THE "WET CANTEEN" THE SOLDIER'S ENEMY.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2487, 14 June 1915, Page 7

THE "WET CANTEEN" THE SOLDIER'S ENEMY.

Sir,—The New Zealand public has been made familiar with Bishop Julius's statoment that tlie open liquor bar is a disgrace to our civilisation and Christianity. From time to time anonymous correspondents send letters to your paper extolling the liquor bar as a very necessary part- of our military camps. If there is even a measure of truth in the statement of Bishop Julius, the liquor bar will be a disgrace in the camp, as truly as it has been in the city. In your issue of to-day au anonymous correspondent is at work pleading for the extension of the liquor traffic into our camp at Trentham. I do not know anything more deadly or more dastardly than such a proposal. These'pleas are worthy of German spies, whose business it might be to use the alcohol scourge as a means of inflicting moral and physical injury on our soldiers going forth to battle. Alcohol has its right place in a hospital ship, as it has a right place in a druggist shop. It may well be placed on the same shelf with opium and arsenic and other poisons.- In order to safeguard a few Chinamen in our midst we have absolutely prohibited pipe opium. In order to safeguard the lives of our children we have absolutely prohibited the manufacture and sale of "phosphorus matches," and yet your correspondent advocates the open sale of the most deadly drug under the sun ui our soldiers' camps. Alcohol in the Army, as elsewhere, has proved itself to be the assassin of soul and body. It is well known that Cromwell's civil army was made up of men of the "tapster" type, and tnese men went down like ninepins before the enemy. It was only when he got men fortified by something nobler than beer that he had an army that became the greatest soldiers in Europe. Tho experience of Cromwell is that of our great Generals to-day. The "wet canteen" was sentenced to extinction by the United States because of its disgraceful record during tho war with Spain. Kitchener had no "wet canteen" in his Soudan campaign in 1898. General Sir l'Vaneis Grcnfell stated in 1896 that his campaign in Egypt was a "teetotal campaign," and he testified that he never saw such a "fit force" in tho world. One of the most distinguished surgeons in the world is Sir Frederick Treves. He was specially engaged by the Government to go as surgeon to Africa during the Boer. War. I understand that tlie "wet canteen" ivas in the army there. Here is the testimony of Treves with regard to the effect of drink on the soldiers "Troops cannot work or march on alcohol. I was with tho relief column I that moved on to Ladysmith. In that : enormous column of 30,000 the first who dropped out were not tho tall men, or the short men, or the big men or the little men—the.v were the drinkers, and they dropped out as clearly as if they had been labelled with a big letter on their backs." These testimonies, of tho highest value, from America, Africa, and Egypt, .condemn the "wet can.teen" as the soldiers' enemy. This war has brought to light tho ugly fact that alcohol has been our nation's curse and lias partially paralysed our industrial life. Our King, who knows tha Empire's need, has set an example of abstinence, and thoro is .something contemptible in the patriotism that llouts this fact and is deaf to tho call that comes from Kitchener. "Blighted lives, wrecked intellects, wasted brilliancy, poisoned morality, rotted will—all these mark tho road that tho king of evils takes in his darksome road." So wrote James Pcuneiman with reference to alcohol in social life, and so it will prove itself if wo set it flowing through tho life of tho armv. —I am, etc HOBISKT WOOD. Island Bay, .Tune l"-'.