[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECT&TOR."I SIR,—As you have
opened your columns to a correspondence on the subject of control of the liquor trade, may I contribute some suggestions which an experience of Excise administration in one of the dependencies may lend some weight? In the first place it may be pointed out that the community—if not the State—has already a property in the right to sell intoxicating drink. Public-houses are licensed annually, and there can be no doubt that if the licences were put up to public auction high prices would often be bid for them. One has often heard of the extraordinary value of a " corner house." Theoretically a licence can be given or withheld at will. This valuable property is now presented to the licensees, and although by lapse of time they have acquired a moral prescriptive right, the legal right to resume cannot be denied. Further, there is the consideration that the value of a licence is an "unearned increment," that is, a value-created by the community and, therefore, rightly the property of the community. Now my suggestion is that, seeing that immediate resumption of the monopoly value of a licence is likely to excite violent opposition, the resumption in any individual case should be postponed till the death of the existing licensee. This is merely an extension of the principle of the Death Duties, and, therefore, more easily justified.
My second suggestion is this : if abolition is not practical politics why not make drink a more expensive luxury? At any rate continue to enhance Excise duties so long as the loss of revenue due to diminished consumption is balanced by the additions to revenue from the enhanced duties. The present high cost of liquor does not appear to have seriously diminished, demand. Let the rates of duty, then, be raised again, especially on spirits—but not suddenly if revenue must be considered. Sudden and considerable enhancements have always been followed by a panic of economy; small and successive rises pass unnoticed, though eventually they lead to decreased consumption. This is, of course, rank opportunism. Personally I am a Prohibitionist; but I see no chance of this becoming a "dry" country in this generation. As a policy. therefore, let us aim in the meantime at the :maximum
revenue (and control) with the minimum consumption—I ant Sir, &c., A. B.
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