PROBLEMS OF MODERN INDUSTRY
Post 8vo; Fourth Thousand; New Edition, with New Introductory Chapter; xx and 286 pp. (1907).
Price 5s. net.
CONTENTS
Introduction to the New Edition.
Preface.
CHAP.
I. The Diary of an Investigator.
II. The Jews of East London.
III. Women's Wages.
IV. Women and the Factory Acts.
V. The Regulation of the Hours of Labour.
VI. How to do away with the Sweating System.
VII. The Reform of the Poor Law.
VIII. The Relationship between Co-operation and Trade Unionism.
IX. The National Dividend and its Distribution.
X. The Difficulties of Individualism.
XI. Socialism True and False.
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
WORKS BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
THE HISTORY OF
LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND
Small 8vo; Seventh Thousand; viii and 162 pp.
Price 2s. 6d. net.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. The First Century of Licensing.
II. A Period of Laxness.
III. Regulation and Suppression.
IV. Free Trade in Theory and Practice.
V. Legislative Repentance.
APPENDIX—The Movement for the Reformation of Manners.
"No book could be more opportune. The sale of alcoholic liquor has been under statutory regulation by means of licences for 300 years; but the period which Mr. and Mrs. Webb have taken as their special study deserves the very careful examination they give to it, for within those 130 years we find periods of regulation and suppression, of laxness and neglect in regard to the control of the liquor traffic, equally instructive. There is during this period one brief six years wherein the magistrates, awaking to their responsibilities and compelled to a consciousness of the evil results of excessive gin-drinking, made a general effort to improve the condition of things through the one means in their power. To this remarkable episode the authors devote a valuable chapter. Strangely enough, it has hitherto not been noticed by historians, nor has it been mentioned in the voluminous literature of the temperance movement. Yet the effort of the magistrates during those six years was very far-sighted. It included—
"The deliberate and systematic adoption of such modern devices as early closing, Sunday closing, the refusal of new licences, the withdrawal of licences from badly conducted houses, the peremptory closing of a proportion of houses in a district over-supplied with licences, and, in some remarkable instances, even the establishment of a system of local option and local veto, both as regards the opening of new public-houses and the closing of those already in existence, all without the slightest idea of compensation.
"All this in the closing years of the eighteenth century! But what a contrast to this spasm of local statesmanship the earlier years of that drink-sodden century display! Then, and not really till then, were sown the seeds of drunkenness in England. Contrasted with that reign of orgy the action of the magistrates in 1787 seems all the brighter, and the disappearance of the fact from public memory the more remarkable. Mr. and Mrs. Webb bring their detailed story to an end with the Drink Bill of 1830, which led to another outbreak of the drinking habit."—Guardian.
"A valuable contribution to the history of the liquor traffic."—Political Science Quarterly.
"This little book, with its abundance of newly discovered facts, is highly opportune."—Economic Review.
"The book is of great interest, contains evidence of laborious investigation, and provides an admirably clear history of a matter of immediate practical importance."—Speaker.
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
WORKS BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB