Eugen Peter Schwiedland: Review of W. Bode’s Wirtshausreform in England, Norwegen und Schweden (1899)

Schwiedland’s review of Bode’s 1898 study presents temperance reform chiefly as a question of commercial organization and regulatory incentives. Bode’s travel-based account covers England, Norway, and Sweden, but Schwiedland concentrates on English alcohol-free catering enterprises. Their scale, profitability, and social differentiation supply the review’s strongest evidence for reform in Germany.

The English examples show alcohol-free refreshment businesses emerging from bakeries, butcher shops, dairy enterprises, and tea and coffee trading. They serve different social strata, from affluent customers to workers, and range from individual establishments to extensive restaurant chains. Schwiedland’s figures for branches, capital, profits, meals, and supplies emphasize that temperance catering has become a substantial business sector. Its appeal rests on ordinary consumption and commercial infrastructure, not solely on moral persuasion.

Interessant ist für uns dabei, daß in England — ebenso wie die englischen Arbeiterwohnhäuser und -Hotels — so auch die alkoholfreien Wirtschaften als (recht einträgliche) Geschäfte betrieben werden.

English translation: What is of interest to us in this connection is that in England — just as the English workers' dwelling houses and hotels are — so too the alcohol-free public houses are run as (quite profitable) businesses.

This is the review’s central interpretive move: socially desirable provision can operate profitably. Tea and cake offer substantial margins, while inexpensive meals attract large numbers of customers. Schwiedland also notes that waitresses are treated well, can often supervise customers while seated, and generally need not depend on tips. Yet his description does not idealize the sector uniformly: alcohol-free establishments also include dirty and questionable coffee rooms in London’s poorer districts.

The review then turns briefly and critically to Bode’s broader comparative coverage. Schwiedland calls the longer treatment of English public-benefit establishments serving alcohol and Norwegian temperance reforms less interesting. He faults the omission of communal food-provision establishments in Christiania and Skien and notes that Sweden receives only nine pages. His selective emphasis makes the review especially revealing as an assessment of which foreign institutions might offer practical models for Germany.

Bode’s German proposals comprise alcohol-free establishments, adoption of the Gothenburg system, and reform of existing taverns through the acquisition of concessions by public-benefit associations. Large eastern German landowners and major construction projects appear as settings in which institutional changes could most readily be introduced. The review’s closing emphasis, however, falls on removing obstacles to alcohol-free provision:

Hauptsächlich aber wären Milchwirtschaften u. dgl. von der Konzession zu entbinden und ihre Betriebssteuern der Billigkeit gemäß niedrig zu halten.

English translation: Above all, however, milk houses and the like ought to be released from the licensing requirement and their business taxes kept low as equity demands.

Licensing exemptions and modest taxation would encourage alternatives before restrictions were imposed on alcohol outlets. The final sentence makes that sequence explicit:

Dann könnte man mit Erfolg — nach englischem Vorbild — an die Beschränkung der Zahl der Schankonzessionen für Alkohol verkaufende Wirtschaften schreiten.

English translation: Then one could proceed with success — after the English example — to restrict the number of licenses to sell drink granted to public houses selling alcohol.

Schwiedland thus foregrounds a practical connection between welfare, enterprise, and regulation: temperance reform becomes more plausible when accessible, commercially viable substitutes are established alongside measures limiting alcohol sales.