four years ago the united states of america, by a two-thirds majority, voted prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquors. the british house of commons have just voted down a bill for the same purpose by a majority of 236 to 14. america treats prohibition as one of its greatest moral triumphs. britain treats it as a joke.
what accounts for this remarkable disparity in the attitude of the two great english-speaking communities towards one of the most baffling and elusive problems civilisation has to deal with? it cannot be a fundamental difference in temperament or in moral outlook. the men who engineered prohibition in america are of our own race and kind, bred in the puritan traditions that came originally from our shores.
if the evils of excessive drinking had been more apparent in america than in britain i could understand the states of the union deciding to take[pg 351] more drastic action than has been thought necessary in our country. but the facts are exactly the reverse. the consumption of alcohol in the united kingdom some years before the war per head of the population was higher than that of the united states. the poverty, disease, and squalor caused by alcohol was much greater in britain than in america.
what, then, accounts for the readiness of america to forbid the sale and the reluctance of britain even seriously to restrict it?
i would not care to dogmatise on the subject, but i will hazard two or three possible explanations.
i set aside the suggestion that property owners are frightened by the sequel to prohibition in russia. i have heard it argued that the prohibition ukase of the tsar was responsible for the russian revolution. that is probably true, for a people stupefied by alcohol will stand anything. the inefficiency and corruption of the tsarist régime was so appalling that no sober nation could have tolerated it without rebellion for a single year, and when the fumes of vodka ceased to muddle and blind the moujik, he rebelled against the autocracy[pg 352] that had betrayed his country into disaster. the russian experiment in drink, therefore, contains no warning against prohibition, except a very limited one, that those who wish to misrule a country in safety must first of all drench it with alcohol.
there is, of course, the ready explanation that old countries are very conservative, and do not take kindly to change. their joints are stiff with age, and they creak along well-worn paths slowly and painfully, but they lack the suppleness of limb that tempts younger communities to sprint across untrodden country. that is the argument. i am afraid this explanation will not hold. old countries when thoroughly moved can leap like the hart. the french revolution demonstrated how vigorously one of the oldest nations of europe could tear along unbroken tracks when impelled by a new passion. and i saw britain spring to arms in 1914, when five millions of men joined the colours without the lash of compulsion to stir their blood. england renewed her youth, and her movements had the energy, the audacity, and the endurance of a people untired by a march of centuries. this people, if stirred by a call which reaches its heart or conscience, is capable of action as bold as that which[pg 353] wrested magna charta out of a despot in the twelfth century, overthrew an ancient religion in the fifteenth century, led a king to the scaffold in the seventeenth century, or challenged the greatest military empires in the world in the sixteenth, the nineteenth, and the twentieth centuries. and if they were convinced that the liquor traffic must be destroyed, they would execute it with as little compunction or hesitation as they displayed in suppressing the mass or in decapitating charles i.
at the present moment the british people are not in the least persuaded that the evils of alcohol for a minority of the population cannot be dealt with effectively without resorting to the very drastic expedient of forbidding its consumption by the majority who use it in moderation. are they likely to be convinced? that depends on the failure or success of all other expedients to exterminate the evil of alcoholism.
that brings me to another explanation. america reached prohibition by the path of experiment. the federal system lent itself to the trial of every form of remedy, including prohibition. for well over half a century you have had almost every form of temperance expedient ever suggested in actual[pg 354] working in some state or other of the american republic.
when i was a lad i heard debates and addresses in welsh about the comparative merits of the "maine law" and high license. high license, reduction of licenses, local option, prohibition, have all been tried. they have all been in operation quite long enough to enable the american public to form a judgment on their merits. statistical results over long periods constitute a reliable basis for inference. american federalism furnished the opportunity, and the states took full advantage of it. hence the prohibition law.
to the practical man the figures in the prohibition states looked attractive from a business point of view. he hesitated, but the moral wave that swept over america carried him over the bar. but without the experience at his door i doubt whether the american business man would have assented to prohibition.
the british constitution does not lend itself to these valuable experiments. otherwise, london might have tried one experiment, lancashire another, yorkshire a third, scotland a fourth, and wales a fifth. the whole legislative power of the[pg 355] united kingdom was until quite recently vested in the imperial parliament. ireland has now a legislature of its own. in theory, what suited one part of the kingdom must do for the whole, and what did not suit the more populous parts could not be permitted to others.
as far as scotland, ireland, and wales are concerned, there was in practice a certain relaxation of this rule. but as far as the liquor laws went, any serious alteration in any part of the kingdom was difficult to secure if it offended the prejudices or damaged the interests of the rest. it took years to get it through parliament even in a mutilated condition.
there was no real freedom of experiment. the scottish local veto act is a compromise modified to suit english sentiment. even as it is, it took thirty years of scottish insistence to carry. wales has been unable to secure local option, although it has been demanded by four-fifths of its representatives for over a generation. we have, therefore, in this country been denied the practical experience which has guided america to so dramatic a conclusion.
in the absence of such experience it has been found impossible to educate and organise public[pg 356] opinion throughout britain to the point of concentrating attention and pressure on this one issue. other issues always cut across and jam the current.
you cannot secure unanimity of action on temperance reform even amongst the religious forces. if they were united in their demand, and prepared to enforce it at elections, nothing could resist their power. between elections they seem agreed in their policy; but no sooner does the party bugle sound than they all fall into rank in opposite armies, and the temperance banner is hurriedly packed into the cupboard for use after the polls have been declared. it is then once more brought out to wave over the tabernacle, and its wrinkles are straightened out in the breeze.
i have seen the fiercest champions of local option supporting brewers at elections because they were the official opponents of irish home rule in the contest. i remember being told by an eminent scottish divine, who was a strong temperance advocate, but who had hitherto supported anti-temperance candidates because of his inveterate opposition to gladstone's home rule, that, unless his party carried a measure of local option for scotland soon, he would have to abandon them, home rule or[pg 357] no home rule. he died without redeeming his promise. the time never came for him. the irish issue dominated elections for nearly a generation. free trade played a great part also.
if the exigencies of party conflict had permitted the same consistent propaganda work, extending over the same number of years, to be devoted to the drink problem as was given to the wrongs of ireland or free trade, no doubt public opinion could have been educated up to the point of supporting drastic reform. but this has not been found practicable by political parties owing to the distraction of other issues.
this is the main reason why british opinion is so far behind american opinion on the temperance question. in america the battle of sobriety was fought on the state platform, whilst the national platform was left free for other conflicts.
the war, however, enabled the british government to effect reforms which have materially reduced the consumption of alcohol in this kingdom. these results have been achieved by an enormous increase in the taxation of alcoholic liquors, and by a considerable reduction in the hours of sale. the taxation of beer was raised from ￡13,000,000 in[pg 358] 1913 to ￡123,000,000 in 1921. the duty on spirits in 1913 yielded ￡22,000,000, in 1921 it gave the revenue ￡71,000,000.
one of the effects has been an appreciable reduction in the alcoholic strength of the beverage sold. the hours of sale in the morning and afternoon have been curtailed appreciably. by this measure the workman is prevented from starting his day by drinking alcohol, and the afternoon break prevents the drinker from soddening all day.
the effect of these combined measures has been highly beneficial. the quantity of beer sold fell from 34,152,739 barrels of 36 gallons at standard gravity of 10.55 in 1913, to 23,885,472 standard barrels in 1921. spirits fell from 30,736,088 proof gallons in 1913 to 20,162,395 in 1921. these figures represent a remarkable and almost sensational reduction in the quantity of alcohol consumed by the population. convictions for drunkenness fell from 188,877 in 1913 to 77,789 in 1921. deaths from alcoholic diseases were more than halved during the same period. this is the most distinct advance in the direction of effective temperance reform hitherto taken by the british parliament, and the effect is striking in its encouragement.
[pg 359]
it would be a serious national misfortune if the admirable results attained by these war measures were lost by relaxations. most of the pressure exerted upon parliament has up to the present been in the direction of easing the grip of the state on the traffic. most candidates in all parties at the last election were forced to pledge themselves to support reduction in the beer duty. clubs, even more than "pubs," have urged extensions in drinking hours. the beer duty has already been reduced. it is anticipated that the reduction will have the effect of increasing consumption. this is regrettable, for it means so much reclaimed land once more sinking into the malarial swamp.
there is one consolation, however, that the women will claim the next turn in reduction of taxation. sugar and tea will then provide effective barriers in the way of a further cheapening of alcoholic liquors just yet. but all this is a long, long way off prohibition. a majority of 20 to 1 against mr. scrymgeour's prohibition bill, and a majority of 4 to 1 in favour of cheaper beer—both recorded in the same parliamentary week—is not encouraging to those who would suppress alcohol in britain.
[pg 360]
temperance reformers here are, therefore, watching the progress of america's bold bid for sobriety with hopeful, if anxious, eyes, and with longing hearts. what britain does next will depend entirely on the success or failure of what america is doing now.
