BEER DRINKERS' STRIKE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10136, 5 November 1910, Page 7

BEER DRINKERS' STRIKE.

The strike bacillus is uncommonly busy just ;it prc7>;r \ It lias even successfully attach;: the beer-dn"ulc-ers of Burnley, v?. Lancashire. Two brewery firms controlling a large number of public-houses in that district recently decided to recoup themselves for the losses inflicted upon them by M'- Lloyd George's financial methods by raising the prices of beer and spirits to the retailer. In turn the latter decided to make the public pay, and promptly raised the price of beer kl a pint and of spirits id a nip. To their amaze- . ment and annoyance their regular customers not only protested vehemently against the new scale of charges, but took prompt measures to bring the retailers to a proper sense .of their misdoings by striking. Not only did they refuse to patronise the erring publicans themselves; they actually established pickets outside the houses, and endeavoured—with considerable success it appears —to persuade all who proposed to drink on the picket premises to restrain their thirst and reserve their money to spend in houses where the prices remained unchanged. These drastic measures soon had the desired effect on the unfortunate retailers, who found their daily takings diminishing to an alarming extent. One by one tliey gave way and reverted to their old sealc of charges. Jn the end, no doubt, they will contrive to make the consumer pay, but it will have to be in a somewhat less extensible fashion than a halfpenny tacked on to the price of a pint of beer—by some means that, the eye not seeing, the heart will not grieve about.