WAR, WORK, DRINK!

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2447, 28 April 1915, Page 4

WAR, WORK, DRINK!

Sir,—ln your issue of this date there : -'appears under the heading,. "Heavy Drinking by Shipyard Workers," perhaps the gravest information yet cabled from London in reference so the. war. Perhaps the fact that we do not fully appreciate the gravity of the position is the reason why the Press in the Dominion do not place Buoh items under . much : larger type, and in; more prominent positions ' on their pages. One cannot help pondering why . the operations of' the -German, submarines receives "a- more prominent place in the news of ,■the'Jday'than' does the operations of . an enemy' more'powerful than all the armies of Germany, Austria, and, Turkey.put together ; niore effective in bringing want, misery,' destruction, • arid death wherever it is to bo found than even the German, hordes in Belgium; more dreaded by our military and naval leaders-than anytactics or appliances that could be conceived by an enemy "absolutely immune from' all human feeling; and yet an enemy apparently more easily conquerable than is any' foe Old England lias or ever had. Sir, does it not appear to you and to your - readers that the words of Lloyd George—this man, no crank or- soap-bos orator, but the ereatost financier the world has ever known—should be printed in letters of firo? He said (vide your cablegram referred to): "The, greatest and most deadly of our foes is drink. Excessive drinking is seriously interfering with the output of munitions, which must be enonhously increased to enable us to win."

In past years we have listened to W. E. Gladstone, to. Lord Roberts, and others of their time, and to-day we are listening to Lloyd Georgo, to Kitohener, and to others of their time, 'We have listened and are listening now, bnt we don't appear to be hearing. These havo all said the same things, wade the same appeals, done-the nation the same groat services; have fought for it and have died and will die for it, and yet we go on unheeding—wo have listened but we havo not heard. Why is this so? AVhy are wo deaf to their appeals? What j s it that is wrong with us? Wo see that the.: principal combatants in this great world-war are all afraid of the effects oi alcohol. They declare against it In, any form. France, Russia, .Germany have all banned it as a deadly foe, and it was only when on the march through Belgium and Franco that German' soldiers had to drink end then and only then' Were the awful excesses committed by thorn that are recorded. 1 suppose it is only those who havo seen the awfulnoss of the curso of drink in English cities who can realise the deadliness of its grip on .England's throat, and comparatively few; of us oan see for ourselves the hideous cancer that is tearing at the vitals of'the, Empire. We do not eeo r/hole sections of a town, wherein men, women, and children, almost to an individual, are familiar with the blight of drunkenness in their own bodies. But It is so, wliother we see it or not, and shotting one's eyoe to the night does not bring daylight. To' understand what a grip on the Homeland drink now has, tne following figures will go to show, and will also appeal to what is, fortunately, a trait In our national character, namely, our eenso of proportion. The comparisons drawn will perhaps enable us to grasp why the leaders <rf the Empire are instinct with fear when they contemplate the power of drink and call it "thft

greatest and most deadly of our foes." The figures are based on the returns far tho year 1918, and are, of course, the latest procurable. Expenditure on Drink' •'£166,000,000 Bread 60,000,000 Army and' Navy 74,000,000

so_ that we spent 12 millions more on drink than we spent on bread, Army, and' Navy, oil put together! • Our. 31 Dreadnoughts and 38 battleships could be lost and could be replaced at the cost of a year's drinking, for the people at Home drink the value of six battleships every month. Early in the war an appeal was made for subscriptions to the National ltelicf Fund, and in. six weeks the people at Homo raised three million pounds, London papers extolling this as a marvel of generosity; but in those six weeks the country spent nineteen millions on drink! Tht first war vote passed by the House ol Commons was , 100 millions—an enormous' sum—yet that sum is onty _th< equivalent of seven months' drinking This DominionVnet National Debt o 92 millions could be wiped out by th money spent on drink in six and ; half months; we uould then be in ■ position to present to tho Empire 4i battleships more powerful than the Net Zealand, 'after which we would be ij tho same position as we are to-day.. Aim bo comparisons could go on, but ehougl has been written to show the onormou waste of money that is going on eacl

year. ■ \ And what return do wo get for this huge investment? To-day, when the Empire needs them most, the men who care do the work that is needful to enable us to win are less efficient tihan before the war. because they are drinking, instead of working, your cable messages tell us that those able to judge declare "that the average time worked at most of the yards, despite day and night work, was seven days below the normal before the war. Eighty per cent, of the loss of time was due to drink." Damaged battleships are a day longer in being repaired; merchant ships, carrying food and clothing for soldiers, freezing in the trenched, are delayed in loading and unloading their cargoes; steady workmen are prevented from doing their utmost to assist tho Empire because their fellow workmen are not in a condition to work full time, and so disorganize systems ' of business that we here cannot comprehend because of their rashness; and, finally, the military and naval leaders, the members of the Government, ana even the King and Queen are called upon to ■ urge workmen to leave drink alone, and make some effort to do something to help save the Empire to which we all belong and owe so much. To our shame, we remember that Lord [ Kitchener, to whom, next to Providenoe, we look for the preservation of our national liberty, has deemed it necessary to so far forget his _ great military responsibilities (the weight of whioh no other man has ever been asked to carry in the proportion of one quarter),.-as';to stoop to threaten to take extreme measures with drunken workmen I ''Even a police • constable, would..'refuse, to expostulate with a drunken-man', yet the great British Empire, onfwhich, we proudly boast, tho sun never sets, requires its greatest; soldier,' to ask a'drunken man to keep sober 'and work, so that the enemy may not -filch from us what our forefathers have'-' lived, toiled, bled, and died to hand to ua, unsullied and of golden; vworth, and which our soldiers on land and 111 air, and sailors on the ocean and Tinder it, our statesmen in every part of the world are striving to the breakmg-point to preserve and hand down to generations -yet unborn —the heritage they have received and dare not pass on dishonoured. Sir, is this drink business to go on? Tho matter is urgent, arid 'the. welfare of the nation demands that tho question should .be dealt with and that right speedily.—l am, etc., J. G. BRECHIN. • • Pahiatun,. 4 :■ 1