The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-21
PRICE FIVE CENTS.

Wellington, cross over to Australia
From there | proceed to Ceylon, and
intend TO so all through India, where
We have many lodges, both amongst
the soldiers and also the natives. L
shall also visit lodges at Alden. in
Arabia, so on to Jerusalem to estab-
lish the order, come through Egypt,
where we have had lodges for TWEEN
ty years, and afterwards visit Malta
and Gibraltar on my return trip to
England"
On the afternoon following his ar
rival Mr.. Malins addressed a large
meeting of clergymer and temperance
workers on the subject of the Gothen-
burg system of selling liquor, in which
the weak points of the system were ex-
posed. Following is his address, which
cannot fail to be read with interest by
everyone interested in temperance
work:
Mr.. Malins commenced by stating
that the root principle of the Gothen-
burg system was the municipal man
agement of the liquor traffic, a system
under which the Town Council either
carried on the traffic or appointed
some company or committee to carry
it on, and devoted the profits to muni-
cipal or other purposes. 1t had
originated in the city of GOthenburg.
Sweden, in 1865, as a substitute for the
former more Objectionable method OF
putting the licenses up to public
auction, whereby competitors bid to
their utmost in order to secure the
monopoly and then had resort to all
manner of irregular methods to sell
sufficient liquor to reimburse them for
their high bids and to yield profit.
veto ho1 tod tn
gross abuses, and it was in conse-
quence of those gross abuses that the
municipality of Gothenburg suppressed
the system of individual ownership OF
licenses and took control of the
traffic.
The advantages claimed for the
system as administered in GOthenburg
were that a company authorized by
the corporation reduced the hours of
sale and the number of houses, popu-
larized malt liquors instead of ardent
spirits, and occasiOned in the long
run a large reduction in the con-
sumption of ardent spirits and in the
drunkenness which had formerly pre-
vailed.
Those opposed to the Gothenburg
system did SO on the ground that
the reforms achieved by the system
had been or could be accomplished
more uniformly by Imperial enact
ments; that the reduction of the num-
ber of houses did not necessarily prove
an advantage if the suppression of
small houses in the back streets was
followed by the opening of a fewer
number of houses of larger kind in
the more frequented thoroughfares, as
was the case in Gothenburg. They
contended that the creation of
municipal interest in the revenue from
the liquor traffic was subversive to
good government; that it did not sup
press private interest in the traffic,
seeing that directors, managers, and
employees Of the municipal public
houses all had a personal interest in
their continuance; and that Sweden
showed an extreme laxity in the ad-
ministration of the laws of the liquor
trade under the municipalities and
those financially interested in them.
Mr.. Malins said he laid before the
Royal Commission on Intemperance,
which sat last year, abundant evil
dence from Sweden OF laxity in this
respect. 1t was, for instance, demon
strated in published documents that
many thousands of persons in Gothen-
burg convicted of drunkenness had
been questioned at the courts by the
authorities as to where they had OBJ
tanned the liquor, and in more than
10000 cases they declared that they
had been last supplied at the NUM-
cipal public houses. But nevertheless
no police proceedings for permitting
drunkenness had been taken against
any of those houses for ten years. This
fact had been communicated to the
speaker in writing by the Chief of Po-
lice at Gothenburg.
Those municipal committees also
had themselves found it impracticable
to conduct the traffic in connection
with concert halls hotels, and the like,
and had therefore simply "farmed OUT
licenses for these houses, and then had
of their municipal houses
others owned by private individuals.
There had been a large reduction
per head in the consumption of ar
dent spirits during the period Of the
GOthenburg system, but it had been
accompanied by ten-fold increase in
the consumption of malt liquor Dur
showed reduction of so per cent in
the convictions for drunkenness, and
it was that great fact that gave the
Gothenburg system notoriety in ev-
cry country. He (the speaker) had,
however, proved to the Royal Com
by communications received
last year from the Chief of Police and
the British Consul at Gothenburg, and
by presenting copies of the Acts, that
up to 1865 every policeman securing