Letters to the Editor
THE SLUMS AND "REORGANIZATION" OF THE DRINK TRAFFIC
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The subject of our City slums is prominent in the Spectator at present, and in every reference thereto the scandal of existing conditions and the problem of rehousing, which so bars the way to the altering of these conditions, are emphasized.
The Bishop of Liverpool's Liquor Bill, which has just been so lightly rejected in the House of Lords, contained a provision for the reorganization of the drink trade which might have helped not a little to solve the slum question. Wherever adopted, this provision would have meant the speedy closing of all redundant public-houses (as happened in Carlisle, etc., under the action of tile Liquor Control Board) and the consequent availability of hundreds of premises for housing the dispossessed slum dwellers.
Of course " Reorganization " (disinterested ownership and conduct of the liquor trade under State supervision), in place of the existing system of sale for private gain, would mean much more than reduced drinking facilities, but I limit myself to the one point named above, only adding, as a Justice of the Peace with much knowledge of licensing matters in Liverpool and elsewhere, my belief that so long as the requirement for liquor continues, the mischiefs of abuse, both for the slums and our great industrial centres, will only be met, so far as they can be met,,by some such method of distribution as that proposed under the term " Reorganization."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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