[To THE Burros or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I have read
Mr. Wilson's letter with interest, but with a deepened feeling-of the futility of the policy for which he and the U.K.A. stand. Among working men there is little support for that policy, and it moves the majority of them to hostility and aversion. The policy, moreover, has had deplorable results for everyone but the publican, for it has stood in the way of a positive and liberal treatment of the drink question. Thus we owe to it the worst public-houses in Christendom, narrow drinking bars in which men can neither rest, nor read, nor indeed do anything but drink.
The first step towards real reform will be taken when, throwing away the wretched and un-English policy of cribbing and confining the sale of drink, we humanize the public-house and turn it into a great club where working men and their wives may spend their evenings happily together—not in drinking alcoholics, or indeed drinking anything save in so far as they desire to do so as an accompaniment to the main reason for their presence in the club the desire to rest, to meet friends, to read, to listen to music. It is because I know that public ,ownership is a condition of the realization of this liberal and humane policy that I heartily favour it.—I am, Sir, &c.,
FE= BRAHLET,
Assistant Secretary Parliamentary Committee Trades Union Congress. 33 Eccleston Square.
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