LESS WHISKY AND TOBACCO.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1909, Page 13

LESS WHISKY AND TOBACCO.

HOW TRADE IS AFFECTED. TJio great increase in "the duties on spirits and tobacco, as might have been expeoted, has had the effect of largely decreasing tho consumption of both articles, with the result that trade has been injured and the revenue will" suffer. "The consumption of whisky has declined from 30 to .35 per cent, since the introduction of the Budget," said a director of an important Scotch distillery to a London reporter. "During the first month the reduction was enormous, for it amounted to from 40 to 50 per cent. There has now been a slight recovery, but tho fact is that people, and especially the poorer classes, will not pay the necessarily increased prices and aro drink- | ing less whisky. Whether or not they are drinking beor instead we do not know." One effect of the inorease in the price of draught bitter beers from 2d to 2^d or 2£d a half pint has been an inoreased salo of bottled beers. Two men drinking together instead of calling for two half pints ask for a bottle and then divide it. The sale of porter, too, 1 has greatly increased. This can be obtained at 4d a quart, whereas a quart, of what used to bo known as "four ale," is now sd. "Sfince May there has been a reduction of 10 por cent, in the consumption of; tobacoo, ontirely due to tho increase in the duty," said Mr. Isidore Gluckstein, a direotor of Salmon and Gluck stein. "The working class smoke about 70 per cent, of the total, and they aro smoking less becanso they have "to pay more. Many working men spend a definite sum a week on their tobacco. They are still spending _ that sum, but, of course, they are getting a smaller quantity. Everyone in tho trade knows that a reduction in the duty leads to increased consumption, and that as surely an increase in the duty leads to a drop in consumption."