One thing will be perfectly clear if disaster and famine come. It will be known to all the world that the Government knew the facts in time to save us. We are in the war because we would not listen in times of peace. We are in the third year of the war because we would not listen in the first. We are faced with famine because we would not listen in times of plenty, when drink was breaking down our food reserves. And we are drifting now, nearer to disaster every day, because the Government surrenders to the enemy worse than Germany.
It does not matter where you look, or when; the evidence of the fiddling is everywhere about you. Take the week before the Prime Minister’s grave speech about submarines—ending May 19.
_Submarines destroyed 27 British cargoes, mostly over 1600 tons._
=Brewers destroyed 27 British food cargoes, totaling 9000 tons.=
_The granaries of Canada were crammed with wheat waiting for British ships, but there were no ships to bring this people’s food._
=The rum quay at London Docks was crammed with casks of rum to last till 1920, but a ship arrived with 1000 Casks more.=
_A woman was fined £5 for destroying a quartern loaf._
=Brewers were fined nothing for destroying millions of loaves.=
_Poor people waited in queues to buy sugar in London._
=Cartloads of sugar were destroyed in London breweries.=
And so we might go on, looking on this picture and on that till the mind almost reels with the solemn farce. The Prime Minister has suggested that the farce does not end because those who demand its end cannot make up their mind. It is the Government that cannot make up its mind.
It tells Parliament that no more rum is to be imported, and goes on importing rum for years ahead.
It forbids the use of spirits less than three years old, and reduces the three years to 18 months.
It restricts beer to 10,000,000 barrels, and tells us one day that it is all-inclusive, and the next day that the Army Council can order as much extra beer as it likes.
It issues a report saying that hops are not food, and gives up hundreds of thousands of feet to shipping them; 23,000 cubic feet the other week.
It tells us that not an inch of shipping is wasted, and wastes shipping on bringing brewers’ vats from America and taking gin to Africa.