GOTHENBURG (gotln-boorg) SYS TEM, a system of regulating the sale of spirituous liquors which had its origin in 1865, in Gothenburg, Sweden. A company is granted a monopoly of the retail and bar sale of those liquors in the town (brandy is the national drink) ; but the sale of beer and wine is not included in the monopoly. Managers at fixed salaries are placed in the public houses, part of whose duty it is to provide food at cheap rates and who get the profits realized on soft drinks. After paying dividends to the shareholders (not exceeding 6 per cent) the additional profits are divided between the municipality and the central government. In Norway the profits above 5 per cent are ap plied chiefly to a national fund and to objects of public utility other than those supported out of the rates. In addition to a number of towns in Sweden, Norway and Finland,.it has been introduced in certain towns and districts in Scotland and England. In the places where the system has been tried it has been success ful in limiting the consumption and in lessen ing the number of licenses; it has tended to ensure the sale of purer liquors; it has divorced politics from liquor and eliminated the ele ment of private profit; but the temptation to increase revenue has in some places not pro moted temperance, and the association of the municipality with liquor has made the system obnoxious to the great body of temperance opinion.
A modified Gothenburg licensing system was introduced into South Carolina in 1892, when the sale of liquor became a State monop oly and its retail was placed in the hands of salaried dispensers. The system led to intense dissatisfaction; charges of corruption were leveled at its administration; and in 1907 it was abandoned. Consult Gordon, The Break down of the Gothenburg System' (New York 1911) ; Gould, E R. L, The Gothenburg System of Liquor Licensing' (Washington 1893) ; Pratt, Licensing and Temperance in Sweden, Norway and Denmark' (London 1907) ; Rowntree and Sherwell, Experiments and Public House Trusts' (Lon don 1901).