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CHAPTER
IV
THE POSITION IN NORWAY
THE first town in Norway to adopt the company system was
Christiansand, where a Samlag was set up in 1871. Christiania
followed this example in 1885, and to-day the system is
in force in thirty-two towns in Norway; in two the sale
of spirits independently of a Samlag is permitted; and twenty-nine
towns have declared by popular vote, in which all men and
women over twenty-five years of age may take part, in favour
of prohibition, such vote remaining in force for a period
of five years, when the community votes again, and, should
it so please, may change its mind. To such an extent has
the movement been carried that, out of 500 rural communes,
with an average population of 3,000 each, spirit licenses
exist in only thirteen, and in only about one-half of the
communes can even beer or wine be bought, while in a large
proportion of these the beer or wine can be obtained only
by travellers. In such places the resident population must
either go without alcoholic liquors, or else obtain them
as best they can from towns where the sale is permitted.
Even in Bergen, a town with a resident population of 80,000
people, no one of the hotels may supply spirits to any of
the tourists who flock there every year, nor may a ' merchant'
cater for their possible wants in respect to spirits. If
they desire a glass of brandy, they must go or send to one
of the six liquor-shops kept by the local Samlag, and purchase
either a small bottle or (the only alternative) a litre.
This is done in the alleged interests of temperance ; but
the result is that the average tourist gets, and probably
consumes, more than he wants, and he may, on his departure,
leave the still partly-filled bottle behind in his room—in
which case the hotel servants (to the risk of their own
sobriety) help themselves to the remainder. Even on the
walls of the room at the Grand Hotel, Christiania, where
these lines are being written, I read the intimation, in
four languages :
' Notice is directed to the law prohibiting the sale of
spirits or liqueurs between 1 p.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m.
on Monday. Visitors are requested to give their orders on
Saturday before noon.'
If it be really the case, as Dr. Sigfrid Wieselgren, President
of the Swedish Temperance Society, asserts in his pamphlet,
' More About the Gothenburg System,' that the system was
organized ' to counteract the impoverishment of the working
classes through drinking on credit in unhealthy, dark, and
dirty hovels of public-houses,' then I can only say that
in Norway this original purpose has been widely departed
from. Londoners will better realize the conditions in Christiania
if they imagine the possibility of the sale of spirits being
stopped at the Carlton Hotel or the Hotel Metropole, with
the idea of main-
taining sobriety among the porters in Covent Garden Market,
or the day-labourers resident in the East End !
On the other hand, all classes of the community are placed
on the same footing in Norway, where the Swedish anomaly,
under which there is an early hour of closing for the labourers,
and a later hour of closing for their social superiors,
is avoided. In this way, too, there is less idea of ' class
legislation,' and tourists and well-to-do citizens are alike
inconvenienced in the supposed interests of the working
people.
The result of the conditions here indicated is that in the
country districts of Norway the consumption of alcoholic
beverages has declined very considerably, because of the
difficulty in the way of obtaining them. Prohibition and
restriction are more readily enforced in Norway than is
the case in the United States or Canada, or than would be
the case in Great Britain, because of the limited means
of communication, and in the more out-of-the-way places
especially, the only chance a peasant has to get a drink
occurs either when he can go to a town, or when a neighbour
going there will bring a bottle or a cask for him. The position
was altogether different in those former days when every
Norwegian peasant was allowed to be his own distiller. To-day
the peasant is, generally speaking, an abstainer malgre
lui, and to this extent the consumption of intoxicants has
certainly fallen off in Norway. But the position is very
different when, from the rural or mountainous districts
of Norway, more or less difficult of access, we turn to
the towns, and especially to the capital, Christiania, where
a relatively large population is to be found.
In the first place, it is generally assumed by British supporters
of the ' company' system that the liquor traffic at Christiania
is controlled by a philanthropic company in the same way
as they think is the case at Gothenburg; but the delusiveness
of that idea is as complete in regard to the Christiania
Samlag as I have already shown it to be in the case of the
Gothenburg Bolag.
In actual fact, the Samlag at Christiania controls the fourteen
existing spirit-bars where braendevin (the Norwegian equivalent
of the Swedish branvin) may be obtained in glasses. At nine
of" these fourteen dram-shops a retail trade is also
done by the Samlag, but the bulk of the retail trade has
been passed over to the wine and spirit merchants. In addition
to the fourteen dram-shops, the Samlag controls the sale
of spirits in each of the sixteen hotels to which permits
have been granted; complete charge of this branch of the
business in such hotels being taken by representatives of
the Samlag. who receive all the money paid for spirits and
pay it over to the company, a sum equal to about 15 per
cent, of the takings being afterwards given to the hotel
proprietor for rent or compensation.
But while the sales of spirits thus effected by the Christiania
Samlag—that is to say, their bar, retail, and hotel
sales collectively—are officially reported to amount
to 413,000 litres the year,
the sales of spirits by the twenty-nine wine and spirit
merchants are estimated by the Samlag officials at no less
than 2,000,000 litres the year. These wine and spirit merchants
hold licenses from the Samlag for the retail trade, and
down to the end of 1904 they paid for such licenses a uniform
fee of 10,000 kroner (£555). In return for this fee
they were allowed to sell, not only 'superior' spirits,
as dealt in by the wine and spirit merchants of Gothenburg,
but also the so-called ' native brandy,' the retail sale
of which is kept by the Gothenburg Bolag in their own hands.
They are also allowed to sell in small bottles (about half
a pint), whereas the minimum quantity that passes over a
Bolag retail counter in Gothenburg is one litre.
Every fresh restriction imposed by the Christiania Samlag
on the bar arid the hotel sale of spirits has put fresh
business into the hands of the local wine and spirit merchants,
whose trade has further benefited by the restrictions imposed
in other parts of Norway as well; Christiania thus becoming
more than ever a distributing centre for the bottle business
throughout the country. What the trade done by these merchants
really represents, none but themselves could say. It must
certainly have been advancing of late years on the ' leaps
and bounds ' principle, and the Samlag officials arrived
at the conclusion that they were not getting a sufficiently
large share of the'profits. On the basis of their 2,000,000
litre per year estimate (declared by the merchants themselves
to be altogether excessive), the Samlag is now charging
for its retail licenses according to the assumed sales by
the merchants, so that the existing scale ranges from 10,000
kronor (£555) to 17,000 kronor (£940) each.
Under these new conditions the total amount paid by the
wine and spirit merchants for their licenses in 1905 was
348,500 kronor (£19,361), as against 317,000 kronor
(£17,611) in 1904.
Now, it is obvious that only business of a really substantial
character could stand a tax like this upon its takings,
in addition to rent and other fixed charges; and, whether
one accepts the 2,000,000 litre estimate or not, there is
no possible room for doubt that the business done by the
merchants in regard to spirits alone is far in excess of
that done by the Samlag, which is so erroneously supposed
to * control' the traffic. Any conclusions, therefore, as
to the decreased consumption of spirits, and the consequent
increased sobriety of the people, based on figures which
represent Samlag sales exclusively, will at once be seen
to be hopelessly fallacious.
Still less does this alleged ' control of the liquor traffic'
by the Samlag system become when we pass on to consider
the sale of beer in Christiania. Apart from the bars and
the retail shops where spirits, or spirits and wines, may
be bought, there are in the capital 301 places which have
licenses for the sale of beer on the premises, namely, 215
annual licenses ; 75 which permit of beer being sold only
to persons taking meals ; 5 which apply to the sale of light
beer only; and 6 licenses available during the life of the
present holder. Then there are no fewer than 1,610 licenses
held by grocers, dairymen, etc., for the sale of beer
for consumption off the premises. Of the holders of these
(off' licenses 647 can also sell wine. Other licenses, 40
in number, authorize the sale of wine only. Finally, all
the local residents who possessed citizenship rights prior
to 1882 may trade in wine, among other items of ' general
merchandise'; but the number of these specially privileged
ones is not known. Leaving them out of account, however,
it will be seen from the figures given that there are in
Christiania 2,000 places where alcoholic drinks of different
kinds can be purchased, and that of these the Samlag operates
only thirty. Nor do we reach the end of the chapter even
here; for Ghristiania possesses eight breweries conducted
on a sufficiently large scale to employ altogether 1,124
persons, and some at least of these breweries do a large
trade direct with householders. Altogether, therefore, it
is obviously a complete fallacy to say that the Samlag '
controls' the local liquor traffic. In point of fact, all
it does is to control one particular section thereof.
Reverting to the conditions in Norway in general, it cannot
be denied that any successes secured by the policy of restriction
have only been won in the face of serious difficulties;
that the fluctuations in sales and recorded drunkenness
have often been due rather to economic and other causes
than to the direct influence of the policy in question ;
and that in various ways the final result has been less
to cure the failings, and transform the habits, of the people,
than merely to substitute one set of shortcomings for another.
An early effect of the stern severity of the Samlag liquor-shops
in Xorway was to cause people to look out for alternative
means of supplying their wants. Xor can one be surprised
at this when one hears of such restrictions as those imposed
at Christiansand, where, some years ago, the directors not
only cut down the size of the glasses, but ordered that
no person should have more than one dram every three hours.
Coupled with such severities as these, the advance in prices,
so that brandy should be less easy of attainment, further
led men to club together and buy the liquor at cheaper rates
in casks, the contents of which were divided among the purchasers
in either town or country.
Beer, again, began to show a tendency to take the place
of spirits, and one would have thought that, if the Government
had really desired to promote the sobriety of the people,
they would have encouraged the substitution of a beverage
with a low percentage of alcohol for one with a high percentage.
But they could not resist the temptation of securing more
money from beer for revenue purposes, and in 1894 they raised
the duty on malt from 17'I ore per kilogram (at which it
had stood since 1879) to 21-1 ore, a further advance to
no less than 37'1 ore per kilogram following in 1895. Not
only was a check thus given to the consumption of beer,
owing to the substantial increase in price that followed,
but the coming in force, on January 1, 1896, of the further
restrictions imposed under the Act of 1894, and also the
fact that the Prohibitionist party voted down the Samlags
in a number of places, establishing prohibition instead,
led to
the adoption of less healthy substitutes for brasn-devin
than the beer which should otherwise have taken its place.
It was under these circumstances that there spread rapidly
in Xorway the use of a particularly atrocious kind of cheap
so-called ' wine,' known as ' laddevin,' and consisting,
it is said, mainly of spirit which had been already made
in Xorway, exported to Hamburg, there sweetened, weakened,
mixed with various compounds and chemicals—so that
it eventually had about 20 per cent, of alcohol—and
then sent back in the form of ' wine,' which could be sold
at very low rates. Owing to the restrictions imposed by
existing treaties, the Xorwegian Government were unable,
down to the year 1904, to put higher duties on imported
wines, and the resort to laddevin, in place of the ' controlled
' braen-devin, was carried to such an extent that the consumption
thereof per head of the population rose from an average
of 0'88 litre per year in the period 1886-1890 to 2'49 litres
in 1896-1900, attaining a maximum of 2'75 litres in 1898.
More rigid police measures were then enforced, and the consumption
per head fell to 2'24 litres in 1902 and T84 litres in 1908.
A much more serious decline followed the imposition of heavy
import duties in 1904, the consumption per head of the population
in 1905 being only 0-85 litre.
Once more I would point out how misleading statistics of
consumption in Xorway, based on Samlag sales of bramdevin,
must inevitably be when there are left out of account the
very considerable sales taking place in other directions.
In what way was sobriety promoted if, instead of getting
a glass of braendevin at a Samlag bar, people bought a bottle
of the much more seductive compound known as laddevin ?
And seductive that compound undoubtedly is. ' It goes, as
one authority told me, 'to the feet rather than to the head.
A person sits drinking laddevin at a table, and so long
as he remains seated he scarcely feels any ill-effects,
and appears to be quite rational. He therefore goes on drinking;
but when at last he rises from his seat, he can no longer
control his limbs, and he is then seen to be thoroughly
intoxicated. Laddevin, again, is the favourite beverage
of women drinkers in Norway, on account of its sweetness.
Another substitute resorted to by persons who could not
afford to pay the increased prices for brandy was found
in methylated spirits. These cost about the same as laddevin,
namely, 50 or 60 ore the bottle, against 40 ore charged
for 1 litre (equal to about a bottle and a third) of laddevin.
But the methylated spirits go further than the laddevin,
because of the addition to them of hot water and sugar for
the production of a sort of grog.
The worst substitute of all, however, adopted by hardened
drinkers in Norway, and representing the last stage in the
career of the incorrigible toper, is ' Politur,' popularly
known as ' Skaap.' In effect this is the compound used by
French polishers in their work, salt being added to the
bottle (which is then shaken up), so as to cause the shellac
to sink to the bottom and there
solidify, the separated spirit on the top being drunk as
a beverage. A viler drink, short of actual poison, could
hardly be imagined. It produces speedy intoxication, and
often delirium tremens in addition, while it also has a
most pernicious effect on the system. But it has the advantage
of being cheap, a beer-bottle full costing only about fourpence,
and I was told of men in Norway who almost live upon it,
and have attained to old age in spite of its noxious qualities.
Those, therefore, of the Norwegian people who will drink
in spite of all difficulties placed in their path, and who
cannot pay for, or have difficulty in getting, the ' controlled
' brasndevin, have found substitutes in much worse beverages,
which have thus been brought into widespread use, brgendevin
being regarded among a large number of the poorer classes
in Norway as a drink only to be indulged in on the occasion
of some special domestic festival, such as a wedding or
a christening. Obviously, however, it is quite a mistake
to assume that fewer intoxicants are being taken in Norway
merely because the official statistics in regard to sales
of brasndevin may show a falling off.
Nor are the aforesaid people who will drink, in spite of
all impediments, seriously inconvenienced by the early closing
of the bars on Saturday and the total closing on Sunday.
Here there are two alternatives at least open to them to
pursue.
In the first place, a group of men will assemble early on
Saturday evening in the room of some individual who lets
them have the use of it for the occasion, and who either
helps them to consume the liquor they bring with them in
bottles, or will make a profit by supplying them with bottles,
of which he has himself already laid in a stock. There is
one particular district in Christiania where, as I found
on visiting the ' slums,' from eight to ten people actually
depend on such profits for a livelihood, while the number
of places where parties of drinkers, bringing their own
liquor, can be received as ' friends,' could hardly be estimated.
In these rooms—whatever the precise conditions—the
topers sit and drink their laddevin, their methylated spirits,
their politur, or, more rarely, their braendevin; they talk
and they play cards; and when, finally, sleep or drunkenness
overtakes them, they lie down indiscriminately on the floor,
and there remain until Sunday morning, when, the supply
of liquor being exhausted, they betake themselves to their
homes. Women sometimes join in these proceedings, but, generally
speaking, the men are by themselves. Attempts have been
made by the authorities to check the practice, and local
improvement schemes carried out in Christiania have been
so planned as to involve the demolition of some of the worst
of these ' sly-grog' establishments ; but the people driven
out of one place seem to experience no great difficulty
in finding another.
The second expedient resorted to is an open-air one, and
is in vogue from April or May to the early part of September,
according to climatic conditions. Here the practice is for
a party of,
say, six or seven to assemble on the Saturday afternoon,
and go off' to a wood three or four miles from the centre
of the town, taking with them a blanket and a supply of
laddevin (in covered milk-pails) equal to at least 1 litre
per person. Arrived at their wood, they fix on a comfortable
spot, attach their blanket to some trees, so that they will
not be seen by any passers-by, and in this improvised tent,
open at the top to the heavens, they proceed to consume
their liquor. The orgie will, in any case, last the night
through, and the men, sleeping on the ground, may, perhaps,
be seen walking unsteadily home in groups the next morning;
but it is a common occurrence for the camp not to be broken
up until Sunday evening, while occasionally these ' week-ends
in the country ' will be prolonged until Monday morning.
These are examples of the sort of thing going on in Norway
under the operation of the ' company' system, whose leading
supporters appear to assume that, when both the Samlag establishments
and the hotel bars for the sale of spirits have been closed
at one o'clock on Saturday until Monday morning (to the
inconvenience, in the latter instance, of many a British
tourist), all is well with ' the people.'
There is still another drawback to the system which should
be mentioned. Under their local option rights the inhabitants
of most of the country districts have voted against the
opening of any drinking bars in their locality at all, so
that when the peasants go into the town from time to time
to do their business, a visit to a Samlag establishment
is a special source of attraction to them ; while, not being
accustomed to drinking bramdevin (except on these occasions),
they readily become intoxicated. This tendency has been
noted by the ne'er-do-wells in the towns, and a class of
people, known by the name of ' Bondefangere ' (' peasant
- catchers'), lay themselves out to prey upon the innocents
from the country, by first making friends with them, then
getting them to drink more than they should, and finally
robbing them of the money which they will either have received
in the town, or, alternatively, have brought with them to
spend for agricultural or domestic necessaries. These conditions
should especially be borne in mind in connection with that
decline of spirit-drinking in the rural districts themselves
of which one hears so much.
Passing on to consider the statistics as to the possible
effect which the Samlag system may have had on the consumption
of spirits in Norway, I take the figures given on p. 65
(with the exception of the total per head for 1905, which
I have added on the basis of official information) from
the ' Statistisk Aarbog for Kongericht Norge' for 1905,
showing (a) total production and consumption of braandevin
in Norway per head of the population, such total including
imports actually consumed in the country ; and (b) the percentage
thereof sold by the authorized companies.
CONSUMPTION OF SPIRITS
It will be seen from this table that there was a considerable
decline in consumption in the years 1896-97-98, and again
in 1905. The decrease in the first-mentioned period does
not necessarily mean that the people were then drinking
less. It really means that, following on the increased restrictions
under the law of 1894, they took less brsendevin, but much
more of the cheap foreign laddevin, to the largely-increased
importation of which at this period 1 have already referred.
The falling off in 1905 is attributed by leading authorities
in Christiania mainly to the political events of that year,
which so fully engaged the attention of the people that
they—temporarily, it is thought—paid less attention
to the consumption of liquor. Leaving these two particular
periods out of account, the figures in this official table
hardly suggest that there has been any serious decline in
the consumption of native brandy per head of the population
in Norway as a whole as the result of the Samlag system.
It will be further seen that since 1897 and 1898 there has
been a substantial reduction in the percentage of the total
sales falling to the share of the Samlags.
Taking next the question of drunkenness, the following table
in regard to arrests for that offence alone, or for drunkenness
in connection with other offences, in the city of Christiania
for the period 1890-1905, is especially significant:
Here one notices the great increase in the number of arrests
for drunkenness in 1896. The explanation of this is that
1895 marked the end of a period of economic depression in
Norway,
and with the following year there succeeded an era of prosperity,
which lasted until the summer of 1899. A great boom in the
building trade in the capital was one of the main reasons
for the substantial advance in the population returns, and
not only had the men engaged in the building trades such
exceptionally good wages that they wrere reputed to be able
to indulge even in champagne, but many of them came from
country districts where they had not been accustomed to
strong drinks, and were thus easily intoxicated when they
took to them.
But the real significance of the increased drunkenness shown
by these official returns lies in the fact that such increase
took place owing to economic causes over which the Samlag
system, with all its restrictions, clearly had no real control.
When times were prosperous the workers got drunk irrespective
of the Samlag. When acute depression set in again they drank
less, but that was more because of shortness of funds than
because of Samlag influence. The decline shown in 1905 over
1904 naturally follows on the decreased consumption attributed
to the exceptional causes to which I have already made reference.
Corresponding figures for Bergen work out as given in the
following table:
Speaking generally, I must confess that I am not disposed
to place too much faith on these and other statistics of
drunkenness. They may vary according to the activity or
the toleration of the police from time to time even in the
same town; the police standard of drunkenness may differ
in one town as compared with another; the returns from one
source may include drunkenness accompanied by breaches of
the peace or other offences, whereas in another set of returns
these cases would be dealt with separately ; while there
is ground for suspicion that, in Norway at least, far more
people get drunk than are included in the official statistics.
For example, in the return of drunkenness in Bergen it will
be seen that there was a sudden decline in the figures for
1892 as compared with those for 1891. That was because the
municipality, interested in the success of the Samlag system,
got alarmed at the zeal of a new chief
of police—who had ordered his men to arrest everybody
they saw drunk on the streets—and told him to keep
down the returns by arresting only those drunkards who were
troublesome. He followed instructions, and, according to
the official returns, Bergen at once became more sober.
Then the effect of discouraging men from patronizing the
recognised drinking-bars (where excess would be at once
noticed), and causing them to indulge rather in all-night
orgies in woods or private rooms, where they can sleep off
a drunken fit unobserved, and without having to come out
into the streets until they are sober, must also affect
the official returns, although the amount of actual drunkenness
in and around a town may, in fact, be greater than ever.
The possibility of there being a good deal of drunkenness
in Norway which does not get recorded in the official reports
was further shown in 1899, on the occasion of the annual
ski sports at Holmenkollen, a popular pleasure resort near
to Christiania. With the help of a number of University
students stationed at different points in the district,
a census was taken of the number of persons who returned
from the festival ' visibly' intoxicated. It was found that
out of 16,000 visitors 'only' 340 were in the condition
described, and the total was mentioned to me with a feeling
of pride, as representing a creditably small percentage.
I will not stop to discuss the figures from that point of
view. My concern with them here consists in the fact that,
although under the Norwegian law the entire 340 were liable
to prosecution for being ' visibly' intoxicated, I was informed
that not one of them was proceeded against, because the
drunkenness in question ' occurred in the country.'
Under these various conditions, I think I am warranted in
not attaching too great an importance to official statistics
of drunkenness in regard even to a particular country, and
still less, I consider, can just comparisons be made in
this respect between the statistics of one country and those
of another. But of one thing I have no doubt—that,
while the consumption of alcoholic beverages of all kinds
may be decreasing in the country districts of Norway under
a system of rigid prohibition, the working of the Samlag
system in the towns operates quite as much in the direction
of drunkenness as it does in the direction of sobriety;
for while a good check may be put on the bar business, the
man who buys a bottle or a half-bottle where he would otherwise
be content with one or two glasses, or who lays in a supply
on the Saturday for that and the next day, and finishes
it off by Saturday night, assuredly drinks more than he
would otherwise do, provided he could depend on getting,
when he wanted it, the amount he required for immediate
consumption. There is more recorded drunkenness in Norway
on Saturday than on any other day in the week, and this
fact is directly due to the habit of providing against the
compulsory closing of the spirit-bars from 1 p.m. on Saturday
until Monday morning. What the unrecorded drunkenness due
to the same cause amounts to is more than anyone can say.
I come now to the question of the distribution of the profits
realized under the Samlag system. Previously to 1894 these
profits (after the payment of 5 per cent, interest to the
shareholders) remained in the hands of the various companies,
to be devoted by them to such philanthropic or public purposes
as they might think deserving of support. The sums thus
controlled were so substantial that direct encouragement
was given to the starting of a considerable number of semi-philanthropic,
if not of more or less bogus, institutions, which could
not have existed but for the brandy traffic, but tending
to transform the practice and direction of the so-called
philanthropy into a remunerative profession. At the same
time, the number of those disposed to depend on charity
in one form or another steadily increased, while there was
a diminution in the need for appeals on behalf of objects
or institutions which might otherwise have had to be supported
either out of the rates or by the public in general. In
the end, a condition of things was brought about which led
to the revolutionary law of 1894.
Under this law the State took 65 per cent, of the profits
of the Samlags, to make them the basis of a national fund
for sick-pay and old-age pensions; the local municipalities
were to have 15 per cent., and the remaining 20 per cent,
was alone to be distributed by the Samlags themselves for
charitable or philanthropic purposes. This reconstruction
considerably modified the municipal and the ' local gains'
element in the Samlag business, and gave much point to the
criticism to which the developments of local control had
led. But even these changes did not satisfy those of the
critics who lived in the rural parishes. They pointed out—quite
justly—that when the people living in the prohibition
districts wanted to buy spirits, they made their purchases
in the towns ; so that a good deal of money was going from
the country into the towns, and helping to swell the profits
from which the towns derived so substantial a benefit. They
therefore demanded that the rural districts should be allowed
a fair share of the brandy money, and in 1904 another law
was passed, which provided that the percentage allocated
by the Samlags for distribution for philanthropic purposes
should be gradually reduced, by the year 1908, to 10 per
cent., the difference going to the prefectures of the eighteen
rural districts (' amts') for the benefit of the communities
there.
Thus, in Norway as in Sweden, one finds on the one hand
a movement which aims at controlling and restricting the
traffic in spirits with the declared object of safeguarding
the general welfare; and, on the other, some approach to
a ' scramble' for the profits the said controllers make
out of a traffic they profess to denounce.
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