The State Purchase of the Drink Trade has been brought
again into the field of practical politics by the Reports of the English, Scottish, and Irish Committees. All the Committees are agreed that there is no point of financial deadlock or impracticability in a scheme of State Purchase. The estimated cost of English purchase is £350,000,000 on a pre-war basis of valuation. If the figures be examined as they are set forth by Sir Thomas Whittaker in the Daily Chronicle, it will be found that this recommendation does not differ greatly from the estimate of the 1915 Committee of £250,000,000. This is so because the English Committee recommend that, as the transaction would be carried out on a pre-war valuation, the payment te the vendors, as a matter of equity, should be in Government Stock at pre-war value. Moreover, the estimate of £350,000,000 includes purchase of freeholds.
Previous page
