difference between total abstainers and moderate drinkers than would that of any other American life company."

Arthur Hunter, chairman of the Central Bureau of the MedicoActuarial Mortality Investigation, in an extensive paper on the subject "Can Insurance Experience Be Applied to Lengthen Life?" read at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Association of Life Insurance Presidents, held at the Hotel Astor, on December 10-11, 1914, stated similar conclusions. Mr. Hunter pointed out that the applicant for insurance will naturally desire to put on the best front, and therefore "will, perhaps, unwittingly, understate any defects in his personal history or present-day habits, and it is absolutely safe to assume that practically no sane man will overstate these defects, knowing as he does that the more favorable case he presents the greater are his chances of obtaining desired insurance." This fact, Mr. Hunter declared, led to many misleading showings as to the alleged differences in mortality in the case of abstainers and moderate and steady drinkers. "Conclusions thus rested entirely upon a single differential factor," he stated, "are manifestly unsound, and it would be no more excusable to argue that the occupation of proprietors, managers and superintendents of distilleries was an exceptionally healthful calling merely because the figures of the Medico-Actuarial Mortality Investigation record an actual mortality of but 85 per cent of the expected in this class of men." The alleged heavy mortality among those who drank two glasses of whiskey per day as compared with the total abstainers, was in the main due, Mr. Hunter stated, to the fact that the men in this drinking group sooner or later consumed much more than those supposed two glasses of whiskey each day on the average. Certainly, Mr. Hunter declared, the assertion said to have been made by a Russian prohibitionist that since the alleged wartime abolition of vodka in Russia the Russian peasants "are beginning to look like a different race" was extremely fanciful. "Races," Mr. Hunter laconically commented, "do not begin to look like different races in the short space of four months, on account of the temporary abolition of any one abuse, be it what it may."

REPORT OF THE NORWEGIAN COMMISSION ON THE ALCOHOL QUESTION

It is extremely significant that at a time when almost all Europe is convulsed in war and the alcohol question has been given the most serious consideration, the Norwegian Alcohol Commission should have reported to the Government of Norway against the introduction of prohibition and in favor of the use of light beers. This report, handed in on June 1, 1915, was prepared after the Commission had made an extensive personal study of all sides of the question, including an investigation of prohibition conditions in the United States.

The majority of the Commission-six out of nine members— hold in the report that after a full consideration of the subject, they cannot recommend the introduction of prohibition either in national or local form. Notwithstanding the prevalence of drunkenness in certain quarters, the report says, conditions may be improved by other means than total prohibition, and, moreover, the immediate evidences prove, the report declares, that sobriety in Norway is unquestionably improving by reason largely of the growing education and self-respect of the people.

First of all, the Commission urges, it is advisable to fight against the misuse of alcoholic beverages instead of forbidding all use of them. Inasmuch as certain strong liquors are especially misused, the majority of the Commission propose that an obligatory "individual control" system of the sale of liquors be introduced, modelled after the "Bratt System" which, after being legally adopted in Sweden, greatly helped in increasing sobriety there. Under such a system liquor would not be sold to a person under twenty-one years of age, and different other restrictions would prevent individual excess.

Another measure proposed by the majority of the Commission is that the sale of the weaker beers should be encouraged and be given a freer position "both because these beers are to be considered harmless, and because they may come to replace the stronger drinks." A number of specified changes looking toward the restriction of particular privileges in selling liquor are also proposed. One of these changes urged is the immediate purchase by the State of a privilege granted in 1807 to an English firm of certain prac

tically perpetual rights in the sale of liquor in various ways and in particular places. The Commission enumerates a list of its recommendations relating to the mode and hours of sale of the retailing of liquor, and the means of control of liquor shops. One member of the majority goes as far as to hold that weaker beers should be free to all dealers, and that others should be allowed permission to sell these weaker beers, but that in the case of these others, the sale should be confined to a fixed selling place and attached to the dispensing of food. Having gone fully into the experience of other countries, and considered both advantages and disadvantages of all propositions, the majority of the Commission believes that the plans it recommends will be conducive toward the best results.

Respectfully submitted,

C. W. FEIGENSPAN, Chairman
AUGUST LINDEMANN

HENRY RUETER

HUGO A. Koehler

W. J. F. PIEL

HUGH F. FOX, Secretary

CONVENTION ADDENDA.

ADDRESS OF ALBERT JAY NOCK

MR. NOCK:-Mr. President and gentlemen: I must ask your indulgence for a bad speech, because I am suffering from the prevailing disability, I may say the universal disability, of a wretched cold; but if it makes listening any less unpleasant, I can assure you that it is not at all painful for me to speak. The results of the war are at present uncertain, for the most part, but there is one particular result that, as far as any human judgment can foresee, is inevitable; and that is that there will take place after the war a revaluation, a reassessment, of the function of alcohol in society. The physiological effect of alcohol and its resulting social values are matters, as was intimated to you yesterday, upon which there is a terrific torrent of prejudice and an encyclopedic amount of misinformation current amongst us. What most of us think about alcohol is not really what we think, but what we think we think; it is what we have gathered from some more or less loose and irresponsible reports upon the subject. I am speaking now for myself, as a simple layman. I do not feel that my own opinions about alcohol are based on adequate information; and my sources of information are probably as good as the average citizen's.

In view of the fact that there is such a tremendous field of experimentation with alcohol in the various countries concerned in the war, it is inevitable that there should be a new force of opinion in process of making; and that when the war is over, the data and the observations will be gathered together and co-ordinated and edited in a much more scientific form than has been heretofore possible. Then we laymen will have something to go on in forming an intelligent opinion.

What I myself look for and very greatly desire, is that there should be an international commission formed directly for that purpose, as soon after the war as it is possible for the observations. to be properly made.

When I took my first taste of the liquor situation in England I was very much reminded of the little boy who first ate asparagus at the urgent insistence of his mother, who was one of the oldfashioned kind of mothers who believed that a child should eat what was set before it and ask no questions. They had a sharp collision of opinion about it, but he finally ate some, and then she asked him how it tasted. He replied in disgust that it tasted "Raw at one end and rotten at the other." (Laughter.)

The management of the government end of the situation was very raw; and the management of the opposition end of it-I mean the teetotal or prohibition factions in the country,-impressed me as extremely rotten. (Applause.)

I don't know that I have ever seen any publication which appeared to me to be more despicable than the British White Paper on drunkenness in the transport and munitions areas. I have a copy of it here, which I will leave. I do not want it any more, and if any of you have any curiosity to look at it as a piece of statistical work, I think you will be well repaid. Just for an example of the way that figures are handled in this paper, here is a column indicating the hours lost per week by men who are at work in the manufacture of munitions. The men are simply lumped together. There is no account taken of relative age of the workers; there is no account taken of the perfectly open and notorious fact that a great many of the best workers have gone to the front and their places have been filled by inexperienced hands. That is a sample of the kind of thing that appears in the British White Paper.

Now, the result of all that kind of management was that everybody got very mad, as they always will do under such circumstances. Labor felt outraged and the public felt swindled. I do not think I need take you through the various propositions that were made by the Government after the White Paper was published. Probably you are quite familiar with them. There were very good reports of them sent to this country. The first proposition was to nationalize the industry, to which the trade agreed but the Cabinet colleagues of Mr. Lloyd George, particularly Mr. Asquith, felt it was unwise to bind the nation with so heavy a debt as would be required in the purchase. Then came propositions to apply differ