The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-16
NJ MORE MEDDL|NG
 ON PROHIBITION Georgia Is Safe for At Least
 Two Years More NEAR BEER REGULATIONS Sale of Near Beer Is Now Prohibited In Cities and Towns of Less Than 25oo People and Is to Be
 Enforced.
NEAR BEER REGULATIONS

tempt Will De made to meddl0 with the law at the 1910 session of the general as- sembly.
 The general tax act furnished the ex- treme prohibitionists their one chance and they sought to take advantage of it by the Alexander amendment to that document the purpose being to prohibit the sale of near beer or real beer throughout the state. They lost and that appears to be the end of it.
 There Is a lot of difference in amend ing the general tax act when that meas ure is up for consideration, and in getting through a separate bill. The general tax act may be amended by a majority of quorum; for instance, if only 100 members are present and 51 of them vote for an amendment to this act. it goes in. while to pass separate bill requires a. constitutional majority.
 The highest vote mustered for the Alex ander prohibition section in the house at any time was S6 or seven less than a. constitutional majority. and from that it went down finally to IT votes.
 Alexander Bill.
 In the event an attempt should be made to pass the Alexander bill next year as an amendment to the general tax act, 1t would have to be done as a separate and distinct measure to pass which would require 93 votes in the house and 23 in the senate, and such a measure could not hope to get that vote in either branch
 fhaGa {c able that any further attempt will be made in the direction of prohibition leg islation while the present general as- sembly is in office
 In addition to the foregoing there is the further probability that if such a measure should by any chance succeed in getting through Governor Brown would veto 1t under his promise made during his campaign to disapprove any measure seeking to change the state pro- hibition law, and 1t would then require a two-thirds majority of each house to pass 1t.
 The Georgia prohibition law is suffi- ciently strict, as was pointed out during the debates on the Alexander bill, to reach all violators in any community where the sentiment is in favor of en- forcing the law.
 Further than that, the country dis tricts and small towns of the state will have no further trouble with attempts to sell beer real or near, wherever there Is desire to enforce the law.
 General Tax Act.
 Under the section of the general tax act adopted on this subject, the sale of near beer is prohibited everywhere except in incorporated towns and cities of more than 2500 inhabitants, as shown by the, latest United States census report and Confederate veterans with whose at- tempts to sell it several communities have had trouble, are now prohibited from engaging in the business under the free license law. Nor can any Confederate veteran engage In the business in any town or city without first obtaining the consent of the municipal authorities.
 With the license tax at $500 on manu- lecturers and wholesale dealers, and s200 on retail dealers, the revenue to the state has been In the neighborhood of $200,000 a year.
 Now that it has been increased to 5000 a year on manufacturers and wholesale dealers and to $500 on retailers, 1t is pre- dicted by Representative J. R. Anderson of Chatham and others who opposed the Alexander section with It's restrictions that the states revenue will be increased to approximately s35o,oo0 annually, even with the new restricted territorial limits.
 Sale of Near Beer.
 Under the new law the sale of near beer is permissible in only 27 Georgia cities. Only the following places can com ply with the provision that to make the sale legal in any city or town it must have 25O0 or more inhabitants:
 Albany, Americus, Athens, Atlanta. Au- .zfa oin nhrfI Ta- wick, Cnrtersville. Cedartown, Columbus, Cordele. Cuthbert, Dalton, Dawson, Dub lin, Elberton, Griffin, LaGrange, Macon, Marietta, Newman, Rome, Savannah, Thomasville, Valdosta and Washington.
 The foregoing is based upon the cen- sus of 1900, under which the sale is barred from such well known cities as Coving- ton, Fort Valley, Hawkinsville, Madison, Quitman, Sandersville, Tallapoosa and Waynesboro. All of these have more than 2000 inhabitants by the last census but they had not then reached the 2500 mark. What difference the new census will make in these cases remains to be seen.
 There Is another city which might have been added to the list of places with more than 25O0 inhabitants, namely, Way cross but for the fact that the general assembly passed bill at this session pro- hibitihg the sale of near beer at all in Ware county of which Waycross is the county seat.
 License In Cities.
 To bring in $350.00O revenue for the state as predicted, there would have to be in those 27 cities total of 25 manufacturers and wholesale dealers paying $25,0O0, and 1885 retail dealers paying $500. The four largest cities in the state Atlanta, Sa- vannah August and Macon now maintain about 800 retail places and the other 22 points would have to furnish the other 5S3.
 Judging by the amount of the tax at present received, with near beer places in many of the small towns throughout the state and some of them in the country districts, there are not more than 1000 such places now in the state, and it is hardly probable that the increased tax will tend to increase the number The chances are rather that it will knock out some of the smaller cheaper places even in the larger cities.
 It is possible, therefore, that the esti- mate is entirely too large, and a conser- vative view of it is to put the probable revenue somewhere in the neighborhood of s250,000 a year. That will be just about what the state received from liquor licenses before prohibition went into effect But a quarter of million will help materially.
 Increased Revenue.
 There are several sections of the gen. eral tax act which will have the effect of bringing in increased revenue to the state, and one of the most interesting problems is furnished by that placing a tax of $1 on each dog. There are many inclined to believe that the estimates from