Читать книгу The Fiddlers; Drink in the Witness Box - Arthur Mee - Страница 3

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The time has come when it should be said that those responsible for our country now stand on the very threshold of eternal glory or eternal shame. They play and palter with the greatest enemy force outside Berlin. The news from Vimy Ridge comes to a land whose rulers quail before a foe within the gate.

Not for one hour has the full strength of Britain been turned against her enemies. From the first day of the war, while our mighty Allies have been striking down this foe within their gates, Britain has let this trade stalk through her streets, serving the Kaiser’s purposes, and paying the Government £1,000,000 a week for the right to do it.

She has let this trade destroy our food and bring us to the verge of famine; she has let it keep back guns and shells and hold up ships; she has let it waste our people’s wealth in hundreds of millions of pounds; she has let it put its callous brake on the merciful Red Cross; she has let it jeopardize the unity and safety of the Empire—for it may yet be found, as Dr. Stuart Holden has so finely said, that the links that bind the Pax Britannica are solvable in that great chemist’s solvent, alcohol.

The witnesses are too great to number; we can only call a few. There is no room for all those witnesses whose evidence is in the House of Commons Return 220 (1915), showing the part drink played in the great shell famine, in delaying ships and guns, and imperiling the Army and the Fleet.

But the indictment is heavy. I charge this trade with the crime the King laid at its door two years ago, the crime of prolonging the war; and the witnesses are here at the bar of the people. The verdict is with them, and the judgment is with those who rule.

The wages of sin is death: What are the wages of those who fail in an hour like this?