Year: 1867

From the Chicago Tribune, 2Ith, (Radical.)


Our Washington dispatches state that a
member Of the Congressional Committee on
Retrenchment, which has been in session
in New York indicates that the committee
are convinced "that the country is at an
enormously needless expense in collecting
the revenue on whisky, and they will prob
ably recommend a reduction of the tax on
that article to fifty cents per gallon on the
capacity Of each still, with the abolition of
bonded warehouses and the dismissal of
three-fourths of the employees"


We are glad to learn that the committee
is convinced Of facts which have been pa
tent TO the country a very long time. The
present law, with its enormous temptation
to fraud, and its complicated and inyoluted
machinery, serves no other purpose than to
give bounties to crime, aud to enrich every
dishonest official who may consent to frauds.
The tax on whisky is so high that it affords
an immense profit 10 illicit distillation. A
man can afford to pay fifty cents, or even
one dollar, per gallon to corrupt officers
and take all the risk of detection and pun
ishment. A distiller or trader can break
up a stock Of two thousand barrels of whis-
Ky into twenty lots BY paying forty cents
a gallon to the officials, he can push nine
teen Of these lots into market safely and
sell them at 81 40 per gallon. He can
afford 10 be detected on the last lot, lose it,
and be fined, and still have an enormous
profit. The government, however, loses all
the revenue an the 1900 barrels that are
sold surreptitiously. The trader and the
dishonest officials resp more profit than the
government does revenue.


The plan suggested, or some one like it,
should be adopted by Congress. The
present tax Is far too high for revenue
purposes. 1t DESTROYS honest business. 1t
drives all honest men from the trade. No
man can afford TO make or purchase whisky
and paw two dollars gallon tax on it,
when purchasers can find all they need in
the market at from one dollar and fifty to
one dollar aud seventy~tiye cents per gal
Ion. An honest distiller must close his
establishment or sell his whisky to dis
honest traders, who have a monopoly OF
the market The tax is not paid on more
than one-hith of the whisky made; the
government, therefore, realizes about forty
cents q gallon. To collect this there is an
army of officials scattered all over the
country who absorb at least one fourth Of
the revenue they collect in payment ol
their own salaries. The whole system OF
bonding and warehOusing is radically
wrong. A stock of whisky may, under
this system. be bonded and re-bonded three
or four times, and when at last worth.
less bond is showed upon a Collector, and
that is frequently the case, the government
losses both tax and whisky, and the latter
is sold in the market with all the inspec-
ton marks by the victorious dealer.


The plan proposed of permitting nc
whisky to be distilled without the payment
of license. and the price of that license to
be fixed at a rate per gallon of the capacity
of the distillery, would take away the i'm
pelling cause Of fraud 1t wouid then be
more profitable to pay the tax than to bribG
| officers and run the risk Of detection. The
government would get fifty or sixty OF
| seventy-fve cents on all the whisky made
| and would save four~6fths Of the expense
| now incurred in collecting even less thar
that amouut The business would be simpli'
fed. Honest men would once more engage
in il. and the country be relieved of the
shameful and utterly demoralizing system
Of fraud, swindling, perjury and peculatior


which il openly practised all over the coun-


try. As a revenue measure, a reduction o


the tax and q simpli6cation Of the law ar,
| advisable; az measure 70 withdraw the


means of extortion and bribery from public


officers and as a means Of getting rid Of ;


swarm Of useless officials, the law should b,


promptly and thorougly revised.


I