Part III.
THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
THE STATE AS DISTILLER.
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 are those who would have us believe that these very restrictions promote intemperance; and visionaries have more than once stated that the best way to encourage sobriety and to restrain excess would be to make the traffic absolutely free. The whole theory of Government is against such an idea. It is an axiom of statesmanship that to check any trade by legislation is to injure it; and that, within certain limits, the more severe the restrictions imposed on it, the less likely is a trade to thrive. But for answer to free-trade theorists we need not appeal to axioms of Government. The universal experience of nations goes to show that to allow the free manufacture and sale of intoxicants is to use the surest means of promoting all manner of excess. The official returns of France, Belgium and Germany within the last few years, all show that free trade in drink in these countries has proved an utter failure; and that under it, poverty, insanity and crime are increasing with terrible rapidity. Another remarkable illustration of this is to be found in the recent experience of Switzerland.
By article thirty-one of the Swiss Constitution of 1874 freedom of trade is specially guaranteed. The same year as the new Constitution was approved, the canton of Argovie wanted to know if this clause would prevent it limiting the number of drink shops in its borders. The Federal Council replied that “the limitation of the number of drink shops is no longer possible, on account of the principle of liberty of commerce and of industry imposed by article thirty-one of the Constitution”.
The result was an immediate and considerable increase in the number of cabarets in nearly every canton. From 1870 to 1880 the total of these establishments was raised by 22 per cent., and in Geneva there was a wine shop for every 70 people, the average for the whole country being one drink shop for every 130 inhabitants. The effects of this on the condition of the people were immediately apparent. The French have a saying “to smoke and to drink like a Swiss, and to get tipsy like a Pole”; but now the Swiss, never the most temperate nation, showed signs of rapid deterioration through intemperance. At the recruitment of 1880 the Medical Commission reported that the number of young men found fit for military service was from 5 to 25 per cent. less than in 1873, and in some parts the number of men fit for service was as low as 21·2 per cent. The Principal Medical Officer declared that the physical degeneration of the candidates was due to the evil effects of spirit drinking and drunkenness. The director of the Central Bureau of Charity stated that 80 per cent. of the applications of mothers and children for relief were brought about by the tippling of the father of the family. Sociologists pointed out that the nation was rapidly being destroyed by this one curse; and in order to obtain fuller details the Federal Assembly requested the Federal Council to make an inquiry into the matter. The report of the latter body, when issued, more than bore out the gloomy prognostications of the alarmists. From 1877 to 1881, 3285 patients were admitted to the public lunatic asylums, and of these 923 were brought there by alcoholism. There were 254 deaths annually directly caused by excessive drinking. Out of 2560 prisoners in cantonal penitentiaries, 1030 were found to be drunkards; and in eight reformatories 50 per cent. of the boys and 45 per cent. of the girls were found to be the children of parents one or both of whom were given to intoxication. In Switzerland there are a larger proportion of suicides than in any other civilised country, and the Commission found that this was caused mainly by alcoholism. The Federal Council attributed the state of affairs to two reasons: (1) to the change in the economic condition of Switzerland owing to the introduction of railways; (2) partly to the fact that wine had become costly and inaccessible to the workmen, while at the same time spirits had become cheaper. Brandy was not only imported in great quantities from Germany, but was also manufactured on a large scale in industrial and domestic distilleries in Switzerland. The product of these small distilleries was specially dangerous, not only because of the alcohol it contained, but because of the crude and imperfect state of most of it. There was said to be between five and ten thousand domestic distilleries in the canton of Berne alone. To these causes, rather than to the increase of the shops for the sale of liquor, the Council attributed the increased alcoholism; but the popular opinion was against it on this point, and power was almost immediately afterwards given to the cantons to limit the number of public-houses. The chief recommendation of the Council was that steps should be taken to cheapen the price of beer and wine and to make spirits dearer.
In order to accomplish this latter aim the Government caused a popular vote to be taken on the question whether the Constitution should be so altered as to permit the traffic in intoxicants to be subject to control. There was a two-thirds majority in favour of control, and soon afterwards a scheme was formulated for making the manufacture of spirits entirely a State monopoly. This plan was started partly in the hope of checking drunkenness and providing the people with pure drink; but undoubtedly a cause that was very largely responsible for its initiation was the hope of securing an abundant revenue.