PENALISING THE TRADE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 1000, 6 May 1909, Page 20

PENALISING THE TRADE.

MR LLOYD GEORGE’S NEW BUDGET The Liberal Government at Home hits the brewers and publicans severely with its new Budget proposals. Faced with a deficit of sixteen millions or thereabouts, Mr. Lloyd-George proposes to place an additional duty of 3s. 9d. per gallon on spirits, which he estimates will bring in £1,600,000; to increase the beer tax, and to revise the liquor licenses by raising a uniform percentage on the capital value, which is expected to produce £2,600,000. Tobacco also suffers, with an additional duty of Bd. per pound on the manufactured article, that is estimated to bring in £1,900,000. The effect of these new duties, which have been already approved by a substantial majority in the House of Commons, has been to increase the price of beer by a penny per pint, and to add a similar sum to the cost of a glass of spirits. That is from the public side. Their effect on the Trade may, perhaps, be best gauged by Mr. Balfour’s statement, made in the House of Commons on Tuesday, that in the case of one firm alone the new burdens placed upon the liquor trade would amount to £35,000, or £7OOO more than it distributed to its ordinary shareholders. “ You can,” Mr. Balfour said, “ almost hear the swish of the scorpion being applied to those unfortunate victims of Government indignation.” The license proposals, Mr. Balfour contended, sounded the death knell to every house not tied to a brewer, and while English beer is taxed to the hilt, no corresponding tax has been imposed on the lighter beers imported from Bavaria. With the usual Free Traders’ idea of patriotism, Mr. Lloyd-George evidently thinks that British brewers should welcome the freer importation of foreign beer to their own undoing.