What is the Government’s answer to this? “We owe a very considerable debt of gratitude to the great American people for the effective assistance they are rendering us,” says the Prime Minister. _Is this the way we pay them back?_ It is an ugly question for our great Ally to have to raise as she comes into the war, flinging her Prohibition Navy in to smash the drink-made menace of the submarine. It is unthinkable that the Government can read these bitter words unmoved, or can leave this stain on our history in the face of all these questionings. There is another question, too, that comes across the Atlantic. What is the Government going to do with the soldiers of America’s Prohibition Army, and the sailors of America’s Prohibition Navy, when they come over here? Are they to be broken in their thousands, made useless and degraded as thousands of men from Prohibition Canada have been, by the enemy that traps them before they reach the war? They are questions for the Government and the nation, and they must be answered in the interests of the nation, and not to please the trade that helps the Germans every day. We cannot afford to pay the appalling price the future will demand unless our fiddlers change their tune. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Drink Trade and Our War Services =It is not possible to measure the strain the Drink Traffic has imposed on our war services.= The Food Controller’s Organization, with its great offices and staffs, would not have been needed had we saved the food destroyed by drink. Rationing already involves 1,200 committees, and may mean 50,000 officials and 50,000,000 tickets weekly. It could all be avoided. Prohibition would save more bread without food controlling than all the food controlling can save without Prohibition. The National Service, with its network of officials, its costly advertising, its absorption of paper and printing, could all have been avoided under Prohibition. About 200,000 men have enrolled, but Prohibition would give us twice that man-power any day. The strain on a host of men and women looking after soldiers’ children neglected through drink, soldiers’ wives spending allowances on drink, is incalculable. The strain on war charities and the strain on the police arising from drink are both very great. The strain of drink on doctors, nurses, and hospitals is beyond belief. Prohibition would set free for the Red Cross thousands who waste their time on the great drink trail. The strain on transport is seen in the long lines of wagons drawn by strong horses carting beer to public-houses. This year alone the handling of drink must equal the lifting of at least 9,000,000 tons, and the barrels of beer would fill nearly all the railway wagons in the kingdom. As to ships, drink materials during the war have used up 60 ships of 5,000 tons working all the time.