16 THE GOTHENBURG SYSTEM OF LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 



hold the ground already secured. That they have held 

 the ground is very creditable. The consumption of dis- 

 tilled spirits in the United States last year was almost 

 exactly the same per capita as twenty years ago. Tbe 

 consumption of wine was no greater. The consumption 

 of malt liquors has, as we all know, greatly increased — 

 more than doubled in that same time. This was inevit- 

 able with the incoming of beerdrinking peoples. Upon 

 them in the first generation temperance appeals can have 

 little effect, and it is better that they should brin^ their 

 lighter intoxicants with them, than adopt our national 

 beverage. What can be done with the second genera- 

 tion is a question we are even now busy in trying to 

 answer. 



1 say the fact that intemperance has not made greater 

 advances is a proof of the interest and activity which we 

 as a nation bestow upon temperance measures. But that 

 we have not yet discovered the true way of solving the 

 liquor problem seems evident from the lack of agreement 

 ■among temperance workers, and from the constant 

 changes in legislation going on in all our States. It is 

 also evident from the increasing interest displayed in the 

 so-called Gothenburg or Norwegian system of liquor 

 traffic. Massachusetts in the past two years has made a 

 strenuous effort to adopt that system, and though the 

 combined opposition of the liquor party and the extreme 

 wing of the temperance party has defeated the effort, 

 yet its advocates stand ready to push it again at the 

 earliest opportunity. South Carolina has partially 

 adopted it, though with many changes which do not 

 seem likely to increase its efficiency. The United States 

 Government has made it the subject of special investiga- 

 tion, and published in March, 1893, an elaborate report 

 upon it for general distribution. It is being discussed in 

 leading periodicals both here and in Great Britain, and 

 those friends of temperance who are not satisfied with 



