The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-19 00:00:00

That no person licensed t--) sell beer for consumption
on the premises Ict?ep a shop for the sale of any other
article, save refreshments and tobacco.

The coffee-shops to be open to visit by the police.
That debts for intoxicating liquors drunk upon! the
premises be not recoverable by law.
That for evidence of sale it be not necessary to prove
the passing of money.
The provissions w hich the Committee suggest In re-
gard to the sale of beer should be applied equally to the
sale of cider, as the same evils exist in both cases.
Before the Committee conclude, they would further
state that sufficient vigilance does not appear to he exer-
cised by the inferior officers of Excise in prever.ting the
consumption of spirits in houses only licensed for the
sale of beer, but they would leave to the proper autho-
rities the task of suggesting the most efficient 'remedy.

And the Committee hay; directed the minutes ofevi-
dence taken before them to be laid before your Lord-
ships, in addition to the said evidence taken before the
Select Committee of this House in the last session of
Parliament, together with an appendix and an index to
the whole of the evidence.
M:ly 3, 1850.

(From the Ceeuniete.)
Did any of our readers ever hear of beer being
"down?" D ies the memory of the oldest inhabitant of
Great Brita'n carry him back to a period when malt
liquor was either lowered in price or improved in que-
!icy, in consequence of a reduction in the prime cost of
the raw material? Such a phenomenon is of familiar oc-
currence in cognate branches of trade and manufacture.
The retail price of bread, for instance, rises and falls, not
oily from year to year, but from month to month—
obeying, with tolerable precision, the periodical fluctua-
tions in the wheat averages. Butcher's meat is, indeed
—from causes which we do not now stop to analyse—
less liable to these oscillations, so far as regards the
charge on the consumer; yet the prices paid from time
to time by the retail tradesmen at Leadenhall and
Newgate-markets bear a pretty regular proportion
to the figures which indicate the returns obtained at
Smithfield by the grazier—as these, in their turn, are
governed by the cost of grass, hay, oilcake, and other
Redder. But who ever heard of anything of the sort
occurring in the commercial history of that national
beverage which, in its various forms of beer, ale, and
porter, is as much a working man's necesssary of life
as bread, beef, and bacon? While every man, woman,
and child in the United Kingdom has a personal
interest in the Mark-lane price of wheat, that of
barley has hitherto been exclusively the concern of the
agriculturists and the brewers. Of all the unrevealed
secrets of trade, it strikes us that none is better deserv-
ing of investigation than this. We know of nothing
like it. So far as we are aware, the brewing business is
the only great national manufacture in which fixed
returns are combined with a fluctuating outlay—in
which the widest variations in the cost of the
chief raw material never appear in the selling
price of the finished article. Looking over the
average prices of barley fas the last dozen years (were
we to take weekly or six-weekly averages, the facts
would be still more striking), we find that, from 395. 6d.
a quarter in 1839, it gradually fell from 275. 6d. in 1842
—a decline of about 30 per cent. Thence it rose to
445. 2d. in 1847—an advance (from 1842) of no less
than 70 per cont.; and during several weeks of 1847
the price was 558. and upwards—or cent. per cent.
above the average of 1842. During the last three
years, the article has been pretty steadily falling; and
for the six weeks ending the Bth instant the average is
225. sd.—a fall of exactly 60 per cent, since the springH
of 1847. Yet, through all these remarkable changes in
the prime cost of the brewer's raw material, the selling
price of his manufactured article has remained un-
changed—our beer, ale, and porter are not a
farthing per pot cheaper, nor the value of a
farthing per pot better, with barley at 225. than
at 555. Let us pursue our arithmetical researches a step.
further. From a return recently presented to Parlia-
ment we learn that the quantity of malt annually made
in the United Kingdom (taking the average of the last
two years) is about 38,500,000 bushels, or upwards of
41 millions of quarters. After making the requisite
deduction for the increase of bulk which the
grain undergoes in the nrocess of malting (100
quarters of barley yielding from 105 to 110 of malt),
we arrive at four-and-a-halt millions of quarters of bar-
ley as the quantity annually malted; and this, at 225.
per quarter, which is the difference between what our
brewers have been paying for their barley during the
past six weeks and the average price of the year 1847
—gives us very nearly five millions sterling as the rate
of annual profit which the collective brewing interest
are at this moment making, over and above the
gains which satisfied theta three years ago. Or—
to bring the matter more fully home to the reader's
imagination—a London firm brewing (as ono house
actually does) 115,000 quarters of malt yearly is netting
rather more than 120,000 i. per annum over and above
the profits of 1847. This enormous surplus profit of five
millions sterling per annum, at present pocketed by the
brewers of this country (for wo believe not one per
cent. of it goes to the publicans)—solely in conse-
quence of a reduction in the price of their raw ma-
terial, the benefit of which the public are not allowed
to share—is a subject which will, we hope, receive
the attention that it merits from all classes of readers.
Here is one of the first necessaries of life, on which the
country is contentedly paying the amount of a second
income-tax for a few manufacturers to divide among
them. In an age when the usages of commerce, the
discoveries of science, and the policy of the
Legislature are progressively cheapening the cost
of subsistence in all directions—when cheap
bread, cheap tea and coff, e, cheap sugar, cheap
beef and mutton, cheap postage, cheap locomotion, cheap
gas, and cheap government, are respectively either the
trophies of past struggles or the watchwords of present
ones—the working man's beverage is quietly suffered to
remain an exception to the univenal rule, and famine
prices are pertinaciously maintained in the midst of plenty.
It is a grievance which any one of our political parties
might most fitly take up—yet they one and all let it alone.
We have sanitary reformers, who go prying into every
nook and cranny of society in quest of remediable causes
of disease—but not one of them has a word to say against
an extortionate enhancement of the price of the poor
man's beer, which adds immensely to the temptations to
adulteration. We have financial reformers, who tell us
that we are all crushed to the earth under the burden
of taxation, and who make a conscience of grumbling
over every penny of public expenditure—but they
raise not a murmur against an annual subsidy of
five millions sterling to the brewing interest. We have
a Country Party, who talk as if they were ready to rebel
against paying a malt-tax to the Queen—but they pay a
second malt-tax to the brewers without breathing a
whisper of complaint. Our distressed agriculturists are
pinching and screwing in all directions (so they say), in
the vain endeavour to make both ends meet—they are
even docking the wages of their labourers—but it never
occurs to them that something at least might be saved
by cheapening the beer which they giro them. It is true
they are not very lavish in their distribution of the ar-
ticle; yet every little helps, and we have never heard
them disclaim the thankful acceptance of the smallest
trifle. Above all, they are at a stand-still for want of a
genuine grievance—and yet, when there is a really good
one staring them in the face, it seems as if they could not
see it. Seriously, we do not know that our agricultu-
rists could anywhere find a better question to take
up than this of the price of beer. They want higher
prices for their corn—higher prices are only to be got
by diminished supply or increased demand—the former
is, as the dullest of them must by this time know,
totally out of their power—why not, then, see if
c
there is not some legitimate and feasible mode of
the latter? Of course, the repeal of the
malt-tax would do something towards it ; for, li
though they de not pay the impost (except so
far as they and their labourers are consumers of the
taxed article), the increase of price arising from the
duty operates as a check on consumption and a limita-
tionas it happens, the malt-tax can-
not But, as
for the Exchequer wants
th ando will n
notmfondmeey.ald, tisbßu obvious, however, that the end would
be equally well secured by any other process by which
beer might be cheapened to the consumer. Whether
five millions of taxation oa malt liquor be caved from
the Exchequer or from the brewers, it comes to exactly
the same thing as regards the extension of the barley-
grower's market—the only difference being, that in the
one case he would, and in the other he would not,
hare to pay extra income-tax as a substitute. As
for the effect of cheapness (from whatever cause
arising) in stimulating the consumption of commodities,
our agriculturists have but to refer to the fiscal and com-
mercial history of tea and coffee—if they can so far
overcome their aversion to free-trade statistics—and they
will be able to form a notion of what it is that they
are losing by this brewers' combination to keep up
a high price of beer in the face of cheap barley.
One word in conclusion to the " interest" whose ex-
orbitant and usurious gains we have now held up
to public animadversion. Breweries are not like rail-
ways—a class of undertakings in which free compe-
tition impossible. Compe-
tition thperaractaienaulflayctusrpeeaokfiubter is merely difficult—
and difficulties of this sort are sure to be overcome
as soon as there is a clear understanding on the
part of the community that the thing is
worth doing. From the moment the public be-
gin to see that they are mulcted, by a selfish trading
combination, of one of the fair and natural results of
free-trade prices—there is virtually an end of the ques-
tion; and it will in that case fare best with those who
are the first to make an "equitable adjustment" between
prime cost and selling prices.

shmdaeofstireinent. Ile,
THE STEAM-SHIP PAcu'rC.—This splendid vessel,
arrived in the river on Friday last, now lies in the Sloyne,
and yesterday was thrown open to the public, at a charge of
nexo
hold,t
,ntth3he2er
there
feet;v sameii
l
one shilling each, the receipts to be applied to enhance the
theA°nn 1
feet; public ui ecdhdael nnipcet Visiting
funds now being raised for the erection .of the Church and
bteerrilias,oatnhderaso
Schools for the Blind. She will be open to-dayal length thhe
ri is
tonnage
al
ge feet; &
ow heath,
to
tons,
psphoertsuanilistyhefnorce
engines, which were manufactured at the foundry of Mr.
Allaire, New York, are each of 1,000-horse power. She has
accommodation for about 170 passengers. The grand saloon
is furnished in the most splendid and magnificent manner,
surrounded with large and beaatifully carved framed mirrors,
various artistic designs, and tables, easy chairs, and couches
made of rosewood, holly, satin, oak, , ma-le
p and wallnut.
There are four large stained-glass ventilators, which descend
from the deck through the saloon into the lower cabin, and
the reflection of these in the numerous mirrors greatly
heighten the effect of the decorations.--Liverpool Mercury.
I ADvERTisEMENT.] —THE EARL OF ALDBOROUGH
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by all medicine Tetulolll throughout the tunused world.