LICENSING REFORM.
(To ran EIDICOS or THE " Spzernoa."3 SIR,—In advocating State purchase as the solution of licensing reform, Mr. A. F. Harvey refers to the recent report of the Control Board of the Carlisle controlled area as "a record of consistent and sustained progress." May I suggest that against this in the number of convictions for drunkenness during the month of April? These totalled fifteen, whereas in the same month last year they were four, and six in April two years ago. Mr. Philip Snowden, who sat on the Control Board, said at the Labour conference in June, 1920, he had supported the Carlisle experiment because he was anxious to see a practical experi- ment in State purchase. He saw it, and told his audience that in a return for 136 municipal boroughs for the first threw months of the year 1920, Carlisle stood at the very head of the list of convictions. Experience teaches that sobriety will not be attained by drinking out of bureaucratic glasses, and that State control of anything is not a success. State ownership would assuredly mean the elimination of the element of private profit, but what guarantee would there be that State profit would not loom as large, to the detriment of the consumer both as regards the quality and price of alcoholic beverages?—
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