ENGLISH NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 717, 3 December 1903, Page 24

ENGLISH NOTES.

The London correspondent of the “Australian Brewers 1 ’ Journal” writes : — This is the middle of the holiday season, and very little of Trade interest is ;ust now transpiring. The summer has been a very disappointing one, though at the time of writing- the weather isj fine and warm. As might be expected the consumption of alcoholic liquors has remained stationary, instead of, as had been hoped, once more marking a healthy increase. Business generally has been so dull during the past two or three years that it was but natural to anticipate better times, but so far these “piping times of peace” are still to come, and we all sincerely hope now that they cannot be much further delayed,

” The hops in some parts are likely to tarn out a fair average crop, both as regards quality and quantity. The total acreage has , fallen by about 100, and is returned this year as, 47,938 acres. This is slightly less than last year, and about 8000 acres below the average of the past eighteen years, while the average crop over the same period has been slightly more than eight hundred weights per acre. This year, I am told by experts who have visited the fields that thq crop is likely to reach nearer 10 cwts per acre, but until actual returns are available, it 1 is impossible to speak with any pretence of precision.

The barley crop is undoubtedly below the average, both as to quantity and quality, owing to the deluges of rain we have had during the past three months, and which have continued during harvesting, or rendered that operation not worth making. In most parts of the country, farmers say that not for fifty years have the harvesting conditions been so calamitous', and brewers anticipate great difficulty in obtaining home-grown barleys suitable for malting. To enable the use of any large proportion of this home-grown barley, no doubt the trade will be compelled to employ a greater proportion of foreign grain or sugar. That very interesting blue-book, the “ Inland Revenue Report,” has just been published for the year 1902-3. It shows that nearly 105 millions sterling were collected by the department. This is quite exclusive of the Customs Department, which collected a further sum of 344 millions. These together make a total of. say, 140 millions, equal, roughly, to £3 10s per head of the entire population — men, women and children.

The produce of the beer duty was £13,706,012 —a sum well below the Budget

estimate. The largest yield of this duty was £13,940,000 in 1900-1, the rata in that year having been increased from 6s 9d to 7s 9d per barrel. Since then there has been a falling-off, due to diminished output, which has dropped from 37,090,000 barrels, in the year before the duty was raised, to 35,978,000 last year, although the population has gone on increasing. This is evidence, I think, that the remunerative limit of taxation has been reached, The number of breweries has continued to decrease, and now stands at 5692 only, as compared with 9661 ten years before. These figures illustrate the tendency of the age towards concentration and the swallowing-up of the smaller breweries by the larger.

The spirit duty produced £19,033,296, a sum also well below the Budget estimate. As witli the beer duty, the yield from spirits has fallen away since 1900, in spite of the rate per gallon at the end of that year having been raised from 10s 6d to Ils. The lessened consumption of spirits has been even more marked than in the case of beer, the record of four years ago —namely, 38,716,000 gallons'— having since fallen to 34,765,000 gallons'. These figures refer only to home-made spirits. Imported spirits during the same period fell from 9,304,000 to 8,550,000 gallons. Adding both quantities together, we get a per capita consumption of 1.17 gallons four years ago, and only 1.03 last year—a decrease of 12 per cent. Beer, on the other hand, fell by about 6 per cent, only—i.e., from 32£ gallons to 30 1-3 per head—so that it is clear the brunt of recent bad times has not only fallen upon the brewer. The export spirit trade, however, has been very good, nearly million gallons having been sent out of the country last year —the best on record in this respect. The spirits in bonded warehouses at the present time amount to no less than 180 million gallons, of which 166 are home made, the latter being sufficient to supply our needs for over four years. There ought not, therefore, to be complaints of the sale of immature or raw spirits, of which a good deal has been heard in recent vears.

License duties paid by our trade realised £2,218,881, while wine duty paid through the Customs brought in a further £1,523,856. Taking the totals, both Inland Revenue and Customs, contributed in the shape of taxation by the trade, we get no less than £41,437,080, a sum which is not very far short of one-third of the national resources from taxation, and is more than the total produce of the income tax, even when it stood at the alarming rate of Is 3d in the £.