CARLISLE EXPERIMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19764, 11 October 1927, Page 14

CARLISLE EXPERIMENT

STATE CONTROL ON TRIAL. THE BAR SUBORDINATED. TYPICAL HOUSES DESCRIBED. No. 11. BY REV. JAMES MILNE, M.JL The first State-owned and controlled public house shown to me was the Pheasant, in a poor and industrial district. It had been thoroughly renovated and considerably enlarged. In a large upper room was seating accommodation with tables for upwards of a hundred people. The place was clean, airy, well-lighted, and was largely used as a dining room by girl workerß from a neighbouring biscuit factory. It gave easy access to a kitchen, in which large pans and boilers full of soups, green peas and other vegetables were being cooked by women workers. No liquor was procurable in this dining room. The kitchen gave access to a staircase leading to an opening with counter to the street, at which there were off-sales of food to working mothers, who, procuring it thus fit reasonable price, could enjoy a hot meal in their homes with their children. The entrance where such hot meals were procurable was not accessible to the bar, which was in another room on the ground floor. This bar in itself was ol small dimension, but in front and about it was ample floor space on which were placed numerous little tables with seats about them, where customers could seat themselves while drinking a glass of beer or ginger ale with a snack of food. Provision lor Women. One of the greatest difficulties met in the working of the experiment was the solution of the problem of how best to deal \yith women who will have liquor as refreshment. They were excluded from the general bar, as the men objected to their presence. So it was customary for them to stand about the entrance to the bar room and get served as best they might. Temperance reformers might think that this was just as it should have been, to debar women from the public house and discourage them from drinking, but it was not so, for they came with such persistency that it was found necessary at the Pheasant to provide a special small bar for women, with bar room, tables and chairs finer than thoso provided for the men. Mr. Eagles was very determined on what had been proved from experience, that while harsh, prohibitory measures seemed but to drive drinking women but deeper into the mire of drunkenness, the provision of a refined environment seemed to shame them into the maintenance of sobriety. The manager of this house, too. to whom 1 was introduced, explained that from his position at the bar he could readily survey the entire room where the women sat and found where there was risk of intern perance . manifesting itself, the offer of food, or where necessary, a warning as to the limitation of the number of intoxicating drinks procurable in terms of the rules of the experiment, proved adequate safeguards. Inquiring of Um work ing manager how sales affected ha salary, he readily explained that while liquor sales either one way or another, through increase or decrease, affected him not at all, yet on the sale of all non-intoxicants, including food, he earned a good commission. Dining Boom and Social Hall. Another renovated and enlarged house visited wa3 the Blue Bell, in Scotch Street. It was well furnished and splendidly equipped, a special feature being two billiard tables accessible to the bar, but placed in a lurge and lofty apartment, a very apparent and real counter-attrac-tion to sordid drinking. It should be mentioned that here, too, ample space with plenty of seating accommodation about the bar has been provided. Here, as in all the renovated houses, full in ducement is given to make men sit, instead of standing, when partaking of re freshment; and, as in all the Carlisle houses, food is readily procurable and cheap in price. One of the best-equipped houses visited was the Gretna Tavern, in Lowther Street. Here there was a fully furnished dining room, several people being seated at four-chaired tables, having lunch as we entered. The menu gave details of a three-course meal at moderate cost. Behind the dining room a social hall, cap able of seating hundreds, has been built. It is hired oat for concerts, lectures, dances, to any well-authenticated association or society, and in the winter season is generally hired every evening. When matters are fully adjusted .as to this social and recreation hall, its control is likely to rest more fully in the hands of a committee representative of the people of Carlisle than it does at present. This I learned from Mr. Eagles, who meantime has the responsibility of letting it out himself. The Pries of It All. When the Board of Control took the properties over at the initiation of the experiment, a substantial price was paid with goodwill cost to the Trade. Renovation expenses have been heavy, for many of the houses so treated had to be rebuilt and enlarged; yet the undertaking from year to year has paid, and about twothirds of the purchase price have already been cleared off from profits, so that the experiment is not likely to cost the British taxpayer a penny. (To bo continued.)