compromise, why should not all fair-minded members of the community unite in supporting it? Might not the "Trade itself consider whether it is ever likely to secure better terms than those offered to it now? Whether we like it or not, we have henceforth to reckon with a dry America. What the effect of the action of the United States may be no one can exactly tell for some time to come. Ten or fifteen years ago the State of Kentucky was famed for its blue grass, its magnificent breed of horses, and above all for its whisky. It was a very "wet" State indeed. When it decided on local option, and the little town of Richmond in the heart of it voted for total prohibition, the dissentients raised up their voices in horror, and the most gloomy prophecies were made as to the effects of such a step. Trade, it was declared, would desert Richmond altogether, for labour would naturally leave a town where no alcohol was procurable for others close at hand, where it was to be had as before. The result of the experiment was as surprising as it was remarkable. Within a few years the trade of Richmond had increased to such an extent that it was pointed out as a medel of prosperity. People flocked into the city, and whole streets of new houses had to be erected. Money poured into the banks, and the Corporation were able to spend huge sums in improvements, while orime so diminished that three policemen sufficed to deal with the ill-doers. Now, it is just possible that, although in this case the experiment was on too small a scale to alter trade conditions in the country generally, the effect of a "dry" and enormously prosperous America upon the "wet" countries of the Old World may be se great, that ten years hence the labouring and business men of this country may, if in the interval there is no drastio reform of our drinking customs, themselves demand total prohibition their one means of economic self-defence. The No-License olause may well be the last bulwark of the "Trade" against Total Prohibition. as Whatever our views on Temperance, we cannot afford to face the social and industrial problems that have come on us as an aftermath of the war with the old incubus of drink pressing upon our shoulders. Keen prohibitionists are apt to talk as if it were the desire, as well as the interest of the "Trade," to have as drunken a Scotland as possible; but so far is this from being the case, that many brewers, distillers, and retail traders sincerely deplore excessive drinking, and would fain lift their business above the degradation associated with it. In 1899 the majority report on licensing, containing the following striking statement, was signed by eight leading members of the "Trade":— "It is undeniable that a gigantio evil remains to be remedied, and hardly any sacrifice would be too great which would result in a marked diminution of this national degradation." The point at issue between such men and the teetotaller is not drunkenness, but moderation. No right-minded man wants exeess. It is on the methods by which to attain sobriety that many of us differ. The prohibitionists, as well as the "Trade," will have in reality a good deal to give up. After all, their dream of making a nation sober by Aot of Parliament is a fair one, and not nearly so historically impossible as many people seem to think. In the ancient world, Rome, through the firmest and most drastic laws, practised total prohibition for a period of 500 years of prosperity; while in regard to one of the newest States of the New World, Kansas, the writer of the article in 'Blackwood' before referred to says: "Kansas has 103 counties; in 84 of of these counties there are no paupers; in 35 there are no prisoners; and in 87 there are no lunatios. Her banks and barns are full to overflowing. Some of the counties have had no criminal prosecutions for ten years, and the death-rate is the lowest of any nation on the earth." Small wonder, perhaps, that some of us, who have known most nearly what Drink has cost us in the past, and the needless suffering and whole sale loss of life for which it was responsible during the war, should turn from such a dream with reluctance and regret. Yet though all lovers of their country are agreed on the necessity for reform, we would point out that reform will not come automatically next November: unless the electorate are sufficiently awakened to the needs of the situation to go to the pollingbooth and to record their votes, we shall sink back into prewar conditions. "He trespasses upon his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy." Already, with the removal of the war restrictions, criminal prosecutions and prosecutions for oruelty to children have gone up by leaps and bounds. To return to our old drinking customs is unthinkable. Liberty, temperance, self-contrel are the normal ideals of our faith, and Prohibition is itself compromise. Yet liberty may become a mookery, and such restrictions as are effered by the by the No-License Resolution of the Temperance Aot may give us back more than they take away. Among the early memories of the present writer is that of a doctor in a remote district of the Highlands, who lost his practice through drink. He was man of brilliant parts, and being also something of a sardonio humourist, it occurred to him to make up for the loss of his income by taking inebriate patients. His advertisements to this end met with marked success, and he soon had a little bevy of paying guests. It was his custom to welcome each newcomer inte strictly teetotal surroundings, but in a week or two, when the patient had begun to feel at home, the dooter would remark genially that it was time he was learning to resist. He would accordingly order in large quantities of the fiery spirit, and he and his guests were in the habit of finishing this part of the experiment under the table. This makes an excellent tale of a somewhat grim humour. Yet the reflection that, under the present system, we are dealing with the drink problems of our great cities in much the same fashion might well make us pause. In the "Royal Mile" in the city of Edinburgh, between the Castle and Holyrood Palace, there are thirtynine public-houses and licensed premises. In the Grassmarket, which is about the size of a West End square, there are eight. We are there training the men and women of least strength of will to resist! In these days of 1920 there are daily drifting by these public-houses, thousands of the lads who fought and endured for us in the agonies of the great war. They are as yet unemployed, and are restless, disappointed, discouraged. Strange if, as they are demobilised, we can welcome them with nothing better than the repeal of the "No-Treating Order." Daily, too, the problems of the Labour World become more difficult and mere menacing. Opponents of the Act would soare us by a propaganda of posters into the belief that we are arbitrarily closing the doors of the public-houses, and by so doing are making these problems only more dangerous. But the argument is not true to fact, for this precisely is what the Aot does not do. On the contrary, it gives the keys of the drinking-bars into the hands of the people of the country, so that they, if they will, may olose these particular doors for themselves. We believe that a large section of the public, when they realise that this, and not Prohibition, is the meaning of the No-License Resolution, will gladly weleeme the opportunity of taking their individual part in a reform that has never, in all the history of our country, been more urgently required than it is now. VIGNETTES. BY ELLA MACMAHON. VI. FLYNN. OFFICIAL records would describe him as "a person having no fixed occupation." But, as a matter of fact, his occupations and pre-occupations were manifold and various, while among them there was one quite fixed and immovable. That, alas, was what has been poetically described as the pursuit of the vine! Not that Flynn knew or cared much about the vine, or its succulent fruit, the grape, except in so far as the latter yielded liquid; anything liquid, he boasted, he could drink, with the sole exception of water. That he could not swallow. "Ye'll understand me," he would explain with ingenuous gravity, "that it's not because I'm the least objectin' to it, but because it turns me stomach." But it was to the golden liquor distilled by the famous firm of John Jameson that Flynn's heart Was closely bound; although he was no bigot where whisky was ooncerned, and, failing the greater, would take of the lesser distillers with complete broadmindedness. During the interludes of his fixed pursuit, he worked about on people's places. In harvesttime, when autumn gardens needed digging and autumn leaves sweeping up, when the plough was going over the land, when the hay was making, when the "thrashers" and the threshing-machine were in the yard-on all these 0008sions Flynn found occupation. Withal he lived a somewhat vagrant existence, even though he dwelt in the house of his mother, who was a widow, and the mother of another son 88 well. This other, Flynn's brother, was & carpenter, and a person of sterling respectability. It was said, indeed, that in his extreme youth Flynn's brother "could take a drop," but that a "mission had converted him. Gossip added that he was a pleasanter "fella" before that than he had ever been since. Be this as it may, geniality was certainly not a marked characteristic of Flynn's brother, nor did they dwell together as brethren in that unity extolled by the Psalmist. In company with his brother, Flynn had taken the pledge, being ever willing to oblige; but the luck, as he himself averred, being always "agin" him, he had had the misfortune to be caught, not long after his solemn renunciation, with the neck of a whisky-bottle sticking out of his coat pocket. In spite of this damning evidence, and the yet further evidence of the spirituous Ingenious though this may have been, it availed him nothing, and henceforth his relations with the clergy became slightly strained. war had eaten, his mother aroma exhaled by his breath, he added falsehood to his had died. He came back to broken pledge, in a solemn the old home to find her chair asseveration to the priest in empty, and not only her chair question that the bottle con- but her feather-bed empty liketained "nothing in the worrld wise. The brothers, still but a drop of holy water bachelors, were not better borrowed out of the chapel stable companions than of for to cure the cough on his yore. Indeed, a raging conflict mother's chest." sprang up almost immediately over the mother's feather-bed. Flynn swore that from the time of his earliest childhood his mother had promised to leave him her feather - bed. Feather- beds in Ireland are domestic bequests of high value, forming as they often do the substantial part of a girl's dowry, or an offering meet from a bridegroom to his bride. The late Mrs Flynn's feather-bed was reckoned one of the finest in the whole barony. Possession being as we are assured nine points of the law, or if not, at any rate, a distinct advantage, Flynn's brother refused not only to give Flynn the feather-bed, but to allow him to sleep on it. Feeling ran high, for there were not wanting many who supported Flynn's contention as against his brother, adding that "all the world knew that Flynn had been his mother's favourite. For some time this internecine strife, after the manner of its kind, found vent in verbal dispute of incessant and acrimonious repetition. In spite of what had gone before, Flynn had the temerity to appeal to the parish priest to support his claim; but the reverend gentleman seemed scarcely avid to arbitrate. Moreover, Flynn's Owing to circumstances never elearly explained, Flynn got into the war. His brother declared that the police took him when he was drunk, and he never knew another ha'porth about it till he woke up at the front! This explanation, although displaying on the face of it glaring improbabilities, possibly contained a germ of truth. The fact remains that Flynn enlisted in a service battalion of one of the Irish regiments, and in due course went forth with a certain Irish Division to find himself upon the stricken shore of Gallipoli. He lived through that hell to be taken prisoner by the Turks, but not before deeds of gallantry had won for him the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Some months after the Armistice our Flynn returned to us, decorated aforesaid, and demobbed, and bearing upon him the marks of honourable warfare warfare in the shape of what he described "the hur-rt to the limb," otherwise fragments of shrapnel in his right leg. During the years which the locust of |