ns and brewers, for these are only
what we ourselves made them. Let us take ourselves to task and condemn
our own folly and our own sin.

It was not enough that we provided the narcotic of drunkenness for the
man, but we set ourselves to alleviate also the lot of the woman.
There was a pressure of public opinion which prevented respectable
women from frequenting public-houses. Provision had to be made for
them. This provision was made in the legislation of Mr. Gladstone in
{104} 1860 and 1861 whereby grocers were licensed to sell alcohol. It
is only fair to say that the purpose of the legislation was not to
encourage the consumption of alcohol. In those days people were
obsessed with the idea that by multiplying the opportunities for
procuring alcohol, its consumption would decrease! The grocer's
licence was to safeguard people from the public-house! The result has
been the most disastrous of any legislation passed by sane statesmen.
It enabled women to obtain alcohol in a respectable manner, sanctioned
both by legislation and society, and to use it under conditions of
privacy, unhampered by any restraint. The State enormously increased
the facilities for drunkenness and strengthened the forces of
temptation by the multiplying of tens of thousands of liquor-selling
establishments. To these temptations the women in ever-increasing
numbers succumbed. When war broke out, and the men mustered to the
defence of their country, the {105} women were left the comfort of
alcohol. The result was an increase in the drunkenness of women, and a
corresponding increase in child mortality.

Who can blame these women? With their husbands and sons summoned to
wrestle with death, what wonder that 'feelings of faintness' overtook
them, and that for those feelings they resorted to the only unfailing
remedy they knew--alcohol! These women live their lives under
conditions which make it impossible for them ever to be well. They
climb up and down weary stairs endlessly. There is no escape from
hopeless toil. The unhealthy conditions of life render them chronic
invalids. In the grocer's shop the State provides for them the
panacea. Here is exhilaration amid the worries of their drab
existence, and escape from the anxieties which oppressed them. And in
a little while they are slaves to the national remedy provided for
them. Their husbands often come back on leave to find {106} their
homes ruined--the larder empty, the fire d