The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-15

ernment has been trying for 80 years to solve the problem.
 Finland has enacted a rigid prohi- Dltion law, thanks to the women who were admitted to the reconstructed diet In discussing the different phases of the worldwide liquor fight the Evening Post says:
 c feature common to the anti-liquor crusade in this country and abroad Is that in both it involves reform wh ose ultimate result must be a decrease in public income. But tho ere is this i'm portant difference between the situation here and in Europe: that the fight for prohibition Is carried on, in our own case, by the states, which are only one of two parties deriving revenue from the liquor interests whereas in Eng land and elsewhere in Europe it is the central government that is asked to lay the axe to the root of the tree from which 1t alone plucks the fruit. Thus it is conceivable that our federal gov ernments enormous income from the tax on the manufacture of spirituous liquors might be wiped out by the sep arate action of the states in enforcing total prohibition. The strain between moral principle and monetary interest is evidently easier on the conscience of one of our states than it would be >on that of the federal government or. actually is on the British government. With us each state, as 1t progressively cuts down it's revenues from the liquor traffic, presumably undertakes at the same time to readjust it's finances in accordance with it's income. But the British government, or the Russian government, if it should make the at tempt to restrict the consumption If alcoho ol, would thereby be compelled to face the task of financial readjustment on a vast scale.
 What 1t would mean to public finances to take the poor mans beer or whisky from him is shown in the following fig ures: The federal government, for the fiscal year ending June 90, 1907, derived S2l6. .000. GOO from the liquor tax, out of g. total national revenue of s665 000,00O or al- most 33 per cent. The United Kingdom, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1905, obtained from the excise on beer and liquors the sum of f29, ,500,00O, or little over 20 per cent of it's total revenue The Russian government in 1906 derived from its liquor monopoly and certain taxes the sum of 600, ,000,000 ru .es out of a total revenue of aboue 2,0OO. 100000 rubles, or 30 per cent decrease of 30 per cent in the excise would mean for the United Kingdom a loss of E9,000,000, which is sufficient to distrub the most robust of budgets. In the same way for the Rus sian government to combat alcoholism is to work for a decrease of it's profits as purveyor of liquor at time when navies have to be rebuilt, the interest on a huge war debt must be paid, and costly agra rian reforms have been promised. Rus sian minister of finance has been known to speak of the increasing income from the vodka shops as a hopeful factor in the financial situation"
 Phis year inarSs the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the first Atlantic cable over which messages were successfully sent It was on March 10, 1854 that Fred erek N Gisborne, the discouraged promo ter of the Newfoundland Telegraph con- pany, surrendered his charter to that mad braned'' enthusiast Cyrus w. Field
 The overland construction of 100 miles took three years, and the first attempt. ill 1855, to lay a cable under the Bay of St. Lawrence was q failure. In the next year another try was successful. It was one link in chain.
 Having reached the end of his material resources in Americac the hardest part of the road lay before Mir Fied-the turing of capital in England from its strong boxes to stretch the magical metallic flores over the unseen bed of the big ocean.
 Mir Field visited James Wilson, secre- tsry of the treasury. and as a result the British government guaranteed $70,000 a year for messages sent and the father of the cable returned to a worAe than lulxewarm country ana paid into thk treas ury of the company Sfn000.
 After lot of hustIisg and tile pas