CORRESPONDENCE.
STATE CONTROL OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.—III.
[TO TUB EDITOR OF TEE " spEcTATon.1
Sin,—One of the supreme advantages of a scheme of direct State control would be the facility it would give for effecting restrictions which aro notoriously necessary, but which experience has shown to be extraordinarily difficult of achievement under a system of private licensing. No single evil is probably more widely admitted than the present excessive facilities for the purchase of alcoholic liquors. The supply of licences is, by common consent, greatly in excess of real demand and of public convenience. This could be immediately remedied under a scheme of State control. In a previous letter it has been assumed that a Bill establishing a State monopoly would fix a maximum ratio of licences to population. This would secure at once a sweeping reduction in number. Apart from this, economy in administration and in working expenses would make the Central Board solicitous of further reducing licences wherever possible.
Local Advisory Committees (as suggested) and the Magistrates (if retained) could make recommendations in this direction. A power of local plebiscite might be granted, but it is doubtful whether it would be needed. Considerations of economical administration alone would almost certainly prompt the Central Board to go to the farthest practicable point in licence reduction.
Associated with this point is the question of permissive powers to enable any locality, at its option, to veto the sale, or particular forms of sale, of alcoholic beverages within its borders. Obviously there is no difficulty in reconciling such a power with a scheme of State control. The inclusion of such a power, conditioned by proper safeguards, is Froth practicable and desirable. The force of the old a priori objections to local veto has long since been destroyed by the precedents of our political procedure in respect to other questions, nor are the objections themselves valid in the sphere of practical politics. If there is a strong and real demand for such a power, it should be conceded. Anything which increases local autonomy and provides safeguards against an alleged danger of bureaucratic indifference to local opinion and needs would strengthen and improve the scheme. The primary object of State control is to give the fullest practicable release to the progressive spirit of the community, and to institute machinery which will respond most quickly to any advance of public opinion. On the other hand, in the institution of a purely experimental option, adequate precautions must be taken to guard against the risk of a " snatch " or chance majority. Experience throughout the world has shown that veto can be successfully exercised only where public opinion is overwhelmingly io its favour. The decision to adopt veto should lie, not with a specified fraction of the municipal electors, but with those (i.e., the adult popula- tien) whose personal habits would he most closely affected.
So far nothing has been said as to the character of the public-house under a scheme of State control. Should it be a dram-shop pure and simple, of a severely plain and even forbidding character, or, as was originally intended, a victualling cr refreshment house ? Experience as well as logic point clearly to the latter as the true idcaL The present public-house owes much of its mischievous social effects to the fact that it is predominantly, and almost exclusively, a drain-shop. Under the " tied "-house system it has become a mere distributing agency for the output of the brewer and the distiller. Its sole raison d' fire is to create and to foster a demand for alcohol. The Board of Control appointed under the Defence of the Realm (No. 3) Act has recognized the mischievous social results of this fact, and has urged Licensing Justices up and down the country to encourage and to stimulate licensees to supply solid food to their customers. In doing this they have pursued an excellent idea without sufficiently appreciating the difficulties inherent in the character and the structural arrangements and capacity of the existing public-house. These are a handicap which inevitably prejudice proper experiments, and our basis of licence taxation and our past administrative procedure are, it must in fairness be admitted, partly responsible for them. The idea itself, however, is an excellent one, but it is plain that it can only be successfully realized under a totally new system of management and controL The Home Counties Public-House Trust Company, despite the limitations which handicap, and must continue to handicap, all such private and isolated experiments under the existing conditions of law, has shown something of what may be accomplished in the encouragement of food sales, and no one who has visited the present licensed restaurant-houses of the. Controlling Company in Gothenburg, and who was familiar with the character of the earlier public-houses there, can seriously question the superiority, from every temperance and social point of view, of the licensed refreshment-house over the ordinary dram-shop.
There remains to be considered the distinctively constructive work for temperance under a scheme of State control. After all, the proper regulation and management of the drink trade is but one half, and perhaps the less important half, of the problem of reform. Unless it be complemented by the organization of efficient constructive agencies in the shape of counter-attractions to the public-house, it will fail of its full effect. It is sometimes urged that the function of the public-house as a centre for social intercourse is much exaggerated, and that, as a matter of fact, public-houses are now used almost solely as houses of call for what is known as " perpendicular drinking." But such a sug- gestion can hardly be accepted as a full statement of the facts. It is no doubt true that the evolution of the modern " gin-palace " has led to much dram-drinking by customers who spend but a few minutes at the bar, taking their departure as soon as they have consumed their dram ; but evidence is accumulating that the public-house still fulfils a very important function as a social centre in the United Kingdom as else- where. Nor is there reason to doubt that much even of what may be called " casual " drinking could be avoided if our social arrangements admitted of a satisfactory alternative resort. The Russian Government, in creating the State monopoly in vodka, established at the same time in the monopoly districts an elaborate scheme of State-aided Kuratoria, or Temperance " Guardianships," whose function it was to discourage habits of intemperance by definite instruction, and by the provision of counter-attractions to the drink-shops. The scheme of work originally designed for these so-called " Guardianships," and the results actually achieved in certain districts, represent by far tho most important contribution which any modern State has directly made to the con- structive side of temperance reform. Something on the same lines should undoubtedly form part of any scheme of State control in this country. A definite sum (not a proportion of the profits) should be annually assigned out of the net receipts of the State monopoly for the maintenance of effective counter-attractions to the public-houses, This grant could be distributed on a population basis. The disposition of the local grants could be entrusted (under definite rules and regula- tions) to the local Advisory Committees, subject to State audit and supervision. To give an incentive to enterprise, the State grants could be supplemented locally (as in Russia) by private subscriptions and the profits of undertakings run by the local Committees. In Russia, local bodies give land for buildings, grant the use of buildings, &c., to the
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