farewell to their senses. And that because the Press serves the public with doctored news. One day we are told how a hundred thousand New Yorkers are to march in procession through the streets demanding the return of their alcoholic drinks. The columns are full of the preparations for the greatest uprising of the oppressed and parched citizens. The great day comes and the procession is a fiasco. But the syndicated Press omit to record that only a miserable handful paraded the streets, the offscourings of the city's purlieus, amid the derision of the onlookers. We are later informed under great headlines that the American Medical Association or some such society has called for the annulling of the Prohibition Law. We feel that the climate is bound to become wet again, for the doctors demand it. But we soon learn that this particular association of doctors is a mere fragment of a noble profession—a fragment separate from the American Association which corresponds to the British Medical Association. But the syndicated Press does not record that fact. The Press that distorts events after that manner can only flourish among a generation that desires not the truth.

II

There is nothing more to be desired than that the people of Great Britain should acquaint themselves with the facts regarding the greatest social advance ever made by humanity in a generation. Can it be the case that the millions of America committed an act of social folly when they outlawed the liquor traffic and closed the saloons, and that, awakening from their dream, they are to restore the traffic in alcohol and the saloon once more? That is the impression that a spoon-fed Press seeks to create. Can it be true?

To answer that question we must ascertain first whether the prohibition of the sale and manufacture of alcohol in the States was an act of panic legislation, the result of a snap vote, the effect of a passing enthusiasm or a fanaticism that was triumphant for a moment? If it be of that order, then it may be expected to be cast aside by a wearied and disillusioned people. But the movement that prohibited alcohol across the Atlantic has the toil and sacrifice and devotion of three generations behind it. It is not a thing of yesterday. As far back as 1834 the selling of liquor to Indians was forbidden by law. Seventy-six years ago (in 1846) the first Prohibition Law was enacted in the State of Maine. Fifty-seven years ago the Presbyterian General Assembly excluded liquor distillers and liquor sellers from the membership of the Church. In 1873 the Women's Temperance Crusade movement was inaugurated—a movement whose ideal was to make the United States safe for women and children by the suppression of the saloon. In 1893 the Anti-Saloon League was formed—an organisation that brought the various societies into unity and fused them into the strength of steel. There were long years of work in school and of teaching in the churches ere on the 18th December 1917 the Amendment in favour of Prohibition passed the Legislative Assemblies at Washington. Having passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, it had to be ratified by a majority of the various States. The States had seven years in which to ratify; but within one year and two months forty-five States, with a population of over one hundred millions, ratified the Amendment. Only three out of the forty-eight States failed to ratify. On the 29th January, it being certified that three-fourths of the States had ratified as the Constitution requires, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting alcohol, became law. And on that night the leaders of the movement held a service of thanksgiving in Washington, and when the hour struck ushering in the first day of the new era, Mr. W. J. Bryan began his address by reading the words: 'They are dead that sought the young child's life.' An Amendment to a National Constitution which has the generations behind it is not one to be repealed. To repeal it requires now a majority of three-fourths of the States! The one great fact to remember, is that by local option two thousand two hundred and thirty-five counties in the United States had made an end of the liquor traffic in their areas before Prohibition became the national law, and that there were only three hundred and five counties in all the States which had not declared themselves dry before Prohibition became the law. If anything be certain under the sun it is that Prohibition is the settled and unalterable policy of the United States of America. During a visit of three months, and after inquiries in several cities, I never met a single person who wanted the saloon again reopened in the States. Whatever criticism might be made, there was among everybody only one sentiment regarding the saloon—and that was thankfulness that it was closed for ever.

III

There are, however, those who desire the Volstead law defining alcohol amended so that the sale of beer and light wines may be permitted in restaurants with meals. To us that seems reasonable; but there is no chance of such a policy being adopted. The reason is that these experiments have already been made in the States and have been found unworkable and unsatisfactory. The settled policy of the reformers in the States is to seal up the sources of drunkenness. Every drunkard began as a moderate drinker; and the evil has to be stayed at its source. Mr. Bryan described the process dramatically: 'The moderate drinker says every man should stop when he has had enough. But the difficulty is to know when one has had enough, for enough is a horizon that recedes as one approaches it. A frail brother was advised by a friend to drink a glass of sarsaparilla when he had had enough. "That's right," was the reply, "but when I have had enough I cannot say sarsaparilla!"' The prevailing opinion among the Church and social leaders is that the liquor trade as it was conducted in America could not be mended, and that it had to be ended. And it was ended. Having been ended, there is no possibility of its being amended!

IV

It is one thing to legislate and another to make that legislation effective. We know that by experience in this country. It took long years to make the laws against smuggling operative in this country; and it was only after Queen Victoria's accession that the laws abolishing slavery in the British Empire, passed in a previous reign, were made operative. In the States the stage of legislation regarding alcohol is past, and the stage of making the legislation effective has come. The difficulty of making Prohibition operative is great, but the difficulty is being steadily overcome. No law that ever was made has been fully successful: otherwise there would be no theft and no murder in a perfect world. In one State—Detroit—it is said that five thousand automobiles are stolen every year, but nobody ever suggested that the commandment forbidding theft should be repealed in Detroit. There are more murders in New York in any one year than in the whole of Ireland in its most distressful year, but nobody suggests that the commandment against murder should be repealed in New York. That a law is broken is no argument for its repeal. And notwithstanding all the smuggling there is no doubt but that the Prohibition Law is obeyed by 99 per cent. of the American people. 'In Nebraska there are several times as many men in the penitentiary for stealing automobiles as there are for violating the liquor laws.' The persons who are convicted for breaking the law are the aliens newly come to the country—Italians, Poles, Irish, Spaniards. A native-born American scarcely ever is found among the breakers of the Prohibition Law, and very seldom a Scotsman. But the newspapers themselves are the proof of this. If the disregard of Prohibition were the general thing, the newspapers would cease to record it; for according to the Press news is the exceptional. To walk to business every day is