A DIGNIFIES PROTEST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12410, 30 August 1918, Page 5

A DIGNIFIES PROTEST.

AGAINST MUDDLEHEAOEDNESS.

The leaders of the Efficiency campaign in Christchurch noted with real concern the mental confusion of -the Licensed Victuallers as evidenced by their "dignified protest” on the publication of a cartoon which represented tho Kaiser decorating Booze with an Iron Cross and hailing him as Kamerad. Clear-headedness should have saved tho victuallers from confusing things that differ. Booze in the cartoon represents neither licensees nor brewers but the Trade impersonally. Pathetic appeals to the sons that fellow-citizens who are in tho trade have sent to the front in nowise affects the timeliness of the said cartoon. The cartoon is the artist’s version of the deliberate statement of the Premier of Great Britain (Lloyd George) that the nation has three enemies, Germany, Austria and Drink, and the greatest of these is drink. Let the Trade lodge a "dignified protest against that. The cartoon is tho artist’s equivalent to the Kings action in banishing Alcoholic Liquors from the royal palaces lor the period of tho war. the Trade assail their " undignified King.” The cartoon is the voioe of 1000 of the greatest men m the -Mother Country—admirals, generals, authors, scientists and judges who conjointly appealed to the Government to bring in absolute prohibition of the "Trade.” Let the local victuallers gently chastise the waywardness of these men and nob spill tears on ' the epitome of their views in a cartoon which is both broadly and particularly true.

But if the Trade can prove that booze has not held up -the construction and repair of the King’s warships, as Admiral Jollicoo savs that it has—That it has not debmi cl led soldiers «uul been the immediate cause of 'the largest percent ago of venereal disease, as the Bishop of Liverpool says that it has—-That it has not occupied so much shipping space as would have obviated hunger queues in England last winter, or in the alternative have transported 500,000 extra American soldiers to Erance. That it did not on June 30, in Wellington city so debauch a large number of returned soldiers as to hold up Willis and Manners Streets and to '‘scunner” the whole town (vide leader in “New Zealand Times That it was not compelled by-tho Now Zealand Government to go out of business in Christchurch yesterday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., so far as returned soldiers and men in uniform were concerned—lf it did not do these and 1000 other things to the detriment of the King’s service and to the aiding and abetting of the King’s enemies, then the cartoon shall be withdrawn. But Since it is notorious that_ the Trade has done all_ these things and more to the public hurt and peril the cartoon shall bo publicly exhibited in Christchurch—not. as reflecting on individuals, but as" reflecting on a trade which at such n time as tins ought to cease its being. 7915