DISTILLERS AND PROHIBITION

Evening Star, Issue 16350, 16 February 1917, Page 5

DISTILLERS AND PROHIBITION

The latest information from the Old Country ,s that no "rain whisky is now being produced for potable purpose-. Mr William H. Ross, who is at the head of the whisky distilling business in .Scotland, and who lias bEor. of guvat assistance to the British Government since tho outbreak of war, in a Jotter communicate 1 to the Edinburgh Press (in November 21, wrote:—"Of rh c 40.000. gallons of spirits produced at the patent still d.stilleries, at least threefourths, or, say, 50,000,000 gallons, arc at present required for Govc.rftnicnl and other Industrial purposes—leaving only 10.000.000 gallons of patent add 7,ooo,ooo'gallons pot •pH spirits for potable purposes. The quan- / JHy material required to produce ibis 17.000. gallons spirits may be put down &t 160,000 tons, which is the sum total which could he saved if all but tlie spirits required for Government and industrial purposes were at once cut off. Even this balance of 17.000. gallons may also soon be required for the munition factories. This, how over, does irk, complete the uses to which the grain supplied to distilleries is put. The yeast industry has now become a most important one from the national point of view. Thirty years rgo this country was dependent almost entirely on foreign distillers for the supply of yeast for bmulmaking. The industry was then introduced into this conrtry, and between that date and the outbreak ot war the home distilleries had succeed,d in wresting about two-thirds of (he trade from tho foreigner, of which ihc chief sufferer was Germany. Sinca the war the quantity of foreign yeast has been further curtailed, and at times, rwing to the uncertainty of the transit arrangements between the Continent and England, the baking trade has been entirely dependent on the British, distiller for its supply of yeast. Finally, after alcohol and yeast have respectively claimed their share of the properties of which {train is composed, tbor eis left a rosidr.c which is parficulraly rich iu almubinoids and oil, and which forms an excellent cattle food- The quantity of draff and dreg recovered from tho grain used as above will amount to about 360,000 tons per annum, and may bo considered valuo tor at least £420,000. I tee it te farmers to say what substitute they would Hud so suitable for the purpose for which it is employed. I havo already trespassed so much on your space that 1 hesitate to say more, but this much I will say, that if those Prohibitionists who havo been decrying I lie manufacture of spirits had got their way before the war and succeeded in closing down the distilleries of the United Kingdom, the country would have found it.-clf Tu even a worse plight than we were when hostilities broke oui. History may yet have to record that tiie distillers of the United Kingdom did not a little to rave the situation.''