TOPICS OF THE DAY.
A DRY AMERICA.
PTIHE decision of more than three-quarters of the States .1 in America to prohibit intoxicating drink is a political and industrial portent which no thinking person can disregard. It is the expression of a logical and earnest purpose ; the time is long past for making fun about the Various dodges in the " dry " States for getting round the Liquor Laws, and for drinking as much as a man pleases on the understanding that drink shall be called "medicine." It is not merely that the necessary majority for ratifying an amendment to the Federal Constitution has been obtained ; we have also to note and to wonder at the fact that the decision has been reached with extraordinary rapidity. To understand how imposing this fact is, it is necessary to look at the political process by which the amendment to the Constitution has been ratified. In December, 1917, the amendment which would make it possible for the whole of America to go dry was passed by Congress, but it could have no effect unless it were ratified by three-quarters of the States of the Union. The machinery of ratification was in itself very interesting. It was provided that a State which had once ratified the amendment could not go back upon its decision. On the other hand, a State might make as many attempts as it pleased to secure ratification within the time-limit. The next point to notice is that a long time-limit was allowed for the States to decide whether they would or would not ratify the amendment. Seven years was the period. What has happened up to date is that thirty-seven out of forty- eight States of the Union have declared in favour of ratification ; that is to say, more than the necessary majority has been obtained in an amazingly short time. As the matter now stands, after January 16th, 1920, it will be illegal in the United States to manufacture, import, export, sell, or consume liquor for beverage purposes." But even this is not all, for, quite apart from the ratification of the amendment to the Constitution, a Bill was passed by Congress as a war measure providing that wine, spirits, and beer shall not be obtainable after June 30th of this year- Permanent Prohibition will probably have come into force before the temporary war measure has ceased to be operative. Nothing like this—no such self-imposed act of abstinence —has ever before been popularly voted in any country. The prohibition of vodka in Russia at the beginning of the war of course affords no comparison. That prohibition, wise and beneficial though it was, was an autocratic decree. The American people in the exercise of the fullest liberty have decided for themselves. And we can have no hesita- tion in saying that a new era has been opened up, a new school in social practice has been founded, and a new body of thought created among democratic English-speaking peoples about the use of drink. We are not so foolish as to suppose that even now ways will not be discovered in America of cheating the law. Nor do we forget that people determined upon the use of some narcotic when deprived of one sort will spend their money to some extent upon another. The man bereft of tobacco turns to snuff or chewing-gum ; and if none of these could be had, we might find him drinking coffee to excess, like some Turks, or taking drugs, or munching betel-nut. It must also be expected that the anti-Prohibitionists will somehow try to prevent the law coining into operation at all. But the fact remains that the American people with all the evidence before them, in the light of past experiments in Prohibition in several States, have made their deliberate choice. No trickery, no defiance, can in the main or in the long run defeat such a popular resolve while that resolve con- tinues. No doubt the emotions which have been called forth by the war have bad a great deal to do with the rapidity of the ratification. The example of the dry American Army in the field and of the dry camps has also been very potent. But when every allowance has been made for what may roughly be called sentiment, the startling fact cannot be disposed of that the American people have reached their decision after having had ample opportunities to think out what they were doing. It is a long time since the first experiments in total Prohibition were put into force in Maine. When other lees orderly States followed that early example, it may well have been that the chief incentive of the Prohibitionists was to kill at the source the unruly conditions which gave too many oppor- tunities to the authors of riot and to experts in the use of the six-shooter. But no such local or accidental motives can account for the present great tide of Prohibitionist feeling in the United States. The truth is that American opinion on the subject of Prohibition has formed itself, if we may so express ourselves, in the dry light of facts. Whether this opinion is right or wrong, whether or not it aims at an impossible ideal, it is at all events intensely scientific.
The passion for Prohibition has spread to the great cities although it used to be said that the populations of such places would never vote dry. Employers, military. com- manders, and leaders of Labour have all joined in the crusade. In this respect British leaders of Labour as a whole take a very different view from that of their American comrades. It is no exaggeration to say that when Pro- hibition for the duration of the war was proposed here— not by any means for the purpose of taking the decision as to whether or not drink was necessary out of the hands of the working man, but solely as a war-winning and temporary measure—the chief opponents of the proposal were the leaders of Labour. On the very day on which we write this article we read a correspondence between the leader of the Liverpool dockers and Mr. Clynes. Mr. Clynes assures Mr. Sexton that he quite agrees with him that there must be more beer, cheaper beer, and better beer ; and he adds that he has passed this opinion on to Mr. Cl. It Roberts, his successor at the post of Food Controller, and has no doubt that it will be attended to.
Reflection upon the probable economic effects of a dry America ought to be a sobering thought, so to speak, for every one here. Before the war roughly one hundred and fifty millions a year were being spent in Great Britain upon drink. When one has made due allowance for the food value of drink, such as it is, and, further, for the medical value, it has to be confessed that the greater part of this expenditure was waste. Think of the desperate straits to which successive Chancellors of the Exchequer were driven in order to raise a few millions for some needed reform or for some national amenity of life. Think of the violent discussions which the necessary financial measures provoked. And then contrast these storms with the steady and silent outflow of money upon a luxury. We are not advocating that we should follow the example of America, but we do say that it is a subject for very anxious consideration how far the competing powers of industrial America will be heightened by the decision to rule out entirely a tremendously wasteful expenditure. By all their industrial arts, by their standardization and other expedients which have enabled them to produce things cheaply although all the elements of production are dear, the Americans have already challenged every industrial nation in the world to a terribly hard encounter. Can we continue in that competition with any credit and profit to ourselves if we continue to fight, as it were, with one hand tied behind our backs ? Since the war British expenditure on drink has greatly risen, but as prices at present stand at a fictitious standard we need not assume any more for the purposes of our argument than that as much would he spent on drink after the war as before the war. If American Labour leaders believe that the efficiency of workers is reduced by drink, and that it is not to the interests of working men themselves to have facilities for drinking, since the prosperity of the workers depends directly upon their productiveness, American employers of labour are just as strong in their opinions, and, there is reason to believe, even stronger. The majority of the employers are determined not to tolerate in their midst an agency of demoralization which means, in its worst aspects, personal demoralization, bad time-keeping, and reduced output. Doctors concerned for the national health, and social workers tracking crime to its source, all swell the chorus.
What is the lesson for ourselves ? For our part, we have no doubt what it is. To begin with, it must never be forgotten that the American decision has behind it popular consent. No self-denying ordinance can possibly last in a democratic community sinless it has the widest sanction. As we look at the conditions of our own country, we have to admit that the nation is probably a long way from being willing to impose on itself any such compulsory abstinence. We do not ourselves write as teetotalers, but we do say most emphatically that Great Britain can do much within the very near future to set herself upon the right road, and to give herself complete freedom in future to reduce a luxurious expenditure, and to take any and every further decision that may be thought desirable and right as popular enlightenment increases. The drink restrictions imposed during the war have, of course, been extremely valuable, but the danger is that when normal times return there will be a strong demand— of which there are already numerous signs—that what may be called normal drinking shall also be re-established. The question is whether after the war we ought to let loose upon people a multitude of pushing salesmen determined to make up for lost time, eager to make more profits than ever by gratifying the pent-up appetite for intoxicants. Under such conditions all temporary, partial, or local restrictions are likely to be destroyed. There is only one adequate solution of the difficulty that we can see, and that is that the State should itself own the Drink Trade.
The great advantage of State ownership would be that it would withhold all incitements to the sale of liquor. The element of private profit would disappear. A man would buy a glass of beer or a whisky-and-soda just as he now buys a postage-stamp or a money-order. There would be no one to force drink upon him, or professionally to assure him that " another little drink won't do us any harm." There would be no one to develop as a matter of business his native hospitality and to excite his generous impulses to treat his friends. Everywhere the management of public-houses would be quite disinterested. The publican would be free to make as much profit as he could upon food and non-alcoholic drinks, but he would not earn a single penny upon the increased sale of beer, spirits, or wine. His one interest would be to push the non- alcoholic side of his business. Of course the purchase of the Trade would have to be effected upon equitable terms. In April, 1915, a fair and practicable scheme was drawn up by a mixed Committee of the Trade and the Teetotalers. 'Mere is no reason why that scheme should not be produced again out of its pigeon-hole. It would open a locked door in order that the nation might escape from a poisonous and demoralizing atmosphere into the fresh air of the open road. The British voter would become master of his own footsteps. It would be up to him to say exactly what use, drastic or moderate, he would make of the complete authority then vested in him. The one thing that is certain is that the American portent cannot safely be laughed away as the act of a few social experimenters and high-souled cranks. Right or wrong, practicable or impracticable, it is the considered word of a great nation.
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