A NEW LIQUOR TAX.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1370, 6 July 1878, Page 3

A NEW LIQUOR TAX.

Some months ago a Southern journal directed attention to a form of liquor tax adopted in the United States, as promising a solution of a very grave difficulty. Now that the session is drawing near it may be well to recall the principal features of the scheme, which is at least worthy of consideration, both from a fiscal and social point of view. The idea contains at all events a very ready solution for the difficulty in regard to charitable aid, experienced by those who object to the introduction of a poor law, and a rate for the relief of poverty. The system is thus briefly described by an American paper:—“The State of Virginia, finding itself compelled to support gaols, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and a plentiful supply of paupers, owing to the liquor traffic, and perceiving that repressive or prohibitory legislation failed, conceived the idea of taxing drinks, and compelling drinkers to support the criminal establishments. Accordingly a tax of two cents a drink was imposed. The liquor dealer was compelled, under heavy penalties, to use a bell punch, which registered each drink sold, in the same way that the bell-punches registered fares in street cars, and check the conductors. The law came into operation six months ago, and Richmond, a sober city of 70,000 people, paid 150,000 dollars on single drinks during that period. It has been estimated that a similar tax on Chicago alone would yield 4,000,000 dollars yearly, and 1,000,000 dollars would be raised in San Francisco and Oakland, It is certain that sufficient revenue might be raised for all purposes of Government by the expedient of taxing single drinks. This is an idea which your Permissive Bill might adopt. It would come to the relief of the temperate, and could not be objected to by anyone, inasmuch as the payment of the tax would be purely voluntary.”