The Gothenberg system

The writer explained that the Gothenberg system was co-operation applied to licensing. The state or municipality, acting through a company, bound by 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 nonalcoholic beverages they might be able to sell. This principle was of paramount importance. The inducement to push the sale 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 food 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.