Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/800

 it is exceedingly doubtful whether the population would tolerate such an interference with their habits, when the meaning of the act came home to them. The information which we can draw from Maine, or other places where prohibition of the traffic has existed, is most conflicting in itself, and remote in analogy. Accordingly, I should much like to see the prohibition of the public sale of liquor tried in several large English boroughs and districts, provided that the necessary act for the purpose could be carried without stopping all other legislation on the subject.

Within the last twelve months Sir Wilfrid Lawson and his followers have had the excellent good sense to drop the Permissive Bill, and proceed, by way of Parliamentary resolution, in favor of "local option." I really do not know exactly what is meant by "local option." Perhaps the Alliance itself does not know; the wisest course would be not to know—that is, to leave a latitude of meaning. In any case they have changed their policy. For year after year, for nearly the average length of a generation, it was the eleven clauses and one schedule of the Permissive Prohibitory Liquor Bill, pure and simple. Now it is "local option." Even if "local option" mean option of prohibition, a resolution is a more tentative method of procedure than the precise clauses of the celebrated bill. But if, as I fondly hope, "local option" will be interpreted to mean option for local authorities to regulate the liquor-traffic in the way thought to be most suitable to the locality, including prohibition when clearly desired by the inhabitants, then the matter assumes a much more hopeful aspect. Not only will the resistance to such a proposal be far less than to the Permissive Bill, but there will be considerable probability that when passed some successful experiments will be carried out. In fact, this "local option" would just be the mode of giving a wide field for diverse experiments which I am advocating. The teetotalers would be at liberty to try their experiments, but they would not in the mean time stop the progress of many other experiments, some of which might, in the course of ten or fifteen years, offer a sound solution of this most difficult problem. Of course, I am aware that this question of the drink-traffic is to a considerable extent a political one. There is a good deal which I might say upon this topic, but it would not be suitable to the tenor of my theme. If the political condition of England be such that the social reform of the people is not the main purpose of our Government, then we must hope that there are brighter lands where the political position is very different.

The best way of dealing with the liquor-trade would be to hand over the matter to the hands of a strong executive commission framed somewhat on the lines of the Poor-Law Commission. This body should have the power of authorizing schemes, proposed by local authorities, and should supervise the working of such schemes, and collect minute information as to the results. They would work