Mr. Lloyd George says Mr. Prothero is working “in a continuous rattle of
mocking laughter and gibes.” Yes, it is the mocking laughter of a nation
that is not really amused by sights like this. The nation does not like
to see the bread rations of 70,000 men in France cut down while the
Drink Trade is destroying every week bread enough to last these men a
year. It does not like to see the Government sending letters out to
managers of factory canteens, begging them to be careful of bread, while
food flows through our beer canteens like a river running to waste. It
does not like to see Y. M. C. A. canteens denied supplies of sugar while
barrels of beer are stacked in great piles outside. It does not like the
calling up of discharged soldiers while thousands of strong men are
working hard all day destroying food or carting beer about the streets;
and it does net like the tragic comedies of Captain Bathurst, who warns
us that it really may become necessary in the national interest—and
then, perhaps, he drops his voice to break it very gently—it really may
become necessary, if these cake shops are not very careful, _to
whitewash the lower part of their windows_.
Oh, these fiddlers! And now we have a new idea from the Food Control
Department; it is a coloured poster of a Union Jack and a big loaf on
it, and “Waste not, Want not,” printed in big type. It was being printed
on the day the Prime Minister told the nation that America had found it
is no use waving a neutral flag in the teeth of a shark. It is an
eloquent and true saying, but it is also true, that it is no use waving
platitudes from copybooks in the teeth of a wolf at the door. The Prime
Minister says he is taking no chances. Let us be quite sure. We once had
a Government of which men said its motto was “Wait and See.” _Are we
better off, or are we worse, with a Government that Sees and Waits?_
But there is no end to the fiddling. With Food Controllers who hold up
food for Food Destroyers; with Food Economy Handbooks that cry out loud
to save the crumbs but have no word to say about the tons we fling away;
with a Prime Minister praying for window-boxes and a Board of
Agriculture consecrating hopfields, we need not be surprised if the
nation is not mightily impressed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
How the Allies Did It
All the world knows, except, apparently, the world that goes round at
Westminster, how Prohibition has helped the Allies.
_With the Shell Famine at its height—largely made by Drink—the
Prohibition Army on the East held up the enemy while Britain fought the
Drink Trade for her shells._
_With the Bread Famine looming in sight—largely made by Drink—the
Prohibition Navy from the West flings in her power against the
submarines._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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