ment of company monopoly (through local option) as regards the sale of wine and beer, and the bar trade in the same. The older movement was started, and at first led by university men (e.g. Professor Schweigaard (died 1870), a most prominent and distinguished statesman), and was regarded with general sympathy by the upper classes; it reckoned its members indeed among all classes of society. The modern movement is eminently popular. Having seen at closer quarters and to some extent personally suffered from the unhappy consequences of drinking habits, great numbers from the best elements of the people, particularly of the middle and lower classes, have attached themselves to the cause of abstinence, affected both by the energetic agents and by their own religious and humanitarian feelings. And even outside the ranks of the abstainers, sympathy and respect for the cause is general; in many places the abstainers have great influence both in public affairs and on social habits; brandy is, to a great extent, replaced by coffee. Several popular temperance cafés have also been established. At the same time, however, many temperance friends in the upper classes seem to look rather coldly upon the movement, especially when, as is generally the case at present, it tends to prohibition. Among the abstainers there are, however, several members of the upper classes, e.g., more than 52 clergymen of the State Church. Of the teachers, male and female, in the national schoolsabout 6,500 in all-at least 726 were members of the Norwegian Total Abstinence Society in 1896. In this connection it may be mentioned that the school legislation provides that the lessons in hygiene in the national as well as in the higher schools shall comprehend instruction about "the effects and dangers of intoxicating liquors." V. Some Statistical Information. The Brandy Companies.-The quantity of spirits sold by companies, in 1876, was one million litres, or 8 per cent. of the whole spirit consumption of Norway; since 1883, the companies have every year sold more than 2 million litres, in the years 1890-94, between 3.0 and 3.3 million, in 1895, 29, in 1896, 27, and in 1897, 28 million litres, though the number of companies was reduced from 51 in 1895, to 35 in 1897. The percentage of the company sale on the total consumption was generally about 30-40 in the eighties, 40-50 from 1890-95, 50-60 in 1896 and 1897. The total amount devoted to objects of public utility or charity by the companies from the beginning of their existence. is about £1,140,000 in all.1 Among the particular objects may be mentioned schools, orphanages, industrial education, museums, 1 Last year, £59,000, besides £22,000 to the State, and £13,500 to the communities. No. 33.-VOL. IX. I libraries, and other educational purposes (together amounting to 30 per cent. of the whole sum), railways, roads, streets, waterworks, &c. (23 per cent.), hospitals, friendly societies, charity (10 per cent.), theatres, music, &c. (6 per cent.), public parks, &c. (5 per cent.), religious purposes (4 per cent.), temperance and abstinence societies (1.7 per cent.). The development of the annual consumption of alcohol per inhabitant in Norway appears from the following statement (approximately computed): The annual consumption of alcohol in all forms (at 100 per cent.) per inhabitant may be computed to about 2 litres in Finland, Canada, and Norway; above 3 litres in Russia; about 4-5 litres in the United States, Sweden, and Australasia; about 7-8 litres in Italy; about 9 litres in the United Kingdom and Germany; about 10-11 litres in Denmark and Belgium, and about 15 litres in France.1 The statistics of consumption are not, however, sufficient to show the true state of sobriety. Dr. Gould observes, in the 5th special Report of the United States Commissioner of Labour, page 204, that one cannot measure the particular part which has been the means of producing intoxication. Each customer is not necessarily a drunkard. Indeed, some countries, such as Denmark, where the annual amount [of spirits] drunk per inhabitant is larger than in almost any other country in Europe, the people have a reputation for sobriety. There the practice is for almost everybody who can afford it to drink at meal-time." The quantity of alcohol consumed is, however, one important 1 The quantity of beer, wine, and spirits consumed per head in most of these countries, is stated in the official publication. Alcoholic Beverages, London, 1897. See also the report of the fifth International Congress against the abuse of alcoholic beverages, held at Basel, in 1895, pages 173-221. 2 On the other hand, there are not a few Danes who consider the great amount of spirits consumed in Denmark to be very fatal. This circumstance does not exclude the Danish people generally from meriting the reputation mentioned above. The number of Danish abstainers is above 50,000. criterion of the state of sobriety, at any rate as far as the fluctuations in one country at different times are concerned. Thus the great decrease in the consumption of alcohol in Norway during the last sixty years, and also during the last twenty years, really indicates a considerable amelioration. In 1859, Eilert Sundt, a well-known Norwegian social statistician and philanthropist, calculated the proportion of temperate men to the total number of married and widowed men in the country districts at 63 per cent., and in medium-sized towns at 65 per cent., the number of not firms" at respectively 33 and 26 per cent., and of habitual drunkards at 4 and 9 per cent. Such personal investigations have not latterly been made, but there is no doubt that the proportion of temperate men has considerably increased, especially, perhaps, in the country districts. Bad drinking habits have, to a great extent, been abolished. (See a Report by Mr. A. N. Kiaer, director of the Norwegian Statistical Central Bureau, to the Fifth International Alcohol Congress, held at Basel in 1895, the Bericht, pages 103-104). General information relating to the present state and the development of sobriety in the various towns and country districts of Norway has been published, in 1898, by the above-mentioned alcohol committee. These testimonies, which were collected at the end of 1896 from the chiefs of police, show that in almost all country districts intoxication is said to be decreasing, as also in most of the small towns and in some of the larger ones, while on the other hand the state of things in several towns, especially in the larger ones, is said to have become worse during the last two or three years, owing, to a great extent, to the consumption of bad "wine." In Christiania, intoxication has increased considerably of late years simultaneously with an exceptionally rapid growth of the town, good trade and rising wages. Some information concerning the relation of the consumption of alcohol to the sanitary and moral conditions of the Norwegian people is contained in the report of the Congress against the abuse of alcoholic beverages, held at Christiania in 1890, as well as in a reprint of the Journal du Bureau Central de Statistique du Royaume de Norvége, No. 3, 1898: "Renseignements sur la question alcoolique en Norvége." Here it shall only be mentioned that the annual number of suicides per million inhabitants, which had increased during the period from 1826–30 to 1836-40, from 81 to 108, remained nearly stationary until 1851-55, since which time the number has been constantly decreasing to 76 in the years 1866-70, 66 in 1886-90, 65 in 1889-95, 57 in 1896, and about 50 in 1897. The following publications may be mentioned as sources of information on the subject of the Norwegian system of regulating the Drink Traffic (and on the Temperance Movement) : : Reports of the 3rd and 5th International Congresses against the abuse of Alcoholic Beverages, held at Christiania in 1890, and at Basel in 1895, especially the accounts by Mr. H. E. Berner, Mr. Stang Conradi, Mr. A. N. Kiaer, Director of Statistics, and Mr. Aarrestad, Chairman of the Norwegian Total Abstinence Society. Dr. O. J. Broch :-Le Royaume de Norvège et le Peuple Norvégien. Rapport à l'Exposition Universelle de 1878 à Paris. The Journal of the Statistical Central Bureau of the Kingdom of Norway. Mr. H. E. Berner :-The Legislation and Taxation of Brandy, Beer and Wine in Norway (an article in the Norwegian Calendar For Alle, 1898). Professor Morgenstierne :-" The Gothenburg System and the Company Regulation" (in the Norwegian Statsökonomisk Tidsskrift, 1891). The Report of the Departmental Alcohol Committee. Christiania, 1898. 5th Special Report of the Commissioner of Labour. Washington, 1893. House.... No. 192 [Feb. 1894]. Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Dr. Wilhelm Bode:-Wirtshaus-Reform in England, Norwegen und Schweden. Berlin, 1898. THE CHINESE SALT TRADE. AN OPENING FOR BRITISH A GROWING revenue, now 22,000,000 taels a year, has been derived by the Chinese Government for nearly forty years out of the trade in foreign bottoms alone, and it may easily be imagined that a British syndicate, worked on strictly business principles, might raise from salt— a staple hitherto totally unconnected with Chinese foreign trade-an enormous annual sum for the use of the central and provincial governments, without in the least oppressing the people, or in any way hazarding the interests of its own shareholders. In 1809 the Emperor of China arrived at the conclusion that the average consumption of salt per head was three mace a day, or three ounces every ten days. Making some necessary allowances, this gives nine English pounds. a year, or about 2,000,000 tons for a population considerably over 400,000,000. The average consumption per head in England or France (for all purposes) is about double, i.e. about 20 pounds. This is roughly the amount produced annually in Great Britain; so that, even on this incomplete showing, the syndicate's business would not be of contemptible bulk. It is almost certain, however, that the Emperor was only thinking of daily meals (chiefly of plain rice or millet) in which salt plays a much greater part than it does with us; and took no account of manufactures, fish, and salted viands generally; and it is difficult to suppose that the total Chinese output can be under 4,000,000 tons. Although from the earliest semi-historical times the salt industry has been manipulated by the Government of China for its own profit, it was not until about 2,000 years ago that the active Emperor who practically discovered all Asia outside his own realm took the question seriously in hand. Just as the complicated Roman jurisprudencegradually evolved itself on the lines of the primitive Twelve Tables, so has the intricate modern network of the Chinese Gabelle developed, dynasty by dynasty, on the historical lines originally given to it 2,000 years ago. But when the Mongols were driven out in 1268, the founder of the native Chinese Ming dynasty at once set about re-organizing the six greater salt industries much as we now find them; and also put under efficient control the eleven minor ones, which have since either been absorbed into the greater systems, or have largely developed, or have dwindled away. When the Manchus succeeded to this Chinese dynasty over 250 years ago, they made, and have since made, very little change in the administrative order, except on the surface. In the following paper I propose to avoid, so far as may be, all unfamiliar Chinese proper names, the use of which tends to make an article of this kind unreadable to the general British public. The areas indicated should if possible be studied in a map, which shows not only all the provincial boundaries, but also the portions where each salt syndicate (on account of superior river-carriage facilities, or other cogent topographical considerations) overlaps the official or executive limits; very much as, in Great Britain, our ecclesiastical, legal, and military jurisdictions often refuse to square with the civil divisions into counties. The fin-de-siècle speculator (and his name is legion) arriving at Tientsin in search of contracts will be at once struck by the enormous stacks of salt, covered with coarse matting, which line the river banks. If he will make a short journey seawards towards Taku, he will come across some of the evaporating flats, which in every way resemble those of the Turcos Islands, near Jamaica. All this is part of the so-called "Ch'ang-lu" Salt Monopoly, the pits belonging to which lie in ten city jurisdictions along the coast, half of them between Tientsin and the Great Wall, and half south of Tientsin, between the Grand Canal and the sea. The distribution area served includes the whole of Chih Li province (including Peking, which enjoys special privileges), except those parts which lie outside the innermost line of the various Great Walls, and form an enclave between them; the whole of Ho Nan province north of the Yellow River; and also that part of Ho Nan province which lies north of one of the chief head waters of the River Hwai (known as the River Sha). The total amount collected in dues, interest on funds deposited, and so on, does not exceed 500,000 taels a year. The syndicate of traders who work under the Salt Commissioner at Tientsin are invariably largely in debt to the Government, though none the less, in time of war or flood, they seem able and even willing to contribute large sums by way of benevolence. This may be said, once for all, of salt syndicates generally. The great object of the merchants is to raise the retail selling price, temporarily or permanently, and to get away safely out of business under plea of sickness, poverty, or old age, with their fortune, at a favourable moment when remissions of debts have been granted by the Emperor. The Salt Commissioners (who used to be and perhaps still are Seraglio favourites) wish to get clear at the end of their term with well-lined pockets; and the Viceroy, who is |