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.
_The Prime Minister_
_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?_
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
_Submarines destroyed 27 British cargoes, mostly over 1600 tons._
=Brewers destroyed 27 British food cargoes, totaling 9000 tons.=
_The granaries of Canada were crammed with wheat waiting for British
ships, but there were no ships to bring this people’s food._
=The rum quay at London Docks was crammed with casks of rum to last
till 1920, but a ship arrived with 1000 Casks more.=
_A woman was fined £5 for destroying a quartern loaf._
=Brewers were fined nothing for destroying millions of loaves.=
_Poor people waited in queues to buy sugar in London._
=Cartloads of sugar were destroyed in London breweries.=
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.
It tells Parliament that no more rum is to be imported, and goes on
importing rum for years ahead.
It forbids the use of spirits less than three years old, and reduces
the three years to 18 months.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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?
1. _We are told that only five per cent. of malt can be mixed with flour
for bread._
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?
_It adds 200,000 tons to our bread in any case._ 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.
2. _We are told that the barley destroyed for beer would give the nation
only ten days’ bread._
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.