Leadership Quote by William Lyon Mackenzie King

King’s sentence reads like a calm memo, but it’s really a wartime power play disguised as public health concern. The key move is the phrase “Nor do we begin,” which positions the public as not just uninformed but almost negligent. He’s not arguing with opponents so much as pre-empting them: if you disagree, you’re someone who “doesn’t appreciate” the stakes. That’s classic political framing, especially in a crisis when dissent can be painted as irresponsibility.

The context is a Canada stretched by total war, where manpower and morale are treated as national resources to be rationed and optimized. Alcohol becomes less a personal pleasure than a variable in an efficiency equation. King links “increased risk” to “loss of efficiency” and then names the two bodies that matter: “fighting and working forces.” Soldiers and laborers are fused into one machine. The subtext is unmistakable: the state has a legitimate interest in what you drink because your body is part of the war effort.

It’s also a strategic sidestep around moralism. King doesn’t thunder about vice or sin; he talks about “consumption,” “risk,” and “efficiency,” the language of experts and administrators. That technocratic tone helps him sell social control as common sense. If wartime is the ultimate emergency, then regulating alcohol isn’t paternalism - it’s logistics. And once politics becomes logistics, almost any intrusion can be justified as “necessary” for victory.