the first question I would be asked
would be "Is England going dry?" I realised that in any report I might
make to the National Geographical Society or to the Political Science
Association, the members of these bodies, being scholars, would want
accurate information about the price of whiskey, the percentage of
alcohol, and the hours of opening and closing the saloons.

My first impression on the subject was, I must say, one of severe moral
shock. Landing in England after spending the summer in Ontario, it
seemed a terrible thing to see people openly drinking on an English
train. On an Ontario train, as everybody knows, there is no way of
taking a drink except by climbing up on the roof, lying flat on one's
stomach, and taking a suck out of a flask. But in England in any dining
car one actually sees a waiter approach a person dining and say, "Beer,
sir, or wine?" This is done in broad daylight with no apparent sense of
criminality or moral shame. Appalling though it sounds, bottled ale is
openly sold on the trains at twenty-five cents a bottle and dry sherry
at eighteen cents a glass.

When I first saw this I expected to see the waiter arrested on the spot.
I looked around to see if there were any "spotters," detectives, or
secret service men on the train. I anticipated that the train conductor
would appear and throw the waiter off the car. But then I realised that
I was in England and that in the British Isles they still tolerate the
consumption of alcohol. Indeed, I doubt if they are even aware that
they are "consuming alcohol." Their impression is that they are drinking
beer.

At the beginning of my discussion I will therefore preface a few exact
facts and statistics for the use of geographical societies, learned
bodies and government commissions. The quantity of beer consumed in
England in a given period is about 200,000,000 gallons. The life of a
bottle of Scotch whiskey is seven seconds. The number of public houses,
or "pubs," in the English countryside is one to every half mile. The
percentage of the working classes drinking beer is 125: the percentage
of the class without work drinking beer is 200.

Statistics like these do not, however, give a final answer to the
question, "Is prohibition coming to England?" They merely show that
it is not there now. The question itself will be answered in as
many different ways as there are different kinds of people. Any
prohibitionist will tell you that the coming of pro