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”?