THE BEER TAX.

Press, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4640, 15 June 1880, Page 3

THE BEER TAX.

TO THB EDITOE 07 THB PBES3. Sib,—A tax on beer is always a subject of interest to mc, inasmuch as I was once a colonial brewer, to my sorrow. I am no longer connected with the business, and am thereby induced to publish a few of my experiences of the footing on whioh it stood not ' more than three years ago in the town of Dunedin and, I believe, elsewhere in the Southern Island. I have heard of no alters.tion in prioes sinoe those days, but if there haa been such, I am open to correction. Brewers sold two classes of beer—No. 1, at £6 a hogshead; No. 2, at £4 a hogshead. No. 1 the publican sells in glasses at 6d a glass; No. 2 in pints, or "long glasses," at 6d a pint or *' long glass." A simple - arithmetic sum will show us the publican's profit. Let ns take the superior olaes of beer, No. 1, first, and reduce a hogshead to glasses. Allowing two gallons for waste (an ample allowance) we find there are 832 glasses to be got from the fifty-two gallons, allowing two glasses to the pint (an ample aßdwane?" again). This gives 416 shillings, or £20 16s return for his £6. - Taking now No., 2 class beer, allowing the same waste, but reducing the hogshead to pints instead of glasses, we shall find that he gets £10 8s for his £4. More of the secondclass beer than the other is sold in most bar trades, but an average profit of, say, nearly 300 per cent, is not to be despised. If my figures are correct and trade prices have not altered, I think it is clear that a beer tax should fall on the publican, and not on the brewer, unless, of course, his profit is equally great. To enter upon a calculation of brewers' profits would belong and tedious, nor do I consider it necessary. I merely ask any reader of this letter to try and call to his mind any instance of a brewer in New Zealand having made his fortune. When he has done this and failed, for fail he must, let him see if he can think of any publioan who has made his fortune, or built a new house, or gone home for a trip, or otherwise exhibited signs of affluence. Ido not think he will have to go bey end the town where he may happen to live. A brewer to make money in this country must have money to buy the public houses, and thus sell his beer without having had to "shout" largely for the order, and be entitled to half the publican's profits. In this way, viz., by owning the public houses, brewers have made fortunes at home, but out here, with few exceptions, the brewer is at the meroy of the publican, in whose house he must spend his money freely before he can get an order for his beer. Now to return to my starting point—a tax on beer. Few, I think, will question its being a fit and proper tax, but cannot some means be devised to make it fall upon those who ought to bear it, namely, the publicans. Eooh individual brewer is afrajd of being the eriginator of a movement to pass the tax on to the publican loathe should suffer for it, and it is the recollection of these old fears and misgivings of the days when my mouth was shut that has induced mc to' try and persuade the public through your columns that New Zealand brewers are not the class on whom a tax on beer should fall, a thing whioh I think they all see and acknowledge if they will disabuse their minds of the impression ingrafted in Englishmen that a brewer and wealth are one and the same thing. The idea of making the publio bear the tax I have not considered, being of the same opinion as one of the gentlemen who was speaking at the property tax meeting: the other night—that we cannot get a smaller glass of beer for sixpence than we do at present. If you can find room to insert this letter, I feel sure you will oblige others besides Ay bx Bbkwbb.