At the public meeting of the wine and spirit trade,
held on Thursday at the Commercial Rooms, Mincing Lane, a resolu- tion was passed by a large majority approving Mr. Goschen's surtax on bottled wines, and suggesting its extension to foreign spirits imported in the bottle, which certainly seems a most reasonable as well as politically prudent suggestion. There can be no reason why the more costly spirits which cannot be safely imported in the cask, should not be surtaxed as well as the wines. Two amendments directed against Mr. Goschen's Wine-tax were defeated, the supporters of the resolution in favour of the Budget proposal arguing that all the non- sparkling wines can be imported in the wood, and that by surtaxing bottled wines a great impulse will be given to the bottling industry in this country. Indeed, it had been always intended, said the spokesman of the majority, that the bottled wines should pay this duty, and they were charged with it by the French Treaty. But in 1866 Austrian light wines were allowed to come in at the shilling duty, whereupon all the other bottled wines came in under the favoured-nation clause.
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