ENGLAND'S BOOZE BILL AGAIN.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 249, 18 March 1916, Page 2

ENGLAND'S BOOZE BILL AGAIN.

London, October 9. —A great number of English financiers are deeply concerned over the enormous loans that their country has negotiated and those that are likely to follow if the war continues. These same high brows are surrounded by a condition which makes the much talked of war loans dwindle c onsiderable by comparison. The recent loan of one hundred million pounds is a mighty big sum of money. It represents the sacrifice that England is willing to make to preserve to posterity its rightful heritage. This sum, which startled the whole Western Hemisphere, is forced somewhat into the back-ground by statistic s which tell us that the same England spends every year one hundred and sixty million pounds for drink. And this represents the sacrifice that England’s posterity is making to insure to the present brewery barons their blood money.

In the current number of tne ‘ Edinburgh Review,” its editor estimates that by the time the war end* the increase of England’s national debt will not be less than two billion pounds. This will mean an annual charge, for interest and sinking fund, of on»* hundred and ten million pounds. Harold Cox adds to this another twenty million pounds for pensions to disabled soldiers and to widows and dependents of the fallen, making a total of one hundred and thirty million pounds. It is a monstrous big sum to find every year, but it is thirty million pounds less than the amount that she spends in a year on various forms of alcoholic swill. If the same English experts will come to life and abolish the traffic in alcoholic poisons as did Russia by proclamation, she could pay off her national debt without becoming one whit poorer. Indeed, if the optimistic reports are to be believed, she would be all the richer for it.‘ England's booze bill makes England s war bill blush for shame.— “W” Republic.”