CHARGES IN LIQUOR TRADE

Evening Star, Issue 18668, 24 June 1924, Page 1

CHARGES IN LIQUOR TRADE

BETTER THAI! “ GOOD OLD DAYS.” Dr Arthur Sh.adwoll, who writes in the ‘English Review’ on ‘The. Principles of Liquor Control,’ finds that there is a popular fallacy that intemperance is due fo “modern adulteration.” Give people honest mall, and Imps, wo aro told, as in the good old days, and there will bo no trouble. The fact is that in the “ good old days ” deleterious /adulteration was regularly practised, hut it has long since caiusod ; the “substitutes” now used in brewing, says Dr Hind well, are harmless or wholesome. In 1790 a brewer, Samuel Child, published a pamphlet called

Every Man Hit; Own Brewer.’ This is his list of ingredients lor browing porter : —Malt, hops, treacle, liquorice, essentia bin,a (moist sugar hoi led black), color (moist sugar less boiled), cocculus, indiens, capsicum, Spanish liquorice, salt of tartar, heading (alum and copperas), ginger, slaked lime, linseed, and cinnamon. These, ingredients, he says, “ mud, invariably be mod by those who wish to continue the taste, flavor, and appearance which they have been accustomed to.”

Another delusion is that all publichouses of the past were inns or places of refreshment for travellers, and that the mere drink ‘•hop is a, modern innovation. In 1757 Dr Maitland's survey ot London, which then had a population of 726.080. revealed 654 inn* and taverns to 14.654 alehouses and brandy shops; and so far back as records go in the Middle Aces we find public-houses frequented entirely for drinking, by v.omeu as well as by men. -John -Skelton. i.ho poet laureate of Henry the Eighth, describes a London alehonse kept by a, notorious “ alo-wife." Women flocked to it, and ‘‘their thirst waa S'i great l bey never asked for meal, but drink, still drink.'’ There aro many similar references by ibe old English writers. At a later period, in a census laken in 1854 of fourteen puldic-homsea in London, more than a third of a, great number of customers were women and children. MODERATION’ IN CONTROL.

After dealing with other liquor theories which ho believe.,-; lo be badly founded. Or Sbadweli nuts (lie following proposi- ' 'ons, adding evidence, in support of flu ni : —(I) Control of the trade is necessary in < oun! nes in whiili intemperate habits prevail, 'the, conditions that conduce to excess aro cold, dampness, and darkness'; warmth and .sunlight make for sobriety, (21 fonlrol being found necessary, nmderale measures, which arc approved by general consent. and can be !airly well enforced, arc more efficacious in reducing and combating excess than too drastic ones, which arouse a considerable body ot opposition and aro evaded g' defied on a. ’large .scale,. (55) Of all the moderate measures of control, the most ellicacmut! is limitation of the hours of sale. (4) The now or fa! influence that cun be exercised by taxation throiviii its oticcl on the price of drink is another lesson I 'night by past experience, ami demonstrated in an unprecedented way in Great Britain during and since the war. The conditions determining (he present comparatively low level of drink consumption

and drunkenm-so in that country arc ban trade and unemployment, Inch taxation, i in Imrii prii es, in addition to the curtailincut/ of liquor trading hours. (5) 'I .here

is a broad movcnie.nt towards sobrimy in Great Britain, due mainly to social uid inieilectiial changes. Among (luce arc increased means of recreation, games and athletics, chcao literature, and a rising standard of social conduct. But the progress of this movement is slow and grmlual, and subject lo oscillations. 161 Dime are limits to successful application of moaswoß of coni,ml. II those limits aro exceeded reaction is caused, and more harm than good follows.