=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.=
_Editorial in “Toronto Globe”_
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:
“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.”
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:
“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.’”
_Letter from a Solicitor in Ontario to the Author_:
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.
_From a Resolution received by Mr. Lloyd George from the Social
Service Council of Nova Scotia_:
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.
_Sermon by Dr. Flanders in London, Ontario, Feb. 25, 1917_:
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?
_A public man with three soldier sons wrote to the Toronto Globe_:
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?
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?
_We see the spirit of Canada in those great words of the Premier of
Ontario, Mr. Hearst, speaking of the giving up of drink_:
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.
_A letter from one of the most eminent public men in Canada_:
“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.”
_Captain John MacNeill, with the Canadian troops in France_:
“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.”
_From the petition presented to the Prime Minister of Canada, signed
by 64,000 mothers and wives in Toronto_:
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.
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.
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.
_From a Sermon preached in Ontario, February 25, 1917_:
“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.”
_Letter on the effects of Prohibition, from a business man in
Ontario, published in the “Spectator:”_
“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.”
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