"DOWN GLASSES "—MISSIONARY IIELP.
ETa THE Enema or Ills "SPECTiTOR."3 Rie,—Like many of your constant readers, I too am much impressed with your policy of " Down Glasses during the War," and wish an possible God-speed to your practical solution of the problem of the wastage of time, energy, and money caused by drink—namely, State Purchase of the Trade. The diffi- culty, to my mind, is to bring home to the masses of working men your admirable teaching and compelling argu- ' meats. In discussing this knotty problem it has often been said to me ad nauseant.: "Don't deprive a working man of his beer. Do you think he can face the stokehold or take his place at the steam-forgo without his glass? Surely you don't expect a man to go down the pit without it." Now any one who has laboured in the big industrial centres—where men do give blood for bread—knows that such sayings are pure fallacies. Experience proves that the drink is taken for the most part at, the week-ends, when the men are idle. In mining districts of ;Lancashire, Northumberland, Durham, Lanarkshire, where I have preached, the public-houses practically are doing nothing on the working days of the week. On the Clyde—I defy contra- ! diction—the large tamblers, locally known as schooners, are filled with the favourite beverage in readiness for the men as they rush from the shipyards on Saturdays. A schooner contains one large -measure of whisky and beer to the brim.- In one house over a `hundred schooners are ready for the stroke of twelve. Who can deny that the men drink most, and a great many only, when they have finished work for the week? Surely the time has come for action. All sane men must hope that your scheme will materialize, and that the wise Government will deal promptly with the evil. Of course there must be some opposition. It will prove en Herculean task to shift all the brewers' trucks and drays out of the way.
The Government may not be able to sweep away all obstacles to your plan in such time as to enable us swiftly to give the Iknock-out blow to the Germans. My point is that something might be done immediately to prepare men's minds for what is surely to be called a revolutionary change. Now is a time for concerted action. Movements such as "The Strength of Britain Movement " must be doing something to educate the working class up to the conviction of the necessity of giving up drink , during the war. The Press, too, is a mighty engine in such a cause. Yet there is another way of getting these truths home to the people—sound arguments from the pulpit. I venture to say that pulpit orators are not making use of the powers they possess in so noble a cause and so pressing a need. It has been said that the Church of England Mission of Repentance and Hope did ' not touch the working masses. I should like to believe it did, , especially on the abuse of drink. Would that the cloak of either rather Mathew or Cardinal Manning bad actually fallen on one of their many disciples l I do not lose sight of the official attitude you have taken up, but think that to further your policy you might find in mission preachers a strong phalanx of helpers.
'Something undoubtedly might be achieved if all who are continu- ally engaged like myself in giving missions, and who by their
;very profession as well as by their own convictions are bound to teireach against the abuse of drink—if all would make an appeal nt the end of the sermon on drunkenness to moderate drinkers, 'first to abstain from the use of drink during the war, and secondly
to discourage its use in others. The final appeal to their patriotism would not be in vain—not to impoverish the nation, now a beleaguered city, whose daily bread is being turned into beer; but to think generously of posterity, of the future fathers CW8 commend this appeal to the clergy of all denominations.— ED. Spectator.]
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