_Russia._--In 1895 Russia entered upon an experiment in regard to the spirit traffic and began to convert the previously existing licence system into a state monopoly. The experiment was held to be successful and was gradually extended to the whole country. Under this system, which to some extent resembles that of South Carolina but is much less rigid, the distilleries remain in private hands but their output is under government control. The retail sale is confined to government shops, which sell only in sealed bottles for consumption off the premises, and to commercial establishments which sell on commission for the government. Spirit bars are abolished and only in a few high class restaurants are spirits sold by the glass; in ordinary eating-houses and at railway refreshment rooms they are sold in sealed government bottles but may be consumed on the premises. The primary object was to check the excesses of spirit-drinking which were very great in Russia among the mass of the people. The effect has been a very large reduction in the number of liquor shops, which has extended also to the licensed beer-houses though they are not directly affected as such. Presumably when they could no longer sell spirits it did not pay them to take out a licence for beer. _Sweden and Norway._--In these countries the celebrated "Gothenburg" or company system is in force together with licensing and local veto. Like the Russian state monopoly the company system applies only to spirits, and for the same reason; spirits are or were the common drink of the people and excessive facilities in the early part of the 19th century produced the usual result. The story is very similar to that of England in the 18th century, given above. From 1774 to 1788 distilling in Sweden was a crown monopoly, but popular opposition and illicit trade compelled the abandonment of this plan in favour of general permission granted to farmers, innkeepers and landowners. At the beginning of the 19th century the right to distil belonged to every owner and cultivator of land on payment of a trifling licence duty, and it was further extended to occupiers. In 1829 the number of stills paying licence duty was 173,124 or 1 to every 16 persons; the practice was in fact universal and the whole population was debauched with spirits. The physical and moral results were the same as those recorded in England a hundred years before. The supply was somewhat restricted by royal ordinance in 1835, but the traffic was not effectively dealt with until 1855 when a law was passed which practically abolished domestic distilling by fixing a minimum daily output of 200 gallons, with a tax of about 10d. a gallon. This turned the business into a manufacture and speedily reduced the number of stills. At the same time the retail sale was subjected to drastic regulations. A licensing system was introduced which gave the local