ROYAL SOCIETY, 1894. 



APRTL. 



The 1894 session of the Royal Society was inaugurated on Monday, 

 April 9. The President, His Excellency Lord Gormauston, presided. 

 His Excellency formally welcomed Dr. E. E. Mobeek (Sweden), Surgeon 

 V. G. Thorpe, P.R.M.S (H.M.S. Penguin), and Rev. T. Ri.bjohns 

 (Sydney), who were introduced by the Secretary (Mr. A, Morton). 



THE GOTHENBERG SYSTEM. 



The Bishop of TASMANIA read a paper on " The Gothenberg System," 

 communicated by Mr. Russell Macnaughten. The writer explained 

 that the Gothenberg system was co-operation applied to licensing. The 

 state or municipality, acting through a company, bound 'oy certain 

 conditions, set in the place of the publican (in licensed houses owned 

 and managed by the company) officials receiving a fixed yearly salary 

 with a bonus derived not from the alcohol, but from the food and non- 

 alcoholic beverages they might be able to sell. This principle was of 

 paramount importance. The inducement to push the tale of alcoholic 

 liquor was stopped, because the publican was no longer anything but a 

 salaried servant, and because the bonus he received was entirely 

 dependent on the focd and non-alcoholic beverages sold. In fact it 

 became his interest to push their sale as far as possible to the exclusion 

 of alcohol, the demand for which was no longer stimulated by any 

 artificial pressure on the part of the publican. The movement that 

 resulted in the establishment of the Gothenberg system bej,an in 1862. 

 The Dean of Gothenberg took a prominent part, and, mainly owing to 

 his exertions, a committee was appointed to investigate the reasons of 

 pauperism and misery at that time very prevalent amongst the poorer 

 classes of the town. The committee decided that it was " to brandy, 

 and brandy alone," most of the sufferings of the working classes were 

 due. A company was almost immediately formed to take over the 

 existing licences of the town on the following conditions :— (1) That the 

 amount of profit to be made by the shareholders should be limited to 6 per 

 cent.; (2) the payment ot managers by salary and commission on food 

 and nun-in'oxicants ; (3) satisfactory accommodation for the public as 

 regards the situation, size, space, food, etc., of all the houses belonging 

 to the company ; (4) all the profits above 6 per cent, to be handed over 

 to the municipality. The company reduced the 60 licences in existence 

 to 43, one for every 1,093 inhabitants. The writer gave his experience 

 in Gothenberg in 1888, where, in the week before Christmas, when the 

 peasantry from the surrounding country districts poured into the town, 

 and although it was market day, he did not see a single drunken man. 

 The company's monopoly applied to spirits only, brandy being the 

 favourite intoxicating beverage. The British Minister's repoit, drawn 

 up specially for the British Government, entered a verdict, after a 

 careful and unprejudiced observation, distinctly favourable to the 

 system as a whole, special attention being called to the fact that both 

 the consumption of spirits and the cases of delirium tremens treateel 

 in the hospitals showed a marked decrease. 



Br. Moeeek said he had always heard that Tasmania kept in the 

 front line of civilisation. He eould not understand why England had 

 not yet accepted the Gothenberg system, and eulogistically testified to 

 its beneficial e peration in the town in Sweden where he had lived for 

 35 years. 



Mr. James Barnard characterised the paper as very interesting, and 

 said that the Gothenberg system appeared to have solved the jroblem 

 of the existence of public-houses with the well-being of society. 



