“Yours faithfully,
“H—— S. K——”
“——,
“November 9.”
The following answer was given:
To the Editor The Times.
“Sir,—It is quite profitable to consider Mr. K——’s letter because of the blurred notion of Russian temperance reform which is prevalent in this country. It is most important that whatever opinion we may hold regarding enforced temperance or other questions, we should yet keep a clear picture of the current life of our Allies.
“I am now just six weeks back in England after a four months’ journey in which I visited places so wide apart in the Russian Empire as Ekaterina, in the far north, and villages of the Central Caucasian range, in the south; and I stayed a while in Petrograd and Moscow, Rostof, Orel, and other considerable cities, and I can say by the evidence of my eyes that intoxicating liquor has disappeared. The only drunken men I saw were in Archangel. Officers to-day sit down to talk over a bottle of citro. In the restaurants you are given kvas, a sort of fruity ginger-beer, which in truth is not allowed to have more than 1-1/2 per cent. of alcohol, and is in no sense a beer.
“The article in the Russian Section is by the Petrograd Correspondent of The Times, and consists chiefly of extracts from an article by the Russian Professor Migulin. I find the phrase in the translation is ‘malt beverage,’ and not ‘mild beer,’ as Mr. K—— puts it; and I think it refers to a beverage something like birch beer as sold in America, a sort of empty symbol of beer taken not because it is pleasant but because one must order something with one’s meals. It has no alcoholic reality, is sold in bottles, and is of a standardised taste and quality.
“As regards wine, it must be remembered that in the Caucasus, in Transcaucasia, and in Russian Central Asia there are wine industries, wine is the local popular drink, not tea as in Russia proper. This wine is usually kept in skins and sold in pots. There is also a bottling industry, but the export of this wine from these remote parts of the Empire to Russia proper has been prohibited except in cases of specially guaranteed orders.