It is only proper that an agitation should be on foot to compel the
Government to take measures to prevent a further rise in the cost of
bread, the food of the people.
But what is the Government prepared to do to remedy the present
deplorable dearth in the food of the people's thinkers--fish?
Scientists, statisticians, fishmongers and other authorities tell us
that for the development of the human brain there is nothing to compare
with fish. Indeed, one has only to glance at the throng assembled in
any popular fish-bar of a night to realise that the people of our
country are alive to their need in this respect.
Consider what this shortage of fish must mean in the development of the
intellectual life of the people of this country. How can we expect our
parcels to be delivered intelligently, our gas-fittings to be adjusted
properly, our bulbs to be planted effectively, if our carmen, our
plumbers, our jobbing gardeners, and so forth, are deprived of their
daily bloater or bloaters, as the case may be?
How can we hope that Mr. H. G. WELLS, Mr. ARNOLD
BENNETT or even Lord KITCHENER himself will continue to
guide the nation effectively with the fish course obliterated from the
_menu?_
What is the use of the Poet Laureate to the country if Billingsgate
is inactive? And without Billingsgate how can our half-penny morning
papers adjust their differences, or illuminating discussion among
intellectuals be maintained?
How much longer will _The Spectator_ and _The Church Times_ be worth
reading if the present scarcity of fish continues? Is a Hampstead
thinkable without halibut?
A marked deterioration has already been noted in the quality of the
discourses of the senior curate at one of our suburban churches. We may
be capturing trade, and the position of our banks may be wonderfully
sound; but against that must be recorded the lamentable fact that in
a certain town in the Home Counties last week only twenty-two people
attended a widely announced debate on the subject, "Have Cinema
Pictures a more refining influence upon the Poor than Classical Poetry?"
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