PUBLIC-HOUSE REFORM

“Nothing suits worse with vice than want of sense,” remarked Sir Harry Wilding in the “Constant Couple.” For vice we might read benevolence and find the maxim equally appropriate. Good judgment is especially needful in that kind of philanthropy so much in vogue at the present time, wherein one class of the community interests itself in improving the condition of another class with which it is imperfectly acquainted.

Take, for instance, the housing of the working classes. A committee of maiden ladies meet together and engage the services of some clever young architect. The local landowner finds the funds, and very soon a row of cottages has been built of dainty picturesque appearance, and everything inside them equally lovely. The sanitation is of the latest, the rooms are light and airy. All sorts of clever devices are introduced to economize space, nice cupboards, economical cooking stoves with every appliance to delight the housewife, and even a bath artfully hidden beneath a trap-door just in front of the kitchen fire. There is even high art decoration approved by the Kyrle Society. In short, these cottages would be a joy and a treasure if only the ungrateful labourer would consent to leave his insanitary hovel and come and take up his abode therein. He emphatically declines to do so because they contain no “best room.”

The committee of maiden ladies are very indignant at the idea of the working man insisting on his best room, an apartment which remains hermetically closed from week-end to week-end, reserved only as a shrine for the family Bible and for the reception of a few highly-favoured visitors. He ought, they contend, to be satisfied with the big airy living-room, specially designed for his family, and has no business to complain that his little heirlooms will be at the mercy of inquisitive and mischievous children. But it will be a bad day for England when the “best room” disappears from the artisan’s home. It is by long tradition his castle, his secret keep, the innermost temple of his religion. Every patriotic instinct of the poor man has its centre within that little stuffy apartment. Home to the working man means the best room. The safety of the best room justifies all the national expenditure on a standing army and a huge navy. In the defence of that best room he is prepared to send his sons to lay their bones in some nameless soldier’s grave in the most distant corner of the empire. Take away the best room and the wage-earner has no home worth either working for or fighting for. He becomes an atheist, an anarchist, and a general outcast.

A similar lack of appreciation of human nature is shown by certain philanthropists in dealing with the use by working men of the public-house as a place of resort. How much better, they urge, if the workman would spend his time in more intellectual surroundings—in reading rooms, popular lectures or entertainments, Christian endeavour societies, etc., etc. And so they exert all their influence over licensing justices, the police and other authorities, inciting them to make the public-house as uncomfortable as possible; with the result that a series of very undesirable institutions having all the worst qualities of the gin palace, without its publicity or proper means of supervision, are coming into existence. Penny readings, lectures, and other religious or educational centres are well enough in their way; but the man of few home resources yearns for the gossip of the alehouse. Only there can he find what the soul of every human being longs for, the company of his own kind, and recreation and amusement which he himself can assist in supplying.

Still, if it is to continue, the public-house must be reformed and improved in some way to satisfy the national conscience. And a book of this kind seems to be incomplete unless it contains some suggestions as to the direction in which reform ought to proceed.

In the first place, we would urge the inexpediency of any further legislation. Anybody, who as a parish worker or as an employer of labour has interested himself in a model public-house, will agree with us in this. No other institution in the country is so hopelessly law-ridden and police-ridden. We might make an exception in the case of the licence itself. All taxation of alcoholic liquors should be direct and should be levied at the fountain head—whether distiller, brewer or importer. The licence for retailing such liquors should be a moderate and fixed amount like all other licences. Why the publican should be penalised at so high a rate, when the grocer, whose annual sales often exceed those of all the public-houses in the district combined, is let off with a nominal sum, passes all comprehension.

To impose a high licence on the hotel or tavern-keeper is, in the opinion of those who have studied the subject carefully, a mistake both economically and morally. First, because a large and increasing portion of his sales consists in wares which the outside dealer supplies without the necessity of either tax or licence. Secondly, there is a serious temptation offered to the publican to recoup the high expenditure on his licence by inducing his customers to drink. And it is most important that men of the highest character and responsibility should be encouraged to take office as innkeepers and publicans. This can hardly be the case while the high licence adds so seriously to the amount of unremunerative capital required for embarking in the business. No other trade is handicapped by such an iniquitous impost.

We must not, of course, shirk that ugly word, “monopoly value,” introduced by the Licensing Act of 1902. But it is a monopoly of dwindling value riddled by half a dozen competing agencies and minimised by all sorts of vexatious restrictions. Sunday trading is not a desirable thing, but a visit to any favourite suburban resort on Sunday morning reveals a state of affairs only to be paralleled in Gilbertian comic opera. Tobacconists, sweet-stuff shops, tea gardens and enterprising Italian caterers are all doing a roaring trade without let or hindrance. Meanwhile the “Licensed Victualler,” who pays so high a price for his “monopoly” as a purveyor of refreshments, is compelled on pain of extinction to keep his doors bolted and barred against all but the few hardy souls who have accomplished the Sabbath Day’s journey.

There is an underworld in the drink trade. Provincial allotment holders never seem to lack a good supply of the national beverage on Sunday mornings; it does not flow from the local alehouse. Quarterns of gin and whisky are obtainable in London from some unknown sources at all hours of the night. One of the authors, associated for many years with a famous church in the poorer districts of central London, made some astonishing discoveries with regard to this illicit drink traffic. Most of it is the direct outcome of the oppressive one-sided licensing laws.

On the liquor question itself, we would suggest that the tax on beer should be graduated, and a comparatively light duty be imposed on beer guaranted to be brewed entirely from malt and hops, and containing only the small proportion of alcohol necessary to carry the phosphates—say not more than four per cent. We believe that the revenue would not ultimately lose much by this concession, while the result of its general adoption as a beverage would be highly beneficial. No better preventative could be imagined against nervous depression, the great curse of modern life, and the real cause of the drink and drug-taking habits—than a revival of the good old English mild ale such as our forefathers brewed in the pre-reformation Church Houses.

We have already referred to the work of the Public Refreshment House Association, and much good is bound to result from the efforts of this body in improving the status of the public-house. Its methods and the rules laid down for the management of the houses under its control are worthy of all praise. The foresight and self-denial of its directorate are especially commendable, in that the society seeks to co-operate in the formation of separate county trusts, rather than to aggrandize itself by acquiring an unlimited number of licences. The danger of a gigantic trust, as of a national monopoly, would be that enormous power might, in the second generation, fall into the hands of an ambitious and tyrannical central staff. One fear only we have with regard to the P.R.H.A. Its establishments are so attractive and altogether so desirable, that like all philanthropic efforts they will end by benefiting a higher class than was at first intended. The lady cyclist and the weekender will avail themselves of their advantages rather than the rural labourer. And we hope that the wise authorities at headquarters will guard against this difficulty by encouraging games, and providing magazines for the users of the tap-room.

A worthy country cleric of our acquaintance takes exception to the preferential commission which the Association allows to its local managers in order to push the sale of temperance drinks. He urges that no temperance drink has hitherto been invented which is either thirst quenching or wholesome. The tea and coffee habit would end by making the villager as neurotic as his cockney cousin. Aerated waters, flavoured with narcotic drugs and saturated with gaseous mineral carbonic dioxide, put a severe strain on the action of the heart; fruit syrups are doctored with nerve-destroying formaline to prevent natural fermentation. Even the popular ginger beer and ginger ale are not unimpeachable. Ginger is a drug injurious to the coating of the stomach; and in some modern brands the more poisonous capsicum is employed as a cheaper substitute.

But on general grounds, we think this encouragement of temperance drinks is altogether a judicious move. The public-house exists for the benefit and use of all classes and sections of the community; the teetotaller has as much right there as anybody else, and it is desirable that he should exercise that right as frequently as possible. The popular idea that the tavern is only a place for the consumption of certain alcoholic drinks must be dispelled; such liquors have to be on sale there merely because a large majority of Englishmen habitually desire them as beverages, and it is not the duty of those in charge to decide whether they shall, or shall not, continue to do so. Wine, beer and spirits are an essential part, but still only one department of the tavern-keeper’s business.

The “Bell” Inn, Bell Common, Epping

Village trusts have been introduced with success in some rural districts. A body of trustees is elected by the whole parish for a term of years, on much the same lines as the Parish Council. Management on a democratic basis has its good points, if only the natives can be roused to take a keen interest in the subject. But all these revolutionary displacements of “the trade” are unnecessary. The good conduct of the public-house depends not so much on those who manage it as on those who habitually use it, and on the growth of a healthy national appreciation of its value. If only men of good-will made it a rule to visit from time to time the various licensed houses of the neighbourhood, their very presence would be a wonderful help to the cause of morality. A good understanding with the landlord should be established, and then suggestions for the improvement of the house quietly and considerately discussed with him. We know of parish priests who, facing sneers about “Beer and Bible,” have pursued this course, and their efforts have brought blessing and reward. But it must be understood that all genuine progress is slow. The Public-house is not so much the moulder as the index of public morals; and any violent attempts at reforming it are as absurd as to manipulate a barometer with a view to improving the weather.

In a recent speech the Bishop of Birmingham cited as his ideal of the public-house, an establishment in Barcelona which he had visited several times, and which struck him as being specially delightful. He described it as an immense room in which there must have been about a thousand people. They were of all classes; a good many of them were artisans who wore their blouses, and they were there with their wives and children constantly. They were drinking all sorts of things—beer, wine, tea, coffee, or milk, and some of them were drinking a peculiar compound of a kind of pink colour, the nature of which he was not able to ascertain through an imperfect knowledge of the language. There was rather a good band, but one could not hear it much because all were talking and laughing and making themselves extremely agreeable to one another. He asked himself every time he went there—Was not that type of place of public resort, public refreshment, and public amusement entirely desirable? He had been there on Sundays and week-days, and he never felt that he had seen or heard anything that was not entirely desirable. Every time he went there—and he could find the same thing in other countries and cities—he said to himself: What was there in the nature of things why we could not have exactly this kind of place of public amusement and recreation—this kind of public-house with regard to which they would not feel the slightest desire for any legislation to restrict the opportunity of women or children or of anybody else going into it?

There are several public-houses in England where the presence of an enlightened thinker like Dr. Gore would be welcomed. One in particular occurs to us as we write—the Ship at Ospringe, near Faversham. The climate of the Swale marshes will not admit of a hall to contain over a thousand people, but here there is a room which on Saturday nights might contain any number up to a hundred and fifty. There is no band—the police would speedily interfere at the first trumpet blare; nor any children—thanks to a recent Act of Parliament. But his lordship would find a happy good-humoured company, young men and old, wives and sweethearts, some drinking beer, some lemonade, young girls eating their supper of bread and cheese or fish, all engaged in merry converse, or listening with uncritical good-nature to songs and recitations provided by such among their number as are inclined to oblige. If a pianist happens to turn up, so much the better; otherwise the vocalist does his best without accompaniment. All is homely and hearty. We have visited the Ship many times and never perceived any signs of objectionable conduct. If it lacks any of the advantages of its Barcelona rival, we must blame the law and the licensing authorities—certainly not the institution.

In Spain, as in Germany, the inn or the tavern is regarded as an essential element of civic life, not as a place to be discouraged and despised. A century or two ago all good and respectable Britons avoided the theatre, and the drama in England became a byword for immorality and licentiousness. A better spirit arose; churchmen and ladies of refinement interested themselves in the theatre; the ban was removed, and now we can take our sisters, cousins and aunts to see an English play without fear of incurring their reproaches. Perchance, also, a new era may await the public-house, and its value as an educative and steadying influence on the democracy will be understood.

Angel Inn, Woolhampton

We live in the midst of a period when great revolutionary changes are impending. Never before has the struggle for existence among the masses been so keenly felt, or the cruel differences of opportunity of rich and poor so widely ventilated. Class privilege and hereditary endowment seem alike destined for the melting-pot. What will emerge none can tell. We have shown how in previous ages, whenever there were great political or social changes, the tavern played its part. Within the doors of the public-house all men are brethren. There alone class can meet class and discuss their difficulties freely and even dispassionately. Society has too long left the lower orders to estimate the advantage of culture from its Tony Lumpkins. It is a great opportunity. The venerable house of call, bequeathed to us by the ages, beckons all to come within its kindly shelter, out of the storms of class hatred and political prejudice. Churlish and short-sighted indeed will those be who reject the invitation.

For, after all, the old antiquary whom we met with in the chapter on the Church Inns was right. The keynote of the public-house and its true purpose in life is Christian Charity. Charity which suffereth long and is kind, bearing all things, envying not, nor believing any evil; and without which we are nothing. The greatest thing in Earth or Heaven.