The Government supplied the soldiers in the camp and in the trench with the means of decreasing their fighting efficiency. To the 'tot of rum' can be {142} traced a proportion of the cases of unstable nervous equilibrium which the war has produced. Men who were total abstainers, pledged Rechabites, and others were swept by a paternal Government into the ranks of those who derive from alcohol a false exhilaration. 'The national conscience,' writes Lieut.-Colonel Woodhead, 'has not yet been thoroughly aroused to the importance of the issues at stake--that in peace or in war intemperance is the link in the chain of our national life which gives greatest evidence of weakness and most cause for anxiety.' Against stupidity the gods themselves fight in vain. Though every laboratory worker and every physiological chemist tells us, with the cold precision of science, that alcohol is not a stimulant but a depresser, that the elation it produces is simply that of a narcotic, that it diminishes the energy and dulls the enthusiasm of man, that it leaves the mind and body more exhausted than before--yet the stupidity entrenched in high places cannot learn {143} the lesson. It trains the armies on alcohol; it seeks to sustain the embattled hosts with alcohol. IV The great refusal of April 20, 1915, meant that this national organisation for the training of the manhood of the race in the use of alcohol went on unhindered. Of all the products of the great war this is the most amazing. Let any one consider the situation and judge. In every camp and barracks the visitor will find the State-established monopoly of the canteen. The canteen is set up by the State, and the taxpayer provides the building, rent and rate and tax free, for the contractor, who runs the canteen. Abroad, the canteens are almost exclusively in the hands of one co-operative society, whose board of management is mainly composed of officers in the Service and some of them recently heads of regimental institutes. 'Clearly there is a great deal of "military" money invested in it. {144} Surely it is not a good thing that a society of this kind should have the privilege of making a good deal of money out of supplies to the private soldier.'[3] Whatever be the system of administering the canteen, whether by the regimental officers or by contractors, the fact remains that behind the canteen are the resources of the nation. And the contractors of the canteen supply in some cases amusements. 'I know of a camp where the contractor supplied the singers, and not very desirable ones either.'[4] Recreation is thus used to encourage the consumption of alcohol by the army.