A GREAT SOCTAT, REFORM. T HE heartiest congratulations of all friends
of social progress are due to Lord Grey upon the facts pre- sented by his letter in Monday's Times on the growth of the Public-House Trust movement. With the modesty .which is so becoming, but by no means always to be found, • in true social reformers, he is careful, at the outset of his truly delightful story of progress, to point out that "it must always be remembered that the honour of initiating this movement belongs to the Rev. Osbert Mordaunt, to the Bishop of Chester, and to Colonel Craufurd. They • formed the People's Refreshment-House Association in -1896, with the object of taking over public-houses from landowners who might desire to apply the Trust or • Gothenburg principle to public-houses on their estates. And, of course, for several years before that date, as most of us will readily recall, the Bishop of Chester had laboured with unflagging zeal to draw public opinion towards the -view that in the application of the principle in question lay certainly one of the best hopes of exorcising the demon of intemperance so far as it still afflicted the working 'classes. Increasing evidences of success attended Dr. Jayne's efforts, marked, as they were, by a constant recognition of the necessity of proceeding on the line of least resistance, through the utilisation, indeed, of Scandinavian experience, but in a temper and fashion essentially consonant with English social habits. In any ,complete history of the movement of which the doctrinal foundation, if we may so say, was thus laid, it would he recorded that, many years ago, the principle was vigorously preached at Birmingham by Mr. Chamberlain ; and was put into successful practice in the village of Ardington, on his Berkshire estate, by a great proprietor with whom Lord Grey was closely connected,—the late Lord Wantage. Mr. Mordaunt, mentioned above, was also, we believe, an active local pioneer, and there may have been one or two others. Not, however, till after some years' working of the People's Refreshment- House Association was there a sufficient body of experience available to be utilised with convincing force in illustrating the commercial practicability, as well as the philanthropic desirability, of an extensive adoption in this country of the " Trust " tenure of public- houses,—a blessed redemption, by the way, of a noble word, miserably misapplied of late.
At that psychological moment occurred the decisive intervention of Lord Grey. Enjoying a well-earned reputation both for wide social sympathies and for sound administrative aptitudes, he set himself to persuade those engaged in local administration through- out the country that the time had come for "an organised effort to 'Gothenburg' all new licenses." His success in this mission has been quite extraordinary. In his own county of Northumberland a Public-House Trust Company was formed in May, 1901. Three months later the example thus set was followed by Kent, Durham, and North Yorkshire ; and in August of the same year there was formed the Central Public-House Trust Association to promote the establishment of separate county Trust Com- panies. Less than two years have passed since then, but Lord Grey is able to report that "the only (English) counties whose Lords-Lieutenant and other leading gentle- men have refused to give me any support, and in which a Trust Company is not yet in existence or in process of formation, are Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire, Norfolk, and Oxfordshire." In North and South Wales the movement is well afoot. "Through the public-spirited enterprise of the Fifeshire miners six Trust Companies have been formed for the management of single houses, and larger Trust Companies have been registered for Eon- frewshire, Glasgow District, and the East of Scotland." In Ireland. the Ulster Public-Houses Trust Company has made a most encouraging start; and the same idea is ." catching on " in various parts of South Africa, Australasia, and Canada. The actual quantitative result of the pro- pagandist work in the United Kingdom has been to bring the number of houses under Trust management up to one hundred and fourteen, and to ensure the application of Trust principles to over one hundred additional houses on the termination of current leases.
Everybody knows by this time what, broadly speaking, is involved in "Trust management" of public-houses. It is the aim of such mAnagement to " convert " the public. house, in Lord Grey's words, "as far as possible from a mere drinking-bar into something more closely resembling a well-conducted club." And that aim is being realised up and. down the country in the fullest and clearest fashion. This is abundantly evident from the extracts given by Lord Grey from a confidential Report recently submitted by Colonel Crdufurd, to whose admirable work as honorary secretary the success of the pioneer "People's Refreshment-House Association" was largely due, and who, at the request of the Central Public-House Trust Association, has made a tour of surprise visits to the houses under Trust management. There could not be pleasanter reading. Its general effect is that houses in which, at the best, the interest, and therefore the object, of the manager was the sale of intoxicants up to the limits allowed by the law, having regard to the apparent capacity of each customer to carry his liquor steadily, and which, in some cases, were distinctly centres of moral deterioration for the neighbourhood in which they are situated, have been beneficially transformed. They have become houses to which respectable people of both sexes and all ages can resort with pleasure and comfort, and, amidst an atmosphere physically and morally wholesome, can obtain wholesome refreshment, solid or liquid, with no encouragement to the preference of stimulants, but rather the reverse, and with a firm prevention of all approach to excess. Swearing is suppressed, and that, as it seems, not, or not so much, by the fear of being "chucked out," as by the presence of respectable female attendants, to whom evil words would be an insult condemned by the public opinion of the customers generally. The legitimate tastes of customers are considered and their suggestions attended to where possible. Threepenny bowls of soup and bread are thus provided at one North of England Trust inn, formerly a public-house of the lowest sort, but now "a clean and respectable house, doing a fair refreshment and non-alcoholic trade, in addition to beer and spirits." At Benwell, Newcastle-on-Tyne, "men can bring their own food and get it cooked, and an ingenious plan of numbering cooking-tins has been devised for the purpose." Perhaps the most triumphant case of all is that of the public-house at Kelly, Fifeshire, run by a company of local pitmen on the most respectable lines, in the face of competition from four other public-houses, and with such pecuniary success that a splendid bowling-green has been provided out of the profits, and that the rival houses "have all levelled up both as to quality and conduct since the opening of the Trust house."
It is hardly possible to overrate the beneficent poten- tialities of the movement whose working is illustrated by the Report from which we have quoted. And, without doubt, Lord Grey, to whom the present position of this really great reform is so largely due, has established a powerful claim to be heard on any question connected with it. Money is required, both to clear from a debt of several hundred pounds the propagandist organisation of the Central Public-House Trust Association and for the further prosecution of its missionary work. Funds am also required to enable the Association, as it desires, to challenge in the Law Courts the action of any Licensing Bench which mayat the next Brewster Sessions pursuethe practice, not a little in vogue with such Tribunals, of bartering new licenses to applicants for the surrender of old ones, in districts where they are too numerous,—a, practice which, as Lord Grey points out, both encourages the maintenance of unnecessary and unprofitable houses " as the purchasing coin of new licenses," and also gratuitously strengthens the claim for compensation. Whatever decision the Law Courts may give on this question, Lord Grey's opinion on the public issues involved deserves the respectful con- sideration of all Licensing Justices. The Trust Companies are, in truth, the bodies, where they exist in new oi growing districts, to whom new licenses should be assigned By such action the future legislative treatment of the • licensing question will be kept free from any needless enhancement of existing difficulties, and the population growing up in the newer urban areas will be secured pleasant and wholesome provision for refreshment and social enjoyment, free from the risks and contaminations almost inevitably connected with public-houses run on individualist lines.
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