Not So Bad

British estimates are that a quantity of liquor equal to about half of cne per cent of the amount consumed in the United States prior to prohibition will come here from the Bahamas in 1923 at the present rate of export. The Springfield Republican points an interesting parallel between rum smuggling and slave smuggling prior to the Civil War, which makes this figure seem rather insignificant. The importation of slaves to the United States was forbidden in 1808, but illicit trade continued over 50 years until the Civil War and the Declaration of Emancipation. England was against the slave trade, too, and not commercially interested in its continuance, as she now is in the rum traffic. But in 1858, according to the calculation of Stephen A. Douglas, 15,000 slaves were brought into this country--a greater number than was ever imported while the traffic was legal. By this comparison the United States Government is not doing so poorly in its enforcement of prohibition.