THE WESLEYAN CONFERENCE AND PUBLIC- HOUSES.
[TO Till EDITOR OP TUN "SPRCTATOR.1
" I praise her in a borrowed name, But Chloe is my real flame."
Mr. Corbett, who claims that he " follows the path marked out by practical experience," complains that you do not follow " the scientifio method," and that you do not attempt " to prove that public management has anywhere succeeded in reducing either drinking or drunkenness." He also thoughtfully provides a list of the examples from which you are to prove the thesis he sets : Russia, South Carolina, Gothenburg, and Fifeshire. For "public management" I will take the liberty of reading "disinterested management," and will therefore out out from his list Russia and South Carolina, where, as every one knows, the traffic is nationalised. In Fifeshire there is a single public-house under "Trust management," and it is significant that Mr. Corbett should single it out from two hundred and six other houses under " Trust management." Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell, in their book on " British Government Experiments," referring to the Hill of Beath Tavern, express "a doubt as to the wisdom and expediency of this particular experiment." The regrettable circumstances connected with this license arise from the fact that the inhabitants of the village were not consulted, that the granting of the license increased the drinking facilities, that a competition in the sale of drink was established against the owners of other licenses in the neighbourhood, and that the surplus profits were expended on objects of local utility and recreation, thereby creating, it is claimed, a local interest in the traffic. All these objectionable features would be got rid of by the scheme of "disinterested management" advocated by the Temperance Legislation League. There remains the case of Gothenburg, or rather that of Norway and Sweden, where the experiment of "Trust" or " disinterested " management has been tried on an extensive scale. Mr. Corbett seems to be unaware that "disinterested management" is advocated by those who have studied the system most fully, and who have written most authoritatively on it. In Sweden the system known as the " Gothenburg system" has been widely adopted. It applies, however, only to a very small portion of the traffic,—namely, the spirit traffic. There is practically free-trade in beer. The result may be seen in the fact that the sale of spirits has been reduced from 124 litres per head of the popu- lation in 1875 to 81 litres in 1901. On the other hand, the sale of beer, which is not under company control, has more than trebled, having increased from 16.4 litres per head of the popula- tion in 1875 to 50.0 litres in 1898. Of course I do not ignore the fact that prohibition in the rural districts is responsible for a large amount of this reduction. Bnt in the town of Gothenburg itself, which, be it noted, caters for a large surrounding prohibition area, the total consumption of spirits has been reduced by half, from 2745 litres per inhabitant in 1875 to 14.62 litres in 1902.
Not only has the Gothenburg system been successful in reducing the total consumption of spirits, but it has also secured the spontaneous adoption of restrictive measures which temperance reformers in this country have long vainly sought to introduce against the opposition of the trade. In the first year of its existence the Gothenburg Company spontaneously abandoned eighteen of its licenses, reducing the proportion of its public- houses to one to every 1,172 of the population. Thirty-four years later the proportion of licenses had been further reduced to one to every 3,039 of the population. The Swedish law forbids the selling of spirits to young persons under the age of fifteen. The Company has voluntarily raised the age-limit to eighteen. It has abolished all sales for credit. It has extirpated various immoral practices which were formerly associated with public-houses. The legal closing-hour is 10 p.m. The Gothenburg Company closes its bars at 6 p.m. in winter, and 7 p.m. in summer, a few of the higher-grade shops being kept open two hours later. No Six,—The opponents of "disinterested management" and "Trust management" of public-houses have constantly endeavoured to confuse the public mind by representing these as forms of " public management" or municipalisation. As a matter of fact, they are essentially distinct, and even opposed. The Wesleyan Methodists at their annual Conference showed a wise discrimination. A resolution was submitted to them strongly disapproving of "any form of public or so-called
disinterested management." By a large majority it was resolved that the words "or so-called disinterested" be omitted. In its amended form the resolution was one which might easily have been supported by advocates of " Trust " or " dis- interested" management. Mr. J. R. Barlow has already pointed this out in your columns, and after reading your article, in which you deprecated the action of the Conference
in condemning public management, I came to the conclusion that you had failed to apprehend this distinction. It is by
fostering this confusion with "public management" that the enemies of " disinterested management " hope to defeat it.
In his letter in the Spectator of August 11th Mr. Cameron Corbett, M.P., avails himself of the opening you have afforded to belabour " disinterested management " with a stick that was meant for " public management." He might invert the old pastoral:— brandy ie served on Sundays and holidays, except between 1 and 8 p.m., when one dram may be served with a meal at the eating- houses.
Having some familiarity with Mr. Cameron Corbett's method of argument, I presume that he will refer to the statistics of arrests for drunkenness, and that he will claim that the system is to be condemned because in the year 1902 the proportion of arrests for drunkenness in Gothenburg was so high as forty-seven per thousand of the population. It is to be confessed that Sweden is still, like Scotland, a drunken country, and the unrestricted sale of beer gives rise to much drunkenness. In Glasgow the average annual number of arrests arising out of drunkenness was also forty-seven per thousand of the population for the five years 1897 to 1901. But I place little reliance on statistics as to arrests for drunken- ness. When different towns, and especially towns in different countries, are the subject of comparison, the margin for error is too wide. Even in the same town, at different periods, there is a large disconcerting element. Restrictive legislation is itself a sign of a quickened public conscience, which means that the laws will be administered with greater stringency. Glasgow, for example, a town of which Mr. Corbett may have heard, recently adopted early closing. The sequel, I do not say the result, has been a striking increase in the number of arrests for drunkenness. Is Mr. Corbett, therefore, convinced of the error of his ways in advocating early closing ? Is he willing to go back to the old state of affairs ? The argument he seeks to use against us with regard to Gothenburg is fatal to himself in Glasgow. He cannot both run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
86 Algernon Road, Lewisham,
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