TAMPERING WITH THE REVENUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22716, 31 October 1935, Page 5

TAMPERING WITH THE REVENUE

UNSOUND PROPOSALS. For the year ended March 31 last the total Customs Duty collected on all imports was £5,858,929. Of this sum £679,930, or over 11 per cent, of the total, was collected as duty on imported alcoholic liquors. The sum of £671,008 was also paid by way of excise duties on New Zealand beer, making the total revenue contributed by the licensed trade £1,350,938. On top of this, there is the amount of wages paid annually by the trade, the cost of materials used, licence fees, etc., the whole amounting to £3,375,999. This sum is more than sufficient to pay all the annual expenditure by the Government on pensions, or, to put it another way, it would pay all the yearly expenditure on Naval and Military Defence, the Health Department, Mental Hospitals, Police Department, Justice and Prisons Department, Department of Agriculture, Lands and Survey, Printing and Stationery, Transport Department, and the Land and Income Tax Department, and still have something on hand. Despite these facts, the professional prohibitionists are once again endeavouring to foist the farce of prohibition on this country, a farce that has turned into a tragedy wherever it has been staged. Every country that has tried prohibition has rung down the curtain on it. Do net let it put in an appearance in New Zealand. A solid vote for Continuance is a national duty.— Advt.