ad of supplying more {119} facilities for the
sale of alcohol, we must at the same time never forget that the craving
for alcohol is a craving for a fuller life--for life lit up by colour
and social joy. Those who meet that hunger for a richer life with
nothing but a dreary 'don't,' with no remedy save that of the surgical
operation, expose themselves to jibes such as that bitter jibe of Lord
Macaulay: 'The Puritans objected to bear-baiting not because of cruelty
to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.' The aim
of the social reformer must be the substitution of true joy and
happiness for what is spurious. The State must make provision for the
social instincts of the masses. 'What are wanted,' writes Sir Thomas
P. Whittaker, a member of the Royal Commission on Licensing, 'are
places of the nature of free clubs, where men may sit and smoke and
talk and play games or read the papers. They should be open to the
public free, with small charges for the use of cards and the {120}
billiard-tables.... People should be made to feel as much at their
ease in them as they are in our public parks. The cost of maintaining
such places would not be great, and the social, material, and moral
advantages that would result would render them an excellent
investment....' It is along this road deliverance must be sought.
There is no use sweeping out the house unless the house is to be
occupied by fairer and more wholesome tenants than those expelled.

V

There is one last serious aspect of this problem wherewith the
spiritual forces of the nation are faced, and that is the weakening of
the nation's soul which the new policy has entailed. Whosoever
considers the manner in which religion has lost its grip on the masses,
the passing away of all discipline, the decay of idealism, and the slow
but steady emptying of the churches, cannot but feel that the greatest
need of to-day is a revival of {121} religion. Unless the soul
controls the body, man atrophies and perishes. The Church for many
centuries has striven to garrison the nation's soul, and to bring the
body under discipline. But the Church no longer can bring its power
into play, for the churches are left deserted more or less. The
proportion of the industrial population who never enter a church's door
is vastly greater than is commonly supposed. Professor Cairns, a
careful and judicious observer, who would make no statement that could
not be verified, h