The Price the Empire Pays
It is a bitter irony that while the men of the Empire have come to France to fight the enemy of mankind, this foe within our gates has struck a blow at the British Empire that generations will not heal. How many Empire men this private trade has slain we do not know, but we know beyond all challenge that it has weakened the bonds that bind our Dominions to the Motherland. This trade that throttles us at home can pull the Empire down, and it has started well. It has struck its blow at Canada.
Let us look at the plain facts which in other days than these would have caused a storm of anger that Parliament could not have ignored. Canada has followed the King; arming herself with her full powers, flinging herself upon her enemies with her utmost strength, she has swept drink out of Canada almost from sea to sea. But even before she did this Canada saw that alcohol must go from her camps if her men were to be fit to fight for England, and long before the Prohibition wave swept across the country, the Canadian Government removed all alcohol from the training camps. It was the deliberate choice of a Government and its people, and from that day to this there has been no reason for regret.
So the young manhood of Canada, rallying to the flag, was guarded from alcohol. She poured out her men in hundreds of thousands; they came to us from Prohibition camps; they came in Prohibition ships, and even here this trade that has us in its grip was not allowed at first in the Canadian camps; the only condition that Canada made—a condition implied but clearly understood—was properly regarded and obeyed.
We respected the desire of Canada, and kept her soldiers free from drink in their own camps. But a soldier cannot keep in camp, and in the villages around the Drink Trade waits in every street. The military authorities were willing for the Canadian Government to have their way inside the camps, but drink was free outside, and in these public-houses there was sown the seed that may one day break this Empire. The Drink Trade was so rampant outside the Canadian camps that Prohibition inside was almost in vain. We had to decide between breaking the word of the Canadian Government to its people or dealing with this trade as Canada herself has done; as Russia has done; as France and America are doing. It was the Empire or the drink traffic, and the drink traffic won, as it always wins with us.
It came about in October, down on Salisbury Plain. During one week-end a number of Canadian troops gave way to drinking in villages around the camps, and it was then that the grave decision was come to that the drink trade should be allowed to set up its horrible canteens in every Canadian camp. The change was made at the request of a British General, and we have the assurance of the Prime Minister of Canada that the approval of the Canadian Government was neither obtained nor asked. In handing the Canadian Army over to the drink canteens, in deliberately reversing the policy of the Canadian Government and its people, there was no consultation with Canada.
It is important to remember that this decision, fraught with tragic and far-reaching consequences for the Empire, was a pure and simple English act. We may imagine the Canadian view from the remark of a Canadian General, who said, “I know drink is a hindrance, but I can do very little, because in military circles in this country drunkenness is not considered a very serious offense.”
It would have been surprising if there had not poured in upon our Government a stream of protests, and from all parts of the Dominions they came. The Dominion of Canada, giving freely to the Motherland 450,000 boys and men, was moved to passionate indignation that England should scorn her love for them, should ignore the pleadings of their mothers and sisters, and should put in their way the temptations from which they were saved at home. Canada does not want our drink trade; she lives side by side with the United States, she sees that great country building up its future free from drink, and she sees America, splendid ally in war, as a mighty rival in peace.
And Canada is ready for the Reconstruction. She has followed the Prohibition lead of the United States, and already she has ceased to be a borrowing country. The very first year of Prohibition has seen this young Dominion, for the first time in her history, financially self-sustaining. Crime is disappearing; social gatherings are held in her gaols; she has set up vast munition workshops, and instead of borrowing money for her own support she has made hundreds of millions’ worth of munitions for which this country need not pay until the war is over, and then need never pay at all for the munitions the Canadians have used. Canada is in deadly earliest. She kept her men away from drink to make them fit; she has swept it away to make a clean country for those who go back.
And what is England’s contribution to this Imperial Reconstruction? We have scorned it all. The Prime Minister has said that this drink trade is so horrible that it is worth this horrible war to settle with it, yet we have sacrificed the love of Canada on our brewers’ altar. We can believe the Canadian who declares his profound conviction that but for this Canada would have sent us 100,000 more recruits; we can believe it is true that where responsible Canadians meet together in these days the talk is of how long the tie will last unbroken that binds the daughter to the Motherland. We can understand the passion that lies behind the resolutions that come to Downing Street from Nova Scotia; we know the depth of the yearning of those 64,000 mothers and wives of Toronto who signed that great petition to the Government of Canada begging it in the name of God to intervene.
We can understand it all; but let us call the witnesses, and let us see the price the Dominion pays for our quailing before this Kaiser’s trade.