STATE LIQUOR MONOPOLY.

New Zealand Mail, 22 January 1902, Page 51

STATE LIQUOR MONOPOLY.

Tho State monopoly of the liquor traffic ill Russia must now, after ail existence of fully seven years, be pronounced a decided success from the point- of view of the State itself. In 1895 the monopoly was first introduced as an experiment in four Eastern Governments. In the present year the great reform will be completed, and the monopoly enforced throughout European Russia. Apropos of this forthcoming completion of the reform, M. Witte, the Russian Minister of Finance and the moving spirit in the spirit question, has published some statistics indicating the enormous importance of the reform. Preparations have been going on ever since 1893, and the expenses incurred by the erection of buildings amounted to 100,000,000 roubles for about 400 factories and storehouses, the keeping up of which costs 3,000,000 roubles per annum. As to the surveillance of the private concerns still in existence, the salaries of the tax collectors and other employees require an annual expenditure of nearly 70,000,000 roubles. The total income from the Government sale of alcohol, together with the tax on the private factories, is estimated for 1902 at 390,000,000 roubles, or about £40,000,000 sterling. No other single item of the Russian Imperial revenue yields such a sum, which is sufficient to cover the whole military and naval expenditure of the country. This, it is objected by temperance advocates, makes it pretty certain that the Russian Government will not allow anything calculated to diminish tlie consumption of alcoholic drink. Tho Government “vinnaya lavka,” or spirit shop, is now a respectable State institution, with a halo of authority about it, exercising i an attractive power upon the people, | who arc even ordered to take off their ! hats in the presence of the barmen or ; bar-women, as beforo official dignitarI ies. Despite the objections of fanatics, i it is clear that tho State monopoly of j the liquor traffic is a popular reform, j as the result is to relieve the people of i other forms of taxation, while at the same time the publichouses are placed under effective control.