LIQUOR CONSUMPTION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14596, 4 May 1918, Page 9

LIQUOR CONSUMPTION.

• **•* ■ ■ '.i * CUT TO THIRD IN GREAT BRITAIN LONDON, March 15. Consumption of intoxicating liquors m Great Britain is nowr only one-third of wß&t it was four "years ago, Premier iiloyd Georg© declared m an address to the Free Churchmen at the City Temple to-day when" challenged about the drink traffic. No spirits were being manufactured at all, he said, and anyone who four years ago should predict such a thing would not have been believed. The Premier reiterated that if it came to a question of choosing between bread and beer, the Government would not hesitate a moment. The .present, he added, was an hour of grave national emergency ; the appeal of war was greater than patriotism, because it was an appeal for help against the forces of brutality and a cry of conscience against the greed and lust of one power. Tiie function of the churches was to keep tho nation up to the level of its high purpose when entering the war. No nation had ever entered -war with n more holy purpose. The churches must keep tho war to the end a holy war; anything else would disgrace the memory of the heroic dead. Instead of having hunger at one end and surfeit at the other, said the Premier, there was a fair distribution among all classes and ranks CARRIES LOiAD' OiF CARE. Speaking of the jgajjher m wliich the carrying on of tnef'war taxed his strength, he added:.— "I know that the :very zeal, by my oath to my King and country, and. my love of my native land, I felt bound to throw- into my task, has led to misunderstanding with my best friends, which have caused me more distvoss than I can tell you; but pardon me, I have no time to clear that up Thow. >• I have a terrible task upon my shoulders, a, task almost