REFORMED "PUBLICS."
• combatants, but with little success. The Knight of the Brazen Tea-kettle has pushed them aside with ignominy if they would not shout "Total prohibition" as loudly as himself. At last, however, and thanks mainly to two men—the Bishop of Chester and Mr. Chamberlain—it -looks as if moderate and reasonable people were to have what the Americans call a "show" on the Temperance ques- tion. Under the auspices of the two men named above, joined by the Duke of Westminster, Lord Thring, and a number of other moderate people of all parties and creeds, an Association has been formed not to abolish the sale and purchase of liquor, not, that is, to pre- vent that being done which it is notorious is desired by a majority of the people of this country, but instead to promote the reform of public-houses. This Association is to be called the Public-house Reform Association, and by every means in its power it is to put down the evils of drunkenness. The formation of this body will be, we feel sure, for thousands of persons throughout the United Kingdom, a, veritable ray of hope. It will give kthem what they have been longing for for vcars,—a body which can be joined by those who wish to 'do something to allay the curse of drink on just, reason- able, and practical lines. The Public-house Reform Association wisely moves on the line of common agreement. There is one thing on which the whole country, brewers and publicans, dis- tillers and bar-tenders, as well as the mass of the people, agree. That is the prevention of drunkenness. At this point comes the outbreak of disagreement. The Temperance fanatic says, "Stop drtinkenness by stopping all drinking by law," and at once comes into contact with the opinion of moderate men. The Public-house Reform Association stops short of this controversy. It says in effect, "If you cannot agree as to how drunkenness can be best stopped, at any rate you can take one plain, practical step ; you can so arrange your legislation, that under no circumstances can it be to the pecuniary interest of A, B, or C to induce D, E, or F to take not only more liquor than is good for them but any liquor at all. You can arrange, that is, that the uninfluenced desire alone shall cause the consumption of intoxicants." Surely whatever else may be done, this is a step worth taking. We know that in the case of every commodity an enormous stimulant is given to consumption by what may be termed the hypnotic suggestions set in motion by the keenness of competition. The man who is very eager to sell, whose happiness in life largely depends upon his ability to sell, will be certain to sell more than the man who is entirely indifferent to the sale of the commodity which he dis- penses. This is the main fact which is recognised by the Public-house Reform Association. Their whole scheme is based upon the principle that the proper way to restrict the consumption of a commodity is to arrange that no one shall be interested in pushing it. Here then is the key- stone of the Association. 'The details may be shortly stated. They have evidently been well thought out, and are the outcome of practical experience, not of mere theorising. The plan is to apply to England, Scotland, and Ireland, but with very considerable modifications, what is known in Sweden and Norway as the Gothenburg System. Every- thing depends upon stopping every possible form of profit from the sale of liquor. To begin with, it is proposed that there shall be a public company or Trust created, to whom the monopoly of the sale of intoxicants shall be intrusted. within a given area. This company will of course require capital to buy up the existing public-houses, but on this capital only a fixed low rate of interest will be paid,—we presume 3 per cent., the municipal rate. The Trust, there fore, will have no interest in stimulating the sale of liquor, for its shareholders will never be able to get more than their 3 per cent. The possibility of a Trust ever being placed in a position which would render it necessary for it to work up the sales in order to reach the 3 per cent. limit need not, as Mr. Chamberlain incidentally showed, be taken into account. I assume," he said, "that the marketable value is the true value of this property, but that, as we are going to take it compulsorily, it would be perfectly fair to give something beyond the marketable value, and I will put it at the usual percentage of 10 per cent. Then I assume—and I am sure it is a very moderate assumption—that upon the existing capital invested on these houses, at least 10 per cent, of profit is annually made. On the average, I believe it is considerably above that, but I take it at 10 per cent. on the increased capital which would have to be raised to pay the market value plus the 10 per cent. The profit, under these circum- stances would be 9 per cent. Suppose that by the plan we reduce the consumption by one-third, that will reduce the profit to 6 per cent., but to that profit of 6 per cent. you must add the enormous saving, which every business man can appreciate, which will result from halving the number of houses, thereby halving the cost, the rent, rates and taxes, on capital and on stock in other ways, and above all, the cost of management and administration." There need then be no fear that the Trusts will ever have to trade under ordinary conditions in order to get their minimum percentage ? It is on the other hand, practically certain that there will be a consider- able surplus in spite of the efforts. of the Trust not to stimulate the sale of liquor. How is the surplus to be disposed of ? Clearly in some way which will make it no one's interest that the surplus shall be as large as possible. This principle at once rules out relief of the rates. If the surplus went to the Borough fund in any shape or form, or to objects which would otherwise be provided for by the rates, the town would have an interest in a large surplus, and so in increasing the sales. It has been proposed that the surplus should go to the providing of public parks, or to hospitals and infirmaries ; but it appears to us that there might be danger in this. The Trust officials, in their enthusiasm for open spaces, or the cure of disease, might so manage affairs that their surplus should be a large one. We would rather enact that the surplus, after management expenses and. 3 per cent. on the capital, should go to the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt. No one is likely to tempt A to take another glass of whisky in order that the Debt shall be pro tanto reduced. This plan will -secure the managers and stock-holders of the Trust against running the concern on business lines. Next, it will be arranged, not merely that the salesman shall have no interest in selling spirits and beer, but that he shall have a direct interest in diverting the money of the public into non- alcoholic channels. The salesman, that is, will be given a fixed salary and no coinnaission on intoxicants. On non- intoxicants, however, he will be allowed a handsome commission. Thus the man behind the bar, though ha will sell the sober man his beer if asked to do so, will try to tempt him to spend his twopence on ginger-beer, coffee, or tea, rather than on a glass of bitter. In this way every inducement for stimulating the sale of intoxi- cants will be done away with. The artisan in the public- house will drink as does the rich man in his club, unin- fluenced by the exertions of a person who is anxious to make a profit on his orders.
The best way of making clear the proposed scheme is to take a concrete instance. A is a Borough. It is proposed to form a Public Trust in this Borough, with Parliamentary powers to acquire by compulsory purchase (full compen- sation, of course, being given), all the licensed houses in the town. Of course, as Mr. Chamberlain pointed out, it will follow from this that if these licences are so acquired, the licensing authority will be forbidden to issue any other licences, unless, it may be, under exceptional circumstances, and then they must issue them to the Company which possesses the rest, so that the Company or Trust will have an absolute monopoly within its district. Next, the Trust will be subject to all the existing laws in regard to hours and police conditions. They will hold a monopoly, but a monopoly strictly regulated by law. The practical result of the formation of such a Trust, was well worked out by Mr. Chamberlain. He asked his audience to consider what the result of eliminating personal gain from the pursuit of any trade must of necessity be. "I will take an instance. Take Chester, with a population of forty thousand. I be- lieve there are two hundred and, twenty licences there. You have two hundred and twenty men who by the neces- sity of the case must be intelligent, and you have them pushing to the very utmost the business which they are conducting, and they are doing it under the pressure of the most tremendous competition, in which the weakest must go to the wall. Is it not absolutely certain that the presence of these men must go far to account for the proportion of drinking and drunkenness in Chester ? And if, instead of these two hundred and twenty commis- sion agents for drink, you had a number of men, not one of whom had any interest in the matter, to whom it was absolutely indifferent whether he sold a pint or whether he sold a barrel, is it not obvious that this must 'be imme- diately followed by a great advance in the direction of the diminution of drinking ? " We may be sanguine, but we confess that the proposal of the Association seems to us full of promise. It has one great practical fact to rely upon. A similar system was tried some thirty years ago m a great town in Sweden. It succeeded, and the system spread thence over the -whole of the country. Next it invaded Norway, and now the towns of both countries are under a scheme of liquor sale from which the element of personal gain is eliminated. Mark, too, that no one on the spot declares the system a failure, and that whatever else people want altered in Sweden, no one wants to go back to the old state of things. That is a hard fact.... Before we leave the subject, a word of praise must be bestowed on the two men who have brought the subject to the front. It is very greatly to Mr. Chamberlain's credit that, through good report and evil, he has stuck to his advocacy of the G-othenburg system. Politicians do not, as a rule, care to stick to schemes which seem to be making no headway, especially schemes which raise the ire of the liquor interest. Yet this is what Mr. Chamberlain has done. Even more credit ls due to the Bishop of Chester. He has shown practical ability of a high order in his treatment of the subject. His enthusiasm has enlisted help and support in the most unexpected quarters, and his fund of sound common-sense has made it impossible for the opponents of the scheme to raise the cry of "Faddists !" and "Cranks 1" If any two men can carry the scheme to a successful issue, it is these two. They are lucky in having the help of the ablest and most experierced Parliamentary draftsman of the present generation. The Bill will want careful handling if it is to become a water-tight Act. In securing this, the help and encouragement of Lord Thring will be of enormous importance. Bills supervised by him are in little danger of being laughed out of Parliament as impracticable and chimerical.
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