We do not want to be amused by fiddlers while our heroes fight and die.
What are the things we see? We see the Government silent in the presence
of what the greatest paper in our greatest overseas Dominion calls “the
blackest tragedy of the war.” We see a trade which the King declared to
be prolonging the war in the crisis of 1915, prolonging it still in the
crisis of 1917. We see our Prime Minister, who has declared this trade
to be worse than Germany, allowing it to have its way. We see our Prime
Minister, who has said we cannot settle with Germany until we have
settled with drink, fearing to settle with drink. Then are we not to
settle with Germany, and are we to surrender to the greatest enemy of
the three?
There is one clear way before the Government; it is the only way of
straightness and patriotism and honour. It is to wind up this enemy
trade and move from our path the greatest hindrance to the winning of
the war. It is to take our side honourably with our great Allies, to
bring to an end the shameful isolation of Great Britain in the drink map
of the great free countries that appears on the back of this book.
It is the sign of weakness everywhere that it seeks a scapegoat for its
sins, and we hear the everlasting talk of Labour. But it will not do. It
is time these slanders on our workmen ceased.
If the Government is afraid of the working man, let it say so, or let it
try him. If it is afraid of temperance people, let it rally them to its
side as one man on the platform where they meet. If it is afraid of the
Drink Trade, then the time has come to say so, for we who send out our
millions to fight a foreign foe are not going to starve for bread
through fear of enemies within our gate. The Prime Minister gave the
Army its munitions; the Army will use them in vain unless the munitions
of life come into our homes.
Working men are tired of men who fool with food and liberty. They do not
object to any equal sacrifice: they believe in the democratic policy of
the King, who based Prohibition, not on class distinction as the
Government did by closing tap-rooms 15 hours a day and leaving cellars
and Parliamentary bars open always, but on the principle of the King’s
own words that “no difference shall be made, so far as his Majesty is
concerned, between the treatment of the rich and poor in this respect.”
Let the Government follow the King, and the people will follow the
Government.
In the highest interests of the nation and the war let this be said as
plain as words can make it—_that there is no body of temperance opinion
anywhere standing in the way of Prohibition_, but that the united moral
forces of the nation would rally to the Government instantly on an act
of a few words such as this:
=That the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages be totally
prohibited in the United Kingdom for the period of the war and
demobilization, and that a committee be appointed to deal with all the
private and public interests concerned; and that it be resolved upon,
here and now, that reconstruction be accompanied by universal local
option.=
There would be no opposition the Government need count to a proposal
like that.
[Illustration: TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION LABEL WESTERVILLE O.]
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Transcriber’s note:
Obvious typographical and punctuation errors were corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation were retained.