ECONOMIES AND PROHIBITION.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 996, 8 April 1909, Page 20

ECONOMIES AND PROHIBITION.

WHO’LL FOOT THE DRINK BILL?

The Government is economising in the Public Service. Thirty-seven departments are being amalgamated into sixteen, and the pruning knife of retrenchment is being applied with a pretty lavish hand. All this —not to meet a deficit, but to guard against the depressed times which Sir Joseph Ward and his colleagues seem to see ahead of us. The retrenchments and rearrangements, so far made, will, it is expected, result in savings of something like a quarter of a million per annum. Already there is considerable alarm amongst Civil Servants in Wellington at the possibility of further dismissals taking place. That is always the worst feature in the aftermath of a saturnalia. Extravagant living, whether on the part of the State or of the individual, is generally followed by a reaction, in which economies are enforced with more or less ruthless energy. But the present economies and retrenchments will, after all, be a mere circumstance to what would follow in the train of National Prohibition, should that ever be carried in New Zealand, as our “No License ” friends advocate. It seems to us something of an anomaly that, with all the talk there has been on the question, very little, if anytmng, is forthcoming to show what would happen in this country were the duties collected upon wines, beers, and spirits to become the negligible quantity they would be under a system of National Prohibition. * * * * THE NATIONAL DRINK BILL. The “ No License ” people place the drink bill of the Dominion at something like £5,000,000 sterling, and of this, at the least £BOO,OOO per annum goes into the coffers of the State, and is utilised for governing purposes. The local governing authorities also receive a further sum of £48,865 for licenses —or did so last year. The Government, to save a quarter of a million per annum now, upsets the whole Civil Service, cashiers quite a lot of civil servants, and scarcely knows which way to turn to save another penny. Have the “No License ” advocates and the so-called “ Moderates,” who vote with them, any idea of what will happen if they are successful with their propaganda? It is • an easy matter to sacrifice a million or two of revenue. But how is it possible to make it good? New Zealand is admittedly a heavily taxed country. It has an exceptionally costly governing system. The taxation per head of population is now £5 os. 4d., and the cost of government is about £6 per head. It is evident, therefore, there can be no abatement in taxation. What then? The revenue collected in Customs and Excise duties on alcoholic liquors is paid only by the users of these liquors. Abolish the legalised traffic, and the revenue goes by the board. How will it be made up? There is only one way in which the shortage can be made good, and that is out of the pockets of the men and women of small incomes. It must be made up by additional duties on imported goods and by reducing the exemptions in both income and land taxation. And that is a very serious matter.