THE MALT TAX.
LIBERALS are apt to be a little unfair in their arguments for the malt tax. They will not always reason the matter oat as a question of national policy, but treat it too frequently as one of class interests or as a cry raised only for political pur- poses. I generally find, said a Liberal member recently amidst the laughter of his audience, " that those who oppose the tax are Tories," as if that had anything whatever to do with the matter in band. We generally find that those who oppose oppressive duties are Whigs, but that is not reason sufficient to justify a Tory Government in keeping those duties on. Still less is it an argument to assert that the repeal of the malt tax is only a farmer's question. If it were, it ought to be discussed just as much as a merchant's question or a manufac- turer's, but it is not. It is a question for every voter in Eng- land outside the ranks of Mr. Lawson's elienWe, and for every Liberal statesman,—for every voter, because if he is a sensible person he prefers sound beer to bad wine and worse spirits ; for every Liberal statesman, because the thing most needed at this moment is to disabuse agriculturists of the notion that the Liberal party is at heart hostile to them. That notion, utterly false, corn-growing being just as much an industry as cotton-making, and a far more extensive one, sways even so moderate a speaker as Lord John Manners. In his speech at Leicester on Saturday the member for North Leices- tershire, who was trying to be almost painfully fair, still allowed himself assert that the only chance of repeal was to con- ciliate the urban population, who thought the tax one bene- ficial to them. Such a belief divides the country by lines which are not political but sectional, and makes all improve- ment tardy by creating an irritable suspicion in the mind of every farmer and landholder that any reform proposed is secretly directed against him. Even when Liberal members repudiate such an idea, as Mr. Milner Gibson did at Ashton on Wednesday, they are still very apt to treat the farmers' de- mand with something of contempt, to offer arguments they would never think of producing in the House, to tell people, for example, as he did his constituents, that as the malt tax was only 12 per cent. upon price and the tea duty was 33i per cent. the latter had the higher claim. The President of the Board of Trade of all men must be most certain that the amount of a tax is no test of the injury it inflicts. There are trades which a 3 per cent. tax would kill, and trades, such, for instance, as in quinine or saltpetre, on which five times that rate would have scarcely a perceptible effect. A duty levied on the sea-board costs the merchant only its amount and the consequent loss of demand, an excise costs those and the loss from interference in manufacture besides. The first princi- ple of all true finance is to get rid as far as the necessities of the State will allow of every tax which seriously restricts an industry, and the true point for those who approve this tax is to show that it does not restrict an industry as much as some other impost. To say that it is not protective, as, for instance, the Scotsman does, is very little to the purpose. The farmers do not allege that it is protective in the sense of protection against the foreigner, but affirm that all other excise duties having terminated—except one upon spirits which nobody wishes to abolish, which we should probably keep up even if we did not want the revenue,—it is hard that their industry alone should be subject to an undue restriction. That restric- tion, they urge, arises in this way. They have land, in some counties a great deal of land, which will grow rather poor barley. They cannot grow it because while the duty is levied on quantity it is not worth the maltster's while to malt any but the very best sort of grain. The duty, as they contend, operates to create a monopoly in
favour of the producers of the very best barley, a monopoly not secured by the quality of their article, but by the fact that the malting constituents in good barley pack into smaller compass, that in fact the saving of duty is a bonus granted by the State in favour of the least bulky article. It is the
old question of the sugar duties. Suppose them made uniform, it would only pay the importer to purchase the very best, and colonies producing worse—i. e., more bulky sugar—would in fact have a differential duty levied against them. The malt duty is uniform, and the uniformity acts as a differential duty against poor barley. This is the first grievance, and not merely the duty, which it is alleged with truth is paid by the people who drink beer. If all barley could be malted the duty would be a somewhat cumbrous tax upon all people not teetotallers, but it prevents barley which ought to be malted from being so consumed. The farmers therefore urge that if the Exchequer can spare the money, or any part of the money, they ought to be relieved, and if they cannot be relieved altogether then the duty should be decreased pari pawn with the income-tax until it is gradually ex- tinguished. Of course some of them say things very unlike this, and talk bombast, as irritated men generally and Mr. Busfield Ferrand always are apt to do, but we have endeavoured to state the argument of the moderate section, of the men who, like Lord John Manners, admit that the Treasury must be filled, and who do not believe that anybody wants to crush them, but who still think their reasonable freedom of cultivation is impaired by the tax.
It will be necessary to listen to them, for the single busi- ness in England except cotton which is at this moment not
sharing in the general prosperity is agriculture. With wheat selling through last year at an average of 38s. per quarter, farmers whose calculations and leases are based on a minimum of 40s. are not likely to look with compla- cency or even fairness on any tax which interferes with their efforts to find some paying substitute. Their difficulty may be all their own fault, as the gentleman who informs the Times that he has grown seven quarters per acre evidently thinks ; or all the landlords' fault, for screwing up rents and preserving game ; or all the black beetles' fault, for anything that anybody's blame has to do with the matter. There is the scrape undeniably, that it is no use for the moment to grow wheat on poor land, and that barley upon such land is prohibited by revenue law, and the farmer is perfectly certain to make strenuous efforts to get out of it. He cannot get back protection, even if he wanted it,—and we are talking of sensible men,.—but he can get rid of a differential duty against poor land, and Liberals may rely on it he will try. Their duty therefore as practical men is to consider not whether the complaint comes from farmers, or landlords, or labourers, or tailors, but whether the plea for reduction is as good as any which other trades can produce. That is not quite so certain as the farmers think, but it is much more probable than some Liberal reasoners appear disposed to allow. There are very few duties remaining to be taken off, and among them not one except that on spirits which presses close upon the springs of an English industry. Neither tea, coffee, sugar, nor tobacco are produced in these islands, and of them only sugar can be said to be more beneficial than beer. The ridiculous shilling still left upon corn ought no doubt to go, but with wheat at present prices that necessary reduction can very well wait a little. There are no indirect taxes of moment to abolish, except fire insur- ance, and although reductions on tea are popular it would not be quite safe to poll England on the choice between that and beer.
The only serious obstacle to reduction that men not in- tent on compelling reduction of rent as a panacea for all troubles will, we think, recognize, is the financial one. Will not the collection of two-thirds of the malt tax cost as much as the collection 'of three-thirds ? That is, we fear, quite certain, but then it is true also of all customs duties not entirely abolished. Will not a reduction of the malt tax reduce greatly the return from spirits, and so cost the Exchequer too much ? That seems to us, we confess, more than probable, but it must be remembered that if the man who drank spirits took to beer instead, the revenue would lose very little, and the recuperative power of this tax is as yet almost an unknown quantity. Of course any such reduction must be accompanied by a revision of the licensing laws. So long as
a few score brewing firms are enabled to maintain a monopoly of the right to retail beer so long will beer remain dear, let the malt tax be reduced as much as it will. Fifty or sixty families by combining could, as matters stand, almost put the amount of the reduction into their own pockets, but that very pleasant arrangement is not one that can last. The prop of the monopoly is the tax, which makes it almost impossible for small capitalists to enter the trade, and that gone or sensibly reduced competition under limited liability will very soon force the great firms, who have hitherto sold their shares as if they had been landed estates, into an open market. It may be clear to the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer that the loss from the spirit duty would be unbear- able, and we are quite ready to trust Mr. Gladstone on the
point, but we submit it is there, and not in any fanciful class interest, that the true hitch occurs. If the money cannot be spared without too much risk the farmers must submit, but to tell them that they are not to be relieved because " industry " has the first claim is worthy only of Tory politicians. They have always maintained the claims of class and the rights of established privilege, but the Liberal doctrine, and in most cases the Liberal practice, is to consider the nation before any class whatever. If by cheapening beer lands now worthless can be made profitable, as the farmers say, every class in the nation, from the landlord who takes the rent to the cotton- spinner who buys unadulterated beer will be equally bene- fited.
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