Excerpt from The Control of the Drink Trade: A Contribution to National Efficiency 1915-1917 The first token that the mind of the nation had turned decisively to social issues was the General Election of 1906, with its resonant insistence on a wholesome standard of life for the workers. The output of social legislation from 1906 to 1914 was another indication: the health of school-children, State pensions for the aged, Boards to supervise sweated trades, Labour Exchanges, and national insurance against sickness and unemployment are conspicuous examples, in this period, of law coming to the aid of the labourer and his family. Social unrest reached its climax in the industrial upheavals of and 1912. In the autumn of 1911 strikes of seamen, transport-workers, and railway-men brought docks, collieries, railways and countless dependent industries to a standstill, until better conditions of wage and toil were assured to the strikers. In the early spring of 1912 a million colliers left work, and the collieries of Britain lay idle for a month until by Act of Parliament a minimum wage was secured to every collier; Whilst, later in the year, the city Of Dublin was the scene of a long and embittered labour conflict. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.