EARLY CLOSING.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2703, 24 February 1916, Page 6

EARLY CLOSING.

Sir, —When the war was at its height in December, 1014, tho people of this copntry decided by an overwhelming majority that- there should be no alteration in the licensing laws for at least three years. The Prohibitionists are not sports; they won't take their defeat philosophically. They, seels to discover how they can got round expressed public opinion, and so I understand they are trying a Hanking movement with aii earlier closing agitati. in."-. The public are not likely to bo misled. _ They say they are agitating for earlier closing )W the soldiers' sake, lmt that is all "kid stakes." The Prohibitionists worked the soldier ticket for all it was worth last election. They villified the soldier, and the people saw how unpatriotic tho Prohibition attitude waa, Nearly every soldier is against Prohibition. But thfii'O is -not ouo in a. thou.

siukl that takes too much. Mr. Alien, Minister of Defence, says only threo soldiers out of 50,000 have been dismissed for drunkenness. What is that? H. is not worth fussing about. I have 110 time for tlie Prohibition agitator any more than I have for t»io Red Fed. bloke. They are both disturbers of tho peace, to my mind, nnd neither lied l!'ed. nor Prohibition is going to help us m win the war They are only wasting tlieir energy. Let them do something helpful. Soldiers, like the workers, do not want e-arlier closing. There is no necessity ior it. If there was I would support it; but boss Ims declined since the war broke out, although as much, if not more, lias been drunk, and serious crimes have dropped out of tho calendar—l am, etc., WORKER.