Arthur Shadwell

“ Exceptions are the United Kingdom and Norway, in both of which the consumption has fallen largely and steadily since 1899. In Germany it has also fallen somewhat since 1900, but not so steadily, and over the whole period it has risen in that country. It is impossible to connect these various movements either with legislation or with temperance organization. If the fall in Norway is ascribed to them, it must be pointed out that they are much more directed against spirits than against beer in that country, and the consumption of spirits shows no such movement, having risen since 1897. ”

“ The mortality statistics are treated in a similar one-sided way. They clearly show the injury done by the abuse of alcohol, but what of its moderate use? Agricultural labourers are the most typical moderate drinking class, and they are one of the healthiest in spite of exposure, bad housing and poverty. If all the unhealthiness of those who drink hard is referred to their drink, then the healthiness of those who drink moderately should be referred to it too. ”

“ The statistics of alcoholism and cirrhosis, however, are very far from covering all the mortality due to drink. Dr Newsholme calculates by inference from the returns of Denmark and Switzerland that the deaths directly attributed to alcohol in England and Wales should be some six times higher than they appear in the returns, and that they would then amount to 5 per cent. of the total deaths of adults instead of about 0-8 per cent. ”

“ There is no doubt that it has exercised a strong influence on public opinion and on the whole in the direction of temperance. A great change of attitude has taken place and is still going on. The ill-effects of excessive drinking, especially of distilled spirits, have long been recognized, but the tendency now is to question whether any alcohol-containing drinks are of any value at all and to deny any valid distinction between distilled and fermented liquors. Medical abstinence societies have been formed in England, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. ”

“ Laws have now been passed in every state and territory, making anti-alcohol teaching part of the curriculum in the public schools, and tobacco is usually included. The manner of teaching has given rise to much controversy and opposition. Temperance is taught in connexion with physiology and hygiene, but the promoters of the movement insisted that prominence should be given to it and that the text-books should be adapted accordingly. ”

“ Agriculturists, though with a higher alcoholic mortality, nearly equal the clergy in general healthiness, which must be attributed to the open-air life. The low alcoholic level of coal-miners and navvies is striking, because both are hard-drinking classes; their position can only be explained by the fact that the drink beer, and it goes far to prove the innocuousness of beer when combined with hard work. ”

“ Consequently a large amount of research has been devoted to alcohol and its effects both by experimentation on animals and plants and by observation of the morbid conditions set up in human beings by excessive and long continued indulgence in alcoholic drinks. Another field of inquiry which has been actively worked is the statistical study of drink in relation to nationality, occupation, disease, insanity, mortality, longevity, crime, pauperism and other aspects of social life. In London there is a society, consisting chiefly of medical men, for the scientific study of inebriety ”

“ All such drinks produce intoxication if taken in sufficient quantity; but their action is so much slower and less violent than that of distilled spirits that even their abuse did not give rise to any opposition that can properly be called a movement, and the distinction has repeatedly formed the basis of legislation in several countries down to this day. Extremists now place all alcohol-containing drinks under the same ban, but fermented liquors are still generally held to be comparatively innocuous; nor can any one deny that there is a difference. ”

“ The position of Washington is explained by the very large coloured population and the strength of the police, force, which is greater in the capital than elsewhere and very strict in regard to order in the streets. Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Cleveland are great manufacturing centres with a large population of foreign workmen; the vast infiux of European immigrants, consisting of men disposed to drink by a e, occupation, race and habits, and receiving higher wages than they have been used to, must always be borne in mind with regard to drunkenness in the United States. ”

“ A careful study of the foregoing statistics of consumption in the three countries-United Kingdom, United States and the Scandinavian peninsula-which have paid most attention to the problem and have for a long period applied forcible but widely different methods of control, does not permit any confident conclusion upon the comparative merits of any particular system. ”

“ In Switzerland 40 per cent. of male criminals in 1892 were found to have been under the influence of drink when their offences were committed. In Denmark 43 per cent. of the men convicted in 1903 were drunkards. These estimates, some of which are official, suffice to confirm the connexion between drink and a great deal of crime, but the basis of investigation is too narrow to ermit more than a general conclusion. ”

“ Other noteworthy British societies are the Royal Army Temperance Association and the Royal Naval Temperance Society. The special liability of soldiers and sailors to intemperance makes the work of these bodies particularly valuable, and it is strongly supported by the king and many officers of the greatest distinction. Very strikin results have been obtained in the army. Twenty-five per cent of the Home Forces and 42 per cent. of the Indian army belong to the association; and the movement is growing. In the navy 25,000 men have joined the Temperance Society. ”

“ It has no doubt been largely instrumental in procuring the varied mass of legislation described in the article on LIQUOR LAWS, particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia; and these laws are in a sense results. Ardent advocates of legislation, who are always apt to substitute the means for the end, point to them with satisfaction. ”

“ It is an instance of the force of popular taste. The increase in beer has not been accompanied by a corresponding reduction of other alcoholic liquor. Wine might be left out of account in this connexion It is largely consumed only in countries where it is extensively grown, namely, in France, Italy and Switzerland, out of the countries enumerated. The consumption is very irregular and dependent mainly on the abundance of the crop. But the tendency of wine has also been to rise; it has risen in France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, the United States and Australia. ”

“ A World's Prohibition Conference was held in -London in 1909. It was attended by about 300 delegates from temperance societies in nearly all parts of the world, and resulted in the foundation of an International Prohibition Federation, which embraces every country in Europe with three or four minor exceptions, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, the British self-governing Dominions, India, China, japan, Palestine, Tunisia and Hawaii. The formation of this body indicates the growth of the most uncompromising form of antagonism to the liquor traffic. ”

“ The facts do not warrant that inference, nor has mankind at large ever accepted it. Both the statistical and experimental evidence is full of fallacies, and especially the latter. The pathological investigations on the action of alcohol referred to above elucidate the organic changes which the tissues undergo in the chronic inebriate who is saturated with spirit, but to draw the inference that alcoholic liquors taken in moderation and consumed in the body have any such action is wholly fallacious. ”

“ In 1909 the Board of Education for England issued a syllabus of temperance teaching, the adoption of which in elementary schools is optional. In Scotland also courses of teaching in hygiene and temperance are permissive and have been adopted by many local educational authorities. In the United States compulsory teaching is of much longer standing and more advanced. ”

“ Attempts to support the case for abolishing the use of alcoholic liquors by denying them any value and by attributing to them effects which spring from many other causes, do not carry conviction or advance the cause of temperance. A much stronger argument lies in the difficulty of drawing a definite line between use and abuse ”

“ In every part of this great metropolis whoever shall pass along the streets will find wretchedness stretched upon the pavement, insensible and motionless, and only removed by the charity of passengers from the danger of being crushed by carriages or trampled by horses or strangled with filth in the common sewers. ”

“ We know that they exist by their taste and their effect; they make the difference between port and sherry, between claret and Burgundy, between one vintage and another, between brandy and whisky, differences unknown to chemistry—which only recognizes alcohol, and knows very little about that—but vastly important to the human or anism. Another group of experiments are equally fallacious in a different way. The effect of alcohol in mental operations is tested by the comparative speed and ease with which work is done after a dose and without it. ”

“ Drink is commonly confessed by criminals and paupers, as a venial offence to serve as a plausible excuse for a condition really due to dislike of work. When poverty is examined by local distribution it is found to have very little connexion with drink. In 1901 the average proportion of pauperism to population in England was 5-3 per cent. ”

“ In addition to the direct mortality there is an unknown score against alcohol in predisposing to other diseases and in accelerating death. Consumption is one of the diseases thought to be particularly associated with alcohol, but there are several others. The following table shows the comparative mortality of males aged 25 to 65 from certain classes of disease in different groups of occupations. They include those with the highest and those with the lowest mortality. ”

“ In Great Britain the political element has been less predominant but sufficiently pronounced to form a distinguishing feature between the early and more enthusiastic stage of temperance agitation, which after lasting some twenty years suffered a reaction, and the later one, which began between 1860 and 1870 and made way more gradually. ”

“ These experiments only take cognizance of alcohol; they ignore the other substances actually consumed along with it. Some of these, and notably sugar, are recognized foods; the balance of opinion on the vexed question whether alcohol itself is a food—which really depends on what is meant by a food—is now on the side of alcohol. But in addition to the principal constituents, easily separable by analysis, are many other substances of which science takes no cognizance at all; they are not identified. They may be in minute quantities yet extremely powerful, as are many other vegetable extractive. ”

“ It is recognized by authority but optional in Australia, South Africa, some provinces of India, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland. The movement in favour of school-teaching is continuously and generally advancing.
(5) The scientific study of the physiology and pathology of alcohol is a very large subject in itself. As has been shown above, the pioneers of the temperance movement were medical men ”

“ The United States, in whose multitudinous liquor laws prohibition plays the most prominent part, has most cons icuously failed to check consumption. Norway and Sweden, botii of which combine the principle of disinterested management, though not in the same form, with a certain amount of prohibition, show markedly different results. The British licensing system has been at least as successful as any of the others. The most probable conclusion to be drawn from the facts is that the movement in each country has been mainly determined by other forces ”

“ The evidence given at this inquiry and by contemporary writers reveals a condition of things to which modern times afford no parallel; and in particular it disposes of the current belief that female drunkenness is a comparatively new thing and increasing. The practice of frequent in public-houses and drinking to excess in England has been noted for centuries and repeatedly denounced. ”

“ The existence of a broad relation between superior vigour and an inclination for alcoholic drinks was pointed out years ago by the writer; drinking peoples are noticeable more energetic and progressive than non-drinking ones. It is the universal experience of ship masters that British seamen, whose, intemperance causes trouble and therefore induces a preference for more sober foreigners, exhibit an energy and endurance in emergency of which the latter are incapable. ”

“ The clergy, who have the lowest alcoholic mortality, show a remarkably low level of organic disease of all kinds; railway engine-drivers, who come next, suffer more from circulatory and respiratory diseases, navvies and coal-miners still more, while civil servants are more susceptible to phthisis. ”

“ The concentrated form of alcohol, thus evolved, for a long time carried with it the prestige of a divine essence from the middle ages when chemistry was a mysterious art allied to all sorts of superstitions. ”

“ But the evil appears never to have been so great or the object of so much attention in the ancient world as in Western countries and our own era. Two circumstances mainly differentiate the modern problem; one is the use of distilled waters or spirits as a beverage, and the other the climatic conditions prevailing in the more northern latitudes which are the home of Western civilization. ”