The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-21
Mr.. JOS. MAL|NS
Continued from Page IL

| CONTINUED from Page IL
conviction for drunkenness received
| two-thirds of the fine. In 1865 that
| reward was abolished, and there was
| an almost immediate drop of 80 per
cent, increasing afterwards 10 30 per
cent, in the number of convictions
And that huge factor in reducing the
convictions had been Systematically
concealed in all documents on the
Gothenburg system emanating from
the Swedish authorities, and was ac-
tually falsitied in the table presented
to the House of Lords Committee in
1877, by giving as the date of the
change of the police law 1860, whereas
the change took place in 1865, the very
year in which the Gothenburg system
originated. And the whole of the
credit had been given TO the GOthen-
burg system, whereas it was reason
able TO assume that that miraculous
decrease in the number of convictions
for drunkenness was owing to the nat
ural SlackneSS of the police, following
upon their excessive activity before
the change in the law. He (Mr Ma
lins) produced documents from the
General Director of Police. and from
the whole of Sweden, declaring that
until that law was abolished the police
needlessly seized citizens whom they
ought have left alone, and who so in
dignantly resisted .. arrest that the
streets resembled battlefields,
He had exposed these incidents and
that fraudulent table before the Royal
Commission, and the leading Gothen-
burg newspaper had publicly admitted
that the fact of that change in the
police law ought to have been dis
closed and made known at the time of
the House of Lords report in 1877. He
maintained that the reduction in the
consumption of spirits even though
unaccompanied by an increase in the
consumption of beer, should not nee
essarily be credited to the GOthenburg
system, but rather to a change in the
national taste. In a shorter period in
America a similar decrease of so per
cent in the consumption of ardent spir-
it's had taken place, and during the
last half century there had been re-
duction of 70 per cent in spirits con-
sumed in America, while the cOnsump-
ton of beer in many parts had grown
enormously. He also showed that
gross corruption had grown up in
Gothenburg and in other cities in re-
Spect to the administration of the
traffic in municipalities. Corrupt ar
rangements between individuals and
the authorities as to the rent of pub
lie houses; excessive rents, and the
paying of more than the market price
for spirits; protesting to carry the traf-
fic on free from the incentive to pri-
vate profit, and yet paying their di-
rectOrs in many towns a percentage
on every gallon of spirits sold; munic-
qualities giving the control of the traf-
fic to companies that were sham COM
panieS, consisting of an individual and
servant; other committees sending
agents outside their city to canvass
in prOhibitOry areas for orders for
spirits-there were some of the cor
ruptions which were found connected
with the traffic under municipal con-
troll.
He therefore maintained that the
taking of the traffic under municipal
control did not secure a pure admins
tratiOn of the traffic, and that even
among the Swedes, who were proverb-
tally honest in character, it had en-
gendered an amount of municipal cor
ruption unequalled by any other mu-
in the world. All these things
had been exposed in the Swedish Par
lament within recent years, and all
manner of regulations had had to be
adopted with view to check those
evils.
While the cities in Sweden had been
given this power concluded the speak
err the municipal management of rur-
al districts were given instead the
power of local veto. With what re-
suit? OF the five millions of people
in Sweden, four millions are outside
the bOroughs. and are comprised in
2,400 parishes: and in all but 200 of
these they had vetoed the traffic.
There were therefore fewer convictions
for drunkenness among the four mil
lions of people outside the borOughs
than there were in the single city of
Gothenburg, with a population OF
10000, a city where the drunkenness
was at this day five times as great per
1000 as it was in Liverpool, in Eng
land; Aberdeen, in Scotland; or Car
diff in Wales. Rural Sweden under
local option was at the present time
the most sober nation in the world;
municipal Sweden under the Gothen-
burg system was more drunken than
English or American cities under the
license system.