Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/112

 interest either in the insobriety of their customers or the adulteration of the liquor sold. The poor man's drink would be as good as the rich man's, which is far from being the case at present; the political power of the publican would be annihilated; and last, not least, the necessity for police espionage would be almost at an end. There is no one cure for drunkenness: but this seems as feasible as any for a great community; and, if the ratepayers of Birmingham are willing to risk their money in giving so bold an application of the Gothenburg system a fair trial, there can be no reason in the world why they should be restrained. It may be that Birmingham is destined to initiate a public-house reform as contagious as has been the example which she has set to other places in respect, for example, of education and Liberal organization.

As chairman of the School Board of Birmingham, and as president of the National Education League, Mr. Chamberlain has achieved nearly as great things in the educational as in the municipal world. Under his chairmanship of the Birmingham board, a complete separation was effected between secular and religious instruction, while fourteen thousand five hundred children were added to the board schools, and nine thousand seven hundred to the denominational. The league, of course, was not able to embody its ideal of a free, universal, compulsory, and secular system of education; but all the same it did a world of good in curbing the vagaries of Mr. Forster, and the insolent pretensions of churchmen.

In 1876 the league was dissolved; but its spirit yet liveth, and may perchance before long take unto itself a new body. Should this not be so, its programme is