The Discipline of War | Page 5

hard and fast rules are laid down, but a little sanctified common sense will dictate to us how to make fast-days a reality, by some simple acts of self-denial.
Our last thought is one of intense practical importance--our attitude at the present moment towards strong drink.
Lord Kitchener and the Archbishop of Canterbury have both on several occasions called the attention of the nation to the terrible evils arising from the unhappy custom of treating soldiers to strong drink.
Punch, always on the side of morality and rightness, has dealt with it in the following trenchant fashion:--
TO A FALSE PATRIOT
He came obedient to the Call; He might have shirked, like half his mates Who, while their comrades fight and fall, Still go to swell the football gates.
And you, a patriot in your prime, You waved a flag above his head, And hoped he'd have a high old time, And slapped him on the back, and said:
"You'll show 'em what we British are! Give us your hand, old pal, to shake"; And took him round from bar to bar And made him drunk--for England's sake.
That's how you helped him. Yesterday Clear-eyed and earnest, keen and hard, He held himself the soldier's way-- And now they've got him under guard.
That doesn't hurt you; you're all right; Your easy conscience takes no blame; But he, poor boy, with morning's light, He eats his heart out, sick with shame.
What's that to you? You understand Nothing of all his bitter pain; You have no regiment to brand; You have no uniform to stain;
No vow of service to abuse; No pledge to King and country due; But he has something dear to lose, And he has lost it--thanks to you.[1]
[Footnote 1: O.S. in Punch, November 4th, 1914. By kind permission of the Proprietors.]
A man who had so distinguished himself at the front as to be mentioned in a despatch came home slightly wounded. In less than twenty-four hours he was in a cell at a police station, and the next day fined forty shillings. Oh! the pathetic pity of it. That man got into trouble through the exhibition of one of the purest and best features of our human nature, the desire to show kindness. In their well-intentioned ignorance this man's friends--yes, they were real friends--knew of only one way of displaying friendliness--they gave him liquor.
I am not going to blame them, nor him entirely; I am going to lay some of the fault upon ourselves.
Since the beginning of the last century the habits of the upper classes, to use a generic though unpleasant term, have improved immeasurably. Then excess was more or less the rule among men of good position, was to a certain extent expected and provided for; witness The School for Scandal, or the leading novels of the period. Now, the man who disgraces himself at a dinner-table is never invited again.
And even as we go down in the social scale much improvement is apparent. Those who remember Bank Holidays on their first introduction will recollect that the excess of the working classes was quite open and shameless; but to-day some effort is generally made by the victims, or their friends, to hide the disgrace, because Public Opinion is improving. That is where we come in.
Many causes of intemperance in strong drink are matters for legislative or municipal action; for example, overcrowding, insanitary dwellings or surroundings, sweating, excessive hours of labour, adulteration of liquors. But there are two factors upon which we can exercise direct influence, because they are connected with that great corporate entity called Public Opinion.
First let us take the one upon which we have already touched--the notion that friendliness and good fellowship are essentially connected with strong drink. This is at the bottom of those terrible scenes when troops are leaving our great London railway stations. Scenes so inexpressibly sad to all thinking people.
Everyone who abstains entirely, or who takes the khaki button--a pledge not to treat nor be treated to strong drink during the continuance of the war--is helping to knock a nail into the coffin of one of the silliest and most fatal delusions that has ever wrought havoc to body, soul, and spirit.
And then there is that other weird notion that you cannot be really strong and healthy without stimulant. For you the glass of beer or wine may be a mere harmless luxury, in the way in which you take it. I purposely exclude spirits, which I am fanatic enough to think should only be used medicinally. But every individual total abstainer helps to swell the testimony not only to the non-necessity of alcohol, but to the fact that, according to the view of a large part of the medical profession, the human frame is better without it.
You may say, "What good will my abstinence do to people with