The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-04-11
GOVERNMENT SALOONS.

The New System of Reducing Taxation.
Not long since shrewd temperance
lecturer at the West suggested that, if the
present immense consumption of liquor
must continue, it would at least be good
thing if the topers would install their
wives as bar-tenders. A very small cap
ital would set up each with a gallon of
liquor, and the ordinary retailers profit
on that would repay the first investment
and leave money enough to go on swim
mingly with the business. The inventor
of this scheme goes on to figure the an.
nual profits which would thus accrue to
each household, according as Its head be-
longed to one class or another of the
great liquOr-consuming host; and then
he sums up the whole vast amount which
might he diverted from the liquor deal.
ers' tills into the empty purses of women
who now must provide as best they can
for themselves and their starving chill
dren. All who heard this proposed
probably said the idea was not bad, but
the difficulty was putting it into use. II
men acOIEd drink nobody surely could be
so well entitled to the eXorbitant profits
on the liquor as their families, but who,
as matter of fact, would ever think OF
making an arrangement like that pro-
posed? The suggestion might do for a
joke, but had no value for practical use
1t seems, however, that something not
so very far removed from the above has
been reduced to practice in Sweden, af
ter all
The plan to which we allude was first
tried in the city of Gothenburg in 1866,
and it worked so we'll there that it has
since been extended over the whole coun.
try. 1t has become known as the Goth
enburg plan" AS first carried out the
whole bar-room traffic in liquor in the
town was transferred by the authorities
to company which bound itself to make
only the ordinary rate of interest on its
capital, and then pay over all profit be-
yond this to the city treasury to he used
for the ordinary purposes in supporting
government, sustaining schools, caring
for the needy, or whatever else would be
a public tax upon the people. Under
this system the number of licensed
places for the sale of liquor was reduced
from 119 to 56 in a population of Is, 900,
and the company found that to do this
business they required capital of only
$28 800; but, they were able, after pay
ing interest on this, to turn over, as the
surplus profit, no less than $4,000 a
year which went to reduce taxation in
the city! The Swedes, it seems, have
been shrewd enough ITO see the point
in this matter, and other towns, after
this successful experience of Gothen-
burg, have readily adopted the same ex-
pedient. We are told that every town In
Sweden except one, having over 5000 in
habitants, and twenty-seven towns with
less than 5000 now follow the Gothen-
burg plan.
The above facts have been brought into
far more prominence than they would
have been had not the British people be-
gun to think that they, too, could profit
by them, For two years a select COM
mittee of the English house of lords have
been at work over this problem of the
liquor traffic, and they have lately sub
mitted a report embodying the above
with other facts, as basis of their re-
Communications. They propose that au-
thority be given to any English towns
which wish to try this Swedish plan. The
town council OF Birmingham, by vote
of 46 to 10, have already express express
ed their wish to do this, though they
proprOse to modify the Gothenburgh
system so far as to take the business into
their own hands instead of giving it up
TO company to run on their behalf
These experiments will be watched with
great interest. One is dazed, almost, to
think of the profits which would pour
into the treasures of England and Amer
lea if all that is now made by the sale of
liquor in these two countries were to ac-
crqe to the public. There would be no
lack of means to support the pauper es-
adjustments and prisons that are at pres
ent made necessary by the traff1c-to say
nothing of other forms Of public expense
to which such money might be legiti-
mately applied. The rapidity with which
intemperance is growing in England I'M
der the present system is illustrated by
such statistics as the following, which
this committee of the house of lords pub.
1Ish, as they tell us, from trustworthy
sources: 1.-THE expenditure for intoxicat-
ing liquors in the United Kingdom was
eS4 ,222, 172, or e2 19s. 61Sd. per head Of
the population in 1850, G11S,S36, 2S4, or
60 IDS I'd. per heal in 1870, and e147,-
28a, 759, or T.; o.. al. per head in 1876.
The number 81. a.,prrhensions for drunk
enness in Ensla'.,i and Wales in 1850,
was 49, 61; in lSi;., 100, 357 in 1870, and
in 1873, 203,5I9-"-N, Y. Mercantile
Journal