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CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
THE conclusions at which I have arrived may be summarized
as follows:
1. That there is no possible analogy between the conditions
which led to the inauguration of the Gothenburg System in
Sweden and Norway (where, following mainly on the indiscretions
of rulers and Governments, the entire populace had given
itself up to the drinking of native spirits) and the existing
conditions in England (where the national beverage is beer).
2. That the success claimed for the Gothenburg System, as
already applied in Sweden and Norway, is mainly based on
inferences drawn from incomplete statistics, especially
in regard to alleged decline in consumption, such statistics
relating only to sales by the particular company, and leaving
out of account the very large and obviously increasing sales
by retail merchants or in other directions.
3. That the effect of restrictions on the bar trade is less
to decrease the total consumption than to lead people to
purchase by the bottle or the half-bottle over the retail
counter, and that the sales in this direction are increasing
out of
102
all proportion to any possible decline in the business done
at the bars.
4. That further results of the same policy are (a) much
secret drinking, and (b) the substitution of vile and most
harmful substitutes for genuine spirits.
5. That the statistics of drunkenness in the two countries,
high as they are, probably do not represent anything like
the actual amount thereof, owing to the fact that so much
of the drinking goes on in private, where those affected
would not come under the observation of the police.
6. That the enforcement of the Gothenburg System involves
interferences with personal liberty and the establishment
of a class legislation which would be intolerable to the
English people.
7. That, except in regard to early closing (which, however,
seems to have little or no effect on the total consumption),
the system of control is in no way superior to the very
strict supervision exercised by brewing companies Over their
' tenanted ' or ' managed' houses in England, while the
bar-rooms themselves, however superior to previously existing
public-houses in Sweden and Norway, are not even equal to
the average types of public-house property in England.
8. That, whilst the system was originally started with the
best of motives, it has developed mainly into an attempt
to secure the profits of the business for State or local
purposes, so as to effect a direct saving to the pockets
of members of the community.
9. That, to this end, while there is much talk about restrictions,
good care is taken (especially in Sweden) that the business
is worked on thoroughly business lines.
10. That, owing to the acuteness of the scramble for the
profits, the system has had to be reorganized in each country,
so as to spread the distribution over a larger area, and
give the towns less direct interest in the financial success
of the enterprise.
11. That the whole business is assuming the proportions
of a huge Municipal Trust, which already has its periodical
national conferences of managers to decide on the lines
on which the business can best be conducted.
12. That the reproduction of any such Trust in this country
would involve an interference both with personal liberty
and with national finances which, apart from the questions
of principle involved, would be in no way warranted by such
very dubious success as that which is claimed for the system
in Sweden and Norway.
My first recommendation is to the British public, and is
to the effect that they would do well to trouble no further
about the Gothenburg System, but to study the Copenhagen
System instead. The latter came to me as a revelation, for
I had neither read nor heard of it before, though a previous
study of Danish agricultural conditions had quite prepared
me for any further example of the practical common-sense
of that plucky and enterprising little nation. The way in
which, without any demand for State interference, and without
any cry for heroic changes in licensing laws so liberal
that they amount
almost to free trade in liquor, the Danish societies just
set quietly to work to convert the people from the use of
ardent spirits to that of light and palatable beer, as the
most practical and the most effective temperance measure
of which they could think, is an example for the nations
that is quite as much deserving of attention as any of Denmark's
earlier achievements in the way of agricultural organization.
My second recommendation is addressed to members of the
temperance societies of Great Britain, who, I think, would
do well to follow the example of the societies in Denmark,
Sweden, Norway, and other Continental countries, and, in
the interests of genuine ' temperance ' rather than of extreme
teetotalism,*
make a distinction between spirits containing a considerable
percentage of alcohol and malt liquors which have only a
small percentage thereof. In effect their members do, already,
'take', alcohol. Ginger ale, for example, a well-recognised
temperance drink, is a fermented liquor containing (besides
chemicals) 2 per cent, of proof spirit; while in the report
of Dr. Thorpe, the principal chemist of the Government Laboratory,
on the work of the Laboratory during the year ended March
81,1906, there is the following paragraph :
'HERB BEERS AND OTHER BEVERAGES SOLD AS " TEMPERANCE
" DRINKS.—Nine hundred and twenty-four samples
of ginger, herb, and botanic beers were purchased in various
parts of the country to ascertain if the proof spirit present
was within the legal limit of 2 per cent. It was found that
349 contained spirit in excess of the legal limit, and of
these 58 contained 3 but less than 4 per cent, of proof
spirit, 35 contained 4 but less than 6 per cent, of proof
spirit, and 8 contained 6 or more, the highest containing
9'5 per cent, of proof spirit.1
One must conclude from this that the very individuals who
are most keen in raising the bogey of alcohol, and who seek
to frighten people, and especially school-children, into
the belief that the imbibing of liquids containing even
the smallest amount of alcohol will do them incalculable
harm, are themselves systematically taking alcohol under
such guises as ' ginger ale,' 'hop ale,' 'oatmeal ale,'
'treacle beer,' 'spruce beer,' ' stone ginger beer,' ' dandelion
stout,' and so on. Thus the whole question really resolves
itself into one of degree. It would be pleaded in defence
of these temperance drinks that ' the amount of alcohol
they contain would not hurt anyone'; but that is precisely
what the ^temperance drinkers of light beers on the Continent
say of the beverages they take. Fundamentally the point
of view is the same in each case, the difference being that
the English teetotaller, while accepting what are really
alcoholic drinks if called by a fancy name, tabooes ' beer,'
irrespec-
tive of its alcoholic strength, simply because it is beer.
The actual position, therefore, is one of prejudice rather
than of principle, and this attitude is the more open to
question because it handicaps the progress of a real ' sobriety'
movement, as distinct from an extreme 'total abstinence'
movement, though the name given to the latter, judging from
Dr. Thorpe's report, is a complete misnomer. Looking again
to the Continent, one finds that the temperance societies
there, co-operating with the brewers, secure for, and even
supply to, their members what is understood to be a distinct
want in teetotal circles in the United Kingdom—palatable
but harmless beverages other than the so-called 'mineral
waters,' arid suitable for all possible occasions. Thanks
to this broad-minded policy, the societies in question are
making substantial advance, alike in their own numbers and
in the cause of national sobriety; whilst the teetotal societies
in England are showing little progress at all, and are ever
looking to Parliament to ' do something' for them. It is,
of course, too much to expect that the English societies
will be prepared at once to effect so radical a change in
their policy merely on the strength of the statements here
made. But what I strongly advise them to do is, instead
of sending any more deputations to Gothenburg or Christiania,
to delegate some of the most liberal-minded of their members
to go to Copenhagen and study thoroughly what is taking
place there—and also throughout Denmark—seeing
the establishments provided by the Danish societies for
their light-beer-drinking members, and comparing the social
life going on there with the cold platitudes of an ordinary
' temperance hall' in England. That they will at least get
a cordial welcome from the Danish societies, I can already
assure them ; for when I mentioned in Copenhagen what I
intended to recommend on my return to England, there was
an immediate response : ' Yes, do tell them that; and let
the English people know that we shall be delighted to welcome
as many of them as care to come over and see what we are
doing.'
My third and last recommendation is addressed to the British
Government, and it is that they, too, should study Scandinavian
conditions, and learn therefrom the important lesson that
the sobriety of a nation is much more likely to be promoted
by encouraging the consumption of light and harmless beverages,
of a kind acceptable to the people at large, than by merely
seeking to enforce oppressive and coercive measures on either
consumers or suppliers.
* The
real meaning of the word ' temperance' is ' moderation.'
If we say of a man that he is temperate in speaking, we
do not imply that he abstains from speech, but that he shows
moderation therein. Nor, when told that a person is temperate
in eating, do we assume that he has left off taking food.
If the one be ' a moderate speaker' and the other ' a moderate
eater,' then the ' temperance' advocate in regard to beverages
should be ' a moderate drinker.' In effect, total abstainers
may be teetotallers, but they cannot, properly speaking,
be described as ' temperance' people.
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