The Daily Chronicle on Tuesday announced that the Government had
decided to purchase, through the Board of Control, the whole of the breweries and public-houses—the latter some three hundred in number—in the city of Carlisle and its immediate neighbourhood. It further stated that it was the intention of the Board to close immediately a hundred redundant houses, to build as soon as possible two or three model refreshment-houses, and to adapt others not now equipped for the sale of food and non-intoxicants. The purchase-money, it has since been stated, is to be in cash or Exchequer bonds. This experiment in State ownership will be watched with the greatest interest. We sincerely hope that in the public-houses taken over the policy of disinterested manage- ment so successfully carried out by the People's Refreshment House Association will be given a fair trial. That principle has been condemned on quite insufficient grounds by a combination of the Trade and the Temperance extremists, but in spite of that we believe it to be full of promise. If there is, as there should be, profit-sharing with the salesmen in everything but intoxicant; the non-intoxicants will soon hold the front of the stage.
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