The Sun.
London, England, 1830-03-25 00:00:00

- by all persons dealing in intoxicating liquors, may or
• may not be desirable, we do not take upon ourselves
either to affirm or deny; but that the liberty to
deal in any article, more especially one constituting
a necessary of life, should depend upon the mere
will and caprice of persons who happen to get their
I names introduced into commissions of the peace, and
who may be themselves dealers in the same article, is
an anomaly which it is only wonderful that the
country has so long tolerated, and the extinction of
which will confer more credit on Mr. Goulburn than
the amount of taxation which he has remitted. But
that the right to manufacture the article should be
under any restraint, is even more absurd than the con-
troul over the right to sell it; and cannot, we are con-
viticed,he any longer endured, now that the intention
of throwing it open has been once announcedfrom au-
thority. At the same time we are not unaware how
often it happens that measures which are opened to
the public as great sources of relief, have their ad-
vantages frittered away by subsequent concessions ;
and knowing how many and powerful interests
there are alive upon this one subject, all pulling
with united force against the general good, it be-
comes the more necessary that the Chancellor of
the Exchequer should himself be firm, as well a_
those to whose vigilance and integrity their con
stituents have a right to look upon the occasion.
We believe, moreover, that both the honest brewer
and the respectable publican have taken much more
alarm upon the occasion than there is any real
grounds for. In fact, if one makes, and the other
takes care to sell, a pure unadulterated commodity,
there is no fear but that custom will continue, and
rather increase in places where the excellence of
the beverage is its recommendation. The truth is
that the brewers' monopoly has been in no small
degree injurious, both to the publican and to them-
selves, by leading to the deterioration, and
consequent disrepute of an article which may
be called the national beverage of Englishmen ; we
care not whether that deterioration takes place in the
brewer,' vats, or in the cellars of the publican with-
out the brewers' knowledge—the adulteration in
either case arises out of the injurious monopoly
which the licensing system has created and che-
rished. The competition which the proposed open-
ing of the trade must, we should think, of necessity
produce, cannot but give the advantage to the
larger and more experienced establishments, whose
skill and superior machinery must enable them to
enter upon, or rather to keep the field against, all rivals.
This latter argument, too, is quite decisive in our
minds as to the advantage which the taking off the
beer tax will give the public over the private
brewer. Every man who knows any thing of the
manufacture of beer, must be aware that the skill of
the brewer depends upon extracting the greatest
quantity of saccharine matter from a given quantity
of malt ; and that in this respect the brewer upon a
large scale has by far the advantage—so much so,
indeed, that we believe we should not overstate it
in saying that, from 90 quarters of malt, in a well-
conducted public brewery, as much beer of equal
quality would be produced as from 100 quarters con-
sumed in successive brewings of five quarters each in
private hands. If this be so, besides the advantage
of going to a better market, the great public brewer,
with the tax taken off, cannot have much to foar
from the brewer at home or the small competitor.—
Morning Herald.

There is a great deal of justice and good sense in
what passed the other day at a meeting of the in-
habitants of St. Paul, Covent-garden, relative to an
equalization of the land tax, The inequality exists
all over the kingdom, and must of necessity not only
be so, but be every year increasing, as the value of
property fluctuates, especially when it is considered
that the assessment in the first instance was not an
equal one, and that it has now lasted considerably
more than a century. In the London parishes, espe-
cially those which were till lately mere villages in
the outskirts, this must be strikingly the case. In
confirmation we need only adduce one of the many
undeniable facts stated at the above meeting—viz.
that while the parish of St. Paul, Covent-garden, on
a rental of 40,0001., was paying 4,8401. 125., that of
St. Marylebone, on a rental of 700,0001., was pay-
ing to the land-tax only 4921. It was a great error
of Mr. Pitt that he did not take some steps to
equalize this tax previous to bringing forward his
measure for its redemption—a measure which has
operated but in a very circumscribed way, and of
which, by the bye, though it now scarcely operates
at all, part of the machinery, and, of course, the ex-
pense, is still in existence. The subject is one
surely well worthy of the attention of those who
have the management of the finances of the country;
and it is especially worthy of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer's consideration whether, in relieving St.
Paul, Covent-garden, and other parishes, from their
unequal share of this impost, the increased value of
property in other places would not justify an increase
I
of the tax, by which an improvement n the revenue
under this head might be obtained, to the relief of
the burden of taxation under others.—ilforning
Herald.

It has been contended, we understand, by some
of the great brewers, that the Act for the sale of
intermediate beer has been productive of but little
injury to the Licenced Victuallers—that the quantity
manufactured and sold has been comparatively
trifling—that their property has sustained no dete-
rioration in point of value from this interference
ith their business—and finally, that there is just
as little probability of its being injured by the in.
tended measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
for throwing the trade in beer open. The two cases
are extremely dissimilar : and the conclusion, as ap.
plicable to the new measure, is, in consequence,
wholly unfounded. But supposing the cases to be
in every respect similar, we happen to have it in
our power to chew, from a document which will he
found in another part of our paper, that the premises
are equally false—that great injury has been done
to the business and property of the Licensed
Victualler by the Intermediate Beer Act—and
that that injury is so much on the increase, as to
threaten the total annihilation of the trade in strong
beer. The table to which we refer, shows that
while there has been a decrease in the consumption
of strong beer in the year ending sth January,
1830, as compared with the average of the three
preceding years, of upwards of 606,000 barrels,
and in table beer of upwards of 175,000, there has
been an increase during the same period in the con-
sumption of intermediate beer, of no less than
26,000 !—in a word, that the consumption of in-
termediate beer, during the past year, is precisely
eight times the amount of what it was in the year
1827 ! Yet it is said, that the Intermediate Beer
Act has been productive of no injury, and that the
intended free trade in beer will be equally harmless !
Now we know well where the whole scheme will be

harmless, or rather beneficial, and where also it will
be injurious, From the lowering of the duty it will
be beneficial to the brewer, by enabling him to dis-
pose of a greater quantity of beer; and from the
throwing open of the trade, it will also be bene-
ficial to him, in enabling him to dispose of beer
which, if sent to any of the present body of Li-
censed Victuallers, would be rejected as unfit for
use. These are brewers' benefits; but we really
can see none which the licensed victualler pan pose
sibly derive from it. To him it is certain and in-
evitable ruin—it releases him from none of his en-
gagements,
and it takes away from him the only
means of meeting them. It rivets chains already
too galling, and leaves him without the slightest
hope, by any exertion of care or industry, to rid
hiinself of them.—Norning Advertiser.
There are two consequences which will inevitably
result from the proposed measuie of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer in the event of its being passed
into a law, winch no one who has any regard for
the public morals, or who possesses household pro-
FeTty, can possibly regard with indifference. The
first is the Increase of habits of intoxication, and of
riots antlad disorderstie
kinds,iOsfeeaollnd,lthe .i'o';tio
li7 it would
value of household property wherever situated by
di', establishment of
inevitablypublic-houses, which, it is,
an in the
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