The Bishop of Chester (Dr. Jayne) has followed up the
suggestions of an admirable speech which he made a year or two ago on the subject of reforming the places of refreshment rather than reforming them away, by a very able letter to Tuesday's Times, in which he again urges that it is not enough to restrict the -trade in drink. It should be put under such supervision, and so closely connected with the supply of whole- some food and non-alcoholic drinks, on which the real profits of the manager should be made to depend, as to reduce to the last point the motive for pressing intoxicating drinks on the consumer. He suggests that the County Councils might be entrusted not only with the regulation of licences, but with the supply of proper places of entertainment, as in Gothenburg and in Norway ; and he points out that the County Council of Chester has already done good negative work in warning the landlords of the county not to sell their land to publicans anxious to run up drink-shanties at the stations of the new railway through Derby and Cheshire into Lancashire. It seems to us clear that while temptations to the drinking of fermented liquors should be suppressed, they can never be
effectually suppressed without supplying in some more effec- tive manner the natural wants which lead men into tempta- tion. It is as hopeless to put down excess without making reasonable provision for the moderate, as it would be to put down boisterousness and violence in a school without reason. able provision for exercise and play. The Bishop of Cheater is a wiser leader of the Temperance movement than Sir Wilfrid Lawson.
Previous page
