LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co., Ltd. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1896 TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER, WHO, THOUGH PASSED FROM HUMAN KEN, HAS LEFT BEHIND A PRECIOUS REMEMBRANCE OF LOVING KINDNESS AND UNFAILING SYMPATHY, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED....

It is a truism that men of all shades of opinion are desirous to promote sobriety. It is the raison d’être of the teetotaler and the declared aim of the publican. The advocate of prohibition and the man who would make the trade in drink as free as the sale of bread both profess to be actuated by a desire to extirpate inebriety. Can legislation aid us in accomplishing this end, and if so in what way and to what extent? This volume is an attempt to partly answer the question, not by means of elabo

During the last few months South Carolina has been the scene of a remarkable experiment in liquor legislation, which has attracted considerable attention from social reformers everywhere. Though professedly based on the Gothenburg system, the Dispensaries Act differs from its prototype in many important respects. As in Sweden, the element of individual profit is eliminated, and the control of the trade is taken out of the hands of private persons; but in place of the drink shops being conducted

America is pre-eminently the land of legislative experiments; and it has unequalled facilities for giving trial, with comparatively little risk, to many of the professed solutions of those problems which the artificial life of civilised society has produced. On nothing has it made more numerous or varied experiments than on efforts to promote sobriety by law. Each State in the Union is free, within certain limits, to regulate or suppress the liquor traffic within its own borders, without interfe

From the time of the earliest English settlers in America the drink traffic has been looked upon as a business requiring special regulation. The influence of Puritan immigrants in the middle of the seventeenth century led to the framing of many severe liquor laws. Ludlow’s Connecticut Code in 1650 dealt with the subject on the basis that “while there is a need for houses of common entertainment ... yet because there are so many abuses of that lawful liberty ... there is also need of strict laws

All things considered, Kansas is one of the most successful instances of State prohibition in the Union. The conditions of life there are very different to those that prevail in Maine, and the liquor law has had to be enforced under many disadvantageous conditions. Kansas is a Western State, nearly half as large again as England and Wales, and with a population of less than a million and a half. Like many other parts of the far West, it was for some time the refuge of disorderly elements of Euro

The commonplace truth that, under representative Government, restrictive legislation can only succeed so far as it is backed up by the hearty support of the great majority of the people, has recently received a striking illustration in Iowa. Twelve years ago the people of this State voted, by a majority of 29,759 out of 280,000 votes, in favour of an amendment to the Constitution making the sale of intoxicants for ever illegal. Owing to some flaw in the method of taking the vote, the amendment w

High licence in its present form is comparatively a new development of American drink legislation. During the early part of the latter half of this century reformers would hear of nothing but the most uncompromising prohibition. Then came a reaction, and even the stoutest opponents of the liquor traffic were forced to admit that in towns of any size prohibition has never yet been a success. As a leading reformer put it: “Prohibition has not yet touched the question where it presents the gravest

While Great Britain has been content, for many years, to do little more than talk about proposed temperance legislation, Greater Britain has been active in framing laws, testing them by actual practice, and revising, strengthening or abandoning them as the results have shown to be advisable. Our colonial cousins, free from the prejudices and cast-iron traditions of English political life, have displayed far more willingness to adopt strong remedies for a grave disease than have we ourselves at h

In no British colony is the temperance sentiment stronger, or is there more likelihood of the agitation for prohibition being brought to a successful issue, than in New Zealand. Its statesmen have shown during the last few years great political venturesomeness; the parliamentary suffrage has been given to women; social, it may be said socialistic, legislation of a most pronounced character has been encouraged, and the dreams of English Radicals have turned to blossom and fruit under the Southern

A year or two ago Mr. David Christie Murray stirred up the wrath of the Australians by charging them, in effect, with being the most drunken people under the sun. This statement, like most other sweeping denunciations, requires to be taken with a considerable amount of reserve; but it certainly is true that our Antipodean cousins are, to judge from the evidence afforded by their revenue returns, afflicted with a chronic and incurable thirst. The average consumption of proof alcohol in several of

Why should the trade in intoxicants be placed under special restraints? is the question sometimes asked; and the querists are hardly satisfied with the answer that it has continually been proved necessary, by the experience of all civilised Governments, to place limits on every business that is shown to be injurious to the well-being of the people. The drink traffic is admittedly such; therefore it has to be dealt with in a way quite different from the trades of the grocer or the baker. There ar

The Scandinavian licensing system has, during the last few years, received considerable attention from reformers in many lands; and rightly so. Whatever may be its faults, there is probably no other plan of liquor legislation of which it can be said that it has, in a comparatively short time, reduced the traffic in spirits by about three-quarters, without seriously discommoding the moderate drinkers, and without creating any illegal trade worth mentioning. There seems every likelihood that the s

The English are often said to be the most drunken among civilised nations; but, like many other constantly repeated statements, this is not correct. Denmark, Belgium and Russia certainly take the precedence of us in this matter; and it is an open question if alcoholism is not doing at least as much harm in northern and central France and Switzerland, as in the British Isles. The casual visitor to our lively neighbour sees but little open intoxication, and consequently assumes that France is a so

Plans for the reform of the licensing laws are legion, and more Bills are brought before the House of Commons year by year dealing with this matter than with any other. To describe every one of these plans would be wearisome and useless. It will answer every purpose to confine this chapter to the chief measures proposed within this last quarter of a century. Mr. Bruce’s Bill. —No more careful or more thorough attempt has been made to change the licensing laws than that introduced by Mr. Bruce (n

Four main problems have to be faced before any adequate scheme of licensing reform can be formulated. They are: (1) compensation; (2) of whom shall the licensing bodies consist? (3) what is to be done with the clubs? (4) shall “tied houses” be permitted? Compensation. —This has been for many years the main block to reform. Are publicans, when deprived of their licences through no fault of their own, entitled to compensation or not? For long there was considerable doubt as to the legal aspects of

The problem of licensing reform, as every one who has given it even the most cursory attention will readily admit, is by no means an easy one. Whatever step may be proposed is certain to excite the opposition of many. It is impossible for even the most astute statesman to formulate a plan that will receive the assent and approval of extremists of either school. Almost every one, Liberal or Conservative, admits that the present state of affairs is wholly unsatisfactory, and that it demands immedi

The Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labour Statistics for Maine (Augusta, 1892) gives a set of very full returns from which it is possible to ascertain the exact position of working men under prohibition. A personal canvass was made of working men of all classes, the unskilled and lower paid, as well as the best and highest paid. Space will not permit me to quote more than a brief résumé . “The following is a general summary of some of the more important statistics derived fr

Whereas the excessive drinking of spirituous liquors by the common people tends not only to the destruction of their health, and the debauching of their morals, but to public ruin: For remedy thereof— Be it enacted, that from the 29th September no person shall presume, by themselves or any others employed by them, to sell or retail any brandy, rum, arrack, usquebaugh, geneva, aqua vitæ, or any other distilled spirituous liquors, mixed or unmixed, in any less quantity than two gallons, without fi