SPHINX: "You have grown old, John, in this country. When will you join those who have gone before you, and rest in this beautiful coffin that I have prepared for you?" JOHN BULL: "That coffin will remain empty as long as you are ready to fly at cach other's throats." Sketches of Mr. Rockefeller as a Witness by Newspaper Artists. By Stein in the New York World. | By Davenport in the New York Evening Mail. | By Frederick in the New York American. (1.) In the Bulgarian nursery they are playing "Tsar." Herzegovina." (6.) But in the German nursery they are not playing at all; they are learning to read instead. (N. B.-They hope some day to be able to read writing, as well as print.) Minneapolis Journal.] A Sign of Peace, Germany's Real Peril. Westminster Gazette.] Adding Insult to Injury. THE DOG: "I don't think much of your little litter!" THE CAT: "Confound you! Why, you killed one of my biggest kittens and you helped all you could to squash another!" Pasquino.] Pasquino] Il Papagallo.] [Turin. The Triple Alliance. GERMANY: "Take care, boys, or we shall all three fall together." The Triumph of the Young Turks. The labours of the Young Turkish Party have at last made it possible for the bone of Despotism to be buried. Dame Europe, out of gratitude, offers Turkey some "Politics " tobacco: This," she says, "is composed of party struggles and votes by ballot. Let it be a source of Civilisation, Freedom and Progress to you." 66 TH The One and Only Way to Settle the Licensing Question. A SCHEME SIMPLE, PRACTICAL, AND PROFITABLE. I. THE CASE STATED. HE rejection of the Licensing Bill by the House of Lords left the Government and the country face to face with a stone wall. No subsequent House of Commons is likely to be elected for the next fifty years which will give as large a majority for any Licensing Bill as that by which last year's Bill was sent up to the House of Lords. If the House of Lords could reject last year's Bill with impunity, despite the immense majority in its favour in the Commons, there is no chance of passing any similar Bill in our time through Parliament. If the rejection of the Bill had been followed by a furious popular agitation against the Peers, there might have. been some hope that a second Licensing Bill might have been accepted. But there has been no agitation admitted evils of the Trade. To adopt the former would be to throw up the sponge by an admission that the Government and the Liberal Party are impotent to deal with what they have loudly declared to be the most urgent of all measures of Social Reform. The Liberal Party, therefore, is reduced to the acceptance of two alternatives. It must either take its defeat lying down, confessing its impotence and erasing licensing reform from its programme, or it must devise some other method of coping with the As it is unthinkable that the Liberals will adopt the former, therefore it follows that they must adopt the latter alternative. Abandoning the frontal attack, they must devise some other plan of campaign. And the question of questions is what that plan of campaign must be. PUNITIVE LICENCE DUTY. The only suggestion that has hitherto been put forward is that the Government should avenge their defeat and choke their deficit by imposing a swingeing licence duty upon the purveyors of intoxicants. This is within the competence of the House of Commons. It is also proposed to increase the taxes levied upon alcohol. "You can, of course," said a great brewer to me the other day, "tax us out of existence if you choose." But however desirable such a consummation may appear to many worthy people, the Treasury cannot afford to kill the goose that lays thirty-six million golden eggs every year. Ministers with a huge deficit to choke will not carry the maltreatment of the goose so far as to impair its egg-laying capacity. In the opinion of many experts, to increase the taxation on intoxicants beyond the present limit would result in a decrease of net receipts from customs and excise which is the very last thing the Chancellor of the Exchequer desires. It is possible to increase licence duties, but comparatively little can be obtained in this way unless the increase is extended far beyond the holders of on-licences. Drink is distributed to the drinker through many channels, of which the public-house is only one. Το increase the cost of on-licences would immediately drive business into other channels, of which four may be mentioned : (1) The house-to-house distribution in barrels direct from the brewery. (2) The sale in clubs, which will replace the public houses. (3) The supply governed by grocers' licences; and (4) The sale through wine and spirit merchants. All these sources would have to be laid under contribution if the price of licences is to be raised, and every extension of the tax screw would swell the army of those who would sink politics to defend their pockets. |