Anti-Alcohol Advertising
Sm,—I feel it a public duty to ask for your publicity for a denial of freedom imposed not by any Governmental body but at the instance of commercial notions of what is popular and unpopular and what is financially more profitable—a censorship and dictatorship within democracy. It happens to be concerned with the education of the public about alcohol-drinking, but that of course is not the issue. Advertisements have been refused for newspapers and buses. Now the British Poster Advertising Association has told its members not to bill-post posters of which it disapproves. Here are the wordings prohibited (they were fathered by the Western Temperance League):
" You cannot drown your troubles in drink: they swim."
"Think before you drink: it is harder to think after."
" Don't drink until your doctor says ' Stop '; maybe then it won't matter whether you do or not."
" Motorists: Alcohol produces progressive paralysis of judge- ment and this begins with the first glass' (Sir Lauder Brunton)." The official reason given for this prohibition is that the Association is " opposed to definite statements which are not true or which are a gross exaggeration." Now the last Royal Commission on Licensing drew attention to advertisements for alcoholic drinks which were demonstrably untrue, and such advertisements continue to be exhibited on hoardings. May I appeal to the British sense of fair play to con- vince the advertising agencies that this sort. of suppression in deference to popularity and the bigger purse will -not do ? Any day someone may wish to publicise some doctrine that is unpOpular, and " it may be
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