WHISKY—RUM—SUGAR.
MR. GOULBURN has taken the advice of Common Sense, speak- ing through our pages ; he has modified the proposed duties on home-made and colonial spirits, so as to remove all possible ob- jection to the form of the increase. No increase at all, in our humble opinion, was called for, and none ought to have been made. We don't expect that any addition to the revenue will be the con- sequence. We believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was influenced to the alteration by the clamour of the moralists, and that their clamour had neither principle nor fact to support it. Still we accept his resolutions in good part. What we principally called for was, the continuance to the home distiller of the ad- vantage that he had received by the regulations of 1825, and to which the materials that he employed and the regulations to which he was subjected justly entitled him. We asked no bounty on whisky, no restriction on rum, but a fair and equitable tax on both. The addition proposed by Mr. GouLnuniv, of sixpence per gallon to the duty on spirits, whether home or colonial, leaves to the former the same open field Of honest competition that it for- merly enjoyed. We have to thank Mr. GOULBUR1V for another good thing. We pointed to his attention the propriety of affording relief to the West Indians, not through the medium of their rums, which is an acci- dental production, but through the medium of their sugars, which constitute their most important and direct article of manufacture. He has not done all we could have wished, but he has done a great deal by reducing the duty on low-priced sugars, which most re- quired such a reduction. The merchants of the City, even the most experienced of them, we are informed by the Times, are un- able to judge how the new scale will operate ; and they talk of a falling off in the revenue in consequence of its adoption. The re- venue these gentlemen may leave to Mr. GOULEURN. A very brief glance at the Chancellor's speech will serve to remove their other perplexities. From the report it plainly appears, that on sugars above 30s. per cwt. the old duty of 27s. per cwt. will con- tinue to be levied ; on sugars at 30s. the duty will be 25s. 6d., and the reduction of duty will accompany the reduction of price until the former has fallen to 20s. Where the difficulty lies in compre- hending so very simple a proposal, we confess ourselves unable to perceive. And for the working of the plan,—we cannot see why a duty which is essentially ad valorem, should not be as easily le- vied on sugars as on a hundred other things. That some suspension of business has resulted: from Mr. GOULBURN'S announcement, is 'extremely probable ; but .whatever .plan he proposed, this must have been the case. It is a necessary consequence, not of this or that alteration, but of every alteration. And what is its amount ? A few bogsbeads less will be sold in June, a few hogsheads more in July. Here and there. an individual, who cannot hold stock for another fortnight, !my be embarrassed; but that the trade should suffer from a fall in the duty, is impossible. We suspect it must be the speculators who are grumbling, not the merchants.
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