The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-16 00:00:00

crease of £366,000. Over and above the sum of £500,000,
which I take rightly to represent the average revenue,
£54,000 was received on sugar used in breweries, to supply
but very partially the deficiency caused by the miserable
failure of the crop of barley. £47,000 was received on hops,
arising in the main from a similar reuse. These three
items together make a difference.of £167,000, which comes,
as I say, unlawfully to the credit of the Cuse ans, and which
represent more than the corresponding prejudice .to the
Excise. It is worth while considering the importance of
this subject, if the Committe will allow me, to exhibit it to
them somewhat more in detail. If I take three great articles
paying Customs' duty which together yield no less than
£17,000,000,—1 mean the articles of tea, sugar, and tobacco,
—the revenue from these three articles during the past
financial year, notwithstanding the growth of the popula-
tion in numbers, was entirely stationary ; tea showed an
increase of £5,000; sugar an increase of £18,000; and
tobacco showed a decrease of £21,000, showing an increase
on the balance of £2,000. But then, as I have already said,
£54,000 was received on sugar used in breweries as a sub-
stitute for malt; so that the actual decrease was £52,000 on
these three great articles so immediately connected with the
comforts of the community, and the amount of revenue on
which formed a measure and e.test of the degree in which
those comforts are enjoyed. The Committee will, no doubt,
like to know what has been the effect of the changes which
took place in the form of reductions on important articles of
Customs' duty. All I can say must be by way of general
t description as to the operation of these changes, having re-
gard to the narrowing power of consumption which we may
trace throughout all the figures of Customs and Excise
during the year. And we find, I must confess, under the
circumstances the result has been not unsatisfactory, cer-
tainly less unsatisfactory than the figures which I have just
given to the Committee. I reserve for separate considera-
tion the articles of spirits and wine. I take together all the
other articles on which duties were reduced in the last Ses-
sion of Parliament, of which the principal was timber. The
total amount of reduction onthese articles last Session was
£663,000. The total loss to the revenue was £529,000. Ther e
has been a recovery by increased consumption amounting
to £124,000, but I haven° doubt it would have been greater
had the circumstances been more favourable. With regard
to spirits imported from abroad, the Committee will observe
that we made two changes last year in opposite directions.
We began, in February, 1860, byabolishing the differential
Customs' duty on spirits, although a small difference re-
mained to mark the proved cost of Excise regulation. The
amount of reduction en brandy was £446,000, but in July
welaid on an additional duty on foreign spirits of 2s. per
gallon, which was estimated to yield £400,000 ; so that, in
point of fact, the balance of relief we gave on the article of
spirits was only £46,000. We surrendered £46,000 of reve-
nue. Then, taking all the three descriptions of revenue
together, the result was that the increase on Geneva was
£67,000, on rum £193,000, and on brandy there was a dimi-
nution over the whole year of £lBl,OOO ; so that there was
an actual gain of £79,000 on spirits, together with a relief
from taxation of £46,000. But the most important and in-
terestingof the changes made last Session with regard to its
effect, both on the revenue, and likewise on the consumption
and condition of the people, was that which was made on the
duties on wines. I will endeavour to state the facts to the
committee without any unneeessary waste of words, but with
that fulness and clearness essential to appreciate the substan-
tial results. With regard to that particular alteration of Cus-
toms' duty my belief is that when you compare the new
system with the old we may say that that change, of all the
changes which were made in Customs' duties, was in the
first place the most difficult to make on account of the ad-
ministrative operations necessarily attending it; it was,
secondly, sure to be the slowest in working out its full re-
sults; and, thirdly, I believe it was perhaps the very best.
(Hear, hear.) The loss I anticipated upon wine—that is
the amount of relief caused by the reduction of that duty—
was £830,000. , The actual loss has been £493,000. (Hear,
hear.) In point of fact, of all the articles in the tariff—l
am now speaking of revenue—wine is the only one that has
faced the unfavourable circumstances of the year, and has
made to us a better return in point of duty than even when
I was anticipating average circumstances I ventured to sup-
pose. (Hear, hear.) The utmost reduction of the loss I
ventured to state to the house was from £830,000 to
£515,000 by the increase of consumption ; wine, and wine
alone, has done all, and more than all I anticipated, and
the actual loss is £193,000. (Cheers and cries of Hear,
hear.) We began, as the Committee will recollect, with
mere reduction of duty; we have ended the year with the
initiation in full of the new system of charging the duties
which was contemplated and provided for in the Act of last
year, and since a new system of charging the duties began
the delicacies I think, speaking roughly, have been nearly
double of what they were under the former system.
Whether they will continue at so high a figure I don't
pretend at this moment confidently to predict, but I have
no doubt whatever they will continue at a very satisfactory
rate of increase, both as regards the consumption of the
country and as regards revenue. I will give to the Com-
mittee very briefly the figures as regards importation. In
1859-60 wine, other than French, was imported to the ex-
tent of 8,021,000 gallons. French wine was imported to the
extent of 1,155,000 gallons, and here I ought to say I think
the importation has in some degree increased by the fact
that the changes in the law were made some two months
before the end of the year. The total importation of wine
Wee v,iro•000 18(10-1 the importation of wine
other than Freneh increased from 8,02.1,15 m to u,tite,tfuti,
while the importation of French wines increased from
1,156,000 gallons to 2,631,000 gallons. (Hear, hoar.) The
total importation was 'thus 12,509,000 against 9,176,000
gallons in the preceding year. The increase upon
French wine was 1,476,000 gallons, or 127 per cent.,
while the total increase of all wines was 3,333,000 gal-
lons, or 36 per cent. I must here observe, as I have
done on other occasions,' that it will take a long time
to work out the full effects of the changes we have made
in the duties upon wine, for I think the lessons of for-
mer experience distinctly teach ua that such will be the
case. I believe it would be in the power of any ingenious
person who made adequate research into the subject, to
write an exceedingly curious tract upoh the history of the
taste for wine in this country. The changes which that
taste has undergone have been wonderful, but substantially,
we may say, and I hope the hon. member for Norfolk will
not be shocked by the assertion I am about to venture, we
may say that in the really " good old times" of " Morrie
England,"—a period sufficiently remote from our own to
merit the application of that laudatory epithet —in those
times the prevailing taste in this country was for light
wine. The taste for wine has been materially connected
with the course of politics. The Revolution of 1688, and
especially the Hanoverian Succession, and the wars with
France, greatly altered the taste of this country as to wine.
I believe it is a fact that the University of Oxford, with
which I have the honour to be intimately connected, actu-
ally petitioned Parliament against the grievance of the
levy of a heavy duty upon light wine, which compelled
them to drink port. (Laughter.) It is impossible to over-
look the application of the example to our legislation of
last session. There is an interesting work, which no doubt
many hon. members have read, which describes the state of
things in Scotland a century back. Dr. Alexander Carlyle
may be said to have been a gentleman clergyman of the
Church of Scotland. Ido not mean to say a word against
his character, but it is quite evident to anybody who peruses
his memoirs that whatever his pastoral qualifications may
havd been, he addod to them a perfect acquaintance with
the science of good living. (Laughter.) Nothing can be
more interesting than the frequent notices which are inter-
spersed here, there, and everywhere throughout his pages
of the uses, merits, and the prices of different kinds of wines,
but I think it is an important fact that this gentleman puts
it upon record that the hotel price of claret in Edinburgh
100 years' ago at a club with which he dined—wine with
which he was satisfied, and, therefore, with which I think
any one of us would be satisfied—(a latigh)—the hotel price
of that wine was 18s. per dozen. (Hear.) This is a matter
upon which it may take a long time to develope any modifi-
cation likely to take place in the taste of this country. I
cannot avoid mentioning to the committee some information
which I received a few weeks back from a deputation which
attended me .upon this subject. The deputation was cora-
posed of persons who, I believe, were keepers of eating-
houses with beer licenses, in the eastern, part of the metro-
polis, who had likewise taken out wine licenses. They gave
me the joint results of their experience, and it contained one
element of comfort for the hon. gentleman opposite, who, I
know, has a strong opinion upon the subject of light wines
and powerful wines. (Laughter.) They said the effect of
taking out wino licenses was, that from 5 to 10 per cent. of
their entire takings or sale consisted of wine which they sold
at Bs. per gallon as draught wine, and which was formerly
not to be had except in bottle. I believe the lowest price of
wine was 3a. per bottle, or 18s. per gallon. That deputation
likewise communicated to me another fact which I confess
I learnt with much interest—viz., that but a small propor-
tion of the wine sold by them was consumed upon the pre-
mises, the chief part being fetched for the houses of the poor,
and as far as they knew was principally for the use of the sick.
(Hear.) They also said, and the hon. gentleman opposite
will hear this with satisfaction, that the wine in demand
with them was entirely and exclusively strong wine, and
that no symptoms of vacillation in favour of weak wines had
yet appeared. (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) I know that
rumours have gone abroad upon the subject of the system
now in operation for testing the duties upon wine, and I
have to say upon that point, in the first place, that I think
the Department of Customs deserves credit from the com-
mittee for the energy, intelligence, skill, and desire to meet
the convenience of all parties with which they have applied
themselves to the introduction of a new and undoubtedly at
first a difficult system. But I have further to say upon this
subject that the results of the system are satisfactory, and
that we are convinced that it will be effectual for its main
object, and that it deserves to be firmly and resolutely sup-
ported by the house. It may be true that a portion of it
may be found less favourable than was hoped and expected
by the French wine growers for the introduction of their
wine. It is likewise true that Ido not pretend to represent
that in all its details the system is perfect, but I do say
that its inconveniences aro few as compared with its ad-
vantages, and, I think the committee will feel that it
would be absurd to attempt to ascertain and amend
those minor defects that may be found in the law as to
the precise adjustment of the scale until we have had such
experience that when we do touch them we may be sure
to touch them satisfactorily and effectually, and that we
shall not be reduced to the necessity of amending and
culblipg our 9IYA W9O& foal Year to Miro 49 Rest uliak,