FACTS FOR VOTERS.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 278, 19 August 1918, Page 4

FACTS FOR VOTERS.

It the importation and production ci intoxicating liquors were prohibited in Great Britain, 1,385,000 tons of Hupping would be liberated, Thai is equal to jcj ships of s<><k> tons’ carrying capac itv each able to make four voyages a year. Grain used in the manufacture of alcoholic liquors in Europe in one year would feed thirty million people for the same length of time. Beginning with April 15, no wine, champagne, or port can be loaded in Europe on a ship hound for America. All these have been branded as nonessentials of commerce. “I am for prohibition as a war measure, primarily because it will release vast quantities of rye, corn, barley, and wheat, which will he needed for food supplies. In addition, it will make men more fticient, and it will undoubtedly reduce \ *nereal diseases.” Dr. Austin O’Malley. As a general prin iple, total, worldwide prohibition, in my opinion, would be one of the greatest possible forward steps for humanity.’’ Dr. Romaine New bold, Prof, of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at University of Pennsylvania. “Prohibition during war time is necessary. We arc training for a national effort, and we cannot train men for anything worth while on rum.” — Dr. Martin, Surgeon-in Chit f, sity, Penn., I\S.A. “I am for prohibition ; s a war measure, first, because it means an immense saving of food supplies. Second, because the experience of France and Russia proves that prohibition increases the efficiency of the people immensely; and third, because prohibition will remove the temptation to vice.—Dr. Keen, Prof, of Surgery. “The consumption of f.o much food value in intoxicants is inconsistent with efficiency.”—Dr. Lichtenberg*r, Prof. Sociology. “The amount of work that the individual can do will be vastly increased by the prohibition of liquoi. It will also diminish crime at home among the civil population, and .♦ will largely reduce venereal diseases.”— Dr. McFarlane, Prof of Pathology and Bacteriology.

Captain Wagner, of the American sailing ship Minnie Caine, spoke thus to the Superintendent of ihe Sailors' Rest at Port Adelaide: -“My outstanding impression of your port is the amount of booze there is consumed in your midst, and the many facilities there are for getting it. 1 attribute the long delay and worry I have had to the drink. 1 have the strongest suspicion that drink caused the fire which broke out shortly after we berthed. This I know for certain, that when the fire was discovered the crew were so helplessly drunk that thev could not assist me to put it out. Drink was the cause of one of my men hanging himself while here. I tell you v.e have none of thi* booze nonsense in the ports I come from, which are in prohibition States. Here 1 have been held up for over six months waiting repairs just completed. Now for two di\s 1 have been w.iiting for*, one of my officers, who is still somewhere about the port hell lev sly t.u’ik, and I can’t go to s°a without him. It annoyed me very muc h to see r... advertisement in your papers purporting that water-drinking was causing a deterioration of the American race. My children have nev‘*r seen a saloon, : nd I am prepared to hand them over far a comparison w ith young people in ,ivy drinking country in the world.’’ The British Food Control Board for ic)iß-it)iq reduced the tonnage for carrying brewing materials h\ i)88,coo tons, leaving tonnage for this purpose amounting to 512000 tons. In the United Kingdom, wiih s»vvation looming ahead, during the last year the brewers destroyed 650,.) >0 tons of bread and sugar. The drink trade has made more out of hind *nig the war than any trade in th“ kingdom has made out of helping it. 'l l e brewers had to reduce their nu mt from twenty-six to fourteen millic n barrels, but they made more mo tey out of the lesser output, and got back a Treasury rebate of one million pounds in taxation. In the 1 United States of America last year, “the liquor trade consumed foodstuffs sufficient to feed 7,000,000 men for a year, required the toll of 75,000 farmers for six months to furnish these foodstuffs, engaged 62,020 wage-earners needed in legitimate industrv, and exacted a heavy toll of life.”

If, instead of encouraging oui children and our men and women to eat less, we simply refused to allow any grain or foodstuffs to be us; d for the production of liquor, we would not onl> avert the destruction which commonly results from the consumption of liquor, but we would save enough grains to supply continuously the bread and rations for oar own army and the combined armies of our Allies. Miss Jeanette Rankin. The enormous expenditure on dr nk —even if drink were innocuous—implies a corresponding abstraction of wealth from useful and beneficent uses. But drink is not innocuous. It is the most powerful and fascinating of all means of degradation and disease which unfortunate human nature can find to debase its elf. Every medical practiiioner sees illustrations of this almost every day of his life. The bishops have set us an example, and we of the medical profession have also our religious duties. “ 1 lie Lancet.’ The trade uses seven million tons of coal. It requires one million cars ind thirty thousand locomotives to haul rum’s products Hanley, of Indiana. The land in Great Britain alone that is devoted 10 th-> cultivation of grains for distilling and brewing purposes would make a grain bed a mile wide and long enough to reach across the Atlantic, and this in a land that produces only one-sixth of the grain it consumes. From twenty to thirty million dollars’ worth of fruit formerly used for home-made English jams could not he preserved for lack of sugar. It t ikes ioco trains every week of twenty car*, carrying ten tons each, to transport th“ trade in intoxicants. The Brewers’ Year Book for 17 in America admits destroying 2,040,240,2(>2 pounds of grain and two million ton* of coal. England’s liquor bill for iou "as £ i64,000,0cx); for 1 0 1 5 . £ 1 82,000,000; for 10 *6, £204,000,000; for iq 17, .£250,000,000. Great Britain destroys annually, for brewing purposes, 70,300,000 bushels of grain, 1,600,000 rwts. of rice, 4,400,000 cwts. of *ugar and molasses, and other foodstuffs too numerous to mention,

Since the war began the British breweries and distilleries have destroyed 5,110,000 tons of human food. The American Medical Association, with a membership of 81,000 physicians and surgeons, adopted the following resolutions: Whereas we believe that the use of alcohol is detrimental to the human economy, and whereas its use in therapeutics as a tonic or stimulant or tor food has no scientific value; therefore Be it roolved, That the Ameri< an Medical Association is opposed to the use of alt ohol as a beverage ; and Be it further resolved, That the use of alcohol as a therapeutic agent should be further discouraged.