Fiddling to Disaster
We are not going to lose the war through the submarines if we all behave like reasonable human beings who want to save their country from disaster, privation and distress.
The Prime Minister
What are we to say of a Government that plays with war and drink and famine while these brave words are ringing in our ears?
If the situation is so desperate that we must all go short of food, it is desperate enough for the Government to be in earnest. But what are the plain facts? No reasonable man who knows them can say that the Government is in earnest.
It is not denied by anybody who knows the facts that drink has been the greatest hindrance of the war. There is not a doubt that it has prolonged the war for months and cost us countless lives. It is the duty of the Government to face a dangerous thing like this; it is its duty to pursue the war with a single eye to the speediest possible victory. But the records of our war Governments in dealing with drink have been records of fiddling and failure, and we stand in the third year of the war with a Government fiddling still.
One thing will be perfectly clear if disaster and famine come. It will be known to all the world that the Government knew the facts in time to save us. We are in the war because we would not listen in times of peace. We are in the third year of the war because we would not listen in the first. We are faced with famine because we would not listen in times of plenty, when drink was breaking down our food reserves. And we are drifting now, nearer to disaster every day, because the Government surrenders to the enemy worse than Germany.
It does not matter where you look, or when; the evidence of the fiddling is everywhere about you. Take the week before the Prime Minister’s grave speech about submarines—ending May 19.
Submarines destroyed 27 British cargoes, mostly over 1600 tons.