Mr. Chamberlain carried, by 46 to 10, on Wednesday, his
motion in the Birmingham Town Council that it is desirable for the local representative authorities of the municipality to get a power "to acquire, on payment of a fair compensation, to be fixed by Parliament, all existing interests in the retail sale of intoxicating drinks within their respective districts, and thereafter, if they think fit, to carry on the trade, for the convenience, and on behalf, of the inhabitants ; but so that no individual shall have any pecuniary interest in, or derive any profit from, the sale." This is virtually a resolution to try some- thing like the Gothenburg experiment in Birmingham, and no more instructive experiment could be made. As Mr. Lowe has pointed out in the Fortnightly Review, the real danger is the immense scope for corrupt influence which the purchase and management of so great a trade by the corporate authority must necessarily introduce. Indeed, the objection would be fatal, if it were not to be hoped that the attempt to work the experiment honestly and with perfect purity would become one of the most genuinely popular of municipal enterprises, and would interest almost all the citizens in looking after its organisation. If that be so, even so difficult an experiment as this, being made, as it is, for so great an end, might have—so long as the popular energy and virtue embodied in it should last, but no longer— a brilliant success.
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