We do not, however, desire to go into these details,
for we are not trying to convert the Temperance Party to Purchase. Once more, we desire Purchase because it is the direct road to the two war measures which we want : (1) Reduction of the appalling risks of food shortage by putting an end to the conversion of food into intoxicants. (2) The release for combatant purposes of some quarter of a million men, at least, of military age, who are now engaged in the manufacture, retailing, and transport of intoxicants. Some authorities, indeed, we believe, put the figure not at a quarter but half a million. Further, it would lead to such treatment of the conditions of sale as would prevent the present scandal of days lost through drink which now disgraces the Clyde, the Tyne, and the other great munition areas. In a word, we want to win the war. The drink problem stands in the way, and the only practical method that we can see of dealing with that problem is Purchase. Those who allege that we are for Purchase on fanatical teetotal grounds, as we understand the Morning Post to do, are simply Playing the old game of first putting up a man of straw and then knocking him down—not a very worthy game in war time. Mean- while wo.will ask the Morning Post a plain question. What answer does it give to our fable of the Beleaguered City (p. 36) ? Would it have been on the side of the General or on that of the mild and fatalistic Civil Authorities ?
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