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[unclear: Is] Liquor Revenue pay ?

[unclear: Alliance] Leaflets, Second Series. No. 5.]

[unclear: uation] of London brewers once waited upon Mr. Gladstone, to urge that certain [unclear: Elation], restrictive of the Liquor Traffic, would seriously affect the revenue, Mr. [unclear: comptly] replied: "Gentlemen, I cannot permit a question of mere revenue to be [unclear: beingside] a Question of morals; but give me a sober population, not wasting their [unclear: strong] drink, and I shall know where to get my revenue." The late Hon. John [unclear: redited] with having used similar language. Justice Grier, of the United States [unclear: act,] said: " If a loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a [unclear: asumption] of ardent spirits, she will be the gainer a thousandfold in the health, [unclear: happiness] of the people."

[unclear: Generally] admitted that the indirect cost of drink to a country, in crimes, loss of time, [unclear: ith], competence, commerce, and life, is at least equivalent to the direct cost. It is [unclear: timate] that eighty millions have been spent in New Zealand upon drink, and [unclear: Letting] approaching twenty millions of revenue (Colonial and local) have been [unclear: of] it. The direct expenditure, unlike that upon food, furniture, wholesome [unclear: jack] a dwelling house, is wholly a loss to the purchaser. The indirect cost to the State [unclear: capabely] to be borne by the individuals of the State; so that to get twenty millions of [unclear: on] State as a whole has been involved in an indirect loss of eighty millions, and the [unclear: commerce] in a direct loss of eighty millions more, the whole one hundred and sixty [unclear: during] absolutely unproductive, except of untold demoralisation and misery, and the [unclear: as] wealthy and powerful liquor oligarchy to corrupt commerce, the public Press, the [unclear: and] the public administration, in favour of the interests of their devastating trade. [unclear: are] hundred and sixty millions of money, not merely wasted, but made to produce not [unclear: jfeation], but greater poverty than if it had been thrown into the sea, is a very dear [unclear: the] people for twenty millions of revenue.

[unclear: This] leaves out of account, and therefore out of the cost involved, the enormous wealth [unclear: avalible] and reproductive use of this one hundred and sixty millions of money would [unclear: need.] Even the labour it has employed of maltsters, draymen, barmen, policemen, [unclear: soliders] and a host beside, has involved the State in the loss of the enormous wealth that [unclear: resulted] from a reproductive employment of all this brain and sinew; while the [unclear: usetity] of grain destroyed to make the drink has both increased the cost of bread to [unclear: and] through the drink expenditure diminished their capacity to purchase it.

[unclear: C.] Fernald, in an admirable book on the Economics of Prohibition, published in 1890 [unclear: at]Wagnalis, rightly says:—" If any community could ascertain just what its saloon-[unclear: making], it could better afford to lay a direct tax upon the people of that whole [unclear: time] pay it year after year to the saloon-keepers, without getting anything in return, [unclear: he] afford to spend the same money at their bars, and drink their liquor. For then [unclear: time] would save the whole indirect cost."

[unclear: Further] says: "The latest statistics carry the direct cost of intoxicants to one thousand [unclear: ji] annually for the United States. As the indirect cost has at least equalled the [unclear: time] past, it is probable that it does now, though we have no statistics on crime, [unclear: side], later than 1880. This is certainly a bad showing. . . . Take, now, the [unclear: hetty]-eight million dollars which the general Government collects from the Liquor [unclear: Me] is very nearly one dollar in ten dollars of the people's outlay. There is evidently [unclear: what]. For it is 'we, the people,' who are the Government, and we, the people, [unclear: ending] the money. It is ' we' who expend the one thousand million dollars, and it is [unclear: 'we'] who get back the ninety-eight million dollars. That cannot pay. The whole [unclear: no] more afford to do business at an outlay of ten dollars for one dollar received, than any [unclear: may] afford to do business at the same rate. It is no answer to say that we are rich enough, [unclear: enough] in other ways to bear the loss for a good while to come. If Wanamaker were to [unclear: them] of the departments of his great store was costing him ten dollars for every one [unclear: id], that department would be promptly closed out. It would not satisfy him that [unclear: partments] were bringing in enough to save him from immediate bankruptcy. Such a [unclear: time] be stopped by any business man of sense. Why should it not be stopped by the [unclear: is] if they have sense ? It is not good financiering to get ninety-eight million dollars [unclear: expenditure] of one thousand million dollars, and the indirect loss of another one [unclear: milon] dollars."