27 JANUARY 1917, Page 2

Mr. A. D. Hall, the well-known agricultural expert, pleads in

a vigorous. letter to the Times for the prohibition of the sale oLspirita during the war. Though he is opposed to compulsory temperance, in time of peace, he declares that it is necessary now because there is far too much whisky-drinking in the training camps all over the country. "Everywhere fathers and mothers have given their Etna Without grudge, but they are heart-sick at the moral conditions of the society into which their boys, often fresh from school, are plunged." Mr. gall would have us strengthen the Y.M.C.A. but against the competition of the canteen and the public-house by giving up spirits for the sake of- our splendid young men.