Drink Reform in Europe

ONE of the significant by-products of the great European war has been the emotional outburst against alcohol — le delirium anti-alcoolique, as the eminent economist, M. Yves Guyot, calls it. The appelation is not undeserved. Several lands have latterly exhibited a species of hysteria about drink which augurs ill for the stability of some of the suppressive steps taken, after the alarums of war have died out. Much has already been written on the subject, but very little in an informing vein. Fertile imaginations have played with it; publicists have glorified the newfound zeal for abstinence in co-belligerent countries; and often the writings reveal the clumsy hand of the propagandist, who does not hesitate to make capital even out of desperate conditions.

The war measures against drink abuse are only in a limited sense outcroppings of the world temperance movement. They have sprung from extraordinary circumstances of a more or less temporary character. Instead of indicating the high-water mark of advance, they tend to obscure the solid temperance progress as well as the means by which it has been achieved, and so far as they overreach the aim, point to an uncomfortable reaction. Just now the military precautions against alcohol are uppermost in the public mind and therefore deserve special attention; incidentally, they afford an opportunity to examine the status of temperance reform in several countries.

I. RUSSIA

The abolition of the government vodka monopoly stands out as the most spectacular event in social legislation incident to the war. The time was peculiarly adapted for it. Periodic as well as habitual intemperance has long been a sore trouble in Russia, especially in the peasant villages. Whether it had been fostered by the vodka monopoly, which replaced a practically unrestricted home distillation, may well be doubted. We know that production of vodka increased, thanks to the industry of the landed gentry controlling the distilleries, and that the government coffers swelled in proportion. In the years immediately preceding the present war, the government had persistently clung to its drink monopoly and issued many a publication purporting to show its benevolent character as a means of counteracting drunkenness, both through the control of sales and by substituting tea-houses, theatres, and other places of recreation for the vodka shop. Why then this sudden reversion of policy? The Czar’s ukase abolishing the monopoly bears certain marks of impulsiveness rather than of calm deliberation. The underlying motives appear to have been mixed. It was vitally important to prevent a repetition of the drunken orgies which had marred and hindered the mobilization of troops in the Russo-Japanese war. But there was more back of it than military caution. A great wave of emotion swept over the country, partaking of the nature of a religious frenzy. No sacrifice was too great for the cause of Holy Russia. Psychological conditions were opportune for a drastic step, and the thing was done. The population at large, including officials and even the formidable temperance party, was taken by surprise. There was no time for discussion, much less for a readjustment of affairs; and clear prevision of events is not a characteristic of a despotic form of government which exacts blind obedience and discourages questionings.

Sufficient time has elapsed since the abolition of the government vodka monopoly to form a reasonable judgment about the effects, although it is difficult to forecast accurately the future trend of Russian liquor legislation. The evidence relied upon by the writer is partly contained in personal communications from Russian officials, and in reports from different legations of neutral countries at Petrograd, and is largely obtained from a systematic search of representative Russian publications, some of them, like the Novoye Vremya, staunch supporters of the prohibition policy, and none of them daring probably to dish up falsehoods about the situation.

It is the common opinion that the government will never revive the vodka monopoly. Whether the sale of this article and of spirits generally will remain under absolute prohibition after the war is another question. The purposes of the imperial council are not clearly defined. Local conditions in many instances are chaotic. The production and sale of vodka are forbidden by an imperial ukase, but the local communities, through town or provincial councils (zemstvos) enjoy the privilege of local option in regard to other alcoholic drinks. In the first flush of enthusiasm prohibition carried the largest part of the country. To be sure, in some instances, governors refused to give effect to the will of councils. Thus, in Kaluga, the governor twice vetoed the prohibition regulations adopted by the council. And exceptions were made in favor of hotels, restaurants, and clubs. But the mujik and the laborer, whose sole indulgence is in vodka, were made to feel all the rigors of prohibition.

During the first weeks there seems to have been some ardor for the unaccustomed virtue of abstinence. But the spacious claims spread throughout the world about a Russia sober and regenerated have not been verified. Amiable publicists like Stephen Graham and others, out of love for their allies, incline to draw on imagination rather than on facts in picturing the new Russia. In truth, hardly had the country begun to realize the wide bearing of the drink rescript than all the ills accompanying unenforced prohibition sprang up, from the Baltic to the remote Asiatic east. Perhaps the region least affected was the Caucasus, where wine is the staple drink. The story has such a familiar ring! What the government denied the people, they soon began to supply by illicit means. According to the reports of the Minister of Finance, during the six months following the prohibitive measures revenue officers discovered 1825 secret distilleries manufacturing a special brand of whiskey known as kumusha; 160 distilleries fitted out with the most modern machinery for making vodka; 92 distilleries especially designed for filtering lacquer and varnish; and 60 distilleries engaged in filtering denatured alcohol.²

Another drink manufactured on a large scale is known as khanza and consists of wood alcohol, pepper, and other spices. Even more popular is the socalled kvasok, made from cider, wild hops, dry yeast, a little alcohol, and snuff. It is reported sold in huge quantities, and its effect is explained by citing the peasant saying, ‘Spill something on a pig’s tail and it will get bold.’

So widespread has illicit distilling become, not only in the populous centres like Petrograd and Moscow, but in many distant provinces, even in Irkutsk, that the government has increased the amount of the fine from 2500 to 6000 rubles and the term of imprisonment from two months to one year and four months. Still the traffic shows no abatement, and in Russia immunity from arrest is quite a purchasable commodity. So insistent has been the demand for alcohol that substitutes in the form of denatured alcohol, eau de cologne, politura, and the like have been consumed in large quantities despite their dangerous effects. From Kiev, Riga, Tambou, Penza, Simbirsk, Vilna, Nijny Novgorod, Charkov, Kursk, Moscow, Petrograd, and innumerable other places come reports of deaths and poisonings from these liquids. Medical societies have found it necessary to caution the public against the use of denatured alcohol, and have even asked permission to post notices of warning in the streets and other public places. A commission of the Petrograd Ophthalmological Society reports that there had been treated at two named hospitals, up to April 15, no less than 2882 persons whose sight had been impaired by drinking denatured and wood alcohol, varnish, and so forth. Of this number 27 died. During the same time, 138 persons had been brought to the eye departments of two Petrograd hospitals, who had become blind or suffered a marked loss of sight from the same cause. Dr. Novoselski, writing in the Ruski Vratch (Pettrograd), cites the official returns of deaths from delirium tremens and remarks, ‘Before prohibition the mortality figures varied and changed without definite regularity; after prohibition they show a regular and constant increase. As prohibition regulations became stricter and at last complete, the mortality from alcoholism increased.’ He argues from the mortality statistics that substitutes for vodka ‘ are used not only by confirmed drunkards, but generally by those classes who before prohibition used to drink moderately.' The recent victims of alcoholism in Petrograd were ‘persons of all ages and all occupations.’

Such is the saddening answer to the well-intended prohibition of vodka, for which no substitute was offered. It agrees ill with the popular conception of general sobriety throughout the Russian dominions which has universally been applauded. The story of it carried abroad by the press unhappily belongs to the claptrap of war times. At first there were some superficial signs of general abstinence. Our newspapers have featured the intelligence that drunkenness had disappeared from the streets of Petrograd. And now? The Ryetch reports that during six days in April and May of this year 783 persons were sentenced for being drunk on the streets. The severe penalty — the fine of 100 rubles or a month in jail, or both — does not seem to have a deterring influence.

A writer in the Ryetch comments thus on the general situation : ‘The sun of sobriety has set before it reached the zenith. . . . The village folk had hardly time to wear out the boots in which they marched after the coffin of the “monopoly” before tens of thousands of illicit distilleries of liquors, factories of all kinds of strong drink, came into existence. ... It would be naïve and ruinous to regard the work of reform as completed. On the contrary the task is all ahead. . . . Vodka played a great part in our peasant life, and its disappearance creates a greater or less vacancy which in some way or other must be filled. . . . There also come reports that the village folk are becoming addicted to gambling and that a passion for it is seizing the whole mass of peasantry. In short, everything points to the fact that the sobering of the people cannot be accomplished by the simple discontinuance of the traffic in liquor. It is necessary to occupy their leisure in some interesting and instructive manner; otherwise the reform, so grandiose and full of beautiful possibilities, will yield negative results.’

In the same strain speaks the Novoye Vremya, which is a strong adherent of prohibition: ‘ It must be admitted that the great historical act by which the traffic in liquor was forbidden found the country far from prepared to replace the drunken haze by sober pastime. . . . But only now [ten months later] has the question occurred, how to fill the spare time thus gained. . . . Just a bare prohibition of vodka after the war would be only an injunction which could be circumvented. It is necessary to divert the population from vodka, to cultivate a taste for a different employment of their leisure.’

How the government will cope with the many unforeseen difficulties that have arisen remains to be seen. Wellinformed opinion inclines to the belief that while the ban on vodka will remain, the sale of beer may be permitted and that of wine be made free; for Russia, it should be remembered, is sixth among the wine-producing countries of the world. A complication is likely to occur through her position as a large debtor nation to France. It would be a serious blow to the powerful distilling and wine-growing interests of France to find the Russian market closed. On the other hand, were France permitted to flood Russia with cheap brandies and liquors, prohibition would get another setback. Meanwhile local communities seem increasingly inclined to exercise the option granted by law and provide for the sale of fermented beverages. This has been done in Minsk, Bobroysk, Igumen, Riga, and many other places. Except on the part of distillers and similar interests there seems to be no disposition to advocate a return to the manufacture and sale of vodka. At a public conference held in Petrograd during the spring of this year, the perpetual prohibition of the sale of whiskey was advocated. Beers and wines, however, especially the latter, were held to have a desirable effect on village life, and the ministry was requested to act accordingly. The Minister of Commerce has already recommended that the sale of beer and wine containing not more than sixteen per cent of alcohol be permitted.³

Russia is learning lessons that should have become trite in this country. Perhaps the chief among them is this: if sumptuary legislation creates voids in social and community life without seeking to fill them by acceptable substitutes, its ends are sure to be defeated. In the space of less than one year Russia has suffered most varieties of ills resulting from premature prohibition. But fortunately they are recognized and fully acknowledged by temperance reformers. Herein lies the promise that the evils will be overcome by limiting prohibition to vodka and its equivalents. That done, the abolition of the government monopoly will stand as a momentous achievement. But the experience of Russia illustrates that even in an autocracy a social reform cannot be affected merely by ukase when public opinion refuses to support it.

II. FRANCE

In France, too, the war has helped to draw the public mind to the drink problem. Economic interests and military considerations have given it prominence. The question of drink reform has gained impetus also from the favorable publicity given the Russian experiment as well as from the characteristic British growl about the effects of drink upon the productiveness of the laboring classes. Of course, the temperance politician has utilized the unusual opportunity for agitation; and the inevitable alarmists have preached abstinence as the price of final victory. It does not appear, however, that the military conditions have been complicated by the drink situation. Commanders are given ample authority to take the necessary precautions without making over the habits of the soldiery.

The one great forward step in France has been the abolition of absinthe, but, contrary to popular belief, this was not a war measure. The country at large had become convinced of the ravages of this toxic drink, and steps to do away with it antedated the war. At the various sittings of the French Assembly since the beginning of hostilities the question of restricting the liquor traffic has been freely debated, but so far there is no prospect that radically constructive laws will be passed. The most recently introduced bill would give prefects of departments authority, while the war lasts, to regulate, limit, and even forbid the sale of alcoholic beverages except wine, beer, cider, perry, and hydromel. Of course, this is a war measure pure and simple; it does not go to the root of the drink issue, and in consequence has been bitterly assailed by les tempérants, who in this instance cannot be called apostles of an empty enthusiasm.

Within three generations the drink habits of France have undergone profound changes. It was one of the soberest countries of Europe and has become the most alcoholic except Russia. According to Dr. Bertillon, the consumption of alcohol has increased about sixfold in sixty years. Various forms of distilled liquors have supplanted wine as a national beverage. Some have tried to connect this phenomenon with the growth of the absinthe habit; it is, however, a product of the unrestricted liberty to sell spirits. In France there is one drink-shop, in which alcohol of all kinds can be sold, to 82 inhabitants; while in England there is one to 430, in Sweden one to 5000, and in Norway one to about 10,000 inhabitants. Only the Belgium of antebellum days could vie with France in the number of drink-shops. The real factor back of this extraordinary condition is the distilling interest. There are more than 1,300,000 distillers in the country, says Dr. Bertillon, who estimates the number of wine-growers to be even greater. Practically there is no restriction upon the distillation of spirits from cereals and fruit. Under the law any householder may produce five gallons of spirits for home use free of taxes; but in reality thousands take advantage of lax supervision to manufacture spirits for sale. It has been asserted that there are upward of a million places throughout France more or less engaged in this fraudulent practice. Whatever the number may be, we know that over large rural areas the peasantry not only make and drink spirits, but offer it for sale at incredibly low prices.

The outcry against drink in the France of to-day has therefore grim reality behind it. Visible drunkenness may be less than in several other countries, but spirits, in the shape of apéritifs, liqueurs, and so forth, are now so much a part of the daily diet of the peasantry, and of laborers in particular, that they have become a national menace. This discovery is not new, nor are temperance reformers and scattered scientists the only ones who have drawn attention to it. In May of this year, the syndicalist workmen groups of all trades represented at the Nantes Labor Exchange (Loire-Inférieure) unanimously declared that the ‘multiplicity of drink-shops and the diversity of harmful products displayed are a real and ceaseless provocation’ to alcoholism, which, they say, bears especially hard upon workmen’s families. Therefore they endorse the edict against absinthe and ‘approve the suppression of all similar substances and the special privileges accorded distillers.’ The same resolutions were adopted by the dockers at Havre.

Solicitude over the drink situation is likewise marked among the intellectual classes. The French Academy of Medicine has long labored with it. France was one of the prime movers in the formation of the International Committee for the Scientific Study of the Alcohol Question, under the presidency of ex-President Loubet, while M. Alexandre Ribot, now Minister of Finance, is chairman of the French section, which counts many distinguished members. France also possesses a varied, if not especially significant, anti-alcohol literature. Why then does temperance reform progress so slowly ? It has been said that ‘No French minister of the present day is bold enough to stand up against the wine-growing industry or the 1,378,000 distillers. That may be an exaggeration, but skirts close to the truth. It is no secret that the powerful distilling interests have directed French diplomatic objections to the enactment of prohibition in other countries, — in Finland, for instance, — and that they have insisted upon the right (much against the advice of the colonial administration) to sell cheap brandies among the Mohammedan populations of North Africa, the Negroes of French West Africa, and the people of French Indo-China, Madagascar, and other places. These interests are undoubtedly the mainspring of the ‘ curse of alcoholism’ both at home and abroad.

Then in France, as in many other countries, the cause of sobriety suffers from the intemperate zeal of certain reformers. The rise of a political temperance party is not welcomed, with its aspirants for political honors who are willing to bend their necks to that species of temperance servitude without conviction which is so ingloriously exemplified in our own country. Even in the stress of war, any interference with personal habits is peculiarly obnoxious to Frenchmen. Wrathfully M. Guyot exclaims apropos of the proposed drink regulations: —

‘Les tempérants, atteints d’un “delirium,” pire que le “ delirium tremens,” piétinent, déchirent, et saccagent les principes élémentaires de la liberté individuelle et du respect de la propriété! Leur intoxication intellectuelle et morale est autrement dangereuse que toutes les intoxications alcooliques.’

Of prohibition as a policy there is little discussion. To be sure, the National Council of French Women recently declared for the complete prohibition of the sale of spirits, but only as a war measure, apparently.

Reasonable leaders of the temperance movement, like M. Joseph Reinach, recognize that the French people will not surrender freedom of action to legislation and cannot be coerced into greater sobriety. Therefore their programme is limited to a restriction and control of distilleries. (As a step in this direction some communal distilleries have been established; a limitation of drink-places by means of taxation; prohibition of sales to minors and on credit, and so forth.) Their campaign is against distilled liquors as having turned France from her former sobriety. There is no thought of stopping the sale of beer and wine. Rather the effort is to encourage their use as the accustomed and natural beverages of the people in its temperate days.

War times seem to have diminished drinking generally, but not through law. The soldiers still receive their ration of rum, says an undoubted authority, though it is not acknowledged officially. M. Vidal of the Academy of Medicine recently asked for a resolution demanding the regular distribution to all soldiers of a hygienic beverage— wine or beer. And Professor Landouzey has called attention to the deficiency of the French army ration in carbohydrates, which he would equalize by adding an allowance of wine.

That the French temperance movement has been stimulated by the war is patent. What its final direction will be cannot be predicted, for as yet it has not recorded notable triumphs.

III. GREAT BRITAIN

The recent heroic onslaughts upon the drink traffic by Mr. Lloyd George and others ended tamely. England did not respond to the call for prohibition, or show any tangible enthusiasm for personal abstinence from patriotic motives. The castigation of the workmen, whose drink habits were blamed for delay in producing war materials, and for general inefficiency, reacted unfavorably. Other shortcomings were brought to light, although gross intemperance among laborers could not be denied, and quite likely it had been stimulated by the peculiar circumstances caused by the war.

When a coalition government was formed, all prospects of radical drink laws waned. The Liberals, who profess a leaning toward temperance reform, had proved unequal to the task; and since the Unionists and Conservatives, as parties, do not incline to drink reform, the visions of national prohibition faded rapidly. The agitation and turmoil of weeks yielded as a net result the establishment of a commission endowed with large discretionary power in controlling liquor selling within munition and transportation areas. Mr. Lloyd George’s proposal to nationalize the drink traffic was not laid before Parliament. The more extreme temperance interests did not approve it; the cost and financial risk were prohibitive; and to instigate a countrywide fight on the drink issue during the war might mean a political disaster. Nor was it found practicable to close the distilleries and stop the sale of spirits, for this demanded a compensation to the trade to which the teetotalers generally object.

The drink evil is undeniably acute in England; that Mr. Lloyd George’s major proposals were defeated does not prove the contrary. The teetotalers have made comparatively little progress ; and because they are merely repressive, the liquor laws of England have failed to check intemperance. In licensing, the practice of the justices lacks certainty and uniformity. The many and complex laws as well as local regulations are merely restrictive — to prevent excesses on the part of the vendor. Constructive principles, without which drink reform is but a transparent show, are wholly wanting. Perhaps the worst feature of the situation is the socalled ‘tied-house system.’ It means that the trade has acquired about ninety per cent of the licensed drink-places in the country and furnishes the retailer his capital, so that ‘ though he is a tenant in name, he is often but a slave in fact.’ The sole object of a tied house is to push the sale of drink, for that alone gives it value to the owner; and legislation helps on this condition by making the size of the house, not the quantity of liquor sold, the basis of taxation. In other words, the law holds out a premium to the licensee who can sell the greatest quantity of alcohol in the smallest possible selling space! Diversions and attractions other than drink are not encouraged, and in some places are absolutely forbidden. It is said that the technicalities of the licensing system can hardly be understood by a layman; it seems in part to assume a tied-house system and helps to perpetuate it with all its faults.

The licensing statistics of England point to an increase rather than a decrease in drunkenness during the past three or four years. There has been a reduction of licensed places, but they have to a considerable extent been replaced by clubs which are exempt from license, limitation of hours of sale, and inspection. The situation is undoubtedly serious, and there is little prospect of effective remedial legislation, although sane suggestions are not wanting. The trade is conservative and will not yield.

Meanwhile England affords examples of practical reform through private enterprise in the so-called Public-house Trust companies. The trust system is in brief the Gothenburg system adapted to English conditions. Its cardinal principle is the elimination of private profits from the retail sale of alcoholic beverages, the business being conducted by paid managers under the control of directors who receive no pecuniary benefit other than a fixed maximum rate of interest upon the capital shares held by them, the surplus being devoted to objects of public utility. The managers get a commission on all sales except of alcoholic drinks, and thus have every incentive not to push that side of the business. Various amusements and other attractions are provided.

The experiments with the Publichouse Trust system began at Aberdeen in 1895. Under the leadership of Lord Grey it has been extensively developed during the past fifteen years, although at the outset it was fought by the trade, misrepresented by the temperance party, distrusted by the officials and the public, and, as a voluntary affair, remained unassisted by legislation. Experience and capacity for the business had to be acquired by degrees. Yet the system grew and flourished: if a few companies failed, others were amalgamated and became the stronger. At present more than 320 houses are opererated on the trust plan. One of the largest, known as the Home Counties Public-house Trust, manages 60 houses, ' in town and country, slum and village, colliery and other industrial areas, and in lonely districts.’ As a business venture it has been successful. Beyond this it is sufficient to relate that ‘the company employs approximately 900 managers and assistants, and during its ten years’ existence has served more than eleven millions of customers. During the whole of this period not a single employee has been convicted of a breach of the Licensing Acts or in respect of any other offense.’ In these years ‘the non-alcoholic receipts have risen from less than ten per cent to more than forty-eight per cent of the whole.’

The Public-house Trust system exemplifies what so many seem still to doubt — that drink-selling can be made respectable and be surrounded with a wholesome atmosphere. Of course, the ultimate object of Lord Grey, Mr. Arthur Sherwell, M.P., and other exponents of the company system idea is to nationalize the retail sale of drink. Meanwhile they have provided a highly important object lesson in practical methods of counteracting intemperance through the institution of ‘disinterested’ for ‘tied-house’ management in the public houses. An increasing number of temperance reformers is said to believe in it, but of course it is rejected by all who are obsessed with the idea of absolute prohibition as the only step in legislation they can countenance.

On a much smaller scale the disinterested company system has been tried both in Scotland and in Ireland. Scotland has also a licensing act of quite recent date which seeks to correct some ancient abuses and is said to have diminished drunkenness quite perceptibly, particularly by restricting the hours of sale; but it does not add to the stock of basic principles in liquor legislation.

IV. OTHER BELLIGERENT COUNTRIES

In Germany, the Great War does not seem to have aroused special concern about intemperance. Military safeguards have been adopted, and for economic reasons the output of beer and spirits has been curtailed. The soldiers in the field have been allowed beer and wine, with modest quantities of spirits during the severe winter days, — at least so one gathers from private letters and newspapers. But Germany, of course, has a drink problem; the statistics of consumption attest that, and in the eyes of many people it looms large. There as elsewhere the use of spirits causes the particular mischief. How the extent of known alcoholism compares with that of other countries cannot be determined. There is no evidence, however, that either the economic or military powers of Germany have been greatly impaired by drink.

There are many active abstinence organizations, whose leadership is, in some instances, in the hands of men of note and scientific attainments. Their efforts are chiefly directed to teaching personal hygiene and advocating abstinence. The idea of prohibition in the American sense of the term is wholly foreign to the German people, to whom beer and, in some states, wine form an important part of the daily diet. And as prohibition is not an issue, the numerous political groups are still minus a temperance party.

The German liquor laws offer little of interest. The fact that especially fermented liquors are generally sold in family resorts in the best sense of the term no doubt has been a great help to sobriety; but this custom springs from national characteristics rather than from law, although legislation encourages it — an instructive contrast to our ways of ‘diminishing temptation.’ On the other hand, Germany perhaps is the largest contributor to the scientific study of alcohol, and from the varied literature of the subject both prohibitionists and temperance reformers derive their arguments.

Italy is beginning to have a drink problem, influences from the United States and the Argentine sharing the dubious honor of having helped to create it. So long as the Italians remained a wine-drinking people, they were counted among the most temperate in Europe, notwithstanding the fact that the per capita consumption, when considered in terms of pure alcohol, reached a very high figure. As in Spain and Portugal, the habitual use of natural wines did not produce alcoholism and its brood of evils; but in recent years returning emigrants have transplanted the whiskey habit to what appears to be a congenial soil, for the Italian government has felt obliged to enact new laws curbing the traffic in spirits.

Austria-Hungary, largely a beer and wine-drinking country, contributes little of value to the discussion of temperance reform.

V. THE SCANDINAVIAN EXPERIMENTS

Sweden and Norway practically alone among the countries of the world illustrate the power of rational liquor legislation to reduce the consumption of alcohol. The interesting history of this legislation must be passed by, nor is there space to tell its operation in detail. Both must be sought in the voluminous literature of the subject, which has long been accessible in English through official reports and private studies.

During the greater part of the first half of the last century Sweden permitted practically free trade in the manufacture and sale of spirits. The consumption of spirits rose to extraordinary proportions and with terrible effects. ‘ The very marrow of the nation was sapped; moral and physical degradation ... all those grim legions of evils that ever range themselves under the banner of intemperance took possession of the land.’ In the rural parishes the conditions were transformed by the simple act of 1885 forbidding home distillation, while other distilleries were subjected to a high excise tax and the rural communities given a local veto over sales. The towns, which suffered perhaps even more from drunkenness, offered a different problem; but it was not thought practicable or expedient to try to place them under prohibition. A bold remedy for a desperate situation was found in the organization of a private bolag, or company, in the city of Gothenburg, which gradually took over licenses for spirit-selling on the condition that the shareholders should not derive the slightest advantage from sales beyond the ordinary rate of interest on the capital invested, and that the profits should be devoted to charity or public uses. This was the genesis of the famous Gothenburg system, which in the course of time became extended to the whole of Sweden and eventually reached its fullest development and fairest trial in Norway. Here the retail traffic in spirits is placed in the hands of private companies (samlags) composed of reputable citizens, under carefully worked-out regulations and supervision. Of the net profits, 15 per cent is given the municipality in lieu of the former license tax, 20 per cent is divided among the company and department in charge, to be distributed for charitable and useful objects not supported by taxation, while the remainder is paid into the state treasury. In Norway, it is optional with the towns to maintain or abolish samlags; the country districts, as in Sweden, are under prohibition, which, however, does not interfere with importation for private use.

In Sweden the consumption of spirits prior to the general introduction of the company system was 13.5 litres per capita; it is now about 6 litres. In Norway the samlags have reduced the consumption of spirits from nearly 7 litres per capita to about 3. Both countries show an increase in the use of fermented beverages, but when consumption is measured in terms of pure alcohol, Norway ranks as the most temperate of all European countries, while Sweden is a fair second. That these unmatched results could have been attained without the company system is not credible.

Perhaps extravagant friends of the Scandinavian system have over-praised it; they have at least reason on their side, which is wanting in the bitter attacks upon it by the uncompromising prohibitionists. For in its home lands the system has demonstrated that it (1) divorces drink-selling from politics and thus removes this obstacle to reform; (2) places an ‘inherently dangerous traffic’ under effective restriction and control, but in keeping with the expressed sentiment of the locality; (3) makes possible the reduction of the number of licensed houses to the lowest safe limits that public opinion will tolerate, and thus simplifies all restrictive measures; (4) secures the profits on sales to the locality and enables the establishment of counter attractions; (5) appeals to an enlightened public opinion, enlists the coöperation of good citizens, and paves the way for progressive temperance legislation.

Two grievances in particular have been directed against the company system as exemplified in Norway: one, that the sale of wine and beer is not monopolized by the companies; the other, that the system stifles temperance reform. Under the law a company may now acquire the retail sale of beer for a definite period during which no other vendor may be licensed. To place the retail sale of fermented beverages quite on the same footing with that of spirits is by many regarded as making not for but against sobriety. Recent legislation aims to liberalize the sale of beers through a method of progressive taxation whereby the least alcoholic of these beverages are subjected to the lowest tax. It is also proposed to exempt all beer containing less than 2.25 per cent of alcohol from taxes. This was first done in Denmark with the result of enormously increasing the use of the practically non-alcoholic beers. Sweden makes a similar exemption.

The company system of Norway has gained support from the abstainers precisely because it makes temperance reform easy. After a labor of four and a half years the Norwegian Alcohol Commission, an official body under the chairmanship of Professor Dr. Axel Holst, and, almost needless to say, consisting of men of high scientific attainments and standing, has just issued its report, which will be laid before the next Storting. A minority consisting of avowed prohibitionists, one of whom is the well-known temperance leader, Provincial Governor S. Aarrestad, does not favor the abolition of the company system but would restrict it in several ways, while hoping eventually to win the whole country for prohibition by the extension of local option.

After most exhaustive investigations, the majority of this commission find that prohibition is likely to increase home distillation and greatly to stimulate the illicit traffic. They base this judgment in part upon the experience with local prohibition, which shows the number of persons sentenced or under prosecution for illegal selling to be three and a half times larger in cities without samlags (under prohibition) than in the others. The evidence of public intoxication is taken to indicate ‘so intensive a craving for stimulants among the male population of our cities that it cannot be expected in the near future to cease obtaining gratification solely through the adoption of a prohibitive law.’ The police authorities of the principal cities are reported as practically unanimous in the belief that total prohibition cannot be enforced. The same opinion is voiced by the state revenue department. The police officials of Christiania say, ‘Already now it is most difficult to secure evidence in cases of violations of the alcohol law,’ and—it has such a familiar sound! — that in different strata of the population it is considered quite proper to give untruthful explanations and try to deceive the police and the courts in liquor cases. Personal investigation in the United States has persuaded members of the Norwegian commission that our examples of prohibition ought not to be imitated.

The commission speaks at length and favorably of the so-called Bratt or Andrée system in Sweden, which aims to prevent persons from buying spirits who are known to abuse them. The authorities provide the bolags with a list of all such persons. Other citizens over twenty-one years of age must notify the bolag that they desire to purchase spirits, and are then given a card to be shown and recorded at the bolag before a purchase can be made. This system of individual licenses, at first a local experiment, proved so successful that in May of this year it was made obligatory for all the Swedish bolags.

Aside from things actually accomplished in the way of effective legislation, the American observer of European methods can but note (with a degree of humiliation) that they do not leave the intricate problems associated with liquor laws to the mercy of the propagandist and the inexperienced or interested legislator. Europeans attempt at least to clear the way through scientific inquiries by men of eminence and authority. Our progress in drink reform is bound to be slow so long as popular wisdom about it is drawn from the politician on the stump, or from unscientific temperance federations.

But in Europe, too, the liquor issue is beginning to be used by the politician as a ladder wherewith to reach place. And once he takes up the yoke of temperance servitude, there is apparently no escape. There is a curious fatalism about swearing allegiance to the tenets of prohibition: it seems almost invariably to produce a deviation from normal thought and ideals. Are they fit to lead who regard the liquor problem as the one vital question, who aver that the sum and substance of human ills are bound up in it, and therefore demand, even in the midst of a world-conflagration, that it must be given the right of way over all the problems that perplex society?