=It is not possible to measure the strain the Drink Traffic has imposed
on our war services.=
The Food Controller’s Organization, with its great offices and staffs,
would not have been needed had we saved the food destroyed by drink.
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.
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.
The strain on a host of men and women looking after soldiers’ children
neglected through drink, soldiers’ wives spending allowances on drink,
is incalculable.
The strain on war charities and the strain on the police arising from
drink are both very great.
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.
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.
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.
=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.=
It is a crying shame that the strength of Britain should be destroyed
like this in such an hour as this.
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