• The country already owes a deep debt of gratitude
to Mr. Rowntree and Mr. Sherwell for their sane and reasonable handling of the problem of the sale of intoxicants. That debt is increased by the way in which they are now placing before the country the very serious public disadvantages which must result if the Licensing Bill becomes law. In a paper which appears in the Press this week they point out how the Bill not only fails to give the State the benefit of the monopoly rights which it creates, but will if passed prevent the State from ever drawing the revenue from licenses which it ought to draw. The paper in question takes as its text a remark made in the Spectator four years ago to the effect that "it should be the business of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to stop the waste" which comes from failing "to divert into the Treasury money now literally thrown at the heads of the possessors of existing licenses." It then shows the large sum which might be raised from licenses if we were to adopt the system of high licenses,—a system which prevails in most of the American States, and prevails without either ruining the manufacturers or retailers of intoxicants, or making it im- possible for the poor man to purchase his beer or spirits. "Taking the whole of the cities, towns, and villages in England and Wales, and applying to them the License-duties imposed upon similar towns and villages--i.e., of the same size—in the State, of New York, we should receive from our existing public-houses, not, as at present, less than a million and a half sterling, but more than six and a half millions sterling every year. And this on a basis that is far from the maximum standard in the United States."
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