TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE DRINK QUESTION
1 AM one of those people who are very strongly opposed to Prohibition for the nation as a whole, though I have no objection to special areas deciding that within them Prohibition shall prevail. I base my opposition to a general Prohibition on two grounds. In the first place, I believe that total Prohibition of the American kind leads to terrible social and-political evils. Secondly, I am opposed to Prohibition because I do not believe that the medical and hygienic case against the moderate use of intoxicants has been made out.
But, though I feel these two reasons against total Prohibition very strongly, arid dread the demoralization and disunification of the State which comes from trying to enforce a taboo without general consent, I also feel that there is an immense danger—a danger only secondary to Prohibition based on a narrow majority—in the con- ditions under which in this country we allow the con- sumption of alcohol. I believe that only by the elimina- tion of private profit in the manufacture and retail of intoxicants is there any permanent hope. We shall never find a solution of this question until we insist that no man shall be in a position to make a private profit out of inducing men and women to take more alcohol than is good for them.
If I were a Socialist and did not think that the hope of making a profit is one of the strongest forces in human nature, but instead believed that the State would find profit-making as great a stimulus as the individual, my plea would fall to the ground. Believing as I do, however, that the State can very well be trusted to be an unenterprising manufacturer and a poor, i.e., a non- pushful, seller, I am all for letting the State supply their customers with just what they require, and no more. The State would automatically make a considerable revenue out of its monopoly. It will be faced with a large demand, even though it does not go out and look for custom as the Trade does. The Treasury may be keen to collect revenue, but it is not going to take off its coat, so to speak, and stimulate the sale of fermented liquor for all it is worth. Besides, if it did, it could be stopped by Parliamentary action: Remember here that if there is nobody with the incentive of private profit in front of you, you will not have that fierce, passionate resistance to increased regulation which now exists. As it is, if you propose to do anything to diminish the consumption of alcohol you have a number of people (the vast majority of them perfectly sober and decent people) whose money is invested in the liquor trade in various forms against you. They will fight to the death to keep their incomes from being diminished, and, from their point of view; whoc an blame them ? Jones, with his money invested in brewery or distillery shares, is the father of a family: He is passionately anxious, as he ought to be, to bring up that family under good conditions, and is not prepared to sacrifice his private interests to the , public good; unless • all • other stock-holders and business-men are requested to bear a similar burden. The result is that whenever you touch the liquor trade in the matter of profits (and you cannot touch it without touching profits), You throw on the side of alcohol and against temperance a vast number of' people who are not naturally against moderation in drink or in any sense bad citizens. Further, you demoralize your party and political •system by having a.-powerful trade- which is always trembling-at the thought of its profits being interfered with. By means of the tremendous weight of State regulation in the sale of liquor which • already exists, plus a minority vigilant and growing which is always threatening the Trade with extinction or a great diminution of profit, you automatically make the people engaged in the threatened industry feel that unless they can strongly influence the ruling party in the State, whichever it may be, they may be ruined. Therefore their chief care is to secure a majority in Parliament " open to argument."
It is not for nothing that we talk about the Trade with a big T. The liquor trade is not by nature any more political than the biscuit trade, or, at any rate, would not be if it was not threatened. But, threatened as it is, it feels that it can only save itself by entering the political arena. There is no reason to enlarge on this point. The Unionist Party feels the fatal effects of Liquor influence in eighty per cent. of the constituencies which return its members.
But- this is not the whole story. The brewers and sellers of intoxicants generally have, not out of wickedness, but out of this desire to save themselves, felt obliged to get a hold upon the Press, and especially the local Press of the country. This they can do partly through the ownership of shares in newspaper companies by private individuals favourable to the Trade and still more by a judicious, but obviously perfectly legitimate, use of the immense sums spent by the Trade every year in adver- tising the things they have to sell. There is nothing per se wrong or corrupt in this. All advertisers tend to support newspapers which favour, or at any rate do not oppose, their industry. Threatened as they are, how can one expect them to select as advertising media papers which are, as they think, planning their ruin ?
The regulation of the sale and manufacture of intoxi- cants—i.e., the forbidding of free trade in liquor—has created a most valuable monopoly for the Trade. And that monopoly we tax at a very high rate. What has been the result ? That the monopolists can only pay their way through very skilful trading and very skilful salesman- ship. We have, in fact, without meaning it, immensely intensified the stimulus to obtain a profit. In order to pay the State its dues and yet to have something over to distribute to the stock-holders, the Trade must leave no stone unturned in the great game of profit-making. It used to be said, and with truth, - that a high rent was the best manure for a farm. The manure of high taxation, plus thirsty men, has made the Trade one of the most successful and cleverly financed industries in the country. What the brewers and distillers do not know in the way of pushing their goods is not worth knowing.
But, though I feel bound to put forth my view for the elimination of private profit in the manufacture and sale of alcohol as the only final remedy, I am not going to be so foolish as to sulk and say, " If I can't go the whole way to Windsor, I -won't listen to any scheme for going as far as Hounslow." On the contrary, I say, and would ask all other believers in State Purchase and the Carlisle Systeth to say, that as lang as we do not bar out this as the final solution, we ought to be quite - willing to accept compromises such as the Bishop of Oxford's Bill—. a compromise which, while leaving the Carlisle experiment as it is, and giving opportunities for -other areas to adopt it, at • the same time allows common action with the die-hard teetotallers.
- Therefore as an anti-Prohibitionist and as a believer in • the nationalization of the manufacture and sale of alcohol, and further, as a consumer: of and believer in alcohol as, in many cases and in small amounts, hygienic rather than anti-hygienic, I feel I can wholeheartedly • support the Bishop of Oxford's Bill. J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
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