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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

VII—Prohibition and the Revenue

page 18

VII—Prohibition and the Revenue.

No Profit in Revenue from Liquor.

Rev E. Walker, speaking some time since at Oamaru about local revenue in the event of Prohibition being carried said, the Drink Bill of the Colony was at the rate of £3 per head of the population, and, taking Oamaru as a fair average place, that [unclear: ant] £18,000 a year for its population of 6,000 so that to" get £450 in license fees, the locality impoverished itself to the [unclear: tent] of £18,000, much of which went out of the district to distant, spirit merchants, browers, &c, It would pay better to stop the waste of £18,000 and let that amount go into the useful trades and industries of the district, and then pay the £450 out of the increased local prosperity. It was dear financing to throw away £18,000 because someone offered you £450 to do it. Then as to national revenue if national Prohibition were carried, a high political authority had told him that he estimated that the increased demand for other dutiable goods would at once make up a, half of the loss, leaving at the outset only £220,000 to be made up. A ½d. a pound on sugar last year realised over £128,000. so that Id on sugar alone would yield £36,000 in excess of the amount required to make up the loss, and the increased prosperity that would follow upon saving £2,000,000 from Drink would put into everybody's pocket a good deal more than the extra penny to pay it with, and sugar would still be cheap. Of course he did not say it should be put on sugar, but that it should not; it could easily be spread thinly over a number of mere luxuries; this was only an Illustration to allow that the loss of revenue created no real practical difficulty. Again, it was bad financing to waste two millions of money because somebody offered you something less than a quarter of a million to do it. Under an Income tax from which salaries of £200 were exempt he supposed most of them would rather have a salary of £210 and pay 30s. Income Tax than have only £200 and pay no tax. The Drink waste saved would boom their local trade and Industries and improve wages by increasing the demand for labour

Oamaru Mail,

Liquor Revenue a Loss.

It is generally admitted that the indirect Cost of Drink to a country, in crimes, loss of time, efficiency, health, competence, commerce, and life, is at least equal to the direct cost-It is an under estimate that eighty millions have been spent in New Zealand upon Drink, and probably some-thing approaching twenty millions of revenue (Colonial and local) have been derived from it.

The direct expenditure, unlike that upon food, furniture, wholesome recreation, or a dwelling house, is wholly a loss to the purchaser. The indirect coat to the State cornea ultimately to be borne by the individuals of the State; so that to get twenty millions of revenue the State as a whole has been involved in an indirect loss of eighty millions, and the Liquor Consumers in a direct loss of eighty millions more, the whole one hundred and sixty millions being absolutely unproductive, except of untold demoralisation and misery, and the creation of a wealthy and powerful Liquor oligarchy to corrupt commerce, the public press, the Legislature, and the public administration, in favour of the interests of their devastating trade. Evidently one hundred and sixty millions of money, not merely wasted, but made to produce not alone demoralisation, but greater poverty than if it had been thrown into the sea, is a very dear exchange by the people for twenty millions of revenue.

And this leaves out of account, and therefore out of the cost involved, the enormous wealth that a reasonable and reproductive use of this one hundred and sixty millions of money would have produced. Even the labour it has employed of maltsters, draymen, barmen, policemen, judges, gaolers, and a host beside, has involved the State in the loss of the enormous wealth that would have resulted from a reproductive employment of all this brain and sinew; while the enormous quantity of grain destroyed to make the Drink has both increased the cost of bread to the people, and through the Drink expenditure diminished their capacity to purchase it.

The supposition that the Public Treasury (Colonial or local) would suffer by the suppression of the Liquor Traffic is well enough known to be a fallacy assiduously propagated to defend the interests, not of the people, but of the Liquor Vendors.

A man in this Colony who kept both a public house and a store, finding a customer owed £14 for stores, said to the storeman :—"What can I say to this fellow, for he spends all his money at the bar? " It paid to cancel the store debt, and take the enormous profits from [unclear: the] man's continual drinking But if one man keeps the bar, and another keeps the store, how does this arrangement suit the storekeeper ? It means that he must increased his prices to cover the loss from this source—in other words, that all his customers must be indirectly taxed to cover it. Thus the revenue derived by any district from license fees has to be vastly more than paid by the people of the district in the necessarily increased cost to them of every description of goods.

When a locality or a country adopts Prohibition its pauperism disappears, and those who wore formerly indigent [unclear: become] possessed of the means of contributing of public demands; thus at the same time diminishing taxation and increasing the number of those who share in the payment of it.

Who can estimate the material loss and other ills for which an expenditure of [unclear: over] eighty millions upon Drink in the New Zealand has been responsible ?—the loss to themselves, their families. And the comunity, from the moral mental and page 19 [unclear: ysical] deterioration, and incapacity [unclear: proved] in the victims of the Drink—some [unclear: them] persons of the highest capacity [unclear: promise]before "being victimised ?—the [unclear: debts] and crippled commerce, the loss [unclear: time] by workers, of employment for [unclear: men], and of wealth to the community, [unclear: which] would have resulted from the amount [unclear: reproductive] labour which the Drink has [unclear: ted]?—the loss of properties, the [unclear: cies], the grinding poverty, the [unclear: Efy] dissensions, misery and desertions, [unclear: Sacrifice] of personal honour by women [unclear: gir], the debauchery of youths and the crime and imprisonments, the [unclear: Cjrr] and suicides, and deaths by ex-[unclear: ty] disease, accident, and violence ?

Is it at this cost we are to maintain [unclear: a] ever blighting and withering traffic in [unclear: ak] for the sake of either local or [unclear: tal] revenue, or both, which, whether, recognise it or not, always costs us, [unclear: ly] or indirectly, even in hard cash, at many times what itself amounts to ?

A Curtain Lecture.

My wife and I had just gone to bed,
When a curtain lectur to me she read:
If I was a man," sez my wife to me,
I think I should be a man," sez she.
why, wot is the matter, Jane ?" sez I;
Matter enough," was her reply.
I wouldn't go preachin' temperance
[unclear: La'] votin' for license, both ter wunce !
I wouldn't stan' up in church an' pray
[unclear: For] the curse of drink to be took away;
Fer the Lord in marcy to look an' bless
The needy widder an fatherless;
An' then march up to the polls nex' day
An' vote just eggsackly the other way
I think I should hev at my command
At least jest a leetle grain of sand;
An' whenever a pollytishun showed
His rum-blossom nose 'round my abode,
An' commenced his blarney to get my vote,
A-singin the song he'd learnt by rote,
I'd spunk up to him an' tell him wot
I thought of him; an' ez like ez not
I'd jest perlitely show him the door,
An' invite him to never call no more !
I think I'd know enough," sez Jane.
"When a rum-seller works with might an' main
To gain a point in the town elexshun,
To see that it wasn't jest my complexshun !
An' what he wanted so awful bad
Was the very tiling he ortn't to have;
An' I'd work ag'in it, tooth an nail,
My motto, ' No sech word as fail !'
An' wouldn't care one cent in cash
Ef I the publicrat party went to smash !
I'd hev my conshens clear an' sound,
An' know I was treadin' on solid ground,
Ef I was a man," sez Jane once more;
But I had already begun to snore.
I wasn't asleep' but then I meant
She'd think I was; for her argyment,
I own, I couldn't quite answer it,
For it struck right home to me every bit
But Jane, she groaned when I didn't cheep.
And then turned over and went to sleep.

Union, Signed