THE REVENUE AND TEE DRINK TRADE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 9398, 27 April 1891, Page 3

THE REVENUE AND TEE DRINK TRADE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Your correspondent “ North-east Ratepayer” is concerned about the revenue if the drink trade be stopped. Will he please tell us who pays the revenue? Do the brewers, the spirit mercants, or the hotel-keepers ? Do any of them pay one single copper ? Are they not merely the collectors of this revenue; and do they not get well paid for collecting it ? Is it not the poor dupe who is foolish enough to buy the drink that pays every penny, and also pays the drink seller his profits for being good enough to sell it him ? Further, be tolls us out of £SOCO revenue .€2130 comes from hotel licenses. Will he please tell u? how much of the revenue has to be paid away to regulate the drink traffic, to punish the crime, and support the poverty it causes ? If ho will take the trouble to go fully into the question, ho will find that for every £IOO revenue that comes through the drink it costs this Colony £l5O for extra nolice, magistrates, prisons, hospitals, asylums, and Charitable Aid Boards rendered necessary by tho drink. Talk about the revenue from the drink traffic; itis like lotting water into the ship's hold through a five-inch pipe, aud pumping it out through a goose quill.—l am, he., J. KNOTT.