EUROPE DISCOVERS ALCOHOL A WASTE.

White Ribbon, Volume 20, Issue 237, 18 March 1915, Page 10

EUROPE DISCOVERS ALCOHOL A WASTE.

(From an Exchange.) 1 he war is shedding a Hood of light on the advance of temperance sentiment in the world through the modern knowledge of the true nature of alcohol. The British troops were sent out with Kitchener’s warning against intoxicants ringing in their ears, in preference to a Hask in their knapsacks. When the Canadian (Government had to meet the contingency of war it is not found classing alcohol either as a food or as a necessity, but as a luxur\ that stands to be heavily taxed. Thanks in a major degree to the persistent agitation of the W.C.T.U., the law against a wet canteen is being rigidly enforced at the Valcartier Camp. Kaiser William, the Wholesale Butcher, when addressing his naval cadets said: “1 know very well that the pleasure of drink is an old heritage of the Germans, but we must by selfdiscipline deliver ourselves from that evil. The Navy which drinks the least alcohol will be the winner; and that, gentlemen, should be you” He w is viewing the results of alcoholdrinking from but the lowest motive for abstinence, that of perfect physical efficiency. But it remained for little Norway to give rum the greatest coup de pied that has yet been given to it in Uurope; a stroke that will leave Norway dry when ihc present stocks are depleted. 1 hat alcohol has no food value need never again be demonstrated. The problem of the hour and the immediate future is the conservation of food stuffs. Norway, taking time by the forelock, is forcing the distilleries and breweries to hand over their stocks of grains and potatoes, at cost price, to be saved for food, food, food. Norway’s action is sure to prove contagious in Europe in the face of food supplies running low. If (anada is wise in her day and generation she will forbid the present stocks of grain being diverted from whole'.omo food into poisonous, paralyzing slops from which a pig will turn. If God brings out of the present butchery in Europe the annihilation of

a traffic that has more victims than war, pestilence and famine combined, the world yet may be the gainer from what seems an irreparable loss.