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THE KING’S BUSINESS
The conduct of the President" of the United States in relation to the attempt to do away with the appalling waste of food stuffs in the manufacture and sale of strong drink has been very disappointing. We do not know that if any one of the rival candidates had been
The President’s Attitude on the Drink Question.
elected President, he would have done any better, but we certainly wish that President Wilson had acted a wiser part. If he had thrown his influence in favor of saving all this food that is being wasted in the manufacture of strong drink, there can be no doubt but that he would have succeeded, and that today this most enormous and appalling of all wastes would have been stopped. Instead of doing this, he threw his influence in favor of the tremendous waste of food stuffs in the manufacture of beer. He even went so far as to appeal to the Anti-Saloon League of America to withdraw their agitation in favor of the only policy that has any promise of reasonableness at the present time, and he said to the members of the Senate, who consulted him on the matter. It would undoubtedly be in the public interest in this very critical matter if the friends of those provisions should consent to their elimination.” There is one man more than any other man in this country who stands responsible for the largest and most unnecessary waste of food stuffs that there is in our land, and that man is President Wilson. matter appears in the London Christian which reads as follows: The latest experience of Germany’s moral lawlessness, while in no sensible degree affecting the courage of our people, and while certainly failing in one at least of its obvious intentions—to quicken a popular demand for premature peace while the moment is still favorable to the KAISER—has brought again into the foreground the question of reprisals. A section of the press, in keep ing with its modern tradition, has almost lashed itself into a freijzy in denounc- ing the recent air-raids upon defenceless men, women and children, and in clamouring for a definite policy of reparation in kind on the part of the Gov ernment. True only to itself, it poses as the one sincere exponent alike of patriotism and of the national spirit; and since it is principally read by that part of the community which likes to have its thinking done for it, and its least noble passions appealed to and endorsed in the name of duty, the mischievous influence of this propaganda is incalculable. A great matter may very easily be kindled by a little fire, and the conflagration get so entirely beyond control as to become a real menace to the national cause and to the Nation’s well-being, which are so closely bound together. It behooves Christian men therefore to steady themselves, and to offer strenuous opposition to proposals that bear upon them the stamp of their origin. For there is a specious wisdom that is from beneath, which is earthly, sensual, devilish. We speak with deepest sympathy for those who have recently suffered, having ourselves suffered in ways upon which we are not permitted to enlarge. And we believe it is simple truth that the agitation for retaliation by the bomb- The recent outrages committed in England by German aeroplanes has awakened anew the demand for repri- sals upon the Germans. An excellent article on th e , Reprisals. F ’
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