Whilst Conservative thinkers are as a class extremely apt to become inveterate laudatores temporis acti, and to speak frequently and contemptuously of “this degenerate age”; it occasionally falls to their lot to observe modern tendencies which they may not only tolerate with equanimity, but acclaim with positive delight.

Prominent amongst these actual symptoms of human progress is the graduation of the Temperance Movement from the dreamland of evangelism and academic morality to the more substantial field of science and government. For nearly a century the twin propaganda of Temperance and Prohibition have suffered from the excessively idealistic character of their advocates, but at last the problems involved are receiving the rational and practical consideration they have long deserved. It is no longer necessary to preach sonorously of the sinful and deleterious effect of liquor on the human mind and body; the essential evil is recognised scientifically, and only the sophistry of conscious immorality remains to be combated. Brewers and distillers still strive clumsily to delude the public by the transparent misstatements of their advertisements, and periodicals of easy conscience still permit these advertisements to disgrace their pages; but the end of such pernicious pretension is not remote. The drinker of yesterday flaunted his voice before all without shame; the average drinker of today must needs resort to excuses. Meanwhile the governmental authorities of the world have not been blind to the facts which science has proved. Prohibition, either complete or partial, either normally or as a military measure, is spreading steadily and rapidly throughout Europe and America; proving the universal and conclusive recognition of alcohol as a foe of national efficiency and prosperity.

But it is in the world of trade and finance that the practical value of temperance is best to be demonstrated. Commerce has no sentiment nor morals, nor is anything but stark fact of weight with the business man as such; wherefore any commercial endorsement of abstinence is in the highest degree significant and positive. The recent founding of the Chicago and Northwestern Life Insurance Company, of which Pres. Paul J. Campbell of the United Amateur Press Association is an organiser and official, serves to remind us very vividly of the firm position of temperance in practical contemporary opinion. This corporation, composed wholly of temperance men, is designed to provide life assurance at reduced rates for total abstainers; relying with sound business sense upon the superior physical condition and longevity of such persons. The advantage of abstinence has been acknowledged by British companies for many years, but the fact that America now contains enough abstainers to warrant the formation of a new insurance company especially devoted to them, is a powerful and favourable commentary upon the modern progress of sobriety.

As yet, certain sociological aspects of Temperance leave much to be desired. Rational and voluntary abstinence prevails amongst the intelligent middle classes, whilst compulsory prohibition will probably come to the aid of the lower strata; but the realm of wit and fashion is sadly underrepresented in the scheme of general reform. Following polite custom rather than scientific principle, the cultivated man of the world still waxes red-faced, loquacious over his time-honoured convivial glass; and regards his continued use of wine with an aristocratically tolerant super-morality which equals in folly the cheap “personal liberty” delusion of his social inferiors. Such expressions as “a gentleman’s wine-cellar”, “brandy and soda”, “a rare old vintage”, and the like, possess a sort of unctuous smack which appeals strongly to the refined tongue and ear, and which causes most of the exquisites of the grand monde to follow approved precedent, rather than consider any ethical niceties which may have grown up since the establishment of the artificial code of taste and good breeding. The basic belief is evidently that whilst a churl is not to be trusted in his cups, a gentleman is scarce harmed by liquor, provided he retain a certain poise, and observe certain conventional restrictions. That experience has demonstrated the fallacy of this maxim, never occurs to our gentle Bacchanals. A pernicious feature of this elegant sanction of wine is the readiness with which the upper middle classes seize upon bibulous habits through imitation. The presence of liquor on the sideboards of a certain type of “solid citizen” is as distressing as it is incongruous. Obviously, these phases of the temperance problem are not readily approvable through legislation or compulsion. The social prestige of wine at table and at the club must be destroyed through lofty example and polite ridicule; forces which are not always available, and for whose successful operation much time will be required.

But the outstanding fact remains, that the world has come to regard liquor in a new and clearer light. Our next generation of poets will contain but few Anacreons, for the thinking element of mankind has robbed the flowing bowl of its fancied virtues and fictitious beauties. The grape, so long permitted to masquerade as the inspirer of wit and art, is now revealed as the mother of ruin and death. The wolf at last stands divested of its sheep’s clothing.