Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1919. “TREATING” IN BRITAIN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2011, 5 August 1919, Page 2

Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1919. “TREATING” IN BRITAIN.

THE regulation prohibiting ‘Treating’' in Britain has been revoked. When it first came into force in November,. 11)15, it served a useful purpose. Drink at that time was cheap, people were too ready to pay for alcoholic refreshment for soldiers, and munition workers and others were tempted to take more than was good for health and efficiency. i ,l or several months no serious protests were made against the measure, but, says the London Times, it soon became apparent that the interference with the liberty of one person to pay for a drink consumed by another was unpopular. Men particularly resented the fact that they were not allowed to pay for the refreshment even of their own wives, and in some quarters it was pointed out that the cause of temperance was not well served by a system which accustomed women to ordering and paying for their own liquor. Observance of the order gradually became relaxed, and although many prosecutions for breaches of the regulation were taken before the magistrates and heavy fines were imposed on license-holders, bar servants, and offending customers, the public could not be induced to obey the prohibition. , Until the armistice was signed the police per-

sisted in their efforts to stamp out “treating,” but during the last six months the restriction has practically been a dead letter, as publicans frankly gave up trying to give effect to it. Drink is now so dear that any extensive return to the practice of “group treating" is unlikely at present. It has been noticed that evasions of the order have been chiefly confined to people drinking in couples, and it may be that the bad old custom of half-a-dozen men at a table taking turn to buy liquor for the company until the order has gone round will not be revived.