Letters to the Editor
Gin and Tonic Graham Hutton Mr. Churchill and the Press Council Sir Linton Andrews Battle of Jutland Sir Robert Boothby, MP Is Latin Worth It? Hugh Lloyd-Jones Catholicism Canon Howard Dobson, A. J. Kennett The Appeaser John Bonner Inconvenient Cases N. Waiter The Casement Diaries Sir Angus Watson `The Eighty-Five Days' R. W. Thompson Another Man's Flowers Herbert van Thal Betjcmanism Bernard B. Sykes
GIN AND TONIC
SIR,—The forgotten Briton of our day—the consumer —owes Leslie Adrian and you much thanks for your ventilation of the obnoxious, unethical and backward practices of many breweries in forcing their tenants, managers, etc., in tied houses to ignore public demand. As to 'passing off' one kind of drink as another, there has recently been a welcome legal decision restraining one errant firm from such a practice, and it may be that both licensees and breweries (or other owners of tied houses) will now see that their common interests are best served by allowing 'mine host' the utmost latitude to judge for himself what 'his' public wants from its 'pub,' and then to stock it. If so, loCal consumers could always be reasonably sure of getting what they most want, where they most want it; and non-local customers would have -rto cause for complaint if peculiar, far-fetched specialities were not available, for • the locals would not want 'them. Moreover, there would not then he any'unfair pressure by owners on tenants of tied houses to 'pass off' any drink as -anything other than it was. If breweries and other owners of our tied 'pubs' cannot read aright from the growing popularity of free houses and private clubs, and from what has happened to the cinema, we shall doubtless find them soon bewailing some irrelevant cause of theft shrinking customers like TV in the home—as failing picture magazinei now do! But the fault lies not in the stars; it is in thcthselves and their backward ideas about the market. The one thing that is proved abundantly true in the leisure age is that everyofte wants better personal services and is willing to pay for them. It seems,a pity that the bulk owners of Britain's oldest community. houses seem so intent upon snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.— Yours faithfully.
A bingdon, Berks
Previous page
