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to have improved on the other, even though owning to a somewhat larger sum-total of convicted drunkards. Whereas the fact is that the police records show 1,581 cases of drunkenness in 1872, as against 2,070 in 1865. But to come to the special and positive causes of increased drinking in Gothenburg. There, as here, there has lately been a general rise in the price of labour; there have been strikes and rumours of strikes. The working man has had more money in his pocket, and more time on his hands-both conditions notoriously favourable to the publican. It is, however, in a quarter which we in this country should hardly, perhaps, have suspected, that those best competent to judge find the chief seat and origin of the evil. Not the public-houses, but the "retail" shops are the offenders-places where the holders of what we should term grocerlicences sell spirits in quantities of a half-kan (about a quart) and upwards, for consumption off the premises. This branch of the trade the Company has never hitherto been able to control. There have been stumbling-blocks in the way of their supplanting the private grocer-licencees; and there still exist in the town no less than five-and-thirty private shops of this class, constant thorns in the Company's side, conducted, as they naturally are, with a view above all things to profit, and so sedulously counteracting the endeavours of the Company to discourage the consumption of alcohol.

The tippler's ingenuity in finding means of gratifying his pet passion is almost proverbial. In Gothenburg he has invented "salning," and it is "salning" that has, more than anything else, been working mischief there lately. Do you ask what "salning "2 is? Well, it is a

1 The per-centages of cases of drunkenness amongst the population have been :-In 1864, 610; in 1865 (the Company established at the beginning of October), 5.57; in 1866, 3.75; in 1867, 3:58; in 1868, 350; in 1869, 2.56; in 1870, 2:52; in 1871, 2:67; in 1872,

2.72.

The original meaning of the word, 'crosstrees,' seems to point to the sailors of the port

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mischievous application of co-operative principles. The directors of the Company know that cheap drink spells drunkenness, and that high prices, in this as in other trades, check consumption. So where they are absolute masters of the situation, in the public-houses, they deliberately put a high price on the spirits served; their tariff-price for a glass of bränvin (corn-whisky, the staple alcoholic drink of the country, and particularly of the lower classes) being 6 öre, which is at the rate of 3 rix-dollars per kan2 (equivalent to 58. 10d. per gallon); whereas they have to pay the distiller only 2s. 5d. per gallon. Now the "retailers or spiritgrocers (to borrow a term from the Irish clauses of our new Licensing Act) may not sell less than a half-kan=about 25 ordinary dram-glasses, at a time; but then, as they buy from the distillers as cheaply as the Company, they can afford to sell this half-kan for very considerably less than twenty-five times 6 öre. Low as their charge is though, it is beyond the pocket of the spiritgrocer's average customer, who, besides, however strong his thirst for bränvin, would find a quart of it rather much to manage at one standing. So he gets a few kindred souls to practise "salning" with him, that is, to club their small coins to make up the price of a half-kan at the spirit-grocer's, carrying the liquor to the nearest convenient corner (for consumption on the premises would be directly illegal), and there drinking it off. This mischievous practice, once introduced, appears to have assumed most formidable dimensions. Its effects upon those who indulge in it force themselves on the notice of everyone who goes about the streets with his eyes open. And yet it brings so much grist to the retailers' mills, that they all wink at "salning," and the more unscrupulous among them openly encou rage it, knowing that so long as they

as the inventors of the practice described in

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keep within the letter of their licences, neither the Company nor the police nor anyone else has power to interfere.

The Company's last report, published in the spring of the present year, contains some facts which may fairly be said to acquit them of any complicity in the increase of drinking, which they admit and deplore. In the face of a rapid increase of the town population during the year, they shut up one of their (previously 26, now 25) publichouses. Though the wholesale price of bränvin was exceptionally low, they kept their public-house tariff at the same high scale as before, and indeed raised prices at their own (seven) "retail shops; and their accounts-audited, be it remembered, by persons appointed by the municipality-show a decrease in the aggregate amount of their bränvin sales of no less than 44,050 kans (= 25,430 gallons) as compared with 1871.

"We have done our best," says the Company's Report; "but all our efforts are crippled while 'salning' continues, and 'salning' will continue so long as the grocer-licences remain in private hands, and are worked with a view to private profit. We are convinced that there is one remedy, and only one, for the present evil; and that is, for the municipality to undertake, or allow us on its behalf and in the interest of our fellow-townsmen to undertake, the sole and entire management of the local retail spirit trade, on the same terms as we already work the public-houses."

Precisely the same conclusion is expressed in several authoritative independent statements written a few months ago, from which (with the permission of the gentleman to whom they were furnished) we will venture to read a few extracts. The chief of the Gothenburg police writes :

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My conviction, as a final judgment on the operations of the Retailing Company, is, that these have been in a high degree beneficial, and have shed blessings on the community; but that until the retailers' licences for the sale of spirits are entrusted to this same Com

pany, a satisfactory attainment of its aims and objects cannot be arrived at."

The Bishop of Gothenburg says:"The Company has, in my opinion, been one of the best institutions of its time for advancing the moral and economical welfare of the lower classes. The benefits which this Company have conferred on the community would certainly have been greater than what has as yet been arrived at, had the retail trade of spirituous liquors been also entrusted to this same Company."

The Dean of the Diocese certifies that "The Company has undeniably been the means of raising the moral and economical condition of the people, by diminishing the immoderate drinking of spirits; and without doubt even better results would have been shown had the retailers' licensed trade in spirits been also entrusted to the hands of this same Company."

And the late Chairman of the Gothenburg Board of Health is of opinion that, "If the entire sale of bränvin in our community were entrusted to one retailing company, whose aim and spirit were the same which the present Company have in view, the system would in a high degree contribute to decrease drunkenness."

But the matter has not been allowed to rest in mere expressions of opinion. With a promptness hardly to have been foreseen, the Company have been placed in a position to apply the remedy indicated in their report; and the credit of originating the movement that has placed them there belongs to certain members of the very class which has furnished "salning" with most of its supporters and victims.

Last February a series of remarkable meetings was held in Gothenburg. The Working Men's Union spontaneously took this matter into consideration. For several successive evenings they earnestly discussed the question, What can be done to diminish drinking? And they ended by appointing a committee of their own members to confer with the directors of the Company on the subject. The outcome of this conference

soon appeared in the form of two clear suggestive resolutions, which were forwarded to the representatives of Gothenburg in the Diet, recommending (1) that the Company should be entrusted with all spirit licences, grocer as well as public-house; and (2) an increased excise duty on spirits, with the sure concomitant of higher retail prices. Promptly the town members acted on this electoral mandate, and with such success, that in April, after thorough examination in Committee and full parliamentary discussion, an Act was passed, by large majorities in both Houses of the Diet, in effect enabling such companies as the Gothenburg Retailing Company to acquire all the grocer licences still sold by auction to private individuals, and so to get command of the entire spirit traffic of their localities.

Here, then, at last the system is about to have, for the first time, a complete and decisive trial.

"Nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice,"

has been its cry from the very first; and now, as soon as the new law comes into operation-which is to happen in October 1874-it must be prepared to accept the responsibility as well as the advantages of the new position of affairs, and finally stand or fall on its own merits. Meanwhile, a noteworthy sign of the local feeling,-the authorities of Gothenburg, having every July to determine the number of grocer-licences to be sold by auction for the coming year, have this year announced their intention of putting up five-and-twenty only, as against the five-and-thirty which have for some time past been current.1 What the Company will do with their monopoly when they have got it may be pretty well predicted from their past conduct

1 Since the above was written, the auction has taken place. After an unprecedentedly keen competition, twenty-five licences were disposed of for (in the aggregate) 20007. more than thirty-five fetched last year; a fact which points plainly enough to the largeness of the profits realized lately by the private licencees. (August 14.)

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and expressed opinions. They will keep open only so many grocer" spirit shops as may be competent to supply the natural (if one may so use the word) unstimulated demand of the population. They will deliberately handicap these shops by so raising their prices, that for the quart of five-and-twenty drams of bränvin there will be charged something like the price of five-and-twenty separate drams at the public-house, thus removing the fundamental reason and attraction of the "salning" trick: and they will do their best to check and diminish drunkenness by nowhere within the limits of their rule allowing any forcing or encouraging of the consumption of spirits, and everywhere suggesting and facilitating moderation and good order. And that they will sooner or later win success in the battle with King Alcohol, the advances already made, in spite of hindering and counteracting forces manifold, are surely substantial enough to enable even us outsiders to feel sanguine.

Yes, as to them we may feel sanguine; but here, as we write the words, the inevitable question rises up and fronts us, "Will the system do for us? Can we suck thereout any even small advantage for our own needs?" "No-a thousand times no!" scream the uncompromising enthusiasts of the United Kingdom Alliance. "Let him that traffics at all in alcohol be Anathema Maranatha. All

plans for regulating that traffic, and making it respectable, are just so many treaties with the devil. We will none of them!" However, not everybody in this island thinks with the Alliance yet. On the contrary, a considerable and increasing party of our countrymen are of opinion that, in the present stage of the liquor question in this country, it is quite on the cards that a good thing may come out of Sweden. Earl Grey thought so, when, in the House of Lords' Committee on the Licensing Bill of last year, he proposed the addition of a dozen clauses embodying the leading principles of the Gothenburg system. Our countrymen in Scotland think so, for on the impetus given by a paper

on the subject, read in Glasgow last December by Mr. Carnegie of Stronvar, Edinburgh has appointed a committee expressly to inquire into the Gothenburg scheme; leaders and letters, numerous and earnest, have discussed it in newspapers from Inverness to Berwick; the General Assemblies (in May) of the three principal Church bodies of Scotland, the Presbyterian Synod, the Established, and the Free Church, have dwelt upon it with marked emphasis and approval; there have been lecturings and debatings; and before this last session of Parliament closed, a Bill was actually brought into the Lower House, backed by four prominent members, two from either side, styled "A Bill for placing the sale by retail of Spirituous Liquors in Scotland under local control," the effect of which, if passed, would be to empower the ratepayers of any Scotch district to hand over to a local board the entire control and management of the intoxicating liquors' traffic of the district, on principles analogous to those of the Gothenburg Company. The Bill will be re-introduced, and vigorously pushed next session, and bids fair to raise a pretty storm in the Permissive teapot; for, confined as it is to Scotland, where the prevailing drink-habits are eminently more similar to those of Sweden than is the case south of the Tweed, its provisions have a thoroughly practicable and effective look, and at the same time involve the (to an Alliance man) unpardonable sin of recognizing, while regulating, the sale and consumption of alcohol. At any rate this Scotch movement means business, and the fastgrowing party originated and championed by Mr. Carnegie is only stimulated and helped by the now avowed hostility of the total abstainers.

The

latter, indeed, appear clearly enough to have no fancy to sit still and let the wind be taken out of their sails by a rival counterblast to drunkenness.

1 "The Licensing Law of Sweden, and some Account of the great Reduction of Drunkenness in Gothenburg." Glasgow: Alex. Macdougall, 1873.

On a

They may be relied upon to perform the salutary function of discovering every hole that can be picked in the system of the Gothenburgers. Only a few weeks ago a trio of lynx-eyed gentlemen paid a visit to Gothenburg, with the special object of surveying the state of things there from the teetotal standpoint. They meant to be fair, no doubt; but when a man starts with a foregone conclusion, it is not unfrequently the case that his eyes see only what seems to help towards it. market-day, the one day of the week when country folk from all parts of the province congregate in Gothenburg, thirsty, eager for their favourite bränvin with the eagerness of people who have no chance of getting it elsewhere,-for in the whole province, numbering 170,000 inhabitants, there are (excluding those of Gothenburg itself) but ten spirit shops,—on a market-day the trio visited the Company's houses, particularly those in and near the market-place, and found-melancholy to relate a great deal of spirit-drinking going on there. That market-day was a Saturday. On the following Monday they attended at the policecourt, and found again-just what one might have predicted an unusual number of cases of drunkenness. Here was matter for indictment of the system, truly; but they sought something more than this. So they held a meetingnot exactly a public or representative or promiscuous meeting. Methodism

2

has not many or important adherents in Gothenburg, and none but total abstainers are admitted into the Methodist body there; and this was a meeting of Methodists in the Methodists' room. Here, however, the convening three presented themselves; asked through interpreters sundry questions about the working of the Company; and ended by inviting the opinion of the meeting upon the question, "Do you wish the

same

system introduced into our

1 One of the houses in which the most drinking is alleged to have been found stands close to some works upon which about 400 navvies are employed.

country?" To which (says the newspaper report) the greater number answered "No." Against a conclusion so gallantly won, so emphatic, and pronounced by persons so competent to give an opinion on the subject, what hope to struggle? Best, perhaps, to let it stand without note or comment.

The fact is-and this is the point to which we would especially call attention -that the very feature in the Gothenburg system which repels the Alliance is that which to others, not less earnest, not less acquainted with the matter at issue, constitutes its chief attraction. It is not a theory, it is not an idea, realizable, if ever, in some considerably distant future. It does not profess to be a radical cure, but only a practical step towards one. "Alas!" said Mr. Carnegie, at Edinburgh, a few

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weeks ago, "we despair of any system or any management stamping out' drunkenness. Our aim is to diminish it by one-half or more, and we can show by an actual experiment that our hopes of success are reasonable. Is not that worth striving for? Two men are drowning; we can only save one. Shall we refuse to save him, in the hope of being perhaps able at some indefinite future time to save two other men? I am certain, if you could see the tens of thousands who would be saved from sin and misery if this system is adopted, you would forget your principle of "all or none," and rush with us to the rescue of all we can. Let those who refuse to do so weigh well the heavy responsibility they will incur!"

W. D. R.

"The Gothenburg Licensing System." A Lecture, &c., by D. Carnegie, Esq. Edinburgh: R. Grant and Son. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1873.

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