SPIRITUOUS STATISTICS OF NEW ZEALAND.

Colonist, Volume VII, Issue 664, 8 March 1864, Page 3

SPIRITUOUS STATISTICS OF NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Wellington Advertiser.)

Eoe those who desire to trace in particular branches the progressive advances of New Zealand, the Registrar-General has prepared tables which he trusts will furnish interesting information. With reference to the advance made by the Colony in one of these particular branches we do now propose to speak, taking for our guide the tables referred to by the Registrar-General. From , these tables we learn that the ordinary and territorial revenue of New Zealand in 1853 —the year when the Constitution Act was brought into operation — amounted to £149,820, while for the year 1862 it had increased to £1,186,009. The Customs retenue, which in 1861 exceeded that for 1860, by £71,695, shews for 1862 an advance as compared with 1861, amounting to £135,573; the tables being £399,436 in 1862, against £260,863 in 1861. To this large revenue for the year 1862 the duty on spirits alone contributed £111,340, or if the duty on all intoxicating drinks is included, then the spirit duty amounted to no less than £135,772, or more than 20s. per head for every man, woman, and child in the Colony, and more than one-third of the Customs revenue. Of the duty on spirits, Auckland contributed £32,588, Taranaki £3,641, Wellington £16,284, Hawke's Bay £4,678, Nelson £6,549, Marlborough £1,609, Canterbury £19,485, Otago £76,508, and Southland £6,175. The total quantity of spirits imported amounted to 371,822 gallons. The total estimated population of the Colony in_ 1862, including military, was 133,114, this would allow nearly three gallons of pure spirits to every man, woman, and child in New Zealand.

Unless Nelson gets drunk on home-brewed beer or manufactures spirits for home consumption she is by far the most sober Province in the Colony. With a population nearly equal to that of Wellington she only contributed in spirit duty £6,549, while "Wellington contributed £16,284, and Auckland and Otago a still larger amount when compared with their population. Nelson also imports less wine and beer, compared with her population, than any other province in the Colony. "While she paid only £983 duty on wine, and £958 on beer, Wellington paid £2,076 duty on wine, and £2,735 duty on beer. In proportion to her population by far the largest quantity of wine and beer are imported into Canterbury. Hawke's Bay consumes more spirits than any other Province in the Colony in proportion to her population; next to her stands Otago and Taranaki, and next to them Auckland. Considerable more than half the Customs revenue collected at New Plymouth is derived from the duty on spirits, and precisely similar results are shewn in the returns for Napier. The quantity of wine imported into the Colony in 1862 was 136,607 gallons, the quantity of beer in wood 422,920 gallons, and the quantity in bottles 274,380 gallons. There is a very heavy duty on intoxicating liquors in Great Britain, and the revenue derived from their sale exceeds £20,000,000 per annum, but this enormous sum is far below what the G-overnment here manages to extract from the public in the shape of spirit duties when the population of the two countries is taken into account. If the revenue from spirits affords us as good a criterion by which to judge of the prosperity of the colonists as the Customs and Excise are said to do at home, then it must be admitted that the colonists of New Zealand are in a highly prosperous condition.