A MUNICIPAL PUBLIC-HOUSE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 303, 14 May 1896, Page 9

A MUNICIPAL PUBLIC-HOUSE.

The result of an experiment which has been watched with considerable interest at Home, has just been made known. The Corporation of Birmingham are following the example of other large cities in England, and are getting in a water supply from the Welsh hills. An enormous reservoir is being constructed by the damning up of two rivers meeting in the valley of the Elan, and at the village of the same name Mr Lees, the secretary of the Water Department, acting under instructions from the Corporation, opened, some eighteen months ago, a public-house to supply the wants of several hundred workmen and their families. The rules of management of this inn are very strict. It is open daily between the hours of 12 and 2 p.m., and from 5.30 to 9 p.m. On Sundays it remains closed all day, but on Saturday it is open from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. There are stringent regulations as to the admission of women and youths to the public-house, and no one may be supplied with more than a quart of liquor at midday, while two quarts is the limit of any one person’s consumption on the premises at night. Only villiage inhabitants are allowed to freely enter the public-house, but strangers may do so with a written order. It is claimed that the municipal public house was started at a great disadvantage, there being an ordinary establishment conducted on the usual lines a few hundred yards off. A qualified publichouse manager was appointed to conduct the business on behalf of the Corporation, and he was made to understand that he would be thought no more highly of if his sales were high than if they were low, whereas, should there be any drunkenness or disturbance, he would be held responsible for it. There has, however, we are assured, been no difficulty at all of this description. “ The trade of the other publichouse has fallen off very considerably since the establishment of the municipal publichouse. The profits are devoted to the maintenance of a reading and recreation room, which is distinct from the public-house, and this has been proved to minimise the drinking—one of the principal objects of the experiment.” This pubwe are told, is being conducted on lines similar to those advocated by the Bishop of Chester, and is the only one of its kind. In concluding his report on the result of the experiment, Mr Lees says :— “ Individually I am a total abstainer, but I am perfectly certain that we are serving the interests of temperance far better in providing wholesome liquor, under proper regulations, than we should be did we attempt to prohibit the traffic altogether or leave it to be conducted in the usual way.”