to be offered for sale by auction.
The Report contains a destructive concrete reply to the criticism which Sir Wilfrid Lawson's letter in the Spectator of July 16th
" The trade is very large, I should say Lx per week. Such a trade with y other full licensed and z minor licensed houses in the same village is a wonderful trade. The present tenant is a very popular man, and has held the license for just on years. He keeps most of his trade by booking drinks, employing an artiste to sing and play to the taproom customers, and, lastly, by giving a lot of drink away. If this house were put under the Trust system, all these things would have to be swept away, and by so doing half your trade would go with it. If I were putting a value on this house for a brewer I would say .e.r. To a Trust to run the house on Trust principles I dare not put the price more than .21-1 of x. 1904."
I should be glad if I could think this piece of definite concrete evidence had convinced Sir Wilfrid Lawson that "tied houses" (and I would add "personal-profit houses") do encourage drunkenness, whilst the "other liquor establishments" in the hands of the Trusts do much to negative that excess of con- sumption which leads to the cry for prohibition. May I ask you, Sir, concerning " high license," would it not leave in opera- tion, if it did not accentuate, all those influences which go to exaggerate the consumption of alcohol ? And would you not sufficiently, and much more wisely and safely, secure the objects you have in view in advocating "high license" if all licenses were vested in Trust companies (an operation capable of being justly and righteously performed despite the difficulties of com- pensation) on terms of paying into the national Exchequer one- half, two-thirds, or other fraction of their profits over and above loan interest on capital, the remaining fraction being applied by the Trusts to public purposes combating the influences making for intemperance ?
am, Sir, &c., GEO. W. BARROWS.
25 Arboretum Street, Nottingham.
MR CHAMBERLAIN AND THE ALIENS BILL.
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