THE LOST STRENGTH OF ENGLAND.

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 March 1917, Page 8

THE LOST STRENGTH OF ENGLAND.

WHY WE ARE WINNING SLOWLY

(By Arthur Mee, in the Daily Chronicle.) la the opinion of the Coimuandei-in-Chief there must be no slackening ol output even for a moment. The words are weighted with destiny for England and for Europe. More ammunition, says the Ministry of Munitions, means more victories and fewer casualties, ft i.s the equipment of our armies, says Mr Lloyd (leorge, that has made possible the great offensive. So the workshop saves the trenches; 'there can be no big push in France unless first of all we have had the hig push at home. The price of victory there is the spirit of the trenches here. Men do not pause out flieri?; the men who offer then lives are held in discipline as in a vice, and are willing to he held. A man may blush to think'of it, but the thing most needed li.r a speedy triumph of our arms i.s that every man at home should do his utmost. One" hundred per cent, of our workers hard at work, 100 per rent, of time well kept— it is not much for Admiral dellicoo and Sir Douglas Haig to ask of us who are not with lliem. but it will put the power of victory in their grasp. And vet what do we see.' We see the spectre of fear in Downing Street, alraid to ask of ns at home that'stern discipline that, love of England, that tireless zeal that is asked of our men in the .field. They give their lives lor us ; to them we give our leisured lives. We are not working our hardest, and the (lovenimcut, with the means of multiplying our output in their hands, have not taken the trouble to use it. All through this war they have watched the waste of millions of working davs. They are the days that drink lias stolen front us. and they would be incredible if we could reckon them up. The labor that i.s being wasted on drink and lost, through drink since tin* war began can luirdlv be I bought of as less than the equal of one day a week j that would be a< if the entire United Kingdom had stood still for 100 days,

HOW DRINK RROLONOS THE WAR

The cans;' of nearly all this Ins I, tamo i s drink, U is not drunkenness necessaiiiy: k is much more tin* disinclina-tion In work that comes with drinking. Men ate earning washes that they never dreamed of. and two things follow. Some earn a :(i(id week s wa»es in halt a week, and spend the other half drinking; some go on working all the time, drinking steadily and keeping rohcr. but always below the mark. It is these two classes oi nen that .are hctraving Knidaml now—or.e class not caring. the other not thinking ; and the great mass ol liatd working, | >;;i t’lot •;■ men (some of tlieu? working nine and ten normal davs a week) are powerless in the cruel grip of these bad workmen. Kvevv sane man knows that, one mall mav keep a dozen idle in a w.nksimp. One day las! March a few drunken firemen delayed tO’.K) {loops a day and a night, and for want oi 75 nun a great firm was, brining only half its possible supply of machine gnus at a time when men were being mowed down in thousands ior want of them. The l-iimr oi small niniiM. rs of men is vital In great wo! kslieps, and it is minorities of melt, and not, majorities, again?! whom the nation needs protect ion. The loyal majority of the Itritisli people is imperilled hy a m,inanity of those who h.ve her least. It is all imaginary, it- may he said, this interference of drink with the Armv and the Navy, in thousands of homes throngliput liit' land, unhappily, it is too pitifully wed known that drink has enormously increased miv casualties. While our imm liave fought the enemy without the gale we have allowed an enemv within to hold hack their only hope of life. Lei ns, ■once more, look at some shifple facts; they cover the most critical months of the war. In one of the most important shell shops i>i Kngland 25 per cent, worked under a normal day, 15 per cent, worked under five dav.s a week.

Take a week in a shipyard with JjOOO nit'ii. On t!iree days over 9)0 were absent. on two days nearly 000. on Saturday 600. and 2500 more lost a quarter every dav. Out of 50.000 days' work waitini>for this yard that week. 5500 days were thrown away. A submarine engine was being repaired hy 155 men. and every day over 20 were absent. While columns could be filled with such east's. In the critical days ol last year in certiiin shipyards cal the Clyde the lost time in one month was equal to 75.000 men idle lor one day. ft will be said that tiiai was long ag". (hat the Hoard of Control have been set up, and things aie better- now. Well, in November the manager of one oi the largest, armament work's in England is ported that there lut'd been no appreciable saving of lost time; and it was otdv last month that the figures for lost time in Sheffield readied their high-water mark. The total limp lost was over 53.000 horns.• jt was as if 500 of the best workmen m Sheffield bad struck work for a week*. DRINK AND THE NAVAi, RATTLE, There are. those who think that Prohibition would cause great trouble among workmen, but could any trouble likely to arise equal this that gees on all the time? It' is a simple business proposition whether the British F.mpiie, as partner with France and Russia in this figlu for the freedom of Europe, is strong enough to win with only part of its strength. The Comn under in Chief of the Army know.s hmv to deal with men who fail him in the field : it is on our honor at home to deal with those who fail ns behind the British lines. Without passion and without prejudice, it, must he stated thatdrink lias robbed this country in her hour of trial of a continuous power equal to hundreds of thousand* of men. » nnt would they not have been worth at lams, in .Mesopotamia, or on Gallipoli? What would Lord Kitchener not have given lor them on that, day last August -when he found on his. desk in Whitehall a desperate appeal from Sir lan Hamilton for 100.000 men. “If this help could be sent nt onee, ! ’ it said, “we could still clear a passage for our Elect to Constantinople.'’ But Lord Kitchener had not 100.000 men to send, though Prohibition would have given them to him easily.

ll is the price we pay, the price our Allies pay, for this private trade in drink; and, as for our men, they pay for it with their lives. It is over a year since tho Cabinet was officially warned that drink was holding back torpedo craft. We dare not risk a bank holiday, but drink takes heavier toll of ns each week than any holiday without drink would ever do. We have added an hour of sunlight to our working day, and let drink steal a day from our working week. So this callous farce goes on. Our men push on and on, and ever on, and we—we give them such help ns a. private trade will let us. We come up slowly with a milestone round our neck, and we shout in a loud voice from the .Mansion House that we believe in this war to the last ounce of our .strength.

If faith is measured by words, that is not true, \Vc believe first in the liberty of Drink, and second in the liberty of England.