GREAT BRITAIN’S DRINK BILL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1679, 4 May 1904, Page 63

GREAT BRITAIN’S DRINK BILL.

Though the United- Kingdom, -with its copious drizzle and chilly mists, is far from being a “thirsty country,” its people contrived! last year to spend the enormous sum of £174,445.,600 in alcoholic drink—an amount not far short of treble the annual cost of the army and navy; and more than the revenue of some European States. The Rev. Dr Dawson Burns, to whom we areindebted for a staggering compilation of statistics on the subject, gives the national expenditure on beer as £104,846,000; on spirit®, £55,551,228, andl on wines and caddr," £14,04-7,500. (Cider is only •a trifling factor in this latter total.) The overage expenditure works out at £4 2s 6d pea* head of the population, and £2O 11s 8d for each family of five persons. If, however, the theory be accepted that the wliole of the drinking, is done by 55 per cent, of the population —and Dr Bums regards it as a- reasonable theoi-yeethe average per head would be £7 9s -3d. It has been estimated that tilth. people whose incomes do not exceed £l5O axe accountable tor two-thirds of this annual drink expenditure. If this :- be so they contributed to the drink bill of 1003 £116,296,84/. The total consumption per head appears to have averaged £4 7s in England, £3 5s 2d in Scotland and £2 4s lOd in Ireland. Of pure alcohol the total consumed during the year was 89,646,519 gallons, comprising 62,997,696 in beer, 23,897,509 in spirits, 2,091,314 in wine, and 750,000 in other liquors. Dr Burns indulges in a wistful speculation as tohow much more comfortable and happy the homes of British people might have been in 1903 if they had spent that vast total of £174,445,000 on “articles of utility and elegance,” the production of which would,..have administered a powerful stimulus to trade.