TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEED OF THE HOUR.
DURING the week the air has been full of rumours that the Government are considering whether they ought not to buy out the trade, lock, stock, and barrel, and so give the nation henceforth an absolutely free hand in dealing with the liquor question—as free a hand as the Russian Government had when they decided to stop the sale of spirits at the beginning of the war. We most earnestly hope that these rumours are true, and that the Government will have the courage and the wisdom—for both are needed—to adopt the policy we have indicated. It is further rumoured that if a State monopoly in intoxi- cants is thus created the Government will at once prohibit the sale of all forms of spirits, and will only allow the sale of beer of a low alcoholic strength—beer such as is generally sold on the Continent, and especially in Austria and South Germany. Last week we gave our reasons for urging upon the Government a policy of Thorough and for condemning half-measures. We asked for total prohibition, and wrote strongly against the scheme for partial prohibition, coupled with restrictions as to hours and localities. We did not then contemplate the buying out of the whole trade—distillers and brewers alike—and also of all licensed houses, or regard it as being within the region of practical politics. Now, how- ever, that the policy of State purchase has become a possi- bility, and is being publicly discussed, we have no hesita- tion in saying that we would sooner see public owner- ship, and only total prohibition for spirits and strong beers, than total prohibition during the war, with a return afterwards to the old evils and difficulties of a privileged trade monopoly. Our reasons are not difficult to state. Though we should lose a certain moral force by not adopting total prohibition, and should not give quite the same awakening trumpet-call to the nation, should not, that is, proclaim quite as loudly our determination to make any and every sacrifice to see the war through, we should obtain a great advantage in other ways by placing the control of intoxicants once and for all in the hands of the people themselves. Total prohibition merely for the war is open to the objection that there will be a risk of our returning when the war is over to the status quo, or something very near the status quo, with a consequent orgy of drunkenness. At the close of the war we should see let loose upon the population a huge body of pushing salesmen very naturally determined to make up for lost time, and hungry to earn their old profits by giving facilities to the pent-up appetite for intoxicants.
If we can secure State ownership that danger will be removed. In the first place, we shall be able to make what regulations we like as to the sale of spirits, or continue to forbid them altogether ; and next, we shall be able to withdraw all incitements to the sale of the milder intoxicants after as well as during the war. A man will be able to buy a glass of beer, but be will buy it as he does a postage-stamp or a postal order. No one will attempt to force it upon him, or to persuade him into takiug a couple more glasses, or endorse and supplement his generous impulse to treat his friends. In a word, we shall have the whole of the retail trade in intoxicants carried on on the basis which has proved so satisfactory in the Trust houses and in those public-houses managed by the People's Refreshment House Association. We shall have disinterested management throughout the length and breadth of the land. The keeper of the public- house will make a profit upon the food, the mineral waters, the tea, the coffee, the cocoa, and the beef-tea which he sells, but only upon them. Not a penny will he earn on an increased sale of beer, cider, or light wines. Therefore all his energies, as in the Trust public-houses, will be con. eentrated upon pushing the non-alcoholic side of his business. His liquor sales will be to him a matter of no importance. To obtain a result so far-reaching it would, in our opinion, be worth while to sacrifice a portion of the moral results which would come from a national abjuration of all intoxicanta during the war. And here we are quite sure that we are not singular in our opinion. We believe -that there are thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, of
men and women in this country who, though now inclined towards total prohibition, would, if the choice were given them, on consideration prefer, as we have done, the plan of buying out the whole liquor trade, and giving the country henceforth an absolutely free hand.
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