All the world knows, except, apparently, the world that goes round at
Westminster, how Prohibition has helped the Allies.
_With the Shell Famine at its height—largely made by Drink—the
Prohibition Army on the East held up the enemy while Britain fought the
Drink Trade for her shells._
_With the Bread Famine looming in sight—largely made by Drink—the
Prohibition Navy from the West flings in her power against the
submarines._
Oh, for the spirit of our Allies in this land! If France wants to rouse
the spirit of Verdun she strikes down her foe at home and puts absinthe
away. If Russia wants to be great and free she stops this drink and
orders out the Romanoffs. If Canada wants to give her utmost help to
Britain she stops this drink from sea to sea. If Australia wants to make
her soldiers fit she trains them in her Prohibition camps. If America
wants to beat the whole world at making shells she drives drink from her
workshops. If San Francisco has an earthquake she stops drink while she
pulls herself together. If Liverpool has a dangerous strike she shuts up
public-houses and keeps the city quiet. Oh, for a Government of Britain
that will see what all the world can see!
History will do justice to the part the Prohibition policy of the Allies
has played in saving Europe, but a pamphlet has no room for these
things. We can take only one or two great witnesses to the mighty
achievements of our Prohibition Allies. Let us begin with France, and
call our own Prime Minister to tell us what they did. Mr. Lloyd George:
One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris, and the
French Minister of Finance said, “I have to go to the Chamber of
Deputies, because I am proposing a bill to abolish absinthe.”
Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky plays in this
country, and they abolished it by a majority of something like ten
to one that afternoon.
And how did Paris take this prohibition that men said would cause a
revolution? Let us ask Mr. Philip Gibbs, whose splendid letters home
have made his name a household word. Mr. Philip Gibbs:
Absinthe was banned by a thunderstroke, and Parisians who had
acquired the absinthe habit trembled in every limb at this judgment
which would reduce them to physical and moral wrecks. But the edict
was given and Paris obeyed, loyally and with resignation.
And now we come to Russia, to these mighty Russian people who in the
last year of vodka saved £6,000,000 or £7,000,000, and in the last full
year of Prohibition saved £177,000,000. We will call our own Prime
Minister again:
Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing how unprepared she was,
said, “I must pull myself together. I am not going to be trampled
upon, unready as I am. I will use all my resources.” What is the
first thing she does? She stops drink.
I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, and I
asked, “What has been the result?” He said, “The productivity of
labour, the amount of work which is put out by the workmen, has gone
up between 30 and 50 per cent.”
I said, “How do they stand it without their liquor?” and he replied,
“Stand it? I have lost revenue over it up to £65,000,000 a year and
we certainly cannot afford it, but if I proposed to put it back
there would be a revolution in Russia.”
How completely teetotal Russia became we read long ago in the _Daily
Mail_, to which Mr. Hamilton Fyfe sent this message from Petrograd:
Try to imagine all the publichouses in the British Isles closed; all
the restaurants putting away their wine cards and offering nothing
stronger than cider or ginger ale. That is the state of things in
Russia. Strange it seems indeed, yet there is one thing stranger.
Nobody makes any audible complaint.
Everywhere in Russia it was the same: a nation was made sober by Act of
Parliament.
“Without a murmur of protest,” said the Moscow correspondent of the
_Times_, “the most drunken city in Europe was transformed into a
temple of sobriety, and we felt that if Russia could thus conquer
herself in a night, there was indeed nothing that might not be
accomplished.” And two years later, when the revolution came, we
read in the _Times_ this note from Odessa: “Perfect tranquillity
continues to prevail here, although for the moment Odessa is
practically without police. The satisfactory absence of crime may
largely be attributed to the sealing up of spirituous liquors.”
We need not be afraid of Drinkless Revolutions.
But the truth about Russia is almost too incredible to believe, for it
is Prohibition that made the revolution possible; it was stopping drink
that set 170,000,000 people free. We will let a business correspondent
of the _Times_ give evidence; here is what he said on April 21, 1917:
In one respect it must be said that the Reactionaries saw clearly.
They always claimed that the Tsar had ruined himself by decreeing
the abolition of vodka. None but a sober people could have carried
out the Russian Revolution.
The police were, on the other hand, the victims of drink. They had
seized the vodka at the order of the Government, and had kept
plentiful supplies for themselves. Thus the Revolution was in part a
struggle between drunken reaction and sober citizens. Sobriety
triumphed.
The Russian people will not bow down and tie their hands to the thrones
of Europe: do we wonder if they scorn our quailing before this trade?
Free Russia flings off the dynastic yoke: do we wonder Prohibition
Russia is not much impressed by a nation with a Drink Trade round its
neck?
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