BREAD OR BEER.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 282, 18 December 1918, Page 8

BREAD OR BEER.

The following extracts are taken from .1 pamphlet entitled “Bread or Boer,” written by VV. Stokes, Secretary of the Northumberland Miners’ Association: — 4 ‘We have been told that the Government is afraid that the working men would resist Prohibition. Th.it might be tiue in times of pca< e, and even in tim**s of war, were our foodstuffs not threatened; but to suggest that the working men, when faced with an imperative choice, such as we are now faced with, between bread and beer, will (house beer, is such a reflection on the character and intelligence of working men that, as one, 1 repudiate the slander. “The obstacle is not the working men Have we not been called upon to make far gieater sacrices than this? And have we not made these satrifbes in order to come successfully through the national struggle? Is it to be thought foi a moment that when the national crisis has reached its most acute stage, and starvation threatens, that we will not make this sacrifice also for the sake of our mothers and sisters, our wives and children? Are these less dear to us than those of the wealthy (lasses are dear to them? “The hand that grips the throat of the Government > s the fist of Gold. There is money in it. 'The Drink Trade has made and unmade Govern merits in the past, and the present Government is afraid of it. Perish the food of the people provided the dividend of the brewer remains. Thousands of small businesses have been destroyed without (ompensation, and the owners themselves compelled to give their lives in the service of the nation. 'These businesses helped to build up and strengthen the nation, while tins drink business weakens and destroys. Still it hns got to be preserved, and why? Because there is rnonev in it.”