Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/751

Rh on the other hand, the evidence of the only reliable data available, namely, the tabulated returns of the Internal Revenue Department, which takes cognizance of every gallon of distilled spirits—other than illicit products—manufactured and sold for consumption in the United States, indisputably show, that for the whole country the efforts of the extreme temperance advocates have never exerted any general influence in restraining their manufacture and use; and that, eliminating the temporary influence of hard times and business depressions, the average annual increase in the production and inferential consumption of such spirits, is at a rate equal to or in excess of the average annual increase of population. Thus, during the decade from 1880 to 1889 the aggregate increase in the population of the country and its consumption of tax-paid spirits was nearly concurrent; but from 1888 to 1893 the increase in the production and per capita consumption of spirits was in a ratio much greater than any concurrent increase of population; the whole culminating for the fiscal year 1893 in a tax-paid product of 99,145, 000 gallons, and an average per capita consumption of 1·48 gallons, as compared with a per capita of 1·25 in 1889.

Secondly. We have a general sentiment among both people and legislators, that distilled spirits and alcoholic preparations generally are commodities that can advantageously be made subject to any degree of taxation. If under a given rate the revenue increases, an increase in the rate is held to be desirable; if the revenue falls off, the decrease is attributed to decreased consumption, whereby any loss of revenue is correspondingly compensated by moral advantages. But there is in the enactment of any and every tax a certain rate which, if exceeded, invariably impairs the maximum possible revenue obtainable from it; and any government that disregards what may be termed the line of wise expediency in fixing such rates, invariably cheats itself and promotes popular immorality. One would think that the experience of the United States had been sufficiently instructive in this matter. But such is not the case. The class of people whom the proverb says "go to the school of experience" have all been there and have paid "high tuition"; they have also exemplified the remainder of the proverb as expressed by Franklin, to wit, that the number of scholars that learn anything in such school "is small, for it is true that we may give advice but can not give conduct." Under such circumstances the following brief notice of some of the lessons that have been taught in this school may be profitable. Thus during the fiscal year 1868, with a tax of two dollars per proof gallon on distilled spirits, the Internal Revenue Bureau in full operation and an annual consumption of the country of at least 60,000,000 gollons, the Government was only able to collect a tax