The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1888. THE WHISKY TAX.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1932, 31 August 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1888. THE WHISKY TAX.

The effects oi the whisky tax m the United btates has been to reduce tho quantity consumed very considerably. Tho United States census shows that m 1860, before tho imposition of what is called tho Internal Revenue Tax, tho distilled spirits used m the United States amounted to 89,968,651ga1,whi1ein 1886 the amount had fallen to 76,394,418ga1, notwithstanding tho fact that the country had doubled her population, the thirty-one millions of 1860 having become sixty-one millions m 1887. In the period between 1860 and 1887 there was no year when the output of whisky was nearly as great as it was m 1860. Allowing for the increased consumption m the arts and the increase of population, it follows, that Bince the high tax on spirits was adopted the per capita consumption of distilled liquor m the United states has been reduced one-half — an astonishing result. Considering the extent to which alcohol is now used m the arts, it is probable that, per\ capita, the American people consume, as a drink, not much more than one-third the amount of whisky used before the war, when cheap, untaxed distilled " devil " was within reach of everyone. "Ulysses" m the Dunedin "Star" writing from America on this subject recently says that Mr Blame m his Paris letter of last December estimates the consumption at less than 40 per cent per capita. Tho Federal Tax increased the cost of whisky per drink fivefold, and hundreds of thousands of drinkers wore compelled to give up their potations and became teetotallers or use milder and cheaper beverages, like beer and cheap wines, which contain only from 2 to 5 per cent of alcohol. The change m American drinking habits from whisky to beer, brought about by tho high price of whisky m consequence of tho Internal Revenue Tax, has been a great blessing. Beforo the war, when untaxed whisky could be bought for lCd a gallon, drunkenness was more common and more aggravated than at present. With the lessened use of " hard " liquors, that frightful disease delirium tremens, so common m old times, has become comparatively rare. In every way, then, the whisky tax has been a blessing. To repeal it would revive general drinking promote debauchery, and mako delirium tremens as common as it was thirty or forty years ago. This would be a great crime. Yet, singularly onough, this is the policy of tho Republican and of tho Prohibition parties, though from entirely I different motives. Tho Republican party would remove tho tax from whisky m order to reduco the revenue ; tho Prohibitionists want to mako whisky free now I and then wait for a generation or two when national Prohibition shall bring , about "no whisky." This is fanaticism run mad. Tho hardest blow the Republican party will receive iv this campaign has been delivered by themselves when they incorporated the free whisky - plank m their platform. These statements may well bo weighed by ultraprohibitionists.