THE LICENSE-DUTIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIB,—I regret to notice that you do not quote Sir Michael Hicks Beach's speech at Bristol on Tuesday week. He seems to have Profited by the criticisms made by yourself and certain other journals on his last Budget; and he now comes forward with a proposal to increase the License-duties on public-houses and other places which make huge profits by retailing alcohol. I cannot do better than quote his exact words :—
" A tiny public-house in a village rated at £10 a year pays a License-duty of 44 10s. What was much more common, a public- house rated between £40 and £50 pays a License-duty of £20. They saw how the table went up. A public-house rated at a little under .2100 pays only "..25 ; and then there was only £5 for every .c.00 of rateable value, and when they got to £700 the increase stopped, and a public-house might be worth thousands of pounds, as some of them were, and yet pay no more than £60 in License- duty, while the tiny house paid .€4 10s. They knew the great hotels and theatres and music-halls which were so common. The hotel or theatre pays no more than £20 a year for its License- duty, in spite of the enormous quantity of liquor, and the best liquor, that might be consumed. The restaurant under certain conditions pays no more than £30. He ventured to say that the present scale of licenses was utterly unfair on the smaller house as compared with the bigger house; and he thought the bigger house could very well bear additional taxation in this way, and the additional taxation ought properly to go to the com- pensation fund."
New Court, Temple.
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