] I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, a
singularly able man, and I asked, "What has been the result?" He said,
"The productivity of labor, the amount of work which is put out by the
workmen, has gone up between 30 and 50 per cent." [Cheers.] I said, "How
do they stand it without their liquor?" and he replied, "Stand it? I
have lost revenue over it up to L65,000,000 a year, and we certainly
cannot afford it, but if I proposed to put it back there would be a
revolution in Russia." That is what the Minister of Finance told me. He
told me that it is entirely attributable to the act of the Czar himself.
It was a bold and courageous step--one of the most heroic things in the
war. [Cheers.] One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris,
and the French Minister of Finance said, "I have got to go to the
Chamber of Deputies, because I am proposing a bill to abolish absinthe."
[Cheers.] Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky plays in
this country. It is really the worst form of drink used; not only among
workmen, but among other classes as well. Its ravages are terrible, and
they abolished it by a majority of something like 10 to 1 that
afternoon.
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