SPIRITS MONOPOLY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 184, 3 February 1914, Page 6

SPIRITS MONOPOLY.

AND THE CIiCSADE AGAINST \ DKIiXKENNESS. f St. Petersburg, January i<X j Count Wittc, one time Finance Minister, dramatically appealed to the Council regarding the li(|tior laws, lie now recommended the limitation of the spirits monopoly and devoting the surplus revenue therefrom to aid the crusade against drunkenness.

Count Wifte instituted the spirit monopoly in Russia in January IS!),), in four •eastern provinces, and in 'l.S'lli it became the common law of the Empire. Count Wittc's objects were, as Minister of Finance, "to obtain for the benefit of the State the largest possible amount of revenue from this trade: and secondly to diminish drunkenness." The revenue was quadrupled in the first four years and provincial organisations spent.' considerable sums in establishing tea shops, but the consumption of beer was miall'ected. Spirit consumption was, however, greatly diminished because in flic Government spirit shops there was no drinking on the premises. The State monopoly in Russia has eradicated many evils that had crept into the private purveyance of spirits, hut it is a moot question whether the hard drinking o( the down-trodden peasantry has been diminished. Russian finance has been remarkably easy during the twenty years that the State has enjoyed the enormous revenue', which the spirit monopoly now yields, as much as fortyfour millions sterling being estimated from this source alone.