On Lord Milner’s estimate of 19 barrels to the truck it would require 4,500,000 railway trucks to carry the 17,000,000 tons of beer manufactured in the United Kingdom during the war. =It can be proved from official figures that the weight of drink-stuff carried about since war began has been equal to the weight of solid material carried by the Navy to all our fighting fronts.= It is a crying shame that the strength of Britain should be destroyed like this in such an hour as this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The War-Work of the Food Destroyers There are hundreds of great Food Destructors in the United Kingdom. The man-power at their service, spread over our breweries and distilleries, numbers hundreds of thousands of men; their capital is hundreds of millions. This is a summary of the work they did in the first 1,000 days of the war: =They sacrificed 4,400,000 tons of grain and 340,000 tons of sugar, enough to ration the whole United Kingdom with bread for 43 weeks and sugar for 33 weeks.= =They took from every kitchen cupboard in the land 600 pounds of bread and 76 pounds of sugar.= =They destroyed bread and sugar to last every child under fifteen for every day of the war.= =They took from our people over £512,000,000.= =They used up labour and transport for lifting over 50,000,000 tons. By sea they used up 60 ships of 5,000 tons; by rail their raw materials and the finished products would make up a train long enough to reach nearly round the world.= ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Food Now Being Destroyed for Beer Look at the actual facts about beer alone. We will ignore distilling, as it gives us munitions and yeast. Had the Government tried to solve the yeast question it could have solved it easily in these three years; it would have had no more trouble with that problem than Russia and Canada and America have had. But as the Government is still investigating the yeast question, we will confine our figures to beer. =Brewers are destroying 450,000 4-lb. loaves a day.= =This year’s food destruction for beer alone will equal five weeks’ bread rations and four weeks’ sugar rations for the whole United Kingdom.= =We have seven critical weeks in this summer, and this year’s destruction of food would carry us through.= =Beer alone is taking 10 pounds of sugar a year from every kitchen cupboard, and an ounce of sugar a day from every soldier.= That is what drink is doing at this moment with the shadow of famine creeping on. “_He who withholdeth the corn the people shall curse him._” Proverbs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Shadow of Famine