THE REFORMED PUBLIC HOUSE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 121, 23 May 1914, Page 12

THE REFORMED PUBLIC HOUSE.

The Peoples' Refreshment House Association (Limited) may claim to be an established institution, in the cause of temperance. Beginning with the control of one licensed house in 1897, when it was founded by the Bishop of Chester and Lieut. -Colonel H. J. Cvauford, it held 60 in 1907, and at the end of December, 1913, it held 120. Tho 06sets of the association are now nearly £120,000 ; it has a reserve fund of £5300, and since 1899 it has regularly paid the maximum dividend allowed of 5 per cent. The trading profit last year was more than £10,000. The means whereby the association seeks to carry out its .aitns are simple and straightforward. Having secured its publichouse, which when necessary is overhauled and redecorated, the association appoints its own. manager, who is instructed to display for /sale, with equal prominence, non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. He is encouraged to push the refreshment and catering side of his business by being given a substantial share of the profits on non-alcoholice, while ho receives no profit from alcohol, which is supplied to him at the full retail prices. The latter is not allowed to be advertised except in the usual price lists, and the houses are not "tied" to brewers or spirit merchants. There is a well-furnished tearoom at every inn, and at nearly all there ie a tea-garden. Tea and coffee are supplied at Id a cup, the same price as beer. Soup is 2d a bowl: Altogether thero are now over 300 houses under the management of the association and the trust.