BRITAIN’S COLOSSAL DRINK BILL.

White Ribbon, Volume 26, Issue 305, 18 November 1920, Page 6

BRITAIN’S COLOSSAL DRINK BILL.

Mr George B. Wilson has compiled his annual “drink bill” (11*19) for Great Britain. Mr Wilson, succeeding the late Dr. Dawson Burns in tin* compilation of these yearly statistical exhibits, has been so thorough in the work that his compilations are accepted by the trade as well as in Government circles. They are looked upon as semi-official. Aside from the colossal total of the drink expenditures for 1919. reaching higher than ever before in British history. there appear some other glaring features. While a large part of Europe is starving for bread, the British brewers used up 850.000 tons of cereals in the manufacture of beer. While the British people themselves are rationed on sugar, and cannot get enough for their tables, to say nothing .about preserving fruits, the British brewers wasted 87,000 tons of sugar in the manufacture of beer for headaches. The fruit can rot. While England cannot obtain sufficient coal to start up her pre-war industries. the British brewers used up 900,000 tons of coal in the making of beer, and the distillers used 240.000 tons in the distillation of whisky. While the British manufacturers end shippers had their backs to the wall because they could not secure adequate transportation. th** liquor interests transported 10,000,000 tons, an amount equal to 3,000,000 railway truck loads. And in ihis period of financial distress, the people of Britain squandered a total of about OTdol per capita during tin* year for intoxicating drink. With a war debt of appalling proportions hanging over them, with exports about one-half their imports, with the chronic industrial unrest that accompanies the large consumption of drink, and with the competition of dry America for the' world’s markets staring them in the* face, the outlook for the recuperation of Britain's finances and industries is about as cheerful as an Arab funeral. It is no wonder that the leaders of thought among our British cousins are turning to Prohibition as theh only salvation, as never before. Conic on in, John Bud, the watei i-* fine. Exchange.