalion for -drinking and gross carelessness.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” October 27, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A captain in the Army ruined by drink, with a fine record of military service, -started drinking on his way to a shooting range in London, and in a struggle he shot -a detective dead.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” September 20, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>In the Scottish Express, between Doncaster and Selby, a drunken corporal of the -Coldstream Guards was showing his rifle to a friend when it went off, the bullet killing -a munitions works director in the next compartment, and narrowly escaping a lady in -the compartment beyond. The corporal had in his pocket a bottle of whisky, which -was freely handed round.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” December 3, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier who had been drinking heavily was placed in the guard room, and died -after a night of groaning, evidently as the result of a fall.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Greenwich Coroner, January 1, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A young soldier arriving from India on Christmas morning was arrested three -days later, after a drunken fight in which a man was killed.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Westminster Police Records, December 28, 1914</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier spent a day’s leave in Manchester, ate and drank very heavily, and was -found dead the next morning from choking.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Manchester Coroner, December 28, 1914</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier home on leave was found drunk with his wife. They had been throwing -pots at one another, and on Christmas morning the woman was found dead with a -wound in her head.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Oldham Coroner, December 24, 1914</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Three gunners had four drinks each of rum, and at midnight lay down to sleep in -a garden at Lee, where one was found dying from alcohol.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Local Papers at Lee, June 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier died from alcohol in a house where drink was unlawfully sold.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Manchester Guardian,” April 8, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A private in the Welsh Fusiliers died from alcohol, cold and exposure. He left a -publichouse with a 4<i>s.</i> bottle of whisky, and was found dead on the roadside next -morning, with the bottle almost empty.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” April 13, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>An old man who was said to be in a drunken condition was wounded in a fall with -a soldier from Gallipoli, and died a few days after.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Mail,” January 17, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>An elderly man, seeing a drunken soldier lying in the street, went to his assistance, -and was killed in a disturbance that followed.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Record of Yorkshire Assizes, November 21, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier was found drowned in the Trent. He was described as a good man at -his work, but not steady, and had been drinking.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Newark Advertiser,” August 4, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>A terrible disturbance occurred in a camp at Portland Reservoir after the closing -of the canteen one Sunday night. A large number of men who had been drinking -created a disturbance, in which bricks and stones were used, a tent collapsed, and the -officers were called to quell the riot. The captain, drawing his revolver, rushed with -two lieutenants into a hut where men were shouting and struggling, but appeals had no -effect—the men “did not appear to hear or recognize their officers,” and one man raised -his rifle and took aim at them. At least fifty shots were fired, and a young corporal -fired many shots through the window into the darkness. In the morning a soldier was -found dead. Nobody knew who shot him, but the corporal thought he must have done.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Dorset Assizes, Spring 1915</i></div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c000'> - <div>Will some Member of Parliament please ask</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'><b>whether it is true that more food is being destroyed each week in breweries -and distilleries than by submarines?</b></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>The New Drinkers</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“<i>No complaints have reached the War Office of youths who were -total abstainers having become confirmed drunkards since enlistment.</i>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>So we are told in the House of Commons. The records of the War -Office are clearly incomplete, and the information from the camps may -here be supplemented by unchallengeable witnesses of what happens -in the horrible drink canteens run by the Army Council.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A soldier who was wounded at La Bassée, a total abstainer until then, was sentenced -at the Old Bailey for killing his uncle while drunk. He was a newsvendor, -aged 21, and had no memory of the tragedy in which he killed his uncle at a Christmas -party.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” January 13, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A private in the Royal Scots Fusileers, aged 17, was charged with murdering a -bugler boy, aged 16, in his regiment. The private became mad drunk in the camp -canteen, went back to his hut, locked himself in and fired two shots, one of which -entered another hut and killed the bugler. “Was there no one with power to say how -much drink should be given?” asked the judge, and an officer said there was no one. -“Then it was high time power was given to the commanding officer,” said the judge. -“Was there to be no restraining hand to prevent young boys from fuddling themselves -in canteens?”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in the “Times,” November 21, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>An old man sat in a tram in great distress. He had lost his boy at the Front. -When he joined the Army he had never tasted alcohol, but when he came home on -leave to see his mother he was drunk every night. He was drunk the night he went -away, and in three days he was dead. “The last we saw of him,” said the poor old -man between his sobs, “was his going away drunk, and his mother, who is old-fashioned -in her faith, cannot get it out of her mind that no drunkard can enter the -Kingdom of God.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts told by Dr. Norman Maclean</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Many young officers, called upon to share the wine bill at mess, naturally say, “If I -have to pay I may as well drink my share,” and one man accounted for ten glasses of -champagne. On a Guest night in his mess several more “were under the table.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Dublin Daily Express,” April 1916.</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A boy got his V.C., and came home wounded. The publican in his street sounded -his praises in the taproom, where they subscribed to the bar for 120 pints for him -when he arrived. He came home and began to drink it, and was nearly dead with it -before he was rescued.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts related by Bishop of Lincoln</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>When the Scottish Horse Brigade were at Perth whisky was literally forced down -the men, and they were inundated with floods of bad women.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Brigadier-General Lord Tullibardine</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A teetotal household had two boys in an officers’ training camp, and they gave -pitiable accounts of drinking. Boys from school had a drunken sergeant put over -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>them, and a canteen in the midst of them. “Our boys never saw drink before,” one -father wrote.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>From a letter to Dr. Norman Maclean</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A boy of 17, discharged from the Navy, spent 8<i>s.</i> one night on beer and rum, and -created a disturbance in a workshop at Sheffield.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sheffield Star,” November 11, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Mr. Justice Atkin, charging the Grand Jury at Bristol, said that in nearly every -case where a soldier was tried in the Western Circuit the defence was drink. One lad -of 18 was treated to eight pints of beer in two hours, and did not know what happened. -That sort of thing, said the judge, must seriously impair the efficiency of the troops -when sent to the Front.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Record of Bristol Assizes, Autumn 1914</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Two boys, 15 and 17, were fined for being drunk in munition works. One was discovered -just in time to save him from carrying molten liquid.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Birmingham Munitions Tribunal, Dec. 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>“A boy joined the Royal Navy as a carpenter, living in barracks and working on -shore. Every day he was given ‘grog’ for his rations, although he never asked for it -and never took it.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in letter to the Author</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>Such are the tragedies of boys handed over in our camps to drink -and its temptations. What of the girls in our munition shops? They -have learned to drink in thousands since the war began—respectable -girls leaving home to go into munitions, respectable young wives alone -at home. With no restraining hand upon them, with new companionships -and pocket-money flowing freely, it is not surprising the temptation -should be too strong for them. We can take only one or two cases.</p> -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c012'>The girl-wife of a Cardiff seaman died in the street from exposure after drinking -in publichouses with other girls.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Pontypridd Coroner, December 27, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A publican at Lincoln was fined £5 for allowing children to be drunk on his -premises. Ruth Onyon, 14, and Rose Herrick, 16, were found in his house with a -soldier. They had been in five houses and had ten drinks each and reached home helplessly -drunk.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sheffield Daily Telegraph,” Sept. 1, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A number of cartridge workers were summoned for taking drink into a munition -works. One young woman was led to the surgery drunk at half-past four in the -morning; another was discharged because she could not stand. Sixteen girls subscribed -for four bottles of wine and whisky.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Leeds Munitions Tribunal, April 28, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Two girls of 16 and 17 were fined for being helplessly drunk in an explosive -works, the magistrates pointing out that their conduct imperilled the lives of other -workers.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Coventry Munitions Tribunal July 24, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The men and girls at a large armament works drank all night. Girls would lurch -into the dormitory dead drunk at 2 a. m.; one lady was up till 4 a. m. letting in drunken -girls. As a result of drunkenness there was an explosion at these works, two men -being killed and six injured.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Spectator,” Jan. 20, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Dublin publichouse was found full of girls and soldiers, all drunk. Three -drunken girls were taken away by six soldiers.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>In half an hour 367 girls entered Birmingham publichouses, scores under 18. Stout -and beer were chiefly drunk, but whisky and water also, and some port wine. Ten -young girls were quite drunk.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Birmingham Daily Post”</i></div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c000'> - <div>Will some Member of Parliament please ask,</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'><b>in view of the fact that American soldiers are not to touch alcohol, what -arrangements the Government proposes to make for them in this -country?</b></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span> - <h2 class='c007'>Back to the Homeland</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Everywhere we hope and pray for peace, for the day when the men -will come home; but we may dread the day if the men come home to -drink and its temptations. The sudden release of millions of men, the -certain reaction after the terrible stress of these three years, is fearful -to contemplate with the door of the tap-room open. There would be -an end of civilization itself for days and weeks and months, and for -many a town at home the Peace would be worse than the War.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We owe it to these men to listen to the warning of the Prison Commissioners -who printed these words in their report last year:</p> - -<p class='c009'><b>When war is succeeded by peace there will come a time of trial -for those who have never turned their backs to a bodily enemy. With -the passing of military discipline our brave fellows will be tempted to -forget the hardships and miseries of the trenches in a burst of uncontrolled -pleasure and license, and, if trade be bad and work difficult to -obtain, the lapse may, if not checked, become a step on a downward -career.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>It is not imagination merely. Judges, coroners, police, and all who -face the crime and misery of life, know well the bitter things that happen -when men come home without restraint. There are witnesses innumerable. -Let us hear a few of them.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A captain in the Royal Flying Corps drove a motor-car through London, knocked -a man down, drove on, and ignored the police, who eventually mounted the footboard -and found the officer drunk.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Bow Street Police Records, June 3, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A lance-corporal on Chesterfield station was so drunk that he walked off the platform -and fell on the line as a passenger train came up.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Chesterfield Police Records, June 2, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A corporal of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, leaving the Front with 150 -rounds of ammunition and his service rifle, came out drunk into the streets of West -Ham and began firing his rifle.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” July 10, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier who had received a cartridge from his son at the Front, put it in his rifle, -and while drunk fired it in the streets of Manchester.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Manchester Police Records, January 27, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>In the early hours of the morning two unarmed soldiers were fired at in Woolwich -by a drunken soldier, who chased them for a long distance, firing shots all the time, -until he was arrested.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Alliance News,” February, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Drunkenness among soldiers and sailors is appalling. Unoffending travellers are -delayed by drunken sentries. Sailors landing after weeks of arduous toil in the North -Sea find it easy to get so drunk that some are drowned, some die from exposure, and -many return to their ships in a condition of helpless inebriety.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Inverness Courier,” May 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Two drunken soldiers entered the parish church at Codford, set fire to the vestry, -threw down the altar cross and candlestick, broke a stained-glass window, and tore -leaves out of a Bible 200 years old.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” April 3, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A drunken soldier at Cannock was imprisoned for drawing his bayonet in the -streets. “If I meet a policeman I will murder the dog,” he said, and, meeting one, he -threatened to cut off his head.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records at Cannock, March 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>400 soldiers tried to get a drunken man from the police in Grantham.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Grimsby News,” July 30, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>A drunken sergeant was found forcibly detaining a girl at Hornsey. On the -police interfering, the drunken soldier drew his bayonet.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” September 7, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Three splendid-looking fellows, minesweepers, were traveling on the Highland -Railway. “All were married men,” said a fellow passenger, “happy and proud of their -homes, and they spoke with ache still in their hearts something of their lives and work. -Well, these men succumbed during the journey. A change of trains was their opportunity, -and I left them in a nearly helpless condition.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “The Spectator,” April 8, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A lady visited a soldier’s wife and found her at home with all her clothes in pawn. -Her husband and brother had both been home from the Front, and in one week had -spent £8 on drink.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in the “Cork Constitution,” Dec. 10, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A labourer, home from tunnelling work at the Front, was fined 13<i>s.</i> for drunkenness -on his 33rd appearance, having spent £45 in seven days.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” Oct. 11, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A disabled soldier was selling papers in Kingsway, London. He was proud of his -military record and the character his colonel gave him. He was trying to compound -for a pension; he thought he would settle for £50. “Mind you,” said he “there is not -a better character in London than mine, and I shall get the £50. Then I shall have a -month’s booze.” “What, with that fine character of yours?” a gentleman said to him. -“Yes,” said the man, “when I came home, and could leave the hospital, there was £50 -due to me, and I had a regular booze.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts known to the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier with twelve years’ clean record in the Army was sentenced for felony -after being made drunk by his friends.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of Southport, January 9, 1915</i></div> - -</div> -<p class='c012'>No Government has ever received more warnings than the three -war Governments have received concerning drink. There is no room -for them here, but we may call a few witnesses such as cannot be ignored -by a nation looking forward to the day when millions of men -will be home again.</p> -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c012'>A house in Westminster reeked with filth and drink and drunken overseas soldiers, -“and it would be better,” said the Crown Solicitor, “if power were given to the police -to sweep such places off the earth.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Westminster Police Records, Aug. 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A sapper seaman was found dead at the quay. Another seaman said his friend had -seven drinks. They left the publichouse arm-in-arm, and went to the quay. There he -saw a corporal, who was boatswain for the night, and was drunk. Leaving the sapper, -he got the corporal into the boat, and went back for his friend, but the sapper had -disappeared.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The lieutenant: “The deceased was one of the quietest boys who had ever been -on the ship, and one of the best oarsmen. The whole trouble was that it was pay day.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Coroner: “Prohibition during the war would be a blessing to all. It seems -to be a very rotten state of affairs.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The foreman: “Drink.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The lieutenant: “Prohibition would be the best thing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Coroner: “This poor man, unfortunately, is one of many.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Western Daily Mercury,” January 8, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A publican at Dover was fined £20 for selling a bottle of whisky to a sailor. The -Admiral said drink undermined the efficiency of the patrol vessels, and those who -supplied it directly assisted the enemy, and might be the cause of the loss of very -many lives.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of Dover, October 6, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A private in the Northumberland Fusiliers, aged 23, was charged with burglary -while drunk. His father and three brothers were in the Army. He took part in the -battle of Loos, was wounded at Salonika, and was recommended for distinction for -helping to save a wounded officer.</p> - -<p class='c009'>During the whole of Christmas leave he was drinking, made drunk by his friends -who were probably proud of his having held part of a trench against a German -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>bombing party. His captain described him as a good soldier in peace, and brave in -action—a man whose disgrace would be felt by the regiment.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mr. Justice Rowlatt said everyone was hoping for the time when millions of brave -men would come home after facing incredible dangers, and we must look forward -almost with terror to having these men exposed to drink and its temptations. What -would be the state of the country in such a case unless we could make a clean sweep -of drink? We should have to face this question over and over again, and the sooner -we faced it the better.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Derbyshire Assizes, February 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Whoever allowed soldiers or sailors to drink to excess, said the Mayor of Tynemouth, -should be tried by court-martial for treason. He would be recreant in his duty -to God, to himself, and to the citizens, if he did not call attention to the brutalising of -so many townspeople and the callous conduct of the “waster” element in the drink -trade. He had no quarrel with those who conducted their business properly.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Tynemouth papers, February, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The Aldershot command appealed for the closing of half the publichouses, to save -the men from temptation when the troops are demobilised and return with their -pockets full of money.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Record of Workingham Licensing Sessions, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The <i>Army and Navy Gazette</i>, in an article disapproving of the Prohibition Campaign, -issues a terrible warning which should be printed on the door of the room in -which the Army Council meets. These are its words:</p> - -</div> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c009'>“It is on record that towards the end of the siege of Sebastopol rum was made -too regular an issue, with the result that almost every soldier who survived to -return home became a drunkard.”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>The siege of Sebastopol lasted less than a year, and that is the -work of the rum issue for a few months. If rum does that in months, -what will it do in years?</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>Into the Firing Line</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Lord Kitchener is dead, but there are two things that are with us -still—that rare little note that he gave to his men as they went out, -warning them of drink; and that infamous note sent out by a drink -firm in London, begging our people to send out drink to our men. They -can guarantee it right up to the firing line, they say, and even when -our shells could not get there through drink, drink seems to have found -its way. It can get on to transports when the Ministry of Munitions -is waiting urgently for shipping space; it can commandeer our vans -and horses and trains when these mean life or death to us; it seems -to get past any regulation; it goes about with the power of a king, doing -its work where it will.</p> -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c012'>It is regrettable that our troops at the Front cannot get more British Beer.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='small'> - -<div class='c010'>Managing Director of Allsopps, July 14, 1916</div> - -<p class='c012'>Dear Sir, In answer to your inquiry, the only limitation in the size of cases consigned -to officers in the Expeditionary Force is that they must not exceed 1 cwt.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We can guarantee delivery right into the front trenches. The cases are handed -over at Southampton to the Military Forwarding Officer, and the A.S.C. see them -right through. We are shipping hundreds of cases weekly. Yours faithfully,</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Letter from a Wine and Spirit firm in London</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>So drink finds its way to the front, to weaken our troops, with all -their matchless heroism. Let us call the witnesses who have seen the -work it does.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span></div> -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>Soldiers at the front, tried for drunkenness, have declared that they have received -drink from home. Men sometimes receive flasks in the trenches. They are exhausted, -the stimulant revives them for a minute or two, and the harm is done. “And then -(says Col. Crozier) they get about two years’ hard labour.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Letter from Colonel Crozier, commanding 9th Royal Irish Rifles</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>As a result of a Court-martial investigating charges of excessive drinking among -the officers of a regiment at the Front, the Army Council removed the commanding -officer from his post.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Court-martials, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>In the torrid climate of Mesopotamia, in defiance of all military medical history, -rum was issued to the men instead of food and sterile water, and the presence of -cholera, dysentery and other diseases, was attributed to this by Sir Victor Horsley. -“Our gross failures and stupidity,” he said, “are in my opinion due to whisky affecting -the intellectual organs and clearness of our leaders. They do not realise that alcohol -in small doses acts as a brake on the brain.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in a letter from Sir Victor Horsley, May 13, 1916</i></div> - -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/image028.jpg' alt='THE JUNKER’S LITTLE BROTHER' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE JUNKER’S LITTLE BROTHER</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c012'>Battalion Headquarters—colonel and chaplain present. Enter Adjutant: “The -rum ration is due tonight, sir; am I to distribute it?” The colonel (nobly and in a -voice audible all over the trench): “No! Damn the rum! To hell with the rum!”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Chaplain’s letter in “Alliance News,” June 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>At a court-martial in Newcastle, a sergeant-major, charged with misappropriating -funds of the sergeant’s mess, pleaded that during this period a resolution of the mess -had come into effect, providing free drinks during Christmas and the New Year.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” April 17, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>“In the Flying Services one has seen more than one good man go to the dogs -through drink, or become fat and flabby and useless through just the excess of alcohol -which falls short of taking to drink in the usual acceptance of the term. More men -take to drink because of the ‘have another’ custom than because they like or need -alcohol, and simple Prohibition would stop all this nonsense straight away. This -kindly note is not the outpouring of a teetotal fanatic, for I suppose I have paid in -my time rather more than my share of the nation’s drink-bill; it is merely a perfectly -sound argument in favour of increasing the nation’s efficiency at the expense of its -chief bad habit.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>The Editor of “The Aeroplane”</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A lieutenant in the trenches, knowing that the rum ration made him cold, threw -his rum on the ground. His captain saw him, and threatened to report him. “You -do, sir,” said the lieutenant, “and I will report you for being drunk on duty.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in possession of the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A seaman serving on a ship in Cork Harbour died from alcohol. Found drunk -and unknown, he was put on a stretcher and died.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 9, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>“Over three-quarters of the court-martials I have had anything to do with are due -directly or indirectly to drunkenness. Many thousands of competent N.C.O.s and -soldiers have been punished, and become useless to the nation during their punishment, -as a result of drink.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have never been a teetotaler, and have rather opposed the radical temperance -agitation, but am now changing my views as I see our success over here hampered -and our progress towards victory retarded so obviously by drink.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Letter from a Lieut.-Colonel at the Front, seen by the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The captain of a British merchant ship, drunk on the bridge, ordered his chief -gunner to fire 50 rounds of shell at nothing. The gunner fired four rounds to appease -him. Going through the Mediterranean, the drunken captain ordered his gunner to -fire at a British hospital ship, and the incident led to a struggle for life, which ended -in the captain’s being put in irons, tried, and sentenced to five years’ penal servitude.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Record of Devon Assizes, Exeter, February 2, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>An officer was left in charge of a British ship. Mad with drink, he went among -the men and shot one dead. He is now in an asylum.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Case reported to the Admiralty</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The crew of a Dutch ship arriving in the Tyne was placed under a naval guard -after a drunken riot in which three were killed.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” September 14, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The captain of a Norwegian barque mysteriously disappeared, and the vessel -arrived in port from the North Sea. The mate, who had been drinking heavily, was -seen, with a hammer in his hand, with the captain in a corner, bleeding from wounds -about the head.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” April 8, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A seaman ashore in Glasgow, “wild with drink and passion,” was terribly wounded -in a quarrel in a public-house, and died the same night. A youth of 19 was sentenced -to five years’ penal servitude.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Edinburgh High Court, Dec. 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A barge-loader at West India Docks died from alcohol, and three other men were -removed in an ambulance after drinking rum.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” May 9, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Orders were given on a steamer for the boats to be swung out in readiness for -submarines. The first and second officer, having been drinking, could not do their duty.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Liverpool Marine Board, April 13, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The jury returned a verdict of murder against a youth of 19 who, after drinking -one night, went on to his ship and killed the second officer.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Hull Coroner, April 24, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A drunken captain in command of a drifter landed with an armed party on the -Isle of Man. He posted the men on the quay, and gave them orders to allow no one -to pass. Declaring he would shoot every person who came within reach, he fired twice, -and threatened to kill two police officers.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Times,” October 6, 1916</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>Such is the work of drink wherever it finds a soldier to entrap—the -drink the Navy carries free from Southampton to the trenches; and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>from America comes the news, as this page is being written, that the -Army and the Navy of our Western Ally, like the Army and the Navy -of our Eastern Ally, are to be under Total Prohibition.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>Will some Member of Parliament please ask</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'><b>how much bread is destroyed each week to make beer for German internment -camps in this country?</b></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>Drink and the Red Cross</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>If the full story could ever be told of the national tragedy of drink -and the war there would be no more ghastly chapter than that which -would tell how drink fought the Red Cross; how, without pity, it hindered -the work of mercy that is the general consolation of the world -in days like these.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We are coming to a famine not only in food, but in doctors. The -death-roll has been heavy beyond all parallel; the strain on the medical -services has been almost too great to be borne, and we look anxiously -round to know where the doctors and nurses will come from. With -Prohibition the problem would be largely solved, for the ordinary burden -of life would be largely lifted from our doctors and hospitals, and thousands -of men and women would be free to give themselves to the war -instead of mending up and patching up the sordid effects of drink. A -rich brewer gave a donation for extending a hospital. “Ah! but we -should not have to extend if he would shut up his public-houses,” said -a doctor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It is easy to see how drink is telling all the time against our doctors, -our nurses, and our hospitals everywhere. Let us call a few -witnesses.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>Somebody gave a glass of neat whisky to two wounded men at a garden party in -Tottenham. Both were drunk when the brake came to take them home, and one died -on the way.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sheffield Telegraph,” September 3, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Three wounded soldiers at Oxford were overcome by four bottles of rum smuggled -into the hospital by visitors, and one of the men died.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Oxford Coroner, January 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A wounded soldier asked for two hours’ leave, came back in four hours drunk with -whisky, and died after a terrible night in the hospital.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Mail”</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Two limbless soldiers were found helplessly drunk on the pavement at Brighton. -A publican was fined £20.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” November 25, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A wounded soldier, mentioned in despatches, was charged with causing the death -of a soldier with whom he had been drinking. Reeling under a heavy blow, the injured -man was helped to bed, but when the bugle sounded in the morning he was dead.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 21, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier, aged 29, with a gunshot wound in his arm, died from alcohol at Oxford. -One Sunday night he and two other wounded soldiers consumed four bottles of rum -brought into the hospital.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Oxford Coroner, January 10, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Three soldiers in hospital uniform were found lying helplessly drunk on the tramlines -of Sheffield. Two were back from the Dardanelles.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Sheffield Star,” March 2, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Seamen on a ship bringing wounded to England from Boulogne were so drunk -that they interfered with the stretcher bearers, and one fell across a wounded soldier -lying on deck.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of Southampton, May 14, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>There was a paralysed and helpless man who was found hopelessly drunk in -hospital after his friends had visited him.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Statement by Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred Pearce Gould</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>An officer who has trained hundreds of men for the ambulance corps declared that -a large percentage of wounded are in a very nervous condition, in which alcohol means -collapse and almost certain death.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Quoted in “Daily Mail”</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Lying helpless at a London station, moaning on the ground in drunken delirium, -was a lad in hospital blue who had, in truth, been wounded by his friends. Drink was -taking him again through the worst of his experiences, and his mental pain was pitiable -to see.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in the “Globe,” January, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Two drunken soldiers from Gallipoli made what a doctor described as the most -savage attack he ever saw on a civilian. They held a young man’s head against a wall -and pounded him unmercifully.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” August 19, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A party of soldiers were seriously injured in a struggle to arrest a drunken private -at Pontefract. The publican called on the men in his taproom to rescue the private, but -the sergeants drove them off.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” October 5, 1914</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A sergeant of a Welsh regiment, invited to drink by friends in Waterloo Road, -was picked up as he lay senseless, his pulse beating feebly, his eyes wide open, and his -body starving with cold.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” February 14, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A drunken man rushed from a publichouse and kicked a soldier unconscious. The -military police, chasing the man, were stoned. Four soldiers were injured, one having -his head cut open, and the military were ordered to clear the place with fixed bayonets.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” August 11, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The medical officer in charge of the Mental Block of a large military hospital said -to the Colonel: “I have the worst job of all, and it is through Drink, Drink, Drink! -Men recover fairly soon from shell shock, but officers, especially the younger ones, who -habitually take wines and spirits, are subject to relapses every few days. It is awful!”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “National Temperance Quarterly,” May 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Of the thirty war hospitals in Hertfordshire, with 8000 men passing through them -in the first thirty months of the war, there is not one that has not had trouble with -drink.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts known to the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A doctor from a Canadian hospital said a large percentage of their troops had had -to be sent back to Canada rendered permanently insane through the action of alcohol.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” October 31, 1916</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>One terrible truth remains to be told of the crime of drink against -the Red Cross. The most blessed thing in all the world today is alcohol, -for it makes chloroform and ether, which soothe the pain of men. -We cannot get enough of either of these consoling drugs, yet we go -on wasting precious food to make more alcohol <i>to add to the sum of -misery and pain</i>.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>Will some Member of Parliament please ask</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'><b>whether the bread ration applies equally to all; or if it may be exceeded -if the excess is drunk instead of being eaten?</b></p> - -<div class='smaller'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>and</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'><b>how many brewers’ vats have been imported this year on ships which -had no room for urgent munitions of war?</b></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span> - <h2 class='c007'>Stabbing the Army in the Back</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>All the world is learning now that the drink trade is the great confederate -of venereal disease. It leads a man into temptation, destroys -his power of resistance, and retards his chances of recovery.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We can never know the truth about the extent of this disease, about -the way in which the liquor trade, by breaking down tens of thousands -of our men, has stabbed the Army in the back. But the number of soldiers -incapacitated by this disease through drink is enormously greater -than the number incapacitated by the most subtle or dramatic stroke -devised by the German staff.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The lost man-power of the Army through this disease must be equal -to the whole of the original British Expeditionary Force. The Government -has given us figures for the Army at home last year, and they are -43 per 1,000—or over 100,000 cases for an army of 2,500,000 men. There -were 7,000 cases in one Canadian camp alone.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Here are the black facts revealed in a debate in Parliament on April -23, 1917, when two distinguished Army officers, speaking with great -restraint, sought to open the eyes of the nation to this plague fostered -in our camps by drink:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>“During the war we have had admitted into the hospitals of England over 70,000 -cases of gonorrhœa, over 20,000 cases of syphilis, and over 6000 cases of another disease -somewhat similar. I am quite openly prepared to state that of these 20,000 cases of -syphilis you do not get much work out of them under two and a half years. I know -from what I have seen of the modern conditions of this War that you may absolutely -wipe them out, except for a few handfuls.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When you come to the great mass of casualties under this head ... the figures -mean that you have <b>a Division constantly out of action</b>. If you have anything -like 70,000 men enfeebled, you find that you suffer to that extent also. It is not only -that you lose the men, and not only the men who are partially cured are suffering for -many months to come, but their chances of recovery from wounds are not nearly -so good.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I know of a hospital for venereal cases which it was found necessary to expand -from its normal accommodation for 500 or 600 up to 2,000 cases, and they are continually -full. It is a British hospital in France. A figure I should like to submit to -challenge is that during the course of the war between 40,000 and 50,000 cases of -syphilis have passed through our hospitals in France. When you come to gonorrhœa, -the figure given me which covers that is between 150,000 and 200,000 cases.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Captain Guest in Parliament, April 23, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>“Every Canadian soldier who comes to this country arrives here not only a first-class -specimen of a fine soldier, but as clean-limbed and as clean a man as the Creator -Himself could create. The fact that in one only of the three Canadian camps in this -country 7,000 of these clean Canadian boys went through the hospital for venereal -disease in fourteen months is not only a great discredit to any Government in this -country but has an effect in Canada which I can assure the House does not make for -a better feeling with the Home Country, and does not make for what we all desire—Imperial -Unity.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood in Parliament, April 23, 1917</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>Those are unchallenged statements made in the House of Commons -itself; they stand as a terrible indictment of this disease, and it is not -to be denied that this evil could never have reached its present frightful -proportions if Parliament had followed the King. Let us look at a few -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>examples of the ravages of this vice allied so closely to the public-house.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>It is not possible to tell the whole truth about drink; the language in which it -must be written would be offensive in a civilised country. It must be said, simply, that -soldiers in England have been court-martialled for having been influenced by drink to -commit unspeakable offences against animals.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Records of Court-Martials</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A special constable in a harlot-haunted district in London describes how these -harpies carry off lonely soldiers to their rooms, make them drunk, and finally innoculate -them, as likely as not, with disease. Is it not possible to hold in check these -women who prey upon and poison our soldiers? asks Sir Conan Doyle.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Letter in the “Times”</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>One of the hot-beds of venereal disease to which drink leads our soldiers, was -kept by an Austrian woman in Lambeth, who was receiving 15<i>s.</i> a week from the -Austrian Government in April 1916, and used to lure our soldiers when weakened by -drink. All the men seen to enter this house were either soldiers or sailors.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of Lambeth</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier from the Front with £18 was taken by a married woman to her home, -where he was found after a drunken bout with eight women, all drunk. The woman’s -children were terribly neglected.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of St. Helens, November 30, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>If you describe the Waterloo Road and the back streets as an open sewer you -will be somewhere near the truth. Not a day goes by without bringing some soldier -who has been waylaid.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in the “Times,” February 22, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier came from the Front to go home to Scotland. He got drunk near -Waterloo, losing all his money and his railway pass. He spent his leave living on -charity, and returned to the Front without having been near either his home or his -friends.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” February 14, 1916</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>Here is the official proof of the relation of the drink trade to this -traffic in disease. It is from the Report of the Royal Commission:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>Abundant evidence was given as to the intimate relation between alcohol and -venereal diseases.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Alcohol renders a man liable to yield to temptations which he might otherwise -resist, and aggravates the disease by diminishing the resistance of the individual.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Alcoholism makes latent syphilis and gonorrhœa active.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Our evidence tends to show that the communication in disease is frequently due to -indulgence in intoxicants, and there is no doubt that the growth of temperance among -the population would help to bring about an amelioration of the very serious conditions -which our enquiry has revealed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We desire, therefore, to place on record our opinion that action should be taken -without delay.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>Will some Member of Parliament please ask</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'><b>if, in view of Lord D’Abernon’s statement that Prohibition has failed -in Canada, the Government will issue the figures showing the decrease -of crime and the increase of wealth?</b></p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>The Price the Empire Pays</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It is a bitter irony that while the men of the Empire have come to -France to fight the enemy of mankind, this foe within our gates has -struck a blow at the British Empire that generations will not heal. -How many Empire men this private trade has slain we do not know, -but we know beyond all challenge that it has weakened the bonds that -bind our Dominions to the Motherland. This trade that throttles us -at home can pull the Empire down, and it has started well. It has -struck its blow at Canada.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>Let us look at the plain facts which in other days than these would -have caused a storm of anger that Parliament could not have ignored. -Canada has followed the King; arming herself with her full powers, -flinging herself upon her enemies with her utmost strength, she has -swept drink out of Canada almost from sea to sea. But even before -she did this Canada saw that alcohol must go from her camps if her -men were to be fit to fight for England, and long before the Prohibition -wave swept across the country, the Canadian Government removed all -alcohol from the training camps. It was the deliberate choice of a -Government and its people, and from that day to this there has been -no reason for regret.</p> - -<p class='c009'>So the young manhood of Canada, rallying to the flag, was guarded -from alcohol. She poured out her men in hundreds of thousands; they -came to us from Prohibition camps; they came in Prohibition ships, and -even here this trade that has us in its grip was not allowed at first in -the Canadian camps; the only condition that Canada made—a condition -implied but clearly understood—was properly regarded and obeyed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We respected the desire of Canada, and kept her soldiers free from -drink in their own camps. But a soldier cannot keep in camp, and in -the villages around the Drink Trade waits in every street. The military -authorities were willing for the Canadian Government to have their -way inside the camps, but drink was free outside, and in these public-houses -there was sown the seed that may one day break this Empire. -The Drink Trade was so rampant outside the Canadian camps that -Prohibition inside was almost in vain. We had to decide between -breaking the word of the Canadian Government to its people or dealing -with this trade as Canada herself has done; as Russia has done; as -France and America are doing. It was the Empire or the drink traffic, -and the drink traffic won, as it always wins with us.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It came about in October, down on Salisbury Plain. During one -week-end a number of Canadian troops gave way to drinking in villages -around the camps, and it was then that the grave decision was come -to that the drink trade should be allowed to set up its horrible canteens -in every Canadian camp. The change was made at the request of a -British General, and we have the assurance of the Prime Minister of -Canada that the approval of the Canadian Government was neither obtained -nor asked. In handing the Canadian Army over to the drink -canteens, in deliberately reversing the policy of the Canadian Government -and its people, there was no consultation with Canada.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It is important to remember that this decision, fraught with tragic -and far-reaching consequences for the Empire, was a pure and simple -English act. We may imagine the Canadian view from the remark of -a Canadian General, who said, “I know drink is a hindrance, but I can -do very little, because in military circles in this country drunkenness is -not considered a very serious offense.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>It would have been surprising if there had not poured in upon our -Government a stream of protests, and from all parts of the Dominions -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>they came. The Dominion of Canada, giving freely to the Motherland -450,000 boys and men, was moved to passionate indignation that England -should scorn her love for them, should ignore the pleadings of -their mothers and sisters, and should put in their way the temptations -from which they were saved at home. Canada does not want our drink -trade; she lives side by side with the United States, she sees that great -country building up its future free from drink, and she sees America, -splendid ally in war, as a mighty rival in peace.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Canada is ready for the Reconstruction. She has followed the -Prohibition lead of the United States, and already she has ceased to -be a borrowing country. The very first year of Prohibition has seen -this young Dominion, for the first time in her history, financially self-sustaining. -Crime is disappearing; social gatherings are held in her -gaols; she has set up vast munition workshops, and instead of borrowing -money for her own support she has made hundreds of millions’ -worth of munitions for which this country need not pay until the war -is over, and then need never pay at all for the munitions the Canadians -have used. Canada is in deadly earliest. She kept her men away from -drink to make them fit; she has swept it away to make a clean country -for those who go back.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And what is England’s contribution to this Imperial Reconstruction? -<i>We have scorned it all.</i> The Prime Minister has said that this -drink trade is so horrible that it is worth this horrible war to settle -with it, yet we have sacrificed the love of Canada on our brewers’ altar. -We can believe the Canadian who declares his profound conviction that -but for this Canada would have sent us 100,000 more recruits; we can -believe it is true that where responsible Canadians meet together in -these days the talk is of how long the tie will last unbroken that binds -the daughter to the Motherland. We can understand the passion that -lies behind the resolutions that come to Downing Street from Nova -Scotia; we know the depth of the yearning of those 64,000 mothers and -wives of Toronto who signed that great petition to the Government of -Canada begging it in the name of God to intervene.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We can understand it all; but let us call the witnesses, and let us -see the price the Dominion pays for our quailing before this Kaiser’s -trade.</p> - -<h3 class='c011'>Those Who Will Not Go Back</h3> - -<p class='c012'>It is the great consolation of Canada that, though their sons may -fall before this tempter’s trade in Britain, they will go back to a Canada -free from drink. But some will never go back, and they are not on -the Roll of Honour. They have been destroyed by the enemy within -our gate, this trade that traps men on their way to France and digs -their graves.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A young Canadian who had never tasted alcohol came from a Prohibition camp -in Canada, came to England on a Prohibition ship, and was put in a camp with a -drink canteen. He started drinking and contracted venereal disease. Ordered home -as unfit, in fear and shame he sought a friend’s advice about the girl he was to marry. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>“You can never marry her,” said his friend, and that night in his hut the young -Canadian blew out his brains.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in possession of the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A young Canadian officer was sent home disgraced. Sodden with alcohol, he left -the train and shot a railway clerk dead.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Montreal “Weekly Witness,” October 24, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Russian soldier in the Canadian forces, described as a clean, soldierly man, with -a splendid character from his officer, was charged with the murder of a Canadian -private who tried to separate two quarrelling soldiers in a bar. The prisoner had -drunk much whisky and remembered nothing of his crime, and was sentenced to -twelve months’ hard labour for manslaughter. The judge hoped he might be used as -a soldier <i>in the Russian Army</i>.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Record of Hampshire Assizes, February 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A man from Prohibition Russia enlisted in Prohibition Canada, and came to -England. He spent 9<i>s.</i> on drink one day, and that night he crept from his bed and -killed his corporal at Witley Camp.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of Godalming, February 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Canadian soldier, aged 26, after a publichouse quarrel with another soldier, was -found dying on the pavement in Hastings. His throat had been cut, and he died on -entering the hospital. The other soldier was charged with murder, and sentenced to -15 years.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Record of Hastings Assizes, March 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A young Canadian soldier, aged 20, died from alcohol while in training at Witley. -He had a bottle of stout followed by nine or ten “double-headers” of neat whisky in -about two hours. He was carried back to camp, laid unconscious on his bed, and died.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” March 22, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Canadian lieutenant was tried for the murder of a canteen sergeant. They -arrived together at a house at Grayshott, where the lieutenant asked for some strong -drink and took a bottle of whisky and two glasses. The sergeant was afterwards -found dead in the cellar, and the lieutenant carried the body into the stable.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Grayshott Coroner, December 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A man leaving a publichouse in company with a woman, with whom he had been -drinking, met a Canadian soldier not far from Charing Cross. The soldier spoke, and -the man struck him. The soldier was carried to the hospital, where he died soon -afterwards from a wound two inches deep, caused by a knife.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Police Records of Bow Street, January 1, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The wife of a gunner in the South African Heavy Artillery died at Bexhill from -alcohol. The soldier said he bought 12 bottles of stout and 12 bottles of beer, one of -whisky, and one of port, which they drank between Saturday night and Monday night.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Bexhill Coroner, December 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A soldier from Toronto, having been drinking away his pay in a Carlisle publichouse, -with another Canadian soldier and some married women, failed to appear the -next morning, and was found dead on a footpath with a bottle of whisky in his pocket</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Carlisle Coroner, April 14, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Canadian soldier, having drawn £20 from the Canadian office, visited several -publichouses, and was killed in a scuffle in London.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily News,” December 2, 1916</i></div> - -</div> - -<h3 class='c011'>The Men From the Prohibition Camps</h3> - -<p class='c012'>Again and again we have seen the peculiar temptations of drink -among Canadians. Officers, chief-constables, chaplains, newspapers, -the men themselves, have all borne witness that to these men from -Prohibition Canada the sudden temptations of our drink trade come with -terrible power, and often they fall not knowing. The finest manhood -of the Empire our tap-rooms and canteens destroy, not in isolated cases, -but in a host we dare not number.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Of the soldiers who first came over from Canada, says a great Canadian -paper, many were emigrants from England, not yet securely planted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>in Canada, and for their sakes especially drink should have been withheld -from them. Of the larger number of Canadian troops that followed -them, many were youths who had never known drink, and they -were taken from home at the most social and reckless age, to face drink -with all the temptations induced by the nervous strain, the hardships -and social abandon of the camp and the trench, and the free pocket-money -when on leave.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>In an officers’ mess of two double companies of Canadians only one officer drank -on his arrival in a canteen camp in England; within three months there was not an -abstainer in the mess.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts told at Society for Study of Inebriety, Jan. 10, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>These men come mostly from districts in Canada where intoxicants are prohibited -by law, and many of them, being young lads, who perhaps have never tasted liquor -before their arrival, fall easy victims.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Chief Constable of Godalming</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>Overseas soldiers come to our hospitals astonishingly cheerful and fit in a general -sense, and wonderfully receptive to treatment. Only three per thousand die in our -great hospitals. This is largely due to the hardy life of the men and the fact that -they are removed from the danger of taking too much alcohol. The home troops have -a much higher mortality, partly because their use of alcohol diminishes their chances. -Re-admissions are largely due to drink on furlough.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Major Maclean, M.D., of the Third Western General Hospital</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Canadian soldier, who had been wounded at the Front, was taken to a house -by women and left alone drunk. An officer gave him an excellent character, and said -he was on his way back to Canada. These men experience temptations here (he said) -that they would not find in Canada, and there was too much of this going on.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Hastings Police Records, February 19, 1917</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>I heard a sad account of the havoc of the wet canteen and a private in a Canadian -A.M.C. told us of a lad of 17 who is made so drunk that there is rarely a night when -he has not to be helped up to bed. One of the soldiers here told me of his son in -Canada being anxious to join up, but after seeing the condition of things over here -he was doing all he could to discourage his son.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Letter to the Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>The Canadians in most cases are entirely lost when they arrive in this country, -and are much more liable to the temptation which is thrown in their way, but when -you give a figure such as this—that in one camp during last year, and two months of -the previous year, there were 7,000 cases—it seems to me that it is about time we -realised the magnitude of the evil. I do not know what has happened to them, except -that I imagine a large number have gone back to Canada, and have not been able to -play the part they had hoped to play.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Captain Guest in Parliament, April 23, 1917</i></div> - -</div> - -<h3 class='c011'>In Camp and On Leave</h3> - -<p class='c012'>Everywhere we find the trail of drink among Canadians—in camp -and on leave.</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>A Canadian corporal, wounded in the Battle of Ypres, was found terribly drunk -after being missing all day from hospital. Confronted with the surgeon after violent -acts of insubordination, the corporal broke down and cried like a child.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Western Mail,” February 18, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>In the first weeks of the war 42 Canadian soldiers disgraced themselves, by excessive -drinking, insubordination, and disorderly conduct, to such an extent that they -had to be sent back to Canada.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Canadian Pioneer,” December 4, 1914</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Canadian soldier, helplessly drunk, was seen at King’s Cross station eating, -tearing, and crumpling up £1 notes, and would have lost about fifteen pounds but for -kindly help from passers by.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” September 28, 1916</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A gunner from Montreal, missing from camp for several days, drank himself -delirious, and cut his throat with a razor.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Canadian Pioneer,” December 4, 1914</i></div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>A Canadian soldier spent £70 in three weeks on drink and bad characters.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in “Daily Mail” August 10, 1915</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A Sergeant-Major from Canada declared that he had lost 20 per cent. of the men -of his battery through venereal disease. They had a little drink, and were captured -by the swarm of bad women at Folkestone.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Facts in Letter to Author</i></div> - -<p class='c012'>A woman was imprisoned for placing young children in moral danger. Every -night the girls brought soldiers home, and colonial soldiers were frequently so drunk -that they were carried in.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Records of Central Criminal Court, April 25, 1917</i></div> - -</div> - -<h3 class='c011'>The Rising Storm in Canada</h3> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<p class='c012'><b>The thing cannot be justified. It is the blackest tragedy of this whole war that, -in fighting for freedom in Europe, the free sons of the British breed have to face -this war-time record of waste at home, with its inevitable toll of debauchery and -crime.</b></p> - -</div> -<div class='small'> - -<div class='c010'><i>Editorial in “Toronto Globe”</i></div> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>While this book was being written one of the greatest meetings -ever held in Manchester was cheering a Canadian in khaki who declared -that he was not going hungry while brewers were destroying food, and -he went on to say, this soldier and sportsman well-known in the -Dominion:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>“Great numbers of our men never saw France. Canadian boys cried because they -had not munitions. England reeled and beer flowed like water while thousands of -our boys went down into their graves. We will never forget it in Canada.”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c009'>We may be sure Canada will not forget. She will not forget her -dead: she will not forget that the Drink Traffic she has swept away at -home struck down her sons in the land for which they fought. “We -must know who is to blame,” says a Canadian paper; “we presume they -will have no objection to have their names placarded before the country, -that every mother may know.” Col. Sir Hamar Greenwood, M. P., has -lately returned from Canada, and this is what he tells us:</p> - -<div class='small'> - -<p class='c009'>“I met many fathers and mothers whose boys had been sent back to Canada -debilitated and ruined for life because they had been enmeshed by harpies, and again -and again these parents have said to me, ‘We do not mind our boys dying on the -field of battle for old England, but to think that we sent our sons to England to come -back to us ruined in health, and a disgrace to us, to them, and to the country, is -something the Home Country should never ask us to bear.’”</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>Letter from a Solicitor in Ontario to the Author</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>I wonder if the advocates of the drink traffic in Britain appreciate the contempt in -which they are held in Canada. Before the war I had a class of ten young men. -Every one of them is now at the Front, and one writes that when I told them of the -drink conditions in England he did not believe half of it; now he says I did not tell -him half. Letters from our Canadian soldiers are appearing in our papers, and they -are all amazed at the drinking habits of Britain.</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>From a Resolution received by Mr. Lloyd George from the -Social Service Council of Nova Scotia</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>That we, representing the social, moral, and spiritual forces of this part of the -British Empire, who have proved our loyalty by the thousands of men this small -province has sent overseas, do record our most earnest protest against Britain’s inaction -in this matter, which we are sure must result in longer and increased suffering for the -men we have sent to help her win the war; and do most insistently plead with the -British Government and the British Parliament that they at once exercise the power -vested in them to strike the blow that will dispose of this enemy at home, and so -give mighty reinforcement to those who are bleeding and dying for Britain and human -liberties on the battlefields abroad.</p> -<p class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span><i>Sermon by Dr. Flanders in London, Ontario, Feb. 25, 1917</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>Canada has the right to make this demand on the Motherland from the simple -standpoint of political economics. That we might put the Dominion into the best -possible shape to give the utmost of our strength in men and munitions, we have an -almost Dominion-wide Prohibition, and no intelligent person will deny that our contributions -to the war from the first have been multiplied and intensified by that action. -Why should little Johnnie Canuck abolish drink that he might conserve his manhood -and material resources in the interest of the Empire’s war, and big John Bull refuse -to abolish the traffic to the great waste of his material resources and the undoing of -his efficiency?</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>A public man with three soldier sons wrote to the Toronto Globe</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>Canada, for efficiency in war, casts out the drink evil. Is it too much to expect -Britain, in fairness, to do the same? Is it not a mockery for the British Isles to face -our common struggle with this palsy in her frame?</p> - -<p class='c009'>Here is the bitter pill, the embittering thought for many a Canadian parent. Let -me be a type. Three of my sons are in khaki. I gave them a father’s blessing when -they enlisted. But this thought strains, most of all, the ties of my loyalty to the cause—to -see my sons fight and fall for a Britain that at home is saddled by distillery -interests, and misguided by a Press silent as the grave on this entrenched evil. Why -should our sons go from a country where booze is banished to spend months on the -way to the trenches in England, where the vices of the liquor traffic are legalised?</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>We see the spirit of Canada in those great words of the Premier of Ontario, Mr. Hearst, -speaking of the giving up of drink</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>In this day of national peril, in this day when the future of the British Empire, -the freedom of the world, and the blessings of democratic government hang in the -balance, if I should fail to listen to what I believe to be the call of duty, if I should -neglect to take every action that in my judgment will help to conserve the financial -strength and power and manhood of this province for the great struggle in which we -are engaged, I would be a traitor to my country, a traitor to my own conscience, and -unworthy of the brave sons of Canada that are fighting, bleeding and dying for freedom -and for us.</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>A letter from one of the most eminent public men in Canada</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“British Canada is intensely loyal to the Empire and the Allied Cause, but at -present recruiting is almost at an end. Why? Partly because of considerable dissatisfaction -with many of the conditions which prevail. Suffering, wounds, death, are -expected as inevitable in war, but the evil influences, the lavish temptations of liquor -and bad women which sweep down upon our boys in England, are not felt to be -necessary, and the hearts of multitudes of Canadian parents are hot with indignation -at the apparent indifference of the authorities to the moral welfare of our troops.”</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>Captain John MacNeill, with the Canadian troops in France</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I say to you solemnly, if England should lose this war because of drink, or if -England should unnecessarily prolong the war with great sacrifice of life in her effort -to protect drink, or even if England should win the war in spite of drink, you will -have put upon the bonds of Empire such a strain as they have never known before, -and such a strain as we cannot promise they will be able to survive.”</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>From the petition presented to the Prime Minister of Canada, -signed by 64,000 mothers and wives in Toronto</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>1. That Mothers and Wives of Canada in giving their sons and husbands for -King and Empire, asked and received from your Minister of Militia this only assurance -that, in sending them into the ranks, we were not hereby irrevocably thrusting -them into the temptation of Strong Drink.</p> - -<p class='c009'>2. We appreciated from the depths of our hearts, your action in abolishing the -Wet Canteen from the Canadian Militia. We believe the Wet Canteen established in -the ranks of the front to be a double danger, robbing our King of the success in arms -which in these days comes only to the brave heart that is controlled by a clear head, -and robbing us and our Canada of the Manhood which we gave into our Empire’s -keeping.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>3. We do not believe that the King will refuse the aid of Canada’s sons; nor that -he will appreciate your patriotic efforts the less, if you keep faith with us and make -known to His Majesty, his Ministers and Commanders, that our boys are sent forth -on the one condition that the dispensing of intoxicating liquors shall be prohibited in -the ranks.</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>From a Sermon preached in Ontario, February 25, 1917</i>:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thank God, if any of our Canadian soldiers return to us with the drink habit -formed and raging, we can welcome them to a land nearly purged of the liquor traffic, -where they may have a chance to recover their manhood.”</p> - -<p class='c014'><i>Letter on the effects of Prohibition, from a business man in Ontario, -published in the “Spectator:”</i></p> - -<p class='c009'>“Men I have known for years to be regular promenading tanks have given it up, -and are starting a decent life again. The Police Court is empty. England should try it. -It would be, after the first heavy initial loss, the best thing that ever struck the nation. -I cursed these temperance guys as hard as any, but all the same it cannot blind you -from the truth.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>Your Share in the Food Crisis</h2> -</div> - -<h3 class='c011'>The Food and Money Wasted on Drink in Our Great Towns</h3> - -<div class='c000'></div> -<div class="centerwide"> -<span class='sc'>Estimated from August 1914 to April 1917 inclusive</span> by <span class='sc'>George B. Wilson</span>, B.A., -Compiler of the National Drink Bill -</div> - -<table class='table1' summary=''> - <tr> - <th class='btt bbt brt c015'> </th> - <th class='btt bbt brt c015'>Drink Bill</th> - <th class='btt bbt brt c015'>Grain Lost</th> - <th class='btt bbt c015'>Sugar in Beer</th> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c016'></td> - <td class='brt c017'></td> - <td class='brt c015'>Tons</td> - <td class='c015'>lb.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>United Kingdom</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£510,000,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>4,400,000</td> - <td class='c019'>762,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>London</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£83,000,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>693,000</td> - <td class='c019'>120,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Edinburgh</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£3,200,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>31,000</td> - <td class='c019'>5,300,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Dublin</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£2,600,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>29,000</td> - <td class='c019'>5,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Glasgow</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£10,500,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>101,000</td> - <td class='c019'>17,400,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Manchester and Salford</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£11,000,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>92,000</td> - <td class='c019'>15,900,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Birmingham</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£9,900,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>82,000</td> - <td class='c019'>14,200,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Liverpool</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£8,800,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>73,000</td> - <td class='c019'>12,600,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Sheffield</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£5,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>45,000</td> - <td class='c019'>7,800,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Leeds</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£5,300,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>44,000</td> - <td class='c019'>7,600,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Bristol</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£4,200,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>35,000</td> - <td class='c019'>6,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>West Ham</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£3,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>28,000</td> - <td class='c019'>4,900,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Bradford</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£3,300,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>28,000</td> - <td class='c019'>4,800,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Hull</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£3,300,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>27,000</td> - <td class='c019'>4,700,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Newcastle</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£3,100,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>26,000</td> - <td class='c019'>4,500,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Nottingham</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£3,100,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>26,000</td> - <td class='c019'>4,500,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Portsmouth</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£2,800,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>23,000</td> - <td class='c019'>4,400,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Stoke</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£2,800,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>23,000</td> - <td class='c019'>4,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Leicester</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£2,700,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>22,000</td> - <td class='c019'>3,800,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Cardiff</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£2,100,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>18,000</td> - <td class='c019'>3,100,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Bolton</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£2,100,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>18,000</td> - <td class='c019'>3,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Croydon</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£2,100,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>17,000</td> - <td class='c019'>3,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Sunderland</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,700,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>14,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,500,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Oldham</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,700,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>14,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,500,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Birkenhead</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,600,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>13,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,200,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Blackburn</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,500,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>13,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,200,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Brighton</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,500,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>13,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,200,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Plymouth</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,500,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>12,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,100,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Derby</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>12,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,100,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Middlesbrough</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>12,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,100,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Stockport</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>12,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,100,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Norwich</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>12,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,100,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Southampton</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>12,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Swansea</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>12,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Gateshead</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>11,000</td> - <td class='c019'>2,000,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Preston</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,400,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>11,000</td> - <td class='c019'>1,900,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Coventry</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,300,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>11,000</td> - <td class='c019'>1,900,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='brt c018'>Huddersfield</td> - <td class='brt c019'>£1,300,000</td> - <td class='brt c019'>10,000</td> - <td class='c019'>1,800,000</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='bbt brt c018'>Halifax</td> - <td class='bbt brt c019'>£1,200,000</td> - <td class='bbt brt c019'>10,000</td> - <td class='bbt c019'>1,700,000</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<h3 class='c011'>PLAY THE GAME</h3> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<table class='table2' summary=''> - <tr><td class='c020' colspan='2'>There is one week’s bread in 18 pints of beer</td></tr> - <tr><td class='c020' colspan='2'>There is one week’s sugar in 16 pints of beer</td></tr> -</table> -<p class='c009'>The man who drinks 3 pints a day drinks another man’s rations.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span> - <h2 class='c007'>THE FOOD PYRAMIDS DESTROYED FOR DRINK</h2> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/image041a.jpg' alt='The Great Pyramid of Egypt' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>The Great Pyramid of Egypt, the biggest construction in stone ever made by the hands of man—80,000,000 cubic feet of masonry</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/image041b.jpg' alt='The Great Pyramids of Food' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>The Great Pyramids of Food, the biggest wilful destruction of food ever known—180,000,000 cubic feet of food destroyed for the Drink Trade during the war</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span> - <h2 class='c007'>How the Brewer Gets Our Food</h2> -</div> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<h3 class='c021'>THE MEN WHO BRING IT</h3> - -</div> -<p class='c012'>It is easy to talk of a mine-sweeper. I wish the whole nation could -understand what these men are doing. They are feeding the whole -population, battling with the elements as well as with the enemy, battling -with dangers overhead and dangers under the sea. The mine-sweeper -is like the soldier daily over the parapet—he carries his life in -his hand.</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>First Lord of the Admiralty.</i></div> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<h3 class='c021'>THE PEOPLE WHO WAIT FOR IT</h3> - -</div> -<p class='c012'>A London caterer ordered a quantity of sugar from the Philippines. -The mine-sweepers cleared the way for it and it reached the docks. The -caterer sent for it, and was informed that it could only be delivered if -it was for a brewer.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A provincial caterer ordered sugar <i>and paid for it</i>, but was told by -the Food Controller that it could only be released if <i>it was sold to a -brewer</i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A working man was discussing rations with his minister in the -street. “It is very hard,” he said, “to keep to your rations when you -have five strapping lads, but we are going to try it.” Then a drunken -man lurched past. The workman pulled himself together, and said, in -great passion: “I tell you what it is, sir, I am not going to let my -boys starve as long as there is food to make beer for men like that.”</p> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<h3 class='c021'>THE PRICE WE PAY FOR IT</h3> - -</div> -<p class='c012'>Immense quantities of food are used for beer and spirits. All this -grain is lost for food purposes. <i>If this grain were available for food, the -prices of bread and meat would be lowered.</i></p> - -<div class='c010'><i>War Savings Committee.</i></div> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<h3 class='c021'>THE POOR WHO SUFFER FOR IT</h3> - -</div> - -<p class='c012'>“Rationing bread could not be undertaken without grave risk to -the health of the poor.”</p> - -<div class='c010'><i>Capt. Bathurst, M. P.</i></div> - -<div class='sansserif'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c000'> - <div>By what right does the Government</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> -<p class='c009'>use our mine-sweepers to bring in food for brewers to destroy? allow -brewers to increase the cost of living for every household? and allow -the willful destruction of food supplies to imperil the health of the poor?</p> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span> - <h2 class='c007'>The Way for the Government</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>We do not want to be amused by fiddlers while our heroes fight -and die.</p> - -<p class='c009'>What are the things we see? We see the Government silent in -the presence of what the greatest paper in our greatest overseas Dominion -calls “the blackest tragedy of the war.” We see a trade which the -King declared to be prolonging the war in the crisis of 1915, prolonging -it still in the crisis of 1917. We see our Prime Minister, who has -declared this trade to be worse than Germany, allowing it to have its -way. We see our Prime Minister, who has said we cannot settle with -Germany until we have settled with drink, fearing to settle with drink. -Then are we not to settle with Germany, and are we to surrender to -the greatest enemy of the three?</p> - -<p class='c009'>There is one clear way before the Government; it is the only way -of straightness and patriotism and honour. It is to wind up this enemy -trade and move from our path the greatest hindrance to the winning of -the war. It is to take our side honourably with our great Allies, to -bring to an end the shameful isolation of Great Britain in the drink map -of the great free countries that appears on the back of this book.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It is the sign of weakness everywhere that it seeks a scapegoat for -its sins, and we hear the everlasting talk of Labour. But it will not do. -It is time these slanders on our workmen ceased.</p> - -<p class='c009'>If the Government is afraid of the working man, let it say so, or -let it try him. If it is afraid of temperance people, let it rally them -to its side as one man on the platform where they meet. If it is afraid -of the Drink Trade, then the time has come to say so, for we who send -out our millions to fight a foreign foe are not going to starve for bread -through fear of enemies within our gate. The Prime Minister gave the -Army its munitions; the Army will use them in vain unless the munitions -of life come into our homes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Working men are tired of men who fool with food and liberty. -They do not object to any equal sacrifice: they believe in the democratic -policy of the King, who based Prohibition, not on class distinction -as the Government did by closing tap-rooms 15 hours a day and -leaving cellars and Parliamentary bars open always, but on the principle -of the King’s own words that “no difference shall be made, so far -as his Majesty is concerned, between the treatment of the rich and poor -in this respect.” Let the Government follow the King, and the people -will follow the Government.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In the highest interests of the nation and the war let this be said -as plain as words can make it—<i>that there is no body of temperance opinion -anywhere standing in the way of Prohibition</i>, but that the united moral -forces of the nation would rally to the Government instantly on an act -of a few words such as this:</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span><b>That the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages be totally prohibited -in the United Kingdom for the period of the war and demobilization, -and that a committee be appointed to deal with all the private -and public interests concerned; and that it be resolved upon, here and -now, that reconstruction be accompanied by universal local option.</b></p> - -<p class='c009'>There would be no opposition the Government need count to a proposal -like that.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id005'> -<img src='images/image044.jpg' alt='TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION LABEL WESTERVILLE O.' class='ig001' /> -</div> -</div> -<p> </p> - -<div class='tnote'> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>Transcriber’s Note</div> - </div> -</div> - - <ul class='ul_1'> - <li>Obvious typographical and punctuation errors were corrected. - </li> - <li class='c000'>Inconsistencies in hyphenation were retained. - </li> - </ul> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIDDLERS***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 53733-h.htm or 53733-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/7/3/53733">http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/7/3/53733</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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