It is the experience of most commercial travellers that the temperance hotel, quite apart from the fact that it supplies no alcoholic liquors, is only very rarely comparable to the fully-licensed house. Tradition may have something to do with the comfort of the old inn, and temperance hotels have no traditions whatever. Their inception was due to a protest, and even to-day, with the temperance movement so well understood and appreciated, the “hotels” which advertise themselves as being dogmatically averse to a particular form of refreshment, more often than not seem unable adequately to provide comforts about which there can be no question whatever. We have known many temperance hotels which began with a flourish of trumpets and a long list of influential patrons; a few years later they had become slovenly, disreputable, and even in one or two cases, immoral. An inn may have peculiarities, it may have character through history and old associations, but one thing it should certainly never possess, and that is a narrow shibboleth. CHAPTER XVI THE NEW INN AND ITS POSSIBILITIES Whatever developments may be in store in the future will depend almost entirely as to how far the licensing authorities and the various bodies formed for the purpose of furthering the cause of temperance, to say nothing of trade protection societies, can sink their differences and come to some sort of understanding as to the best type of inn for public convenience. Some temperance reformers have dreamt of a land without public-houses, and even to-day it is not at all uncommon to hear a lecturer in his enthusiasm for the cause of total abstinence express the wish that every drop of intoxicating liquor in the country could be run into the sewers to-morrow, and every public-house at the same time have its shutters put up. Of course such a dream is impossible of fulfilment, and by far the bulk of English people are heartily glad it is so. On the other hand, there is a small body of opinion which thinks that public-house licences should be dispensed with altogether, that anybody should be permitted to sell intoxicating spirits if he thinks fit, and that the removal of restriction would tend towards temperance. This also is a condition of things which is not in the range of practical politics.