British Gothenburg Experiments

The Bishop of London.—" I have read your book with the greatest interest, and consider it the most valuable contribution towards the solution of the temperance problem which has yet appeared."

The late Bishop of Durham.—" I heartily agree with your main proposals, and congratulate you on the effect which your book has already produced. Though I shall gladly welcome every reform which tends to lessen the evils of the drink traffic, I am satisfied that they cannot be dealt with successfully till private profit is eliminated from the retail trade. At the same time, ' constructive,' no less than ' restrictive,' measures are essential for the complete solution of the social problems involved in the question."

The Bishop of Rochester.—" I do not think that anything could do a greater service to the cause of reasonable and statesmanlike temperance reform than the widest circulation of your book, and I am extremely glad to hear that it is to appear in a more popular form.

" The value of its statistics and information is quite independent of the particular proposals which you advocate; but I have myself long felt that change in the direction of those proposals is our best hope—viz. that the trade should cease to be a matter of private profit, and should be controlled in the public interest."

The Bishop of Wakefield.—" No book I have ever read has given me so hopeful a feeling for the future of temperance legislation. It treats the whole question upon a scientific basis of facts, and offers a solution on which temperance reformers ought to be able to unite, at least in its main features. All earnest temperance workers owe you an immense debt."

The Bishop of Liverpool.—"I gladly express my general approval of the main proposals in your weighty and convincing book, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform. I believe them to be just, reasonable, and eminently practical."

The Bishop of St. Andrews.—" I heartily hope that the fundamental proposals of the book may soon be carried into effect."

The Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P.—" The book appears to me a most useful work of reference on the whole temperance question, and I am in full sympathy with the writers in desiring that experiments should be made on the lines of the system which in Sweden and Norway has, in my judgment, produced excellent results."

Rt. Hon. Sir Henry H. Fowler, M.P.—" I regard their treatise as a most important contribution to the solution of the very difficult problem of temperance reform. . . . Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell have compiled facts and statistics which must be considered by all true temperance reformers."

Rt. Hon. James Bryce, M.P.—"Desiring to see the temperance problem seriously and promptly grappled with, I am glad to hear that Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell's book is being re-issued in a cheaper form. It ought to stimulate reflection ; and I hope that its views and arguments will receive a fair, candid, and careful consideration."

The Right Hon. A. H. D. Acland.—"I am very glad you are going to publish a cheap edition. The mass of facts and figures which you have collected concerning the working of different systems of control of the liquor traffic are of the greatest interest and importance. It is interesting, too, to see what importance you attach to the problem of housing the poor, and to the need of further facilities for recreation. It would be a great advantage if it were made possible to try experiments on the lines you suggest."

T. W. Russell, M.P.—" I agree with Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell that the problem cannot be effectually solved until the elimination of private profit is secured."

Rev. Charles Garrett.—" This book will be of immense value to the temperance cause, for it is a wonderful storehouse of temperance information. Its plan for grappling with and destroying our national curse appears to me to be admirable. I have long felt the unwisdom of attempting to accomplish the impossible. If it were possible I would, at all costs, sweep the drink traffic away for ever, but I have hitherto seen no way in which this could be accomplished in my time. This book, however, opens before me ' a door of hope.' There are two ways of taking a fortress —one is by assault, the other by sapping and mining. This book suggests both ways of dealing with the traffic : first by bringing local veto into operation wherever it can be successfully applied, and, having thus taken the outworks, it shows how the citadel itself can be undermined and taken. Every step seems to me to be in the right direction, and I heartily trust that no prejudice will be allowed to block the way."

Archdeacon Wilberforee.—" Without endorsing all the conclusions arrived at, I consider Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell's book a most valuable contribution towards the solution of the greatest social problem of our day, and I trust that it will be widely read and studied."

Lady Henry Somerset.—" We are on the eve now of a struggle which will probably be the decisive one, but which will be fierce and prolonged. At this point, therefore, it seems to me of supreme importance that the temperance forces should unite. Too long they have been severed and weakened by differences which I believe must be overcome before their attack can be efficient; and it is for this reason that I, in accordance with many others, hail the appearance of a remarkable book, which is the most valuable addition to the literature of the temperance cause that, to my mind, has yet been given— I mean the book called The Temperance Problem and Social Reform, by Mr. Joseph Eowntree and Mr. Arthur Sherwell."

Rev. C. F. Aked.—" This fine book aims, as you know, at the creation of a platform broad enough to include all friends of temperance and all who are working for social reform. ... I have argued for years against every form of municipalisation. I have denounced it in a hundred towns. But Messrs. Eowntree and Sherwell's scheme has met all the objections which I have ever urged, and for the first time we are presented with a plan which the sworn prohibitionist can adopt without compromise of deep conviction, and without fear of ultimate danger and loss."

Canon Hicks (of Manchester).—" Yours is the weightiest book I have ever read on the temperance question. Your statement of the case for permissive prohibition is all the more convincing because you are not so enamoured of it, as some of us are, as the chief remedy for the terrible drink evil. Especially do I thank you for pointing out so clearly the obvious dangers that beset the cruder proposals for municipalising the drink traffic. The positive proposals of your volume deserve the most careful attention, and may form a basis of union for all advanced temperance reformers."

Lady Elizabeth Biddulph.—" It interests me greatly to hear that your valuable book, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform, is to be popularised throiigh a cheap edition. The fundamental proposals it contains are to my mind undeniable. I trust this generous endeavour on your part will have a very great success."

Rev. James Paton, D.D. (Convener of Church of Scotland Committee on Temperance).—" In my judgment, after five-and-thirty years of careful study of all temperance literature, this book is the only one worthy of being called a ' Classic.' Its unanswerable reasoning, and its noble moral inspiration, have breathed a new and victorious impulse into all men who believe that temperance reform is the true pathway to further social progress; and that there are lines, such as those indicated by Messrs. Eowntree and Sherwell, on which such reform can be carried: (1) without delay; (2) in accordance with the recorded convictions of the community; and (3) with vast benefit to the nation as a whole."

Principal Rainy, D.D.—"No man should advocate opinions on the way in which the drink traffic should be dealt with unless he has read carefully Messrs. Eowntree and Sherwell's book. Both for facts and for discussion at the present stage it is indispensable."

Principal J. Marshall Lang, D.D.—" No book on the temperance problem has so deeply interested me as that which is associated with the names of Messrs. Eowntree and Sherwell. Its presentation of the facts connected with the sale and consumption of alcoholic liquor is unrivalled for completeness and lucidity. Its examination of the measures which have been adopted, or the plans which have been suggested with a view to remedying the evils, directly or indirectly attributable to indulgence in intoxicating drink, is thorough; and its proposals commend themselves as worthy of the most serious consideration,"

Principal Salmond, D.D.—"It is the most impressive book that I have read on the drink question, and the most enlightening. ... It is likely to make an epoch in the history of temperance endeavour. . . . Other methods surely should be attempted where Local Veto will not work, and the plan of public control, stripped as it is in the scheme of this book of the perilous element of immediate civic gain, seems to me one that all reasonable men should be glad to see tried. . . . The constructive side of Messrs. Eowntree and Sherwell's scheme also deserves serious and sympathetic consideration. If human nature is to be taken into account, there must be such a side in any ameliorative programme, and the authors of this book have done a most important service in giving it so essential a place in their proposals."

Rev. A. M. Fairbairn, D.D. (Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford).—" I am glad to hear that you think of publishing a cheap edition of your book on The Temperance Problem and Social Reform. It is a book full of knowledge and instruction to all interested in social problems, and its proposals deserve the most careful consideration, not only of all temperance reformers, but of all public men and statesmen."

Charles Booth, F.R.S. (author of Life and Labour of the People in London, etc.).—" I am very much interested to hear of the projected cheap popular edition of your and Mr. Sherwell's great book, and hope it may have a marked effect in ripening public opinion for action in the direction towards which your conclusions point."

Sidney Webb, LL.B. (Chairman of Local Government and Taxation Committee, and Vice-Chairman of Technical Education Board of the London County Council).—" I feel that these proposals contain a more promising scheme of reform than any that I have seen. The evils of the present situation are so great and far-reaching that probably more than one remedy must be used against them. Nor would I shrink from, or shut out, other and more drastic expedients. But I am, as at present advised, greatly attracted by the idea of replacing the present retail trader in drink by a genuine " public-house," run by the public for the public. I regard this work as a striking demonstration of the value, in social problems, of independent investigation and hard thinking."

J. A. Hobson, M.A. (author of Problems of Poverty, etc.).—" The longer I study social-economic problems in their practical bearing on the life of the people the more deeply I am impressed, not merely with the enormous gravity of the drink question, but with the necessity of treating it in organic relation to the other economic and moral issues. ... I regard your work as by far the most scientific in its method, and most practical in the hopes of reform which it presents, among the books which I have read, and I earnestly hope it may have the widest possible circulation among all sorts and conditions of men." Rev. Alexander Whyte, D.D.—" I hail the prospects of a popular edition of your masterly book. Your book has made an immense impression on the minds of men in its costly form, and I feel sure its appearance in a cheap edition will begin a new era of thought and progress in connection with the drink traffic."

W. C. Braithwaite, B.A., LL.B. (Chairman of National Council of Adult Schools).—" Messrs. Eowntree and Sherwell's book is a careful and masterly examination of the problem of temperance reform. They show conclusively that Local Option and Prohibition are not likely to be effective at present in thickly populated areas, and that accordingly some further method should also be available in these cases.

" Their scheme for municipal control with payment of profits into a central fund to be used for counteracting the public-house deserves the close and unprejudiced consideration of every temperance reformer, and, I believe, shows the line of right action. It does not run counter in any way to the proposals in Lord Peel's report."

Rev. John Smith, D.D.—" I rejoice that Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell's volume is to be put into the hands of the people. It is a perfect thesaurus of temperance teaching; and the whole discussion is carried through with such' amplitude of knowledge, freshness of view, transparent honesty, and conspicuous ability that men of all schools cannot fail to profit from it."

Rev. J. B. Paton, D.D. (Hon. Secretary of the National Home Reading Union, and of the Social Institutes Union). —" The publication of the book has been epoch-making in the history of temperance and social reform, and its influence is bound to grow. I have read no book on the social needs of our time with a more perfect and thankful approval, and I entirely accept the two fundamental principles which you so eloquently expound and vindicate. . . . Like every temperance worker, however, I specially welcome and support your second proposal—namely, that the profits arising from these public-houses, administered so that they shall do the least possible evil to those who frequent them, shall be devoted to the establishment of places for social fellowship and bright and healthy recreation, because I believe that the establishment of such places is one of the greatest social needs of our time."

Dr. Spence Watson.—" The writers have brought together an unparalleled collection of facts, the result of long and patient research and wide and careful observation. They have founded upon these facts the most practical and probable scheme for dealing with the question, a scheme which is gaining adherents every day, which fairly holds the field and is destined to fill it."

R. B. Haldane, K.C., M.P.—" I am glad to hear that Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell are about to publish a cheap edition of their book on the temperance problem. This book has exercised already a very great influence on the public mind, and has made many people reformers who, until they read it, had not appreciated the magnitude of the problem. The circulation of the work in a popular form will probably extend largely the number of those who now look upon its proposals as a practicable remedy for a great • evil. Speaking for myself, I attach most value to the large portion of the book which describes the mischief. In the proposals for a remedy there is much that is valuable and also somewhat that is controversial."

Sir John Leng, M.P.—" Too long have we been beating the air, holding temperance meetings and demonstrations, passing futile resolutions, and making no legislative headway, while the drink traffic, under the application of the Limited Liability Acts, has become of vaster proportions, more deeply entrenched, and more deadly in its moral and social results. Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell point to more practical methods and more hopeful achievements. Their proposals merit consideration and discussion with a view both to legislative measures and municipal and individual action."

John Burns, M.P.—" Undoubtedly the best book yet written on the temperance question. Fair, accurate, suggestive, and full of useful information, it is a worthy contribution to the discussion of a very serious problem. It ought to do much useful work."

J. W. Crombie, M.P.—" I wish every success to the cheap edition of your already successful book. It offers a serious and practicable contribution to the solution of the most urgent social and political problem of our day."

Captain Pirie, M.P.—" You will be rendering one among the greatest of national services if by a popular publication of your work you can quicken public conscience as regards the evils of intemperance into insistence on definite action in order to lessen them. .. . More can be done by reaching the masses with a work such as yours than by any other method, and you have my sincere thanks and good wishes."

J. Keir Hardie, M.P.—" It is no figure of speech to say that this volume marks the beginning of a new epoch of the temperance movement. I cordially thank the authors for having brought temperance reform within the sphere of the practicable."

Professor Marcus Dods, D.D.—" I am very glad to hear that Messrs. Eowntree and Sherwell mean to publish a cheap edition of their book. It needs no recommendation from anyone, and least of all from me, but I certainly think that their proposals are more worthy of consideration than any others before the public."

Professor W. M. Ramsay, D.C.L., LL.D.—" I am in agreement with the spirit of your two fundamental proposals. The municipal control and regulation of traffic in drink, and the affording of better opportunities for spending leisure time to those who at present have difficulty in finding such opportunities elsewhere than in the public-house, seem to me the best auxiliaries to that raising of the moral tone by education which will in time so far diminish drunkenness as to place the remnants of it under the control of wise legislation. At present legislation could not (so far as I can pretend to judge) be profitably called in to exercise such control directly."

Professor George Adam Smith, D.D., LL.D.—" The book cannot be too highly praised. The treasury of facts which they have collected and so admirably arranged, the sanity and judgment of their conclusions, the wide view they take of all the social questions with which that of temperance is so closely connected, the high ideals of national welfare and civic duty which inspire their effort from first to last, render this the book of our time on the temperance question."

Professor Kennedy, D.D. (Edinburgh University).—"I gladly welcome your proposal to issue a cheaper edition of your epoch-making book, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform. It has made itself indispensable to every worker in the cause of temperance. I am certain you will have no warmer supporters in any scheme of reform on the lines laid down in that work than the many friends of temperance in the Church of Scotland."

Professor James Denney, D.D.—" No book has ever been published on legislative temperance reform so rich as this, both in facts and ideas. Even those who begin to read it with a prejudice, and end not quite convinced, will readily admit that it has enlarged and cleared their minds, and no one will say that it has cooled his ardour in the cause of temperance. It is a book to be studied by everyone who wishes to know what the law can and cannot do in this distressing subject."

Professor Dove Wilson (Aberdeen University).—" It is most satisfactory to hear that Messrs. Rowntree and SherwelPs work on temperance reform is about to appear at a price which will place it within the reach of everyone. There has been no more valuable contribution towards the practical solution of the difficulty. . . . Tin crying evils of selling liquor to the young, to the partially intoxicated, and to inebriates, will never be effectually checked till the liquor-seller ceases to have any interest in promoting the sale."

Thos. Hodgkin, D.C.L.—" I am heartily in sympathy with the scheme of temperance reform sketched in your book on The Temperance Problem and Social Reform,, and shall rejoice if the circulation of that book in a popular form shall bring us in any way nearer to the adoption of your programme."

George J. Holyoake.—"The most practical, the most readable, and most informing book on the temperance question I have seen."

Dean Farrar.—" I have read Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell's Temperance Problem with great interest. It is a careful and valuable work."

Rev. Nehemiah Curnock (editor of The Methodist Recorder).—" The proposals contained in this work— which I have read with the greatest interest—ought to be tried. The experiment should have a fair field and neither favour nor disfavour. Its assigned area should be sufficiently large, with populations varying in density and character. Its period should be sufficiently prolonged, so as to afford opportunity for all conceivable reactions.

" The present system is hopeless. Bad in itself, it is cumulatively mischievous. Even imperial total prohibition, with all its dangers, would probably be less injurious. The plan proposed by Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell is the nearest approach to a true and safe solution of the problem that has yet appeared."

Canon Barker.—" The book contains such an exhaustive statement of the whole problem, and such voluminous and valuable facts from which every man can draw his own conclusions, that nothing but good can come from as wide a circulation of the book as possible."

Rev. F. B. Meyer.—" The publication of this book, as I venture to think, will date an epoch in the history of the temperance movement. I have read and pondered it with profound interest, and am convinced that the conclusions to which the authors have come afford a working basis for the ultimate solution of the vexed problem of the liquor traffic. . . . The complete and satisfactory reform of the liquor traffic is impossible so long as it is organised and conducted from motives of private gain. . . . May I live to see this system adopted! "

Canon Barnett (Warden of Toynbee Hall).—" Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell show the overwhelming danger which threatens our commonwealth in sober language, and suggest a remedy acceptable to sober people."

Rev, R. J. Campbell (Brighton).—"I have for years advocated the reforms you mention, and would be most sincerely glad to see them adopted."

Archdeacon Wilson. —" I heartily support your proposals, and have long advocated them. All United Kingdom Alliance men should support them, for if these permissive powers were given to localities, some would adopt prohibition, and in all who used these powers prohibition would be indefinitely facilitated. All Church of England Temperance Society men should support them; for they will effectively carry out what we have at heart—the diminution in number and the better regulation of public-houses."

Rev. R. A. Armstrong (Liverpool).—"The scheme of Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell, as drawn by them, would, it seems to me, be valuable and effective, if it can be carried as a whole with all its safeguards and without injurious amendments. All England owes a deep debt of gratitude to the propounders for their toil and devotion."

Canon Moore Ede.—" In the campaign against the liquor traffic we have for long years tried the policy of frontal attacks, only to find that at the end of the century the enemy is more strongly entrenched in his position than he was at the beginning. As wise men, we should alter our tactics, and try to find some way round; and I believe that the true way to outflank the position of the trade is that indicated in your work on The Temperance Problem and Social Reform.

" It stands to reason that if the liquor-sellers have no interest in pushing the sale of liquor many of the worst evils of our English system will disappear, for its worst features consist of devices to induce people to drink.

" We cannot eradicate the social instincts of men, and it is the social instinct which drives so many to the public-house, which, as things now are, is the only available social gathering-place for, at any rate, the poorest; and those who go to the public-house must drink, and must continue to drink as long as they remain. If, however, the surplus profits from the trade are utilised for the provision of various kinds of recreation, provision will be made for the gratification of the social instincts without imposing any necessity for cultivating the drinking habit."

Rev. Mark Guy Pearse.—" I feel most deeply that the suggested solution has laid down the lines on which our deliverance from this vast evil must come."

Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D.—" To my mind, the most attractive chapter in the book is the large-minded and intelligent survey of the causes which lead our people in the crowded streets to drink; and it seems to me that no remedy can be pronounced of any great value which does not recognise that a large proportion of men go to the public-houses not so much to drink but simply to find a place of social communion, to find what one might call a drawing-room, from the crowded tenements in which they live."

Canon Armitage Robinson, D.D.—" If we are to make further progress with the problem of the liquor traffic, we must stimulate the interest and claim the aid of the great body of serious persons who at present hold aloof from the question in perplexity or despair. It is to such minds that the main propositions of Messrs. Rowntreo and Sherwell will, I believe, commend themselves as offering a new hope of practicable reform. All who are interested in the religious and social life of England should study their book."

Rev. Alex. Mackennal, D.D.—" Three things strike me in the volume in addition to the valuable and carefully given information, and the pleading for united action.

" One is the precision with which you have indicated the first evil we have to conquer, and which, left untouched, will perpetuate all we deplore—the private gain in liquor-selling. Drunkenness itself is not so obdurate an evil as this. ... I admire also the constructive part of your book. I have long believed that mere demonstration will do very little for permanent deliverance of the people from this snare; and I rejoice in the fact that you have devoted so much space to this part of your book."

Canon Scott Holland.—" This book lays down admirably the position which every sane man is bound to accept. . . . The book's conclusion is most clear, intelligible, and practical. . . . The whole scheme is perfectly practicable to-morrow. It rests on unanswerable reasons for the intervention of the State. It meets the broad human needs and it assimilates the clearest teachings of experience. It combines those who are passionately bent on restricting the evil and those who deem this futile so long as social conditions are untouched."

Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D.—" The reading of this admirable book has kindled in me a new hope for the future of temperance reform. Nowhere else have I seen the terrible facts so skilfully marshalled, or the remedies so carefully examined. The suggestions which it throws out for united action seem to me to be such as to commend themselves to all who realise the necessity of the friends of temperance acting together and acting at once."

Canon Gore, D.D.—" I am exceedingly glad to learn that you are going to circulate a very cheap edition of your Temperance Problem and Social Reform. I think the book has really marked an epoch, because (1) it has approached the problem as part of the whole social problem, and because (2) you have provided such a broad basis on which people of all sorts can co-operate. I am most anxious that your fundamental proposal should be carried into effect, and that nothing should be done in the way of temperance reform which should block the road towards the realising of your proposals."

Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, M.A.—" These thoroughly competent experts, after prolonged personal investigation at home and abroad, have made the best statement of the problem that has yet been printed. . . . We greet its appearance with gratitude: it is by far the most valuable and useful book on the whole temperance problem that has been published. . . . We are convinced that the method suggested by Mr. Eowntree and Mr. Sherwell is the only practical method of dealing with this gigantic evil in the towns and cities of Great Britain."

Rev. John Clifford, D.D.—" The appearance of this book is surely one of the best signs of the times. Every patriotic citizen should read it, and read it at once, and seek to promote legislation along the lines it suggests."