Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/759

Rh that the smaller brewers were being more and more absorbed by the great concerns—while the amount of assessed profits was ₤10,177,000, showing an increase of sixty per cent in the profits of the brewing trade during those ten years."

If it is desirable at the present time for the Federal Government to increase its annual revenue by additional taxation, it is certain that such a result can not be attained more certainly and with so little of expense, effort, or industrial friction, as by a moderate increase of the tax on fermented liquors. The existing tax (twenty per cent ad valorem) is lower than upon almost any other industrial product entering largely into domestic consumption—spirits paying, for example, eight hundred and forty per cent; tobacco, one hundred and nine; wool, manufactured, fifty-six; iron and steel, forty-eight; breadstuffs, twenty-five; glass, fifty-two, and the like. The business of brewing malt liquors is acknowledged to be one of the most successful of domestic industries, and financial participation in it has in recent years been so attractive to foreign capitalists that it is generally believed that the ownership of a large proportion of the brewing business in the United States has passed into their hands. It is also reasonably certain that in the distribution of industrial products for consumption there is no branch of business that returns a larger profit on the labor and capital employed than the retailing of malt liquors; a small retail store often supporting a large family, besides paying high Federal and State licenses. The data already submitted, which are believed to be reliable, show that beer can be retailed at a profit for one and three quarter cents per glass of a half pint, on which the present tax is one fifth of a cent, yielding a present revenue of about $34,000,000 ($33,784,000) per annum. An increase of the present rate of tax—i. e., from one dollar to two dollars per barrel of thirty-one gallons, or from one fifth to two fifths of a cent to a half-pint glass—might be reasonably expected to at once yield at least $30,000,000 additional per annum, bringing up the present annual revenue from this source to $64,000,000, with a prospective annual increase of $3,000,000; and this without increasing the cost of his beer to the individual consumer or materially diminishing the profits of the brewer or the wholesale or retail dealer.

It remains to briefly notice the reasons that have been popularly urged against any increase in the taxation of fermented liquors. It is said that the brewers already pay a fair share of the expenses of the Government, and "to make them pay more looks like a discrimination against a particular industry." But as the case now stands, the discrimination in respect to taxation is not adverse to the brewing interest but greatly in its favor; and the proposed increase in rate would impose a smaller burden,