The Hawaiian Gazette

THE LIQUOR PROBLEM—III.

In the former papers published under this heading I have discussed the principles which justify special legislation on the Liquor Problem, and also, briefly, the workings of the license-system. But it remains to consider the system, frequently advocated in the Honolulu press, of curing intemperance with beer and light wines.
In a former paper I called attention to facts which left no room to doubt that drunkenness and its attendant crimes prevailed in the German Empire just the same as in other countries, notwithstanding the well known beer-drinking proclivities of the German people. The fact is beyond doubt that beer has not cured drunkenness in Germany. And if it has not succeeded in Germany where can it be expected to succeed?
The Federal Council of Switzerland, a few years ago, published a table, compiled from official sources and presumably reliable, showing that the people of Belgium drink, on an average, 169.2 quarts of beer per year for each individual, and the people of the United States, who, as the advocates of light wines and beer generally tell us, drink to get drunk, drink 31.3 quarts. Hence we may expect to find a difference in the amount of wines and spirits consumed by the two peoples. And we do find the difference, but not such an one as we might be led to expect. The people of the United States consume 3.21 quarts of spirits and 2.64 quarts of wine, as against a consumption of 8.1 quarts of spirits and 3.7 quarts of wine consumed by the people of Belgium. Perhaps the people of Belgium are exceptional in their use of spirits and beer.
The people of Great Britain and Ireland drink 143.92 quarts of beer, and 4.73 quarts of spirits and 2.09 quarts of wine. The people of Switzerland consume 37.29 quarts of beer, and 8.27 quarts of spirits and 55 quarts of wine. Denmark requires 33.33 quarts of beer, 1 quart of wine and 17.63 quarts of spirits. So if the people of Belgium are exceptional in their use of beer and spirits, those of Switzerland, Great Britain and Ireland, and those of Denmark must be equally so. In fact of all the countries here reported which consume more beer per capita than the United States, not one but consumes more spirits, also. It is the rule, not the exception.
If not beer perhaps wine will prove to be the antidote for drunkenness. The introduction of California wines has been seriously advocated as a temperance measure in the press of Honolulu. Let us see how that theory works.
France is undoubtedly the country of wine. The people of France consume annually 119.2 quarts of wine, per capita, and 6.41 quarts of spirits, against a consumption of 2.64 quarts of wine and 3.21 quarts of spirits in the United States. Switzerland, as we have seen, consumes annually 55 quarts of wine and 8.27 quarts of spirits per capita. Austria-Hungary requires 22.4 quarts of wine and 5.07 quarts of spirits per capita for her annual supply. Again going through the list, it will be found that every country which consumes more wine than the United States, consumes more spirits, also. No, neither beer nor wine will save a people from intemperance, unless the teachings of the past are to be reversed.
One thing more remains to be considered, the prohibition of the indiscriminate sale of spirits and the licensing of the sale of beer and wine. This is the scheme advocated by the liquor dealer whose words I quoted in a former paper. It is the system tried for many years in Iowa. The results of this system as compared with prohibition will be considered in a later paper. For the present I will only say that the results were far from satisfactory. But it should be remembered in all of these discussions that no system has yet attained perfection. It is for us to compare the systems now in vogue and already tried and choose that which promises the best results. Fortunately the different systems have been tried in the same places and among the same peoples, so that it is easy to make the comparison. But this paper is now too long to admit of any comparisons until a later date.

HENRY S. TOWNSEND.