LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA WINE MAKERS' CORPORATION 
 Accession 87219 class 
 
WINE, 
 
 ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
WINE, 
 
 ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 AN INQUIRY 
 
 INTO THE 
 
 OPERATION OF THE WINE DUTIES ON 
 CONSUMPTION AND REVENUE. 
 
 SIR JAMES EMERSON TENNENT, K.C.S., LL.D. 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JAMES MADDEN, 8, LEADENHALL STREET. 
 
 M.DCCC.LV. 
 
 The Author of tltis Work reserves to himself the right of translation in 
 Foreign Countries. 
 
e 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY J. WERTHEIMER AND CO. 
 
 ClltCnS PLACE, FINSBUKT CIBCUS. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ALTHOUGH holding an official position, the functions of 
 which are akin to an inquiry such as the present, the views 
 submitted in the following pages must be regarded as the 
 individual opinions of the writer. 
 
 The suggestion of reducing the tax upon wine, is one 
 which so entirely recommends itself to general favour, that 
 the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 
 1852 to consider its expediency; embarrassed between their 
 natural desire to facilitate the measure, and their sense of 
 
 87219 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 responsibility to protect the revenue, forbore to offer any 
 recommendation on the subject. 
 
 Having acted as a member of that Committee, and having 
 abstained from recording any collective opinion for the 
 guidance of the Legislature, I was led to undertake an 
 analysis of the evidence for my own satisfaction, and hence 
 the following essay. The conclusions which it embodies 
 have been corroborated by information derived from 
 sources uninvestigated by them: and by facts since col- 
 lected, the details of which are brought down to the close 
 of last year. 
 
 As no one can be supposed to enter on such an en- 
 quiry, otherwise than favourably impressed as regards a 
 project, the aim of which is to render one of the luxuries 
 of life at once cheap and abundant; I may, at least, hope 
 to be regarded as a disinterested umpire; when, convinced 
 against my will, I am forced to come to the conclusion, 
 that the difficulties in the way of such a measure appear to 
 me to surmount the hope of its early achievement. 
 
 I have endeavoured to reach the truth and whatever 
 technical errors the initiated may detect in the following 
 
INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 pages, will be charitably ascribed to my want of familiarity 
 with the usages of the wine-trade, a craft which in some of 
 the branches seem to justify the ancient title of a " mys- 
 tery." 
 
 As frequent reference is required to the return of the 
 consumption and revenue derived from wines, a Table is 
 here inserted from the Eeturns laid before the Wine Duties 
 Committee of 1852, with the details continued to the pre- 
 sent time. 
 
A TABLE 
 
 SHOWING THE QUANTITIES OF EACH KIND OF WINE RETAINED FOR HOME 
 CONSUMPTION, AND THE REVENUE RECEIVED IN EACH YEAR FROM 
 
 1786 TO 1813. 
 
 Years. 
 
 French. 
 
 Other Sorts. 
 
 All Sorts. 
 
 Eevenue. 
 
 
 Imperial Gallons. 
 
 Imperial Gallons. 
 
 Imperial Gallons, 
 
 
 
 1786 
 
 Records destroyed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 614,247 
 
 1787 
 
 722,642 
 
 3,799,299 
 
 4,521,941 
 
 848,909 
 
 1788 
 
 933,172 
 
 5,717,472 
 
 6,650,644. 
 
 894,378 
 
 1789 
 
 597,924 
 
 5,361,174 
 
 5,959,098 
 
 856,223 
 
 1790 
 
 618,640 
 
 5,982,398 
 
 6,601,038 
 
 959,565 
 
 1791 
 
 607,585 
 
 6,966,205 
 
 7,573,790 
 
 1,054,779 
 
 1792 
 
 622,494 
 
 7,229,213 
 
 7,851,707 
 
 1,148,755 
 
 1793 
 
 376,008 
 
 6,234,693 
 
 6,610,701 
 
 785,193 
 
 1794 
 
 204,097 
 
 6,607,277 
 
 6,811,374 
 
 912,863 
 
 1795 
 
 557,085 
 
 7,681,353 
 
 8,238,438 
 
 1,694,888 
 
 1796 
 
 96,407 
 
 5,679,853 
 
 5,776,260 
 
 1,288,252 
 
 1797 
 
 6,926 
 
 3,562,335 
 
 3,569,261 
 
 1,424,972 
 
 1793 
 
 59,414 
 
 5,206,354 
 
 5,265,768 
 
 1,537,151 
 
 1799 
 
 208,532 
 
 5,929,632 
 
 6,138,164 
 
 2,036,021 
 
 1800 
 
 80,243 
 
 7,214,509 
 
 7,294,752 
 
 2,124,808 
 
 1801 
 
 178,369 
 
 6,698,341 
 
 6,876,710 
 
 2,185,661 
 
 1802 
 
 252,277 
 
 6,861,139 
 
 7,113,416 
 
 2,280,072 
 
 1803 
 
 268,834 
 
 7,957,630 
 
 8,226,464 
 
 2,423,929 
 
 1804 
 
 120,998 
 
 5,330,693 
 
 5,457,691 
 
 2,141,456 
 
 1805 
 
 104,723 
 
 4,517,978 
 
 4,622,701 
 
 2,255,794 
 
 1806 
 
 177,127 
 
 5,648,051 
 
 5,825,178 
 
 2,574,531 
 
 1807 
 
 200,203 
 
 6,071,143 
 
 6,271,346 
 
 2,729,887 
 
 1808 
 
 192,642 
 
 6,139,233 
 
 6,331,875 
 
 2,648,474 
 
 1809 
 
 178,029 
 
 5,716,148 
 
 5,894,177 
 
 2,686,003 
 
 1810 
 
 212,520 
 
 6,308,773 
 
 6,521,293 
 
 2,786,587 
 
 1811 
 
 59,213 
 
 5,570,509 
 
 5,629,722 
 
 2,443,007 
 
 1812 
 
 148,478 
 
 4,876,052 
 
 5,024,530 
 
 2,189,418 
 
 1813 
 
 196,201 
 
 4,369,276 
 
 4,565,477 
 
 Records destroyed. 
 
 [ Continued on opposite page.] 
 
CONTINUATION OF TABLE 
 
 SHOWING THE QUANTITIES OF EACH KIND OF WINE RETAINED FOR HOME CON- 
 SUMPTION, AND THE REVENUE RECEIVED IN EACH YEAR, FROM 1814 TO 1854. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Of the 
 
 
 
 
 Other 
 
 
 
 
 Cape. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portugal. 
 
 Madeira. 
 
 Azores. 
 
 Spanish. 
 
 Canary. 
 
 Rhenish. 
 
 Sorts. 
 
 All sorts. 
 
 Revenue 
 
 
 Imp. 
 
 Imp. 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Imp. 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Imperial 
 
 
 
 
 Galls. 
 
 Galls. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Gallons 
 
 Galls. 
 
 Gallon^. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Galls. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 
 1814 
 
 54,200 
 
 157,703 
 
 3,466,477 
 
 361,837 
 
 1 
 
 1,012,509 
 
 6,964 
 
 23,158 
 
 57,665 
 
 5,330,774 
 
 2,267, '-78 
 
 1815 
 
 80,047 
 
 200,918 
 
 2,770,887 
 
 310,933 
 
 372 
 
 994,217 
 
 184,82 
 
 20,152 
 
 55,756 
 
 4,624,105 
 
 2,388,391 
 
 1816 
 
 35S040 
 
 123,567 
 
 2,250,885 
 
 288,093 
 
 356 
 
 827,084 
 
 148,400 
 
 21,925 
 
 38,688 
 
 4,057,038 
 
 1,777,458 
 
 1817 
 
 530,434 
 
 145,972 
 
 3,022,801 
 
 266,303 
 
 99 
 
 940,739 
 
 167,353 
 
 16,744 
 
 52,278 
 
 5,142,829 
 
 2,224,612 
 
 1M8 
 
 555,747 
 
 259,178 
 
 3,224,255 
 
 305,665 
 
 866 
 
 1,026,425 
 
 171,825 
 
 23,157 
 
 68,098 
 
 5,635,216 
 
 2,467,315 
 
 1819 
 
 511,594 
 
 213,616 
 
 2,409,030 
 
 329,534 
 
 4,932 
 
 891,867 
 
 160,458 
 
 23,734 
 
 70,447 
 
 4,615,212 
 
 2,005,359 
 
 1820 
 
 491,199 
 
 164,292 
 
 2,361,471 
 
 353,492 
 
 7,448 
 
 935,971 
 
 172,741 
 
 26,061 
 
 73,820 
 
 4,586,495 
 
 1,987,817 
 
 1821 
 
 572,131 
 
 159,462 
 
 2,313,509 
 
 400,476 
 
 4,461 
 
 959,864 
 
 151,727 
 
 22,403 
 
 72,852 
 
 4,686,885 
 
 2,006,498 
 
 1822 
 
 533,847 
 
 168,732 
 
 2,375,210 
 
 341,916 
 
 10,598 
 
 967,149 
 
 126,7H 
 
 20,313 
 
 57,483 
 
 4,606,999 
 
 1,982,882 
 
 1823 
 
 555,119 
 
 171,681 
 
 2,492,212 
 
 323,734 
 
 10,956 
 
 1,078,922 
 
 123,036 
 
 20,670 
 
 68,730 
 
 4,845,060 
 
 2,088,231 
 
 1824 
 
 595,299 
 
 187,447 
 
 2,512,343 
 
 297,479 
 
 5,694 
 
 1,217,034 
 
 1 17,428 
 
 25,976 
 
 71,391 
 
 5,030,091 
 
 2,153,112 
 
 1825 
 
 670,639 
 
 525,579 
 
 4,200,719 
 
 372,524 
 
 8.414 
 
 1,830,975 
 
 167,108 
 
 107,299 
 
 126,285 
 
 8,009,542 
 
 1,955,709 
 
 1826 
 
 630,436 
 
 343,707 
 
 2.833,688 
 
 286,275 
 
 7,990 
 
 1,622,530 
 
 134,445 
 
 66,994 
 
 132,328 
 
 6,053,443 
 
 1,424,326 
 
 1827 
 
 698,434 
 
 311,289 
 
 3,222,192 
 
 300,295 
 
 4,196 
 
 1,908,331 
 
 152,933 
 
 76,161 
 
 152,525 
 
 6,826,361 
 
 1,600,587 
 
 1828 
 
 652,286 
 
 421,469 
 
 3,307,021 
 
 272,977 
 
 8,944 
 
 2,097,628 
 
 137,553 
 
 86,905 
 
 177,593 
 
 7,162,376 
 
 1,700,051 
 
 1829 
 
 579,744 
 
 365,336 
 
 2,681,751 
 
 229,392 
 
 2,909 
 
 1.964,162 
 
 101,699 
 
 76,396 
 
 216,263 
 
 6,217,652 
 
 1,473,546 
 
 1830 
 
 535,255 
 
 303,294 
 
 2,869,608 
 
 217,13^ 
 
 2,780 
 
 2,081,423 
 
 10K892 
 
 68,322 
 
 249,733 
 
 6,434,445 
 
 1,524,168 
 
 1831 
 
 539,584 
 
 254,366 
 
 2,707,731 
 
 209,127 
 
 3.806 
 
 2,089,532 
 
 94,117 
 
 57,888 
 
 259,110 
 
 6,212,264 
 
 1,535,484 
 
 1832 
 
 514,262 
 
 228,627 
 
 2,617,405 
 
 159,898 
 
 1,167 
 
 2,080,099 
 
 72,803 
 
 38,i97 
 
 256,084 
 
 5,965,542 
 
 1,715,812 
 
 1833 
 
 545,191 
 
 232,550 
 
 3,596,530 
 
 161,042 
 
 739 
 
 2,246,085 
 
 68,882 
 
 43,758 
 
 312,993 
 
 6,207,770 
 
 1,633,830 
 
 1834 
 
 424,081 
 
 260,630 
 
 2,780,303 
 
 150,369 
 
 1,075 
 
 2,279,853 
 
 62,186 
 
 50,377 
 
 371,670 
 
 6,480,544 
 
 1,705,639 
 
 1835 
 
 522,941 
 
 271,661 
 
 2,780,024 
 
 139,422 
 
 1,906 
 
 2,230,087 
 
 50,956 
 
 48,696 
 
 374,549 
 
 6,420,342 
 
 1,691,522 
 
 183IJ 
 
 541,511 
 
 352,063 
 
 2,878,359 
 
 133,673 
 
 1,456 
 
 2,338,413 
 
 51,128 
 
 59,454 
 
 403,157 
 
 6,809,212 
 
 1,793,963 
 
 1837 
 
 500,727 
 
 438,594 
 
 2,560,252 
 
 111,376 
 
 282 
 
 2,278,263 
 
 39,962 
 
 44,782 
 
 417,293 
 
 6,391,531 
 
 1,687,097 
 
 1838 
 
 538,528 
 
 417,281 
 
 2,900,457 
 
 110,294 
 
 299 
 
 2,497,538 
 
 40,212 
 
 57,584 
 
 428,078 
 
 6,9'JO,271 
 
 1,846,057 
 
 1839 
 
 534,184 
 
 378,636 
 
 2,921,422 
 
 118,715 
 
 197 
 
 2,578,997 
 
 34,981 
 
 63,937 
 
 3f9,417 
 
 7,000,486 
 
 1,849,698 
 
 1840 
 
 456,773 
 
 341,841 
 
 2,668,534 
 
 112,555 
 
 191 
 
 2,500,760 
 
 29,298 
 
 60,056 
 
 383,914 
 
 6,553,922 
 
 1,791,636 
 
 1841 
 
 441,238 
 
 353,740 
 
 2,387,017 
 
 107,701 
 
 137 
 
 2,412,821 
 
 25,635 
 
 55,242 
 
 401,429 
 
 6,184,960 
 
 1,720,479 
 
 1842 
 
 3/0,800 
 
 360,692 
 
 1,288,953 
 
 65,209 
 
 301 
 
 2,261,786 
 
 20,868 
 
 53,585 
 
 393,028 
 
 4,815,222 
 
 1,334,469 
 
 1843 
 
 332,369 
 
 326,498 
 
 2,517,709 
 
 93,589 
 
 105 
 
 2,311,639 
 
 . 20,492 
 
 49,943 
 
 416,643 
 
 6,068,987 
 
 1,703,344 
 
 1843 
 
 349,257 
 
 473,789 
 
 2,887,501 
 
 111,577 
 
 158 
 
 2,478,360 
 
 20,650 
 
 53,865 
 
 463,527 
 
 6,838,614 
 
 1,922,545 
 
 1845 
 
 357,793 
 
 443,330 
 
 2,688,084 
 
 102,745 
 
 69 
 
 2,554,877 
 
 20,260^ 
 
 62,519 
 
 506,454 
 
 6,736,131 
 
 1,891,232 
 
 1846 
 
 365,867 
 
 409,506 
 
 2,669,798 
 
 94,580 
 
 283 
 
 2,602,490 
 
 25,312 
 
 64,478 
 
 508,002 
 
 6,740,316 
 
 1,892,206 
 
 1847 
 
 293,016 
 
 397,329 
 
 2,360,851 
 
 81,349 
 
 43 
 
 2,372,178 
 
 22.921 
 
 55,774 
 
 470,386 
 
 6,053,847 
 
 1,704,318 
 
 1848 
 
 267,922 
 
 355,802 
 
 2,446,813 
 
 76,933 
 
 433 
 
 2,435,427 
 
 20,311 
 
 44,651 
 
 488,250 
 
 6,136,547 
 
 1,732,282 
 
 1849 
 
 241,845 
 
 331,690 
 
 2,648,2-12 
 
 71,097 
 
 67 
 
 2,448,107 
 
 19,865 
 
 76,405 
 
 444 : 541 
 
 6,251,862 
 
 1,767,516 
 
 1850 
 
 246,132 
 
 340,74S 
 
 2,814,979 
 
 70,360 
 
 246 
 
 2,469,038 
 
 15.995 
 
 54,66S 
 
 425,056 
 
 6,437,222 
 
 1,821,123 
 
 1851 
 
 234,672 
 
 447,550 
 
 2,524,775 
 
 71,025 
 
 131 
 
 2,533,384 
 
 15,928 
 
 58,957 
 
 394,225 
 
 6,280,653 
 
 1,776,247 
 
 1852 
 
 242,805 
 
 503,919 
 
 2,567,775 
 
 82,064 
 
 
 2,730,089 
 
 14,877 
 
 58,533 
 
 387,750 
 
 6,346,061 
 
 1,795,013 
 
 1853 
 
 282,244 
 
 5'jO,r.,( 
 
 2,798,043 
 
 73,447 
 
 
 2,848,526 
 
 19,883 
 
 71,267 
 
 352,306 
 
 6,813,830 
 
 1,924,792 
 
 1854 
 
 275,,V- 
 
 885,567 
 
 2,622,881 
 
 42,874 
 
 
 2,741,230 
 
 11,517 
 
 72,404 
 
 32?,6}1 6,775,858 1,914,450 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE AEVANTAGES OF REDUCING THE IMPORT DUTY ON WINE, 
 AND THE DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Page 
 Policy of SIR EGBERT PEEL regarding the Duty on Wine, 1842 . 1 
 
 Opinions of Mr. DISRAELI, 1852 . 2 
 
 Views of Mr. GLADSTONE, 1853 3 
 
 Advantages to Trade from reducing the Duty .... 4 
 Financial Difficulties which interpose 6 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHOULD WINE BE TAXED AS A " LUXURY," OR AS ONE OF 
 THE NECESSARIES OF LIFE ? 
 
 Wine has never been taxed in England with a view to dis- 
 courage its use 7 
 
 It has never been Taxed as a " Necessary" .... 8 
 
 Wine has always been dealt with as a "Luxury" ... 9 
 
 Mr. PITT'S Duties were Taxes on a " Luxury" .... 9 
 The Wine Trade in England has always assented to this 
 
 heretofore 10 
 
 Their Opinions on this point in 1824 10 
 
 The Public now so regard it 10 
 
 If Wine be a Necessary of Life the present, Duty is too high . 1 1 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MB. PITT'S EXPERIMENTS WITH THE WINE DUTIES, 
 
 17861805. 
 
 Page 
 
 Unexpected Statistical Results during this period . . .12 
 Attempted to be accounted for by Mr. PORTER . . . .13 
 
 They are the anomalies of consumption during war . . .13 
 Their peculiarities so" extreme as to support either view of the 
 
 question ........... 14 
 
 Instances where Low Duties failed to stimulate consumption . 14 
 Instances where High Duties did not check it . . . .15 
 
 The highest Revenue has been realized from the highest rate 
 
 of Duty 15 
 
 In Mr. PITT'S first Experiment, low Duty was favourable to 
 
 Consumption, but not to Revenue . . . . .15 
 1. Mr. PITT'S first Experiment, 1786-87 ; he lowers the Duty . 16 
 Curious System of the Wine Duties previous to Mr. PITT'S 
 
 Reform (note ; see also Appendix No. 1.) . . .16 
 
 The new scale increases Consumption 16 
 
 But fails to raise Revenue in the same proportion . . .17 
 II. Mr. PITT'S second Experiment, 1795-96 ; he raises the Duties 
 
 beyond their original amount . . . . . .18 
 
 Consumption did not decline in consequence . . . .19 
 
 And Revenue largely increased 19 
 
 Dealers' Stock first charged with increased Duty (note). . 19 
 Fluctuations in the use of French Wines at this period. . 19 
 III. Mr. PITT'S last Experiment, 18011805; Duty raised still 
 
 higher 20 
 
 Consumption remains high . . . . . . .21 
 
 Revenue immensely increased . . . . . ^ . .21 
 
 Difficulty of accounting for these results . . .21 
 
 This state of things continued during the War . . .21 
 But Consumption and Revenue fell after the Peace, in 1815 . 22 
 And continued to decline till 1825 ...... 22 
 
 Review of Mr. PITT'S Policy with the Wine Duties . . .23 
 
 Being Experiments during War, they afford no precedent in 23 
 
 ordinary circumstances . . . . . .23 
 
 His trials were purely tentative, and without a fixed principle 
 His first scale was too low for Revenue . . . . .23 
 
 His second scale was too high for Consumption . . .24 
 His last was too extravagant for either . . . . .24 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EARL OF RIPON AND MR. HUSKISSON^S WINE DUTIES, 
 
 18251854. 
 
 Page 
 In 1823, the state of the Trade and Kevenue called for a revision 
 
 of the Duty . 25 
 
 The Wine Trade of London recommended 4s. Wd. a gallon . 26 
 
 Mr. HOSKISSON reduces the War Duties of Mr. PITT . . 26 
 
 Consumption increases 27 
 
 But Revenue falls off 27 
 
 And has never since recovered its original amount . . . 28 
 Duties on all Wines (except Cape) equalised in 1831 . . .28 
 
 Consumption very slightly affected 29 
 
 But Revenue increased by the additional Duty . . . .29 
 
 Both Consumption and Revenue nearly stationary since 1831 . 30 
 
 Table shewing the results of both 30 
 
 Common Wine has been reduced in price to the Consumer 
 
 under the present Duty 33 
 
 Comparative Table of the Revenue under high and low Duties 
 
 17991854 . . - 31 
 
 The EARL OF RIPON'S reductions have entailed an annual loss 
 
 of income 32 
 
 These Experiments shew that a Duty of about FIVE SHILLINGS 
 
 is the most favourable both for Consumption and Revenue . 32 
 
 The slight addition made to it in 1831 did not disturb either . 32 
 
 The further addition of 5 per cent, in 1840 affected both . . 33 
 
 The EARL OF RIPON'S Duties superior to those of Mr. PITT . 34 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DECLINING TASTE FOR WINE IN ENGLAND AND SOME OF 
 
 ITS CAUSES. 
 
 Complaint that the use of Wine does not keep pace with the 
 
 increase of population ....... 35 
 
 The Individual Consumption has fallen off from three bottles 
 
 per head, in 1785, to one and a half . . . .35 
 
 This decline not attributable to increase of the Duty . . 36 
 But to improved social habits and tastes . . . . .36 
 
 The race of "Six Bottle Men" extinct 37 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Individual Consumption of Spirits declining also (note) . 37 
 Example of the Great Exhibition in 1851 (note) . . .37 
 Same fact observable in INDIA (note) . . . . .38 
 
 And in IRELAND 38 
 
 Declining Consumption of Wine by the better Classes in FRANCE . 39 
 The Evidence and Report of the Commissioners of the National 
 
 Assembly .......... 39 
 
 Less Wine drunk by the higher orders 39 
 
 Private Wine Cellars no longer stocked 40 
 
 Report of the Commissioners as to the cause of this change . 40 
 Consumption of Wine declining in BELGIUM . . . .41 
 
 And in HOLLAND 41 
 
 The result ascribed to the increased use of Coffee in Belgium . 42 
 COFFEE and TEA ; their use in England has displaced Beer and 
 
 Spirits 42 
 
 Tables shewing the extent of this influence . . . .43 
 The use of Tobacco has had the same effect . . . .44 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STTLL TAXING WINE AS A "LUXURY," IS IT POSSIBLE BY A 
 LOWER DUTY TO INCREASE CONSUMPTION AND SUSTAIN 
 THE REVENUE ? 
 
 The upper classes will not drink more Wine, because the price 
 
 is lowered ......... 46 
 
 Evidence on this point in the Committee of the House of 
 
 Commons in 1852 ........ 46 
 
 A Three Shilling Duty suggested, but not encouraged . . 47 
 Mr. M'CuLLOCH originally proposed a Three Shilling Duty, if a 
 
 Duty could not be assessed ad valorem . . . .47 
 
 But he has since rejected it ....... 47 
 
 The lowest amount of Revenue ever collected was from a " Three 
 
 Shilling Duty" (note) 47 
 
 A Three Shilling Duty condemned by Mr. PORTER as a mere 
 
 sacrifice of Revenue 48 
 
 Nothing short of a reduction to ONE SHILLING will now suffice 48 
 The Wine Trade of the present day differ on this point from 
 
 the Wine Trade in 1824, in thinking Wine a "necessary" 
 
 and no longer a "luxury" 49 
 
 Immense Revenue promised to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 
 from a One Shilling Duty (note) 49 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AN AD VALOREM DUTY UNATTAINABLE. 
 
 Page 
 
 An ad valorem would be the fairest 51 
 
 But it is impossible to enforce it with justice to the Treasury 
 
 and the Public ......... 51 
 
 It has been tried in FRANCE, and failed 52 
 
 It can only be collected where the duty is nominal, as in 
 
 HAMBURGH, or very low as in the UNITED STATES . . 52 
 Opinion of the wine merchants in AMERICA, as to an ad valorem 
 
 duty (note) 52 
 
 It has always been rejected in England 52 
 
 Mr. M'CULLOCH'S opinion against it 52 
 
 Mr. PORTER at one time entertained the idea . . . .54 
 
 But afterwards abandoned it 54 
 
 Opinion adverse to an ad valorem duty, in FRANCE . . .55 
 An AD VALOREM duty on the wines of all countries, would become 
 a discriminating duty in favour of certain wine coun- 
 tries, and would thus be inconsistent with existing treaties 55 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE NATIONAL TASTE FOR STRONG WINES IN 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Light wines are not kept out of consumption by the duty, but 
 
 by the want of a prevailing taste for them . . .56 
 Enormous quantities of wine produced in Europe, but none but 
 
 the strongest taken in Great Britain . . . .56 
 The taste for strong wines not engendered by climate . . 58 
 Description of wines drunk here in the reign of Queen Eliza- 
 beth 59 
 
 Wines in use in the time of Charles II. . . . . .59 
 
 First use of Port wine in England .... ^ . 59 
 
 Taxes imposed on French wines by William III. . . .60 
 
 The Methuen Treaty, 1703, A.D 60 
 
 Its effect in confirming the taste for port wine. . . .61 
 
 Mr. M'CULLOCH'B opinion that the Methuen Treaty created that 
 
 taste it only perpetuated it . . . . . .61 
 
 High duties would not exclude French wines if the public taste 
 
 demanded them ........ 62 
 
 High duties did not eradicate the taste for brandy . . .62 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Mr. PITT'S reduction of the wine duties in 1 786, failed to bring 
 
 French wine into consumption 63 
 
 Excessive taxes may discourage the consumption of luxuries ; 
 
 but mere cheapness cannot restore it, if extinct . . 64 
 The war served to keep down the supply of French wines, 
 
 17931815 64 
 
 Table showing the decline of their consumption, 1831 1854 . 65 
 Table of the proportions in which various wines are consumed in 
 
 England .......... 66 
 
 Under equal duties, and with lower prices, French wines cannot 
 
 hold the market ..'..... 67 
 Difficulty, approaching impossibility, to introduce a new wine in 
 
 England . 67 
 
 Opinion of Mr. LANCASTER on this point (See Chap. X. p. .) . 67 
 Sicilian Marsala has made its way, from its resemblance to 
 
 sherry .......... 68 
 
 Fashion one obstacle to the use of a new wine . . . .68 
 
 In AUSTRALIA the same taste for strong wines prevails . . 69 
 Claret unsaleable there at the price of beer . . . .70 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 COMPARATIVE CONSUMPTION OF WINE IN ENGLAND AND 
 IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 
 
 Comparative use of wine in Paris and Hamburg, and in 
 
 England 71 
 
 In Paris the consumption 216 bottles per head, in Ham- 
 burg 29 71 
 
 Average consumption of France (note) 71 
 
 The case of Hamburg doubtful (note) . . . .72 
 
 Consumption of Paris exaggerated ...... 72 
 
 The low duty does not lead to large consumption of wine in 
 
 other countries ........ 72 
 
 Instances of Belgium, Holland, Norway and Sweden, Denmark, 
 
 Russia, and the United States 72 
 
 The taxes on wine in Paris being equal to those in England, it 
 shows that high taxes are not incompatible with large 
 consumption 73 
 
CONTENTS. XV11 
 
 Page 
 If the English take less wine than the French, they take more 
 
 tea and coffee 74 
 
 Beer is also more freely drunk in England than in France . 74 
 Comparative use of spirits in France and England . . .76 
 
 Cider in France and in England 76 
 
 Sweet and home made wines in England 77 
 
 On the whole, the English drink more than the French of 
 
 strong drinks ......... 77 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY OF WINE PROCURABLE, OF 
 A QUALITY SUITABLE TO ENGLISH TASTES ? 
 
 If the duty is to be lowered to ONE SHILLING per gallon, it will 
 require a consumption of 36,000,000 million gallons in- 
 stead of 6,000,000 to restore the present revenue . . 78 
 Can the additional supply be got, of the proper qualities ? . .78 
 Table of the proportionate supply of wines at present . . 79 
 Those of Portugal, Spain, and Sicily, form 86 per cent, of the 
 
 entire 80 
 
 Meagre information possessed of the medium class wines of Eu- 
 rope 80 
 
 Nature has limited the supply of the finest wines in special 
 
 localities . . . .81 
 
 The grape will not bear the same wine if transplanted . . 81 
 No European vine has produced wine in America . . .81 
 Instances of the narrow area which produces Rhenish . .81 
 
 Burgundy 82 
 
 Madeira 82 
 
 Probable supply of sound wines to be hoped for . . .83 
 I. PORTUGAL. Annual production of port wine in the Alto 
 
 Douro 83 
 
 Its recent destruction by the vine disease . . . .85 
 
 Wines of Figueira and Aveiro 87 
 
 Wines of Lisbon and Bucellas 88 
 
 Cheap wines of Tojal and Colares 89 
 
 Total supply anticipated from Portugal . . . . .90 
 
 II. SPAIN. Production of Sherry at Xeres , . . .90 
 
 Immense quantities of other wines in Spain . . . .91 
 
 But unsuited to English taste 92 
 
 c 
 
XV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 And incapable of export from want of roads, etc. . . .93 
 III. SICILY. Production of Marsala . . . , .94 
 Total quantity procurable of some of all kinds from Portugal, 
 
 Spain, and Sicily ........ 96 
 
 Great deficiency still to be made up 96 
 
 IV. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, no expectations from . . .97 
 V. MADEIRA and the CANARIES. Cultivation of wine in Ma- 
 deira threatened with extinction 98 
 
 Amount of recent imports ....... 98 
 
 VI. GERMANY. Enormous production of wine but so bad 
 that Germany imports more wine for her own use, than 
 
 she exports to all the world 98 
 
 VII. ITALY. Italian wines cannot bear exportation or car- 
 riage .......*.. 99 
 
 VIII. FRANCE. Produces 924,000,000 gallons of wine annually 100 
 Its average value sixpence halfpenny per gallon . . .100 
 LE NOIR'S division of it into "good, passable, and detestable" . 100 
 Expectation that England would take largely of the medium 
 
 wines of France doubtful . . . . . .101 
 
 The production of fine wines cannot be extended or increased 
 
 by cultivation . . . . . . . . .102 
 
 Masdeu attempted to be brought into use, but unsuccessfully 102 
 Continental Tourists attempt to bring home light wines, but 
 
 seldom persevere 103 
 
 Singular difficulty to introduce New Wines into use (see Chap. 
 
 VIII. p. 67) 104 
 
 Instances of failure to do so 104 
 
 SIR JOHN BOWRING'S Keport on the Wines of France, 1834 . 104 
 Opinion as to the probability of light French wines being drunk 
 
 under a low duty ........ 104 
 
 Opinion in France at that time hopeful, if an ad valorem duty 
 
 were established 104 
 
 Opinion in the United Kingdom discouraging . . . .105 
 But what failed under a high duty may be tried more success- 
 fully under a low one 106 
 
 France out of her production of 924,000,000 gallons, only ex- 
 ports 33,294,889 gallons 107 
 
 Difficult to hope that England will enlarge her own consump- 
 tion for 400,000 gallons, to 20,000,000 gallons, under a 
 one shilling duty ........ 108 
 
 Present Consumption of Algiers (note) . . . ; .108 
 The quality of Medium Wines has declined of late years in 
 
 France ....... . 109 
 
CONTENTS. xix 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 OPINION IN FRANCE AS TO THE PROBABLE EFFECTS OF A 
 FURTHER REDUCTION OF THE DUTY, ON THE CONSUMP- 
 TION OF WINE IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Page 
 
 Misapprehension in England, that France imposes prohibiting 
 duty on British manufactures merely as a reprisal for our 
 duties on her wines 110 
 
 But we could not negociate with France alone for reduction . 110 
 
 All other wine countries can claim any reduction we make to 
 
 France, under their treaties Ill 
 
 France more anxious for a reduction on brandy than on wine . Ill 
 
 M. MAIRE anticipates no advantage to France from a reduction 
 
 on her wines in England 112 
 
 Different feeling now, on this point, from what Sir J. BOWRING 
 
 found in 1834 112 
 
 The change ascribable to experience of the failure of former 
 reductions to stimulate the use of French wine in 
 England 112 
 
 On all occasions, since 1786, the duty has been lowered to 
 
 favour France . . , . . . . . 113 
 
 COMMISSION appointed l>y the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY in 1849 to 
 
 inquire into the taxes on wine and brandy . . .115 
 
 Opinion of M. GRETERIN that reduction of duty will not raise 
 
 the consumption in England 115 
 
 Statements in regard to the failure of that experiment in Bel- 
 gium and Holland 116 
 
 OPINION OF M. THIERS, that England will not drink light French 
 
 wine. 116 
 
 Opinion of M. FOULD to the same effect 117 
 
 Views of the wine growers of Burgundy 118 
 
 The wine growers of Herault, anxious for a reduction of 
 
 brandy . . . . . . . . . .119 
 
 The wine growers of Bordeaux more anxious to reduce internal 
 taxation on wine in France, than the import duty in 
 other countries . . . , . . . .119 
 
 Their opinion that it is injurious to fine wine to make it cheap 
 
 in England 119 
 
 Report and opinion of the Commissioners 120 
 
 They acquit the English Government of any false commercial 
 policy in maintaining the present duty, which is solely 
 for the sake of revenue . . 121 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Opinion of the Emperor NAPOLEON III. . . . . .122 
 More important to France to reduce the duty on BRANDY than 
 
 on wine 124 
 
 Quantity of wine required to produce a given Quantity of 
 
 brandy (note) 124 
 
 A tax on brandy is but a concentrated tax on wine in another 
 
 shape 124 
 
 The highest wines and the lowest, comparatively independent 
 
 of taxation . . ... . . . . .124 
 
 The strong wines which are rt burnt for brandy" would benefit 
 
 were that duty lowered .... . 124 
 
 Reasons for this conclusion . . . . . . .125 
 
 The taste for brandy in England, ancient and strong not so for 
 
 French wine. . . . . . . . . .125 
 
 Importance to Herault and the Rhone, to obtain a lower tax on 
 
 their brandy in the United Kingdom . . . .125 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF THE VINE-DISEASE IN FRANCE. 
 
 Effects of "good" and "bad" Vintages on Trade . . .126 
 
 Their Importance in the present Enquiry 127 
 
 Table of Vintages in France, 1820 1854 128 
 
 The produce of the "good" years must bear the deficiencies of 
 
 the "bad" 128 
 
 Appearance of the Vine Disease in France . . . .129 
 
 The finest Vineyards least attacked . . . . . .129 
 
 Bad quality of the medium Wines . . . . . .129 
 
 Annual production of Wine in France, 1848 1854 . . .130 
 
 Burgundy 130 
 
 Bordeaux 131 
 
 The Rhone 131 
 
 Decline in the Export of Wine from France since 1850 . . 132 
 
 Want of Wine for the Peasantry 132 
 
 The Internal Consumption of Wine in France, since 1 848, has 
 
 exceeded the production . 132 
 
 Imports of Wine into France 133 
 
 Coffee issued to the French Army in lieu of Wine . . .133 
 Contract Prices of Wine for the French Navy, 18481854 . 134 
 Bad Quality of the Wine . . 1 34 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 Page 
 
 Burgundy supplying Wine to the South of France , . .135 
 Eetail Price of Wine in the cities of France .... 136 
 Effect of the Vine Disease on the Distillation of Brandy . .137 
 Quantity produced in the last Seven Years . . . .137 
 
 Exports of Brandy from France 137 
 
 Importation of Spirits into France, 1852 1854 . . . 137 
 
 Average prices of Brandy, 18481853 138 
 
 Contract prices of Brandy for the French Navy . . . 138 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DUTY ON THE 
 PUBLIC REVENUE. 
 
 The question is one solely of "Finance" 139 
 
 Opinion of the Wine Trade, as to the effect on Revenue . . 140 
 Opinion of Mr. PORTER that, for a time, there would be loss . 141 
 Englishmen will not at first take light French Wines . . 142 
 
 The labouring classes will prefer Beer 142 
 
 Beer drunk in France (note) 143 
 
 Retail Wine Shops in London 143 
 
 Not successful . . . . . . . . . . 144 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer must calculate on an interval 
 
 of loss .......... 144 
 
 The Consumption of Tea and Coffee not a parallel case . . 145 
 Articles for which the Public have a taste, consumed in spite of 
 
 high duty ......... 146 
 
 Brandy 146 
 
 Tobacco (note) .......... 147 
 
 Mr. M'CULLOCH'S opinion against a One Shilling Duty on Wine . 148 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE PRESENT PRICE OF WINE WILL BE RAISED UNDER A 
 ONE-SHILLING DUTY. 
 
 Price of Wine has doubled since 1793 . . . . .149 
 Cheap Wines liable to sudden rises in price Spanish Red Wine 150 
 The price of Brandy raised in France when the Duty was 
 
 lowered in England (note) . . . . . .150 
 
XX11 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Price of Port Wine raised in 1852 151 
 
 Price of Masdeu raised in 1854 . 151 
 
 Price of Ben6carlos raised in 1853-4 151 
 
 Price of Marsala raised in 1853-4 , 151 
 
 Prices of the lowest Port and Sherry in London, 1850 1854 . 152 
 The increasing demand in other countries will raise the price 
 
 in England .......... 153 
 
 Algeria, South America, Russia 153 
 
 The home demand for Claret increasing in France . . .154 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IF THE USE OF WINE IS TO SUPERSEDE THAT OF BEER 
 AND SPIRITS, WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE MALT 
 DUTY AND EXCISE? 
 
 Duties on all fermented liquors, well-adjusted in England . 1 55 
 If one is altered, all must be revised . , . . . .155 
 Proportion of Brandy in various Wines . . . . .156 
 If the duty is lowered on Wine it must be lowered on Brandy 
 
 also 157 
 
 Importance of this to the Wine-growing Countries . . .157 
 Danger of fraud to the revenue ....... 157 
 
 Duty on British Spirits must be lowered, if Wine is to super- 
 sede them ......... 157 
 
 Duty on Colonial Rum. 157 
 
 The Malt tax must be re-adjusted 158 
 
 Amount of Annual Revenue from Fermented Drinks . . .159 
 
 The license system must be amended 160 
 
 Drawback on Wine in the event of reduction . 161 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ADULTERATION. 
 
 Not occasioned by high duties 1 62 
 
 Adulteration of Champagne . .... 162 
 
 Exaggerated statements on this head 163 
 
 Blending and " Vatting" in bond 164 
 
CONTENTS. XX111 
 
 Page 
 
 Not censurable if honestly performed . . . . . .164 
 
 Adulteration in the retail trade 165 
 
 Adulteration will increase under low duties. . .166 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 RESULT OF THE ENQUIRY. 
 
 Advantageous to Trade to reduce the Duty on Wine . . 168 
 
 It would promote Commerce abroad . . . . . .168 
 
 The main difficulty will be the supply of suitable Wines . .168 
 
 All similar Duties must be re-modelled 168 
 
 The Trade is entitled to an early and final decision . . .169 
 
 The interests of the Revenue require the same . . .170 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. Example of the mode of calculating the Duty on Wine 
 
 previous to Mr. PITT'S alteration of the system, 1796 . 171 
 
 No. II. Table of the Bates of Duty on Wine between 1786 
 
 1788 174 
 
 No. III. Table shewing the production of Wine in each De- 
 partment in France, 18481854 . . . . 175 
 
WINE; 
 
 ITS USE AND TAXATION, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF REDUCING THE IMPORT DUTY ON 
 WINE, AND THE DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL, when re-constructing the British tariff 
 in 1842, declined to include WINE amongst the articles 
 on which he contemplated a reduction of duty on import. 
 The reasons which he assigned were two : first, the pendency 
 of negociations then in progress with France and other 
 wine-growing countries, and the expediency of obtaining 
 from them relaxations corresponding in importance with 
 our own reductions; and, secondly, the apprehension, drawn 
 from previous experience, that the increase in the con- 
 sumption of wine arising from diminished taxation, might 
 prove to be insufficient to replace the amount of income 
 surrendered. 1 
 
 1 SIR ROBERT PEEL'S Speech, House of Commons, llth March, 1842. 
 
 B 
 
2 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 The negociations to which Sir Kobert Peel alluded came 
 to no successful termination, and the duty upon wine re- 
 mained unaltered. But attention has been again directed 
 to it by publications emanating from persons well informed 
 on the subject, 1 and in March, 1852, a committee of the 
 House of Commons was appointed on the motion of Mr. 
 CHISHOLM ANSTEY, M.P., " to inquire into the revenue 
 derived from the import duty on wines." 
 
 After a patient investigation, the Committee forbore to 
 recommend any course to the Legislature, and concluded 
 their labours by reporting to the House the voluminous and 
 conflicting evidence which had been submitted to them. 
 
 Mr. DISRAELI, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared 
 shortly after, in his place in parliament, that " no govern- 
 ment which was ever likely to exist in this country, would 
 entertain the project of reducing the import duty on wine 
 to one shilling a gallon ;" and he reiterated the apprehen- 
 sion expressed by Sir Kobert Peel ten years before, that 
 there is no prospect of such an increased consumption as 
 would make up for the sacrifice." 2 
 
 In the session of 1853, Mr. OLIYEIRA, M.P. for Ponte- 
 fract, proposed a resolution for the reduction of the duty 
 on foreign and colonial wines to one shilling per imperial 
 gallon, but withdrew it on the assurance of the CHANCEL- 
 LOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, that the views of the govern- 
 ment would be announced on the occasion of making the 
 annual financial statement. As to the policy of such a 
 
 1 The Wine Trade and its History, in five letters. By THOMAS 
 GEORGE SHAW. Reprinted from the " Times." London. 1850. 
 
 A means whereby the Revenue may be increased by a large reduc- 
 tion of taxation, etc. By R. E. T. London. 1850. 
 
 A Letter to the Right Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P., Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. By a Wine Merchant. London. 1852. 
 
 2 MB. DISRAELI'S Speech in reply to Mr. Mailings, M.P., June 17th, 
 1852. 
 
ADVANTAGES AND DIFFICULTIES OF REDUCTION. 3 
 
 reduction, and the social and commercial advantages by 
 which it might be attended, Mr. GLADSTONE 1 expressed 
 himself favourably impressed: "He was not," he said, 
 "one of those who thought it impossible or visionary to 
 expect a great extension of taste for, and consumption of, 
 wine among the people of England. On the contrary, it 
 appeared to him that the present state of the taste of the 
 people, in regard to wine, was the natural result of our 
 fiscal system in that respect. Considering that wine was 
 one of the great gifts of Providence to man considering 
 what a place it occupied among the means of his sub- 
 sistence considering how many useful and wholesome ends 
 it subserved in connection with his physical temperament 
 considering the manner in which it might be used as a 
 competing article with alcoholic spirits he must confess it 
 was most desirable, if it .were possible, to make an important 
 change in the duties upon wine. The extension of trade 
 in Europe, the breaking down a set of virtual monopolies 
 which we had created, and which aggravated the wine 
 duties monopolies in favour of particular districts, the 
 stopping adulterations, and putting down spurious articles, 
 brought into demand under colour of a system of high 
 duties these and other considerations recommended a pro- 
 posal which should bring about an important change in the 
 wine duties. In fact, he might say, he knew no article 
 burthened with a fiscal chain, under our financial system, 
 with respect to which any stronger reasons for a change 
 could be given. But most unfortunately, it likewise hap- 
 pened, that strong as were the reasons for alleviation, the 
 difficulties were equally pre-eminent." These difficulties 
 Mr. Gladstone described as essentially financial, involving 
 the certainty of a great sacrifice of revenue, with the un~ 
 
 1 Speech of the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, April 5, 1853. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 certainty of its replacement. Again, on the 18th of 
 April, in bringing forward the budget for the year, Mr. 
 Gladstone gave the final decision of the government, that 
 u whatever might be their opinion of the operation of the 
 present wine duty, they were unable to propose any change 
 at that time, and unable to see any definite or early prospect 
 of a change hereafter." 
 
 Except the destruction produced in the wine countries 
 by the ravages of the vine disease, no new facts of any im- 
 portance have been added to the information collected by 
 the committee of 1852. From that period to the present, 
 with the exception of Mr. Gladstone's statement above re- 
 ferred to, the question has been practically in abeyance; no 
 serious attempt having since been made in the House of Com- 
 mons to discuss it gravely. An Association " for the reduction 
 of the duties upon wines " was formed immediately after the 
 dissolution of MR. ANSTEY'S committee: but subsequent 
 events, the vine disease, which has since devastated the richest 
 wine-producing districts of the world, the outbreak of war, 
 and other occurrences, complicating the financial elements 
 of the question, have so rapidly succeeded one another, 
 that the Association have judiciously abstained from disor- 
 ganising trade by agitation, whilst hopeless of any counter- 
 vailing result. 
 
 Meanwhile the subject has lost none of its social and 
 commercial attractions ; great popularity must always attach 
 to a project, the object of which is not only to cheapen one 
 of the chiefest luxuries of the wealthy, but to render it 
 readily accessible to the middle classes and the poor; and 
 to correct the prevalence of intoxication among the lower 
 orders, by offering them a healthful and exhilarating beve- 
 rage instead of ardent spirit. It admits of no reasonable 
 doubt, that whenever a Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 shall find himself at liberty to make a great reduc- 
 tion in the present duty on the importation of wine, 
 
ADVANTAGES AND DIFFICULTIES OF REDUCTION. 5 
 
 such a measure, if successful, cannot fail to enlarge mate- 
 rially our operations in trade with those countries from 
 which we already derive our supplies, and to open to us 
 new fields for enterprise in others, to which our manufac- 
 tures hardly penetrate as yet; since we refuse to take the 
 produce of their vineyards in return. It will draw closer 
 our peaceful alliance with our powerful neighbours in 
 France, and deprive Portugal and Spain of a convenient 
 pretext for maintaining their excessive duties on the pro- 
 duce of the United Kingdom. 
 
 If consumption can be established on a scale so augmented 
 as to protect the national revenue from loss, such a measure 
 will render an acceptable service to the wine trade of 
 Great Britain, and give largely increased employment to 
 the numerous handicrafts engaged in its economy, both at 
 home and abroad. 
 
 The use of wine in our hospitals, and its value as an 
 essential restorative for the sick, point it out as one of those 
 articles on which, under such circumstances, the duty may 
 fairly be remitted altogether, as has hitherto been the prac- 
 tice in regard to the timber and other materials employed 
 in the erection of buildings for charitable and devotional 
 purposes. 
 
 Other taxes incident to articles of more general use and 
 necessity will naturally claim precedence in point of time 
 for relaxation; but, come when it may, the surrender of 
 the duty on wine will be greeted by a popular and hearty 
 welcome. 
 
 But, before we can embrace these anticipations with per- 
 fect confidence, it behoves us to turn to that consideration 
 which deterred Sir Robert Peel from dealing with the wine 
 duties in 1842, which disappointed his predecessor's ex- 
 pectations in 1825, and induced his successor, in 1852, to 
 declare, that he " thought the great increase of consump- 
 tion anticipated from the reduction of the wine duties a 
 
6 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 delusion, and that to realise it would require a revolution 
 in the tastes and habits of the people of England." L 
 
 Seasonable doubts have been expressed, whether the 
 people of Great Britain will so far abandon their prevailing 
 taste for strong and highly alcoholised drinks, as to con- 
 sume largely of the light wines of southern Europe. A 
 grave question has been raised, whether in the event of any 
 greatly increased demand for wine consequent on a reduc- 
 tion in its x cost, a correspondent supply could be readily ob- 
 tained of a quality acceptable to the people of these king- 
 doms. An apprehension is entertained, and not without 
 precedent, that the price, under such circumstances, would 
 be so raised in the places of production, as to equal, if it did 
 not exceed, the amount of reduction in the item of duty. 
 
 But, supposing all these inquiries to be most satisfactorily 
 solved, and a vastly increased consumption to be established 
 in the United Kingdom; the further fiscal question will 
 come on for discussion, whether concurrently with the sur- 
 render of the duty upon wine, an article which is the 
 growth of foreign countries, the taxes can still be main- 
 tained upon malt and spirits, which are the produce of our 
 own country and its colonies. 
 
 These are some of the points on which the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer must arrive at a deliberate conclusion, before 
 he can commit himself to an operation involving annual 
 income to the extent of so many millions; and the follow- 
 ing chapters have been devoted to an enquiry into the 
 history and results of the various duties which have been 
 imposed from time to time upon wine, as they influenced 
 consumption and Revenue ; and the probable consequences 
 of a considerable reduction if effected now, as regards the 
 supply on which we could reasonably calculate of a quality 
 suitable to the taste of the people of England. 
 
 1 Speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, June 18th, 1852. 
 
IS WINE A LUXURY OE A NECESSARY? 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHOULD WINE BE TAXED AS A "LUXURY," OR AS 
 ONE OF THE "NECESSARIES OF LIFE." 
 
 IN estimating the proper amount to be collected as a 
 duty upon WINE, it is indispensable to determine pre- 
 liminarily under what class of articles wine is to be assessed : 
 whether as a necessary of life, with a merely nominal 
 duty, reluctantly subjected to taxation, from the sheer 
 necessity of raising revenue; or, as a luxury, which, by 
 common consent, is a legitimate source of income; or, 
 lastly, as an intoxicating stimulant whose excessive use 
 must be controlled for the sake of public morals. 
 
 1. Wine has never been treated in this country in the last 
 mentioned character, nor subjected to the same fiscal dis- 
 cipline as spirits, with a declared intention to discourage or 
 regulate its general use. Although excessive duties and 
 occasionally positive prohibitions were imposed on French 
 wines in the reigns of Charles II.,' William III., and Queen 
 Anne, this was avowedly for political purposes, subsidiary 
 to a state of war, and designed not to diminish the use of 
 wine generally, but to exclude those of French growth. 
 In the subsequent reigns of the Georges and down to 1831, 
 although disproportionate imposts were kept up on French 
 
8 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 wines (frequently upwards of 100 per cent, and at no time 
 less than 33-J per cent.) above those of other countries; yet 
 this unjustifiable regulation was defended, not on moral but 
 on commercial grounds, with a view to favour the wines of 
 Portugal and Spain, the people of which were better cus- 
 tomers for British manufactures than the French. 
 
 2. Wine has never in this country been regarded as a 
 " necessary'' 1 of life, in dealing with it as a subject for taxa- 
 tion, such has at no period been the fiscal view taken of 
 it. Even whilst making a display of favour to the wines 
 of the Peninsula, by imposing prohibitory taxes on those 
 of France, we never permitted the duties on the wines of 
 Portugal and Spain to fall below the scale of taxes upon 
 luxuries. They ranged from 7s. Od. to 9s. Od. a gallon for 
 the first quarter of the present century, and from 4s. 9| d. to 
 5s. 9d. since. 
 
 3. In the British tariff, wine has, at all periods, been 
 placed in the class of "luxuries." 1 When Mr. Pitt made 
 the first reduction in 1787, after having in the previous 
 year abolished the antiquated customs imposts inherited 
 from King Charles and King William, 2 he still retained 
 a duty of 4s. 6d. upon French wines; of 4s. Wd. upon 
 Khenish, and 3s. on Spanish and Portuguese. But the 
 experiment of this low duty only lasted for six or seven 
 years; and Mr. Pitt himself, between 1795 and 1798, in- 
 creased the duties not only on the wines of France (with 
 whom we were then at war), which he advanced from 4s. 
 6d. to 10s. 6d. a gallon, but also on the wines of Portugal 
 
 1 "Beer and ale in Great Britain, and wine even in the wine 
 countries, I call ' luxuries.' (ADAM SMITH, Wealth of Nations, b. v. 
 c. 2). "There can be no better subjects for taxation than spirituous 
 and fermented liquors : they are essentially luxuries " (M'CuLLOCH 
 on Taxation and Funding, p. 352). 
 
 3 For an example of these curious imposts, see Appendix No. I. 
 
IS WINE A LUXURY OR A NECESSARY? 9 
 
 and Spain, which he raised from 3s. to 6s. \\\d. So pro- 
 lific did these high duties prove, that they were again raised 
 in 1805 to 13. Sd. and 9s. \\d., at which they remained 
 for twenty years afterwards; and when again reduced by 
 Mr. Huskisson and Lord Ripon, in 1825, it was only to bring 
 them back to the point at which they had stood in 1795; 
 namely, 4s. lOd. a gallon on Peninsular wines, and 7s. 4^d. 
 on French. 
 
 The wine trade itself has always acquiesced in regarding 
 wine as a "luxury," and as such entitled to be dealt with 
 for purposes of taxation. The memorial presented to Mr. 
 Huskisson, in 1823, by Mr. Warre, on behalf of the wine- 
 merchants, praying for a reduction of the duties, expressly 
 states that they regard " wine as a fair object from which 
 revenue should be derived, especially in the present times, 
 when every one is overburthened with excessive taxation, 
 even upon the very necessaries of life." 1 The memorial 
 adds, that " on a proposal for the reduction of duties on 
 wine, the first impulse will naturally be, that wine is one of 
 the last articles that should be exonerated, and with this 
 feeling the memorialist entirely coincides. Wine is no 
 doubt one of the articles that should be taxed in preference 
 to many others, and the duties should be to the utmost 
 extent that would be productive of revenue, but no fur- 
 ther." 
 
 Of late years, the portion of the wine trade of London 
 who are in favour of reducing the duties, have changed 
 ground on this point ; and in recent appeals and pub- 
 lications they urge that wine should be encouraged as a 
 necessary, and no longer taxed among luxuries. This posi- 
 tion, however, is hardly tenable. There are large and 
 increasing numbers, both in these and in other countries, 
 
 1 The Past, Present, and probably Future State of the Wine Trade. 
 By JAMES WARRE. London, 1829. P. 3. 
 
10 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 who, so far from recognising wine as a necessary of life, 
 recommend total abstinence from its use, and denounce even 
 its moderate enjoyment as a vice to be eradicated. Millions, 
 both of the middle and lower orders, consider beer and 
 similar beverages as luxuries ; and even in the countries 
 most prolific in wine, those qualities which alone would 
 find consumers in England, are reserved for the opulent 
 classes of society. 
 
 Were wine regarded by the population of the United King- 
 dom as a necessary of life, or had the amount of the duty been 
 felt as a grievance by the masses, who were thereby deterred 
 from its use, there can be no doubt that the recent move- 
 ment to procure its reduction would have met with eager 
 support. But as yet the agitation has been almost exclu- 
 sively confined to gentlemen directly interested in the intro- 
 duction of wine, either as importers or brokers. No popular 
 appeal has been made to the Government expressive of any 
 sense of oppression from the duty, or of any earnest wish 
 for the reduction on the part of the public ; and the petitions 
 in its favour hitherto presented to the House of Commons, 
 amount to but seventeen in all (of which four are from 
 governors of hospitals), with a total of 1,200 signatures. 
 
 If a new view of the matter should hereafter be adopted 
 by any Chancellor of the Exchequer; if it should be con- 
 sidered that wine has hitherto been submitted to mistaken 
 treatment in dealing with it as an article of luxury, and 
 that it ought to be regarded as one of the necessaries of 
 life, and taxed accordingly; in that case, the present duty 
 will unquestionably be found too high : and it ought to be 
 so reduced as to bring it more in harmony with the amount 
 levied off other articles which belong to the class of " neces- 
 saries." 
 
 In such an event, however, as past experiments have 
 shown that a low rate of duty on wine is not capable of 
 
IS WINE A LUXURY OR A NECESSARY? 11 
 
 reproducing the amount of income abandoned by reducing 
 it; the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be prepared to 
 deal with it solely on financial grounds; and to surrender, 
 if it can be spared, a proportion of the income at present 
 realized from wine, which amounted to 1,914,456/. in 1854, 
 and, on an average of the last twenty-five years, has been 
 equal to 1,700,000/. per annum. 
 
 Meanwhile, looking on wine as it has hitherto been 
 fiscally regarded, namely, as an object of " luxury," from 
 which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to extract the 
 highest amount of revenue attainable without diminishing 
 consumption, it is desirable, instead of relying on the spe- 
 culative opinions of individuals as to the probable effects of 
 altered duties for the future, that we should look back to 
 the recorded results of the successive changes to which the 
 import of wine has been subjected in times past, especially 
 since the organisation of the present system by Mr. Pitt in 
 1786-7; and observe how far consumption and income have 
 been respectively influenced in alternate periods of high and 
 low duties. 
 
12 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. PITT'S EXPERIMENTS WITH THE WINE DUTIES, 
 
 17861825. 
 
 CURIOUS anomalies present themselves in tracing through 
 former periods, by the returns of revenue and consumption, 
 the various results of increased or diminished duties upon 
 wine. The phenomena exhibited by them are so capricious, 
 as only to be accounted for by regarding wine as among the 
 luxuries rather than the necessaries of life. Were it a 
 " necessary," and its use stimulated by the uniform impulse 
 of a natural want, whose gratification would be mainly 
 influenced by considerations of cost, its consumption would 
 register with ordinary accuracy its own expansion and 
 compression, under the varying pressure of increased or 
 lightened duties; but as a "luxury," and more or less 
 affected by the alteration of social habits, by temporary 
 causes, and the fluctuations of fashion and taste, its use, as 
 shown by these Returns, is irregular and intermittent; ex- 
 hibiting at one time the largest amount both of consumption 
 and revenue under the influence of the highest range of 
 taxation, 1 and at others manifesting a sudden decline of 
 
 1 Ex. gr. 1795, 1803, 1806 to 1811. 
 
13 
 
 both, notwithstanding the reduction of duties, 1 sometimes 
 in periods of great national prosperity. 
 
 Some of these occasional aberrations are almost unac- 
 countable. Thus, Mr. Porter, in his evidence before the 
 Committee appointed by the House of Commons to enquire 
 into the operation of the Wine Duties, in 1852,* adverted 
 to the fact that the consumption of wine in the year 1801 
 was 0-431 gallons per head, and in the year 1851 this had 
 diminished to 0-230 gallons, a decrease equal to 48 percent.; 
 yet in 1851 the duty was but 5s. 9d. per gallon on wine 
 of every description, whereas in 1801 it ranged from 6s. 9d. 
 on Portuguese and Spanish, to Ss. Sd. on Khenish, and 
 10^. 2d. on French. In fact, in 1801, when the population 
 was 15,500,000, and the duty high, the consumption was 
 6,876,710 gallons, and the revenue 2,185,6617.; whereas in 
 1851, when the population was 27,309,000, and the duty 
 one-third lower than in 1801, the consumption was but 
 6,280,653 gallons, and the revenue only 1,776,247/. This 
 diminution had therefore taken place under a greatly dimi- 
 nished range of duties, and not only with an increased 
 population, but with an increased ability to consume: 
 " the wealth of the country," as stated by Mr. Porter, 
 " having increased even beyond the proportion of the in- 
 creased population." Mr. Porter was disposed to solve the 
 difficulty, in that particular instance, by ascribing the decline 
 of consumption to the influence of high duties; but his 
 attention was called to the fact, that the duties had been 
 actually one-third lower during the period of decline than 
 they had been at the date of the large consumption. 
 
 In fact, the Returns between 1787, when Mr. Pitt lowered 
 the duties on wine, to the close of the last war in 1815, or 
 
 1 Ex. gr. 1789, 1793, 1794, 1826. 
 
 2 Evidence. Wine Duties Committee, 3669, 3670. 
 
14 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 a few years later, present so many anomalies that they 
 throw no real light on the abstract question, and can 
 only be accounted for by regarding them as the eccentri- 
 cities of consumption excited by the vicissitudes of a state 
 of war. 1 
 
 From statistics so conflicting and inconclusive, there 
 would be little difficulty in culling sections to sustain 
 almost any view of the wine duties, and to justify respec- 
 tively either increase or reduction. Those who support the 
 latter made use only of such portions of these Keturns, 
 before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1852, 
 as exhibited periods when the increase of consumption had 
 been stimulated by the lower scale of duties; but they 
 passed by those periods when that result failed to manifest 
 itself; 2 they were silent as to the years in which the highest 
 rate of duties was collected without materially lowering the 
 consumption, 3 and the fact is not once adverted to that the 
 
 1 Evidence of Mr. Porter, 3671, 3672. 
 
 3 In 1793, under a 3s. duty, the consumption declined from 
 7,851,707 gallons (which it had been in 1792) to 6,610,701 gallons, 
 and in 1794, it sunk to 6,811,374 gallons. Again, in 1825, the duty 
 was reduced from 13s. 9d. and 9s. l^d. to 7s. %\d. and 4s. 9|d ; and 
 the following year the consumption fell from 8,009,542 gallons (in 
 1825) to 6,058,443 gallons. 
 
 3 As between 1800 and 1808, when the consumption and revenue 
 were as follows : 
 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 S. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1800 
 
 10 6i 
 
 6 llf 
 
 7,294,752 
 
 2,124,808 
 
 1801 
 
 10 2| 
 
 6 9| 
 
 6,876,710 
 
 2,185,661 
 
 1802 
 
 10 7^ 
 
 7 
 
 7,113,416 
 
 2,280,072 
 
 1803 
 
 12 5 
 
 8 3 
 
 8,226,464 
 
 2,423,929 
 
 1807 
 
 13 8 
 
 9 1 
 
 6,271,346 
 
 2,729,887 
 
 1808 
 
 13 8 
 
 9 1 
 
 6,331,875 
 
 2,684,474 
 
MR. PITT'S WINE DUTIES. 15 
 
 highest amount of revenue has been invariably realised at the 
 highest rate of duty; 1 and that reductions, so far from uni- 
 formly replenishing the public income, have, in the majority of 
 instances, failed to replace the amount of duty surrendered. 2 
 
 Those witnesses who advocated a lower scale of duties 
 before the committee of 1852, attached becoming import- 
 ance to the enlightened measures of Mr. Pitt, who, after 
 having put an end to smuggling in 1786, by transferring 
 the collection of a part of the duties from the customs to 
 the excise, in the following year (1787) effected a very 
 large reduction in their amount. They point with satis- 
 faction to the circumstance, that the duties so lowered tend 
 greatly to increase the consumption of wine ; but they pass 
 over the fact, that they, at the same time, failed to realize 
 the expected amount of revenue, and that Mr. Pitt himself not 
 only restored them to their original rate in 1795-6, but 
 raised them a second time, in a subsequent year, to nearly 
 double that amount, and this he effected not only without 
 greatly diminishing the consumption, but even largely 
 augmenting the public income. 
 
 It is right, however, to observe, that these are excep- 
 tional illustrations drawn from unsettled periods; and they 
 cannot fairly be used as evidence of the probable conse- 
 quences of either raising or lowering the duty on wine in 
 ordinary times and under normal circumstances. 
 
 1 The highest amounts of revenue received in any one year was 
 
 In 1807 2,729,887 
 
 1808 2,786,587 
 
 The duty in both years was the highest collected, viz., 13s. 8d. on 
 French wine, and 9s. \^d. on Portuguese. In 1813 the duty on 
 French wine was raised to 19s. 8^d., but it was reduced to 13s. 80?. 
 in the following year. 
 
 2 The average revenue of twenty-seven years since 1825, when the 
 duties were last reduced, has been 1,705,225 ; the average of 
 twenty-six years, under the highest scale of duties, before 1825, was 
 2,259,850?. 
 
16 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Mr. Pitt's alterations in the wine duties may be con- 
 sidered at three periods, the particulars of which are as 
 follows: 
 
 1. First, in May 1786, in the conviction, as he stated, that 
 under an improved system smuggling would be put an end 
 to, and a greater demand for foreign wines arise, " while 
 at the same time we would improve the revenue," 1 he 
 brought in the measure by which he consolidated the laws 
 relating to the import of wine, abolished the antiquated 
 scheme under which the duty on a single pipe was com- 
 puted from fifteen separate items, 2 and placed the survey of 
 wine under the charge of the excise. In 1787, on the occa- 
 sion of negotiating a treaty of commerce with France, he 
 reduced the duty on French wines to 4s. 6c?., 3 and, con- 
 formably to the requirement of the Methuen treaty, which 
 stipulated for a perpetual discrimination to the extent of 
 one-third in favour of Portugal, the wines of that country 
 were lowered to 3s.,* and at these rates the scale remained 
 fixed till 1795. 
 
 The effect of the alteration, so far as regarded consump- 
 tion, fully justified the anticipations of Mr. Pitt: it rose 
 rapidly beyond its previous amount. It had been but 
 
 4,064,864 gallons in 1785 
 
 it rose to 6,601,038 in 1790 
 
 and to 6,861,374 in 1794 
 
 1 Speech, May 5, 1786. Debrett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xx. 
 p. 174. 
 
 2 I have placed in the APPENDIX, No. I., a statement which affords 
 a curious view of the absurd and complicated system, by which the 
 duty, prior to A.D. 1786, was calculated on a tun of wine ; under the 
 conflicting authorities of upwards of twenty acts of Parliament, 
 imposing " tonnage," and " poundage," " old subsidies," " new sub- 
 sidies," and " coinage," and directing deduction from these at certain 
 stages, as abatements for damage and leakage. This singular system, 
 was abolished by Mr. Pitt's Bill of 1786. 
 
 3 Feb. 16, 1787. ^ * March 26, 1787. 
 
17 
 
 This result, however, was not attributable exclusively to 
 the operation of the low duty: smuggling, which, according 
 to Mr. Pitt (Speech, 5th May, 1786), had prevailed to an 
 extent almost incredible under the old system/ was so 
 checked by the excise regulations organised by Mr. Pitt in 
 1786, that large quantities, which had previously escaped, 
 were, for the first time, brought to account in 1787 and 
 the subsequent years, and thus served to swell the return of 
 quantities consumed, although they were not, in reality, 
 an addition to the actual consumption of the country. 
 
 But the effect on the revenue was not so striking as the 
 increase exhibited in consumption. The records for 1787 
 being destroyed, it is difficult to obtain the precise amount 
 derived from the wine duties in that year ; but the following 
 table I have prepared partly from the returns laid before 
 the Wine Duties Committee of 1852, and partly from a 
 paper laid before Parliament in April 1791. 2 
 
 1 ; ' It was a matter of undoubted fact, that there was a much 
 greater consumption of wine in this country than formerly ; and yet 
 it appeared that the importation had decreased 6000 or 7000 tuns 
 every year, as compared with fifteen years ago, and the revenue was 
 a loser to the amount of 300,OOOZ. or 400,0007., and he believed a 
 great deal more ; for he was pretty certain that more than 6000 or 
 7000 tuns were annually imported without paying the duty." 
 Mr. PITT, April 12, 1786. 
 
 2 In this paper, Mr. Pitt showed the average receipts from the 
 duties of Customs and Excise upon wine during three years before 
 the alteration and during three years after, by the following Table : 
 
 1784 j Average. 
 
 1785 } ^625,454 
 
 1786 ) 
 
 1787 644,219 
 
 1788) 
 
 1789 } 714,010 
 
 1790) 
 
 Average increase in the revenue, .88,656 per annum. 
 C 
 
18 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1784 
 
 8 9 
 
 4 2 
 
 3,916,584 
 
 619,523 
 
 1785 
 
 
 
 
 
 4,064,864 
 
 642,519 
 
 1786 
 
 8 9 
 
 4 2J 
 
 4,060,384 
 
 614,247 
 
 1787 
 
 4 6 
 
 3 
 
 4,521,941 
 
 848,909 
 
 1788 
 
 4 6 
 
 3 
 
 6,650,644 
 
 894,378 
 
 1789 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,959,098 
 
 856,223 
 
 1790 
 
 
 
 >? 
 
 6,601,038 
 
 959,565 
 
 1791 
 
 
 
 >j 
 
 7,573,790 
 
 1,054,779 
 
 1792 
 
 
 
 j> 
 
 7,851,707 
 
 1,148,755 
 
 1793 
 
 >j 
 
 j? 
 
 6,610,701 * 
 
 785,193 
 
 1794 
 
 
 
 ?) 
 
 6,81 1,374 l 
 
 912,863 
 
 The revenue from wine, on an average of three years be- 
 fore the reduction of the duties, had been 625,4297. ; and, 
 on the average of the eight years after, it produced 932, 583/. 
 In like manner, the consumption, which, for three years 
 before the change, had averaged 4,013,944 gallons, rose on 
 the eight years after it to an average of 6,572,537 gallons. 
 So that this first experiment of Mr. PITT was to increase 
 consumption by 63^ per cent. ; but to add only 49 T L per 
 cent, to the public income. 2 
 
 II. The second experiment of Mr. PITT was in 1795, when, 
 apparently impatient for a larger income from so prolific 
 
 1 The diminution in the consumption of 1793 and 1794 was 
 chiefly under the head of French wines. War having broken out 
 in the former year, the importations were reduced from 622,494 
 gallons in 1792, to 376,008 gallons in 1793, and 204,097 gallons in 
 1794 : the revenue falling off simultaneously. 
 
 2 In proceeding with this inquiry, I found, on communicating 
 to the proper officer at the Custom-house some difficulties which 
 I had met with in reconciling the figures in a " Table of Rates of 
 Duty upon Wine between 1786 and 1851," which will be found at 
 page 876 of the Report of the Wine Duties Committee, that the 
 scale there presented is inaccurate so far as regards the years 1786, 
 1 787, 1788. A return has been sent to me by the Inspector-General 
 of Imports and Exports, to be substituted for the imperfect one, 
 which will be found in No. II. in the APPENDIX. 
 
MR. PITT'S WINE DUTIES. 
 
 19 
 
 a source, lie again raised the duties on wine to something 
 approaching the charges from which he had relieved it in 
 1786-7: viz. on French wines to 7s. 4?d., and on Portuguese 
 and Spanish to 4s. lOje?. per gallon; and even these rates, 
 in the year following, he raised to 10s. 2d. and 6s. 9j<$?. 
 respectively. The result was anomalous but very striking ; 
 the consumption, taking an average of the five or six years 
 following, underwent no very serious reduction, but the 
 revenue increased to an extraordinary amount. 
 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Consumption 
 of Wine. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1794 
 
 4 6 
 
 3 
 
 6,811,374 
 
 912,863 
 
 1795 
 
 7 4 
 
 4 10| 
 
 8,238,438 
 
 1,694,888 * 
 
 1796 
 
 10 2 
 
 6 9| 
 
 5,776,260 
 
 1,288,252 - 
 
 1797 
 
 )} 
 
 jj 
 
 3,569,261 
 
 1,424,972 
 
 1798 
 
 10 6^ 
 
 6 11 J 
 
 5,265,768 
 
 1,537,151 
 
 1799 
 
 j; 
 
 
 
 6,138,164 
 
 2,036,021 
 
 1800 
 
 
 
 
 
 7,294,752 
 
 2,124,808 
 
 Again, attention must be called to the fact that this was 
 an exceptional period, and these irregular results, as war had 
 broken out between this country and France in 1793, and 
 continued till the treaty of Amiens in 1802. The fluctua- 
 tion in consumption during this interval arose, therefore, not 
 so much from the pressure of the duty as from the impos- 
 
 1 The great increase, both in the consumption and revenue in 
 1795, arose, from the fact, that, for the first time in the history of 
 the trade, Mr. Pitt in that year charged the stock in the dealers' 
 hands with the additional duty. This took the trade by surprise ; 
 in anticipation of a rise they had paid duty on a largely increased 
 supply, amounting to 1,372,852Z., on which the surcharge for the new 
 duty, 322,036^., raised the receipts of that year, to 1,694,888& It 
 will be seen that it subsided in the year following to 1,288,252Z. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 sibility of procuring the supply. The importation of French 
 wines, for example, continued to fall off. 
 
 1795 557,085 gallons 
 
 1796 96,407 
 
 1797 6,926 
 
 1798 59,414 
 
 1799 208,532 
 
 For an article which war had rendered scarce, the 
 wealthy were nevertheless willing to pay a high rate (within 
 which was inclosed the high duty), and the high prices in- 
 cident to the period did not deter the consumer from grati- 
 fying his taste. 
 
 The result of this second experiment of 1795, was to 
 reduce the consumption 17^- per cent., but to add 80 per 
 cent, to the annual revenue on an average of the following 
 years. 
 
 III. The third experimental period was between 1801 
 and 1805, when Mr. PITT and his immediate successors, 
 taking advantage of a combination of circumstances fa- 
 vourable to revenue, ventured to make still further addi- 
 tions to the duty; and, strange to say, the consumption 
 proved to be still sufficiently elastic to expand, notwith- 
 standing this additional tension, and the revenue rose, in 
 1807, to the unprecedented sum of 2, 7 2 9,8 87 /. per annum. 
 
 
 Duty on Wine. 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. Portuguese. 
 
 
 S. 
 
 d. ! s. 
 
 d 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1801 
 
 10 
 
 2* 6 
 
 9| 
 
 6,876,710 
 
 2,185,661 
 
 1802 
 
 10 
 
 7j 7 
 
 
 
 7,113,416 
 
 2,280,072 
 
 1803 
 
 12 
 
 5j 8 
 
 3 
 
 8,226,464 
 
 2,423,929 
 
 1804 
 
 13 
 
 et 9 
 
 
 
 5,457,691 
 
 2,141,456 
 
 1805 
 
 13 
 
 4 9 
 
 1^ 
 
 4,622,701 
 
 2,255,794 
 
 1806 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,825,178 
 
 2,574,531 
 
 1807 
 
 
 > > 
 
 6,271,346 
 
 2,729,887 
 
 1808 
 
 
 j 
 
 6,331,875 
 
 2,648,474 
 
MR. PITT'S WINE DUTIES. 21 
 
 // will be seen by these tables that, with a duty threefold 
 higher than that of the year preceding the war, the consumption 
 of the year 1807 was within 580,000 gallons of being equal to 
 that of 17 '92, under the lowest scale; while the revenue, which, 
 under the low duty, had been but 1,148,755/., in 1792, rose 
 under the high duty to 2,729,887/. in 1807. 
 
 These experiments with excessive taxation present some 
 curious phenomena : the very first year of the high duties 
 (1795), so far from the consumption falling off; it rose from 
 6,811,374 gallons to 8,238,438, and the revenue was nearly 
 doubled, rising from 912,863/. to 1,694,888/. 
 
 Between the years 1797 and 1803, the duty on wine 
 generally, except French, was raised from 6s. 9d. a gallon 
 to Ss. 3d. But within the same time the consumption also 
 rose from 3,569,261 gallons to 8,226,464 gallons, and the 
 revenue rose from 1,424,974/. to 2,423,000/. Mr. Porter, 
 struck with this fact, ascribes it to the prosperity of the 
 landed and mercantile interest during the war, who were 
 thus enabled to maintain their consumption of wine, whilst 
 " the great bulk of the community were at that time ground 
 down by the cost of the war and its consequences." 1 It is 
 difficult, however, to separate the middle classes from this 
 review; or to show that they were not sharers in that pros- 
 perity, and should, to some extent at least, have contributed 
 to the revenue by their consumption of wine. 
 
 In discussing the proposition that a low duty on wine 
 is the only expedient by which at the same time to stimulate 
 consumption and augment the public income, it is curious 
 to find this remarkable instance in which, for a long series of 
 years, duties obviously excessive in their amount more than triple 
 the revenue, without materially checking consumption. 
 
 Till towards the close of the war, the duties upon wine, 
 though maintained at the high scale of 1805, did not much 
 
 1 Wine Duties Committee. 1852. Report, 3672. 
 
22 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 decline in productiveness, but consumption at length began 
 to flag under their influence. 
 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1809 
 
 13 8} 
 
 9 1J 
 
 5,894,177 
 
 2,686,003 
 
 1810 
 
 >j 
 
 >j 
 
 6,521,293 
 
 2,786,587 
 
 1811 
 
 
 
 ?> 
 
 5,629,722 
 
 2,443,007 
 
 1812 
 1813 
 
 jj 
 19 8| 
 
 
 >j 
 
 5,024,530 
 4,565,477 
 
 2,189,418 
 Kecords destroyed. 
 
 1814 
 
 JLo ^2^ 
 
 75 
 
 5,330,774 
 
 2,267,578 
 
 1815 
 
 >7 
 
 )) 
 
 4,624,105 
 
 2,388,391 
 
 The bold scale of Mr. Pitt's high duties in 1798, was one 
 which could only have been ventured on under unusual 
 influences ; and its success was so extraordinary as to invite 
 him to test to the utmost the capabilities of the tax by 
 successive additions to it, up to 1805. His successors 
 maintained these excessive rates down, to the restoration 
 of peace, in 1815, and for many years afterwards; till at 
 last, the decline of consumption, and the sinking of the 
 revenue, gave unmistakeable warning that the retention of 
 such taxes, even on luxuries, however practicable during 
 the excitement of war, had become intolerable in time of 
 peace. The following table shows the effect of the tax in 
 ten years subsequent to the close of the war, from 1815 to 
 1825, when Mr. Pitt's duties were at last abandoned. 
 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 S. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1816 
 
 13 8 
 
 9 8 
 
 4,057,038 
 
 1,777,458 
 
 1817 
 
 
 
 5? 
 
 5,142,829 
 
 2,224,612 
 
 1818 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 5,635,216 
 
 2,467,315 
 
 1819 
 
 ?> 
 
 J> 
 
 4,615,212 
 
 2,005,359 
 
 1820 
 
 
 
 ?> 
 
 4,586,495 
 
 1,987,817 
 
 1821 
 
 
 
 >? 
 
 4,686,885 
 
 2,006,498 
 
 1822 i 
 
 5> 
 
 4,606,999 
 
 1,982,882 
 
 1823 
 
 
 
 J> 
 
 4,845,061 
 
 2,088,231 
 
 1824 
 
 >j 
 
 
 
 5,030,091 
 
 2,153,112 
 
- PITT'S WINE DUTIES. 23 
 
 I have analysed thus minutely the operations of Mr. 
 Pitt with the wine duties, and the respective effects of his 
 several changes, not so much from any importance attaching 
 to them as precedents by which to adjust the wine duties, 
 at the present day, as because the low duties between 1789 
 and 17 95 have been so often and so prominently referred to as 
 examples of successful reduction. My own opinion is, 
 that as illustrations of the influence of cost in regulating the 
 consumption of wine, in ordinary times, the war measures of 
 Mr. Pitt are nearly valueless. The parallel fails in all ex- 
 ternal circumstances, and the inference would be delusive. 
 
 Mr. Pitt had no precedent to guide him in estimating the 
 proper amount of a tax upon wine, when, in 1786, he re- 
 solved to repeal the ancient statutes of Charles II. and 
 William III., to consolidate the law, and to substitute a 
 fixed duty in lieu of the multitude of antiquated dues, such 
 as " tonnage" and " coinage/' which had theretofore been 
 levied off a cargo of foreign wine. 1 His operations with 
 the wine duties between 1787 and 1805, can therefore only 
 be regarded as a series of experiments on the power of con- 
 sumption, and its contributions to revenue; and these, too, 
 carried on under abnormal and exceptional circumstances. 
 His scale oscillates between two extremes; at one time too 
 low to realise income, at another too high to encouiage 
 consumption. He appears in no stage to have hit the happy 
 medium which could extract the greatest possible amount 
 for the Treasury, with the least possible discouragement to 
 the consumer. 
 
 On his first trials between 1787 and 1795, with a 3s. duty, 
 he relied, not only for " increasing the consumption of wine, 
 but also for improving the revenue;" but the result 
 showed that he had pitche . the rate too low for revenue; 
 
 1 See Note p. 16 , and Appendix No. I. 
 
24 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 although, had it been lower still, it would no doubt have 
 been more successful in inviting and extending consump- 
 tion. 
 
 In the next stage between 1795 and 1805, in his eagerness 
 for revenue, he appears to have become regardless of the 
 consumer. His rates at that period were too extravagant 
 even for a tax upon luxuries; and although for a limited 
 interval, and during a remarkable crisis, they yielded an 
 unprecedented income, they were unsuited to ordinary times, 
 and his successors were obliged to abandon them. When 
 the latter change became inevitable, those by whom it was 
 to be conducted had, however, the advantage of Mr. Pitt's 
 trials, both of low duties and high; and they wisely 
 attempted a middle rate, as that most likely to avoid the 
 errors of both. 
 
 When the receipts from wine under a 3s. duty had 
 declined in 1794 to 912,863/., and the consumption to 
 6,811,374 gallons, Mr. Pitt raised the duty to 4s. Wd., and, 
 strange to say, the revenue instantly rose to 1,694,888/., 
 and the consumption exceeded 8,000,000 gallons. The 
 precedent was an inviting one to those who had to deal with 
 the question in 1825, and it appears to have been adopted 
 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the Earl of Bipon). 
 Having to do away with the war duties upon wine, he and 
 Mr. Huskisson fixed their future amount at 4s. Wd. a gallon 
 on all wines except French, which they put at 7s. 3d. 
 
 The circumstances under which this alteration took place, 
 and the effects produced by it, will form the subject of 
 another chapter. 
 
EARL OF KIPON AND MR. HUSKISSON'S DUTIES. 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EARL OF RIPON AND MR. HUSKISSON'S DUTIES, 
 
 18251854. 
 
 In the year 1823, the attention of the government was 
 attracted to the wine duties, by the decline of the con- 
 sumption and the failure of the revenue. The rates were 
 still on the excessive scale of 1805, which, after the peace 
 of 1815, had been continued without change. The con- 
 sumption, as will be seen by the foregoing tables, had begun 
 to decline in 1812. From 1803 to 1811, it had ranged in 
 round numbers from 6 to 8,000,000 gallons per annum; 
 but from 1812 till 1814, it had seldom risen above 5,000,000. 
 
 The revenue continued to fall in like proportion, though 
 it still presented an annual average of upwards of 2,000,000/. 
 The tendency was, however, decidedly downwards, so much 
 so that, although the wine duties of 1824 were somewhat 
 higher than those of 1803, the receipts were 270,000-?. 
 less. 1 
 
 1 The respective amounts were as follows : 
 
 1803 
 1824 
 
 Du 
 j French. 
 
 ty. 
 Portuguese. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 s. d. 
 12 6J 
 
 13 8i 
 
 S. d. 
 8 3 
 
 9 1 
 
 
 2,423,929 
 
 2,153,112 
 
26 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 The public and the press urged the subject upon the 
 attention of the government; 1 and the views of the wine trade 
 of London were, through the instrumentality of Mr. Warre, 
 brought before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. 
 Huskisson, then President of the Board of Trade. Their 
 Memorial dwelt on the fact, that although wine was a 
 luxury, and as such a " fair object of taxation, to the utmost 
 extent that would be productive of revenue, but no farther," 
 still that the exceedingly high duties which we had inherited 
 from the last war, had since the peace defeated their own de- 
 sign, and, by discouraging consumption, had starved, instead 
 of feeding the revenue. They therefore prayed for reduction, 
 not merely for the restoration of their trade, "but as a finan- 
 cial arrangement essential to the increase of the revenue." 
 They suggested 45. a gallon (equal to 4s. lOd. on the present 
 imperial measure), but they intimated at the same time, 
 that they felt that this would be a less duty than wine 
 ought to bear, and they only asked for its continuance " for 
 four or five years, or until the trade should be revived. 
 Wine should be taxed/' they said, " to the utmost that 
 would be productive ; it will bear 5s. a gallon (equal to 65. 
 imperial measure), which would amount to 2,52Q,000/., or 
 an increase of revenue of 566, 052/. per annum, above the 
 average of the last three years/'' 2 
 
 The government undertook to comply with their request ; 
 but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in developing the 
 intention to the House of Commons, took a much less 
 sanguine view of its probable effect on the revenue than 
 had been propounded by the wine trade. He reduced the 
 duty, as suggested by them, to 4s. (equal to 4s. Wd. im- 
 perial measure); at which rate professing to treat wine 
 
 1 See Edinburgh Review, No. 80, July 1824, p. 414. 
 
 2 Memorial 1823. WARRE'S Wine Trade, etc., p. 40. 
 
27 
 
 solely as a luxury, he calculated that although the consump- 
 tion might again equal that from 1801 to 1803 (7,670,000 
 gallons), the revenue would probably be a loser to the 
 extent of 230,000/. per annum. 1 
 
 The reduction took effect the same year (March, 1825), 
 and so far as regarded consumption, its earliest results were 
 calculated to satisfy the expectations, though they failed to 
 realise the estimates, of the wine trade. With the ex- 
 ception of the first year (which is of course a speculative 
 instance) , the consumption has in no year since succeeded to 
 the full extent anticipated by Lord Kipon. It has exhibited, 
 however, a marked increase. On an average of five years 
 before the change of the duty, (from 1820 to 1824), it had 
 amounted to 4,751,106 gallons. 
 
 It rose in 1825 to 8,009,542 gallons 
 
 1826 6,058,453 
 
 1827 6,826,361 
 
 1828 7,162,376 
 
 1829 6,217,652 
 
 1830 6,434,445 
 
 At about this amount (between 6 and 7,000,000 gallons) 
 it has remained steadily to the present time. Any material 
 variation of late years has intimated a tendency downwards; 
 but the difference is trivial, and attributable to social causes 
 alone, since no alteration in the duty has taken place since 
 1840. 
 
 But the effects of the reductions of 1825, as regarded 
 the revenue, were not altogether so satisfactory as the im- 
 pulse given to consumption. The income derived from 
 wine, on an average of the five years preceding the change, 
 
 1 Hansard, February 28, 1825, p. 733. 
 
28 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 1820 to 1824 l had been 2,043,708 
 
 In 1825 it fell off to - - 1,955,709 
 
 1826 1,424,326 
 
 1827 1,600,587 
 
 1828 1,700,051 
 
 1829 : 1,473,546 
 
 1830 1,524,168 
 
 It was hardly to be expected, notwithstanding the ardent 
 estimates of the wine trade, that so great a surrender of 
 duty (from 13s. 8d. to 7s. 2d., and from 9s. Id. to 4s. lOflT.), 
 could be offered as a boon to the consumer, without, at least 
 for a time, inflicting loss on the revenue. The Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer made the concession in full anticipation 
 of such a result, and it cannot fairly be regarded as an error 
 of judgment that the actual extent of the loss has some- 
 what exceeded his estimate. 
 
 Taking a period of 26 years of high duties, prior to 1825, 
 when the reduction took place, and comparing it with a 
 period of 30 years of low duties since, it will be found that, 
 from 1799 to 1824, under high duties, the average annual 
 consumption was 5,575,160 gallons, and the revenue 
 2,259,800/.; and from 1825 to 1851, under low duties, the 
 average annual consumption was 6,474,029 gallons, and 
 the revenue 1,727,644/. In other words, the decrease of 
 revenue has been 24'5 per cent,, whilst the increase of con- 
 sumption has been but 15*6 per cent. 
 
 In 1831, another change of an important character 
 
 1 The return is as follows : 
 
 1820 - - 1,987,817 
 
 1821 ... - 2,006,498 
 
 1822 - - - - 1,982,882 
 
 1823 - 2,088,231 
 
 1824 ..- - 2,153,112 
 
EARL OF RIPON AND MR. HUSKISSON's DUTIES. 29 
 
 took place in the wine duties; the invidious and unwise 
 distinction between the wines of France and those of the 
 rest of Europe, which had existed since the time of 
 William III., was obliterated, by equalising the duty upon 
 all wine, of whatsoever growth, at 5s. 6d. a gallon, except 
 British colonial, which was to pay only 2s. lOd. 
 
 The consumption was but slightly affected by this in- 
 crease of duty. It had been, on an average of five years, 
 from, 
 
 Gallons. 
 18261830 - - - 6,541,855 
 
 1831 - - - 6,212,264 
 
 1832 - - - 5,965,542 
 
 1833 - - - 6,207,770 
 
 1834 - - - 6,480,544 
 
 1835 - - - 6,420,342 
 
 1836 - - - 6,809,212 
 
 The difference between the annual consumption of five 
 years before the increase of the duty and five years after, 
 was only 165,173 gallons. But the difference exhibited 
 by the revenue under even this slight additional duty 
 was striking; on an average of the last five years of 
 the war duties, when they were still at the highest, and 
 before their reduction by Lord Eipon and Mr. Huskisson, 
 the annual revenue on wine had been, as I have stated, 
 from 1820 to 1824, 2,043,708/. On five years after the 
 reduction, 1826 to 1830, it had fallen to 1,544,535/., and 
 on five years after the addition made in 1831, viz., 1832 to 
 1836, it rose to 1,708,1 53/. 
 
 One of the most remarkable facts connected with the 
 wine duties is, that at or about this average, the gross con- 
 sumption of wine in these countries, and the revenue de- 
 rived from it, have remained almost stationary for the last 
 
30 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 quarter of a century, as will be seen from the following 
 Table: 
 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 S. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1830 
 
 7 3 
 
 4 10 
 
 6,434,445 
 
 1,524,168 
 
 1831 
 
 5 6 
 
 5 6 
 
 6,212,264 
 
 1,535,484 
 
 1832 
 
 n 
 
 j> 
 
 5,965,542 
 
 1,715,812 
 
 1833 
 
 n 
 
 >.; 
 
 6,207,770 
 
 1,633,830 
 
 1834 
 
 JJ 
 
 )> 
 
 6,480,544 
 
 1,705,639 
 
 1835 
 
 n 
 
 5) 
 
 6,420,342 
 
 1,691,522 
 
 1836 
 
 j> 
 
 5J 
 
 6,809,212 
 
 1,793,963 
 
 1837 
 
 
 
 5) 
 
 6,391,531 
 
 1,687,097 
 
 1838 
 
 
 
 
 
 6,990,271 
 
 1,846,057 
 
 1839 
 
 jj 
 
 )J 
 
 7,000,486 
 
 1,849,698 
 
 1840 
 
 5 9& 
 
 5 9& 
 
 6,553,922 
 
 1,791,636 
 
 1841 
 
 >? 
 
 )) 
 
 6,184,960 
 
 1,720,479 
 
 1842 
 
 j> 
 
 >J 
 
 4,815,222 
 
 1,334,469 
 
 1843 
 
 ? 
 
 7) 
 
 6,068,987 
 
 1,703,344 
 
 1844 
 
 n 
 
 JJ 
 
 6,838,684 
 
 1,922,545 
 
 1845 
 
 j> 
 
 
 
 6,736,131 
 
 1,891,232 
 
 1846 
 
 j> 
 
 
 
 6,740,316 
 
 1,892,206 
 
 1847 
 
 )? 
 
 )) 
 
 6,053,847 
 
 1,704,318 
 
 1848 
 
 jj 
 
 
 
 6,136,547 
 
 1,732,282 
 
 1849 
 
 >j 
 
 )J 
 
 6,251,862 
 
 1,767,516 
 
 1850 
 
 j) 
 
 J> 
 
 6,437,222 
 
 1,821,123 
 
 1851 
 
 n 
 
 >J 
 
 6,280,653 
 
 1,776,247 
 
 1852 
 
 j> 
 
 )> 
 
 6,346,061 
 
 1,795,013 
 
 1853 
 
 j) 
 
 )J 
 
 6,813,830 
 
 1,924,972 
 
 1854 
 
 
 
 JJ 
 
 6,775,858 
 
 1,914,456 
 
 Another fact is worthy of notice in connection with the 
 reduction of the wine duties in 1 825. The wine trade then 
 wisely urged on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that any 
 trifling relaxation of the tax would be unfelt by the con- 
 sumer, and fail to react on the revenue; whereas, by reduc- 
 ing the duty to the amount which they suggested (4s. lOd. 
 per imperial gallon), the public would derive the benefit and 
 the demand would increase. This anticipation was not 
 realised as regarded increased demand : but as evidence of 
 the reduction of cost, wholesome wines, port, sherry, and 
 claret, are now daily advertised at 24s. a dozen ; whereas I 
 am informed by men of long experience in the trade, that 
 
for many years prior to 1825, no wine was purchasable 
 under 36s. 
 
 Taking for granted, then, that wine as a subject for tax- 
 ation is to be dealt with as an article of luxury, from which 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to extract the maximum 
 of revenue by means of the minimum of taxation without 
 diminishing consumption, it would appear to be deducible 
 from the alterations made successively in 1825 and 1831, 
 that the tax upon wine prior to the reduction made by Mr. 
 Huskisson in 1825, was too high, inasmuch as it discouraged 
 consumption; a fact attested by the increase of 2,000,000 
 gallons per annum immediately on the reduction of the 
 duty. 1 But on the other hand (looking solely and exclu- 
 sively to the interests of the revenue), it may be inferred 
 that the reduction to 4s. IQd. made by Mr. Huskisson and 
 Lord Kipon, was somewhat lower than the p*recise amount 
 required to sustain the public income from the tax ; inasmuch 
 as it immediately fell off much below the lowest amount 
 estimated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the 
 probable loss. For four years before the duty was lowered 
 in 1825, the average income from the former rates had 
 been 2,043 3 708/.; for five years afterwards it averaged 
 1,544,535/. 
 
 Taking the whole period since the alteration of the duties 
 in 1825, and comparing the receipts with a corresponding 
 period prior to the change, the result exhibits the same 
 occurrence of loss to the revenue. 
 
 Revenue received. 
 
 16 years of war, 1799 to 1814 - - average 2,359,266 
 10 years of peace, 1815 to 1824 2,110,720 
 
 26 years. Total period of high duties, 1799 to 1824 2,259,850 
 
 30 years of low duties, 1825 to 1854 1,727,644 
 
 This result, showing a loss of about 24 per cent, per 
 
 1 Average consumption of wine in five years, before Gallons. 
 
 the duties were lowered 4,751,106 
 
 In five years after - 6,741,855 
 
32 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 annum, is the reverse of realizing the anticipations of the 
 wine trade; who, in 1825, estimated a gain from the re- 
 duction of the duties by the increased consumption of wine 
 equal to 566,000/., 1 a sum rather higher than the now ascer- 
 tained loss. 
 
 If for the future wine is to continue to be taxed as a luxury, 
 with a single regard to the income derivable from it two 
 circumstances may be regarded as indicative of the fact, 
 that there is a certain amount of sympathy between revenue 
 on the one hand and consumption on the other, maintained 
 by a duty somewhat about 5s. a gallon ; in other words, that 
 that rate approaches the scale which, in the present state of 
 wealth and taste in this country, is likely to realize the 
 largest amount of revenue with the least discouragement 
 to consumption. One is the small and cautious addition 
 made to the scale in 1831, when, as already stated, the 
 discriminating duty on French wine was abolished, and 
 it and all others equalized at 5s. 6d. a gallon (whereas 
 the majority had before paid 4s. IQd.) This trifling in- 
 crease, so far from disturbing the equilibrium, produced 
 little or no reduction in the consumption, whilst it increased 
 the revenue by nearly the amount of the difference of 
 the duties. 2 
 
 1 Memorial, WARRE'S Wine Trade, p. 40. 
 
 2 The following are the amounts : 
 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 
 S. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 
 
 1830 
 
 7 3 
 
 4 10 
 
 6,434,445 
 
 1,524,168 
 
 1831 
 
 5 6 
 
 5 6 
 
 6,212,264 
 
 1,535,484 
 
 1832 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,965,542 
 
 1,715,812 
 
 1833 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 6,207,770 
 
 1,633,830 
 
 1834 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 6,480,544 
 
 1,705,639 
 
EARL OF RIPON AND MR. HUSKISSON'S DUTIES. 33 
 
 The other circumstance is the still more trifling addition 
 of 5 per cent, to the wine duties, which was made in 1840, 
 at a moment when the general deficiency of the public 
 revenue required to be assisted by this increase on the 
 several articles in the customs tariff. On that occasion, both 
 revenue and consumption evinced the utmost sensibility, 
 even to so slight an alteration. 
 
 The revenue, which in 1839 had been - 1,849,698 
 Fell in 1840 to 1,791,636 
 
 And in 1841 to 1,720,479 
 
 And it did not recover its original amount till four years 
 afterwards, in 1844. 
 
 In like manner, the consumption underwent a simultaneous 
 decline from 
 
 7,000,686 gallons in 1839 to 
 6,553,922 1840 
 6,184,960 1841 
 4,815,222 18421 
 6,086,987 1843 
 
 In 1844, it again rose to nearly its former level 6,838,684 
 gallons. 
 
 These experiments displayed a more harmonious relation 
 between consumption and revenue under the 5s. 6d. duty of 
 1831, than had been found in the instances either of Mr. 
 Pitt's 3s. rate, in 1787, or of his excessive war duties of 
 1805. The one stimulated consumption without feeding the 
 revenue; the other swelled the revenue without greatly 
 affecting consumption : whereas the medium rate established 
 
 1 The falling off in this year was ascribable to the expectation 
 excited, by negotiations with France, that a reduction of the duties 
 was to occur. The deficiency thus created does not appear to hare 
 been made good in subsequent years. 
 
 D 
 
34 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 by Lord Altliorpe, in 1831, appears to have brought both 
 somewhat into unison with the duty ; maintaining a steady 
 consumption on the one hand, and a revenue unprecedently 
 uniform on the other. 1 
 
 1 It is deserving of remark, if only as a coincideDce, that the 
 largest consumption of wine on record since 1786, took place under 
 Mr. Pitt's duty of 4s. lOfd, in 1795, when it rose to 8,238,438 gallons. 
 
TASTE FOR WINE DECLINING IN ENGLAND. 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DECLINING TASTE FOR WINE IN ENGLAND AND SOME 
 OF ITS CAUSES. 
 
 THE advocates for reducing the duties on wine do not 
 question the fact mentioned at the close of the last chapter ; 
 on the contrary, they dwell on and complain of it. Their 
 argument is, that the present duty of 5s. 9d. has, for the 
 last quarter of a century, maintained the revenue, under 
 vicissitudes of public prosperity and depression, at a uni- 
 form level; and maintained the consumption at a corre- 
 sponding and very equable amount. But disappointment is 
 naturally felt, that with the increase of population, the use of 
 wine has not increased; and that the same quantity has 
 sufficed for the wants of twenty-five millions of consumers 
 between 1825 and 1840, and for twenty- seven millions 
 between 1840 and 1855. 
 
 It is urged as a grievance, that the appetite for wine has 
 grown weaker, and that those who have always been ac- 
 customed to its use, drink now a less quantity than was 
 customary in former times. It was stated in the Commit- 
 tee of the House of Commons, in 1852, that the individual 
 consumption which had exceeded three bottles per head 
 between 1785 and 1794, declined below that quantity 
 
 D 2 
 
36 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 during the war; that it was but two bottles per annum for 
 ten years after the peace, and has been little more than one 
 bottle in every year since. Mr. Shaw, in his pamphlet on 
 The Wine Trade and its History, has inserted a calculation, 
 exhibiting the progress or reduction, between 1787 and 
 1851. 
 
 Period. 
 
 Average 
 of 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 of 
 Population. 
 
 Bottles per 
 Person 
 per Annum. 
 
 1787 to 1790 
 
 4 
 
 12,500,000 
 
 2 9-10ths 
 
 1791 to 1800 
 
 10 
 
 14,500,000 
 
 2 5-10ths 
 
 1801 to 1810 
 
 10 
 
 16,580,994 
 
 2 2-10ths 
 
 1811 to 1820 
 
 10 
 
 19,754,618 
 
 1 5-10ths 
 
 1821 to 1830 
 
 10 
 
 22,940,950 
 
 1 6-10ths 
 
 1831 to 1840 
 
 10 
 
 25,345,775 
 
 1 6-10ths 
 
 1841 to 1845 
 
 5 
 
 26,739,860 
 
 1 4-10ths 
 
 1846 to 1848 
 
 3 
 
 27,059,870 
 
 1 4-10ths 
 
 1849 
 
 1 
 
 27,105,822 
 
 1 3-10ths 
 
 1850 
 
 1 
 
 27,210,630 
 
 1 4-10ths 
 
 1851 
 
 1 
 
 27,309,346 
 
 1 3-10ths 
 
 This decline is sought to be ascribed to the operation of 
 the present duties, as unduly enhancing the price of wine. 
 But the facts are patent and admitted, that whilst the wine 
 duties during the last quarter of a century have undergone 
 very little change, and that whilst population has increased, 
 wealth has also increased, and in a still greater ratio than 
 population; so that the diminution of consumption has arisen, 
 not from increased duties or diminished ability to consume, but 
 from a declining appetite on the part of the people of this 
 country. In point of fact, social refinement, and improved 
 tastes, and altered habits, have produced the same effect 
 on the use of wine, within the last quarter of a century, 
 which was formerly exhibited under the pressure of ex- 
 cessive taxes after the close of the war. 
 
 It is a subject of notoriety and congratulation, that a 
 great change has taken place in the habits of the upper 
 classes, as regards the use of wine, since the time of 
 
TASTE FOR WINE DECLINING IN ENGLAND. 
 
 37 
 
 Mr. Pitt. The individual consumption, even by those 
 classes who can indulge in it to any extent, has de- 
 clined within the last fifty years to one-half. The race of 
 " six-bottle men" is extinct; 1 and although, while it existed, 
 
 1 There are grounds to believe, that this improvement in social 
 habits is not limited to the abandonment of excess in wine by the 
 higher orders, but extends in some localities to a diminution in the in- 
 dividual consumption of intoxicating drinks, generally, by the labour- 
 ing and lower classes. By a recent return to Parliament the number 
 of persons taken into custody, by the metropolitan police, on charges 
 of drunkenness, appears to have declined from 26,974 in 1831, when 
 the population of London was 1,515,585, to 8,754 in 1851, when the 
 population had risen to 2,399,004. A similar return, for the whole 
 kingdom, shews a different result. But the following table of the 
 individual consumption of spirits, at different periods, within the 
 last twenty years, exhibits a remarkable decline. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Gross Consumption 
 of Spirits 
 British and Foreign. 
 
 Individual 
 Consumption 
 per head. 
 
 1831 
 1841 
 1851 
 
 24,410,439 
 27,891,672 
 27,452,262 
 
 26,738,203 
 24,106,407 
 28,814,561 
 
 1-09 
 0-89 
 1-05 
 
 A great increase was anticipated in the consumption of intoxi- 
 cating drinks during the year 1851, owing to the excitement of the 
 Great Exhibition, the influx of foreigners, and the greatly increased 
 activity and movement of the people during that season. The 
 result disappointed this calculation ; and the following returns, in- 
 serted in the report of the Commissioners, exhibits a diminution of 
 consumption when an augmentation had been looked for. 
 
 In the Eight Months, ending the 5th of September, 
 
 Nature of Import. 
 
 1849 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 
 
 Brandy .... galls. 
 Rum . . 
 
 1,316,043 
 1 880 590 
 
 1,198,582 
 1 839 954 
 
 1,175,747 
 1 779 685 
 
 Geneva .... 
 Wine .... 
 Tobacco and Snuff Ibs. 
 
 17,870 
 4,251,382 
 18,382,672 
 
 17,783 
 4,367,894 
 18,245,351 
 
 17,243 
 4,359,617 
 18,304,537 
 
38 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Mr. Pitt's reduction of the duty in 1787 no doubt facilitated 
 the gratification of the prevailing appetite for excess, and 
 thus increased the consumption, it by no means follows that 
 the same effect could be produced by the same expedient at 
 the present day, when better tastes have given a tone of 
 moderation and refinement to the enjoyments of the table. 1 
 
 The same result exhibits itself, in a still more striking 
 manner, in estimating the probable consumption in Ire- 
 land, and its capabilities of extension now, as compared 
 with the condition and habits of the upper classes in that 
 country between 1786 and 1795. Wine was at that period 
 drunk to excess; but for the last fifty years, its consumers 
 in Ireland have exhibited an equal moderation with those 
 of England. The following table shows the consumption 
 there at different periods since 1787. Before the Union 
 in 1800, it exceeded an average of 1,000,000 gallons 
 and upwards per annum. For the last forty years, it has 
 scarcely exceeded one-half that amount. It was one of the 
 anticipations of Lord Bipon, when lowering the duty in 
 1825, that, under the influence of that measure, " the 
 hearty, generous, and honest conviviality for which Ireland 
 had been so long renowned, would doubtless revive in full 
 vigour;" but that hope has not been realised, as will be 
 perceived from the following table : 
 
 1 It is observable that this change in habit has extended to the 
 European residents of India. Documents were put in by a witness 
 in the Committee of 1852, the Hon. F. Scott, M.P., which showed 
 that since 1845 the consumption of every description of wine has 
 decreased in India, with the single exception of a strong and su- 
 perior article, sent out as " English claret." Within the same period, 
 the annual consumption of ale and beer in India declined from 
 264,476 barrels to 216,968. Evidence, etc., 5481 to 6006. 
 
TASTE FOR WINE DECLINING IN ENGLAND. 39 
 
 CONSUMPTION OF WINES IN IRELAND. 
 
 Year. Galls. 
 
 1787 - - 1,222,983 
 
 1790 - - 1,190,774 
 
 1795 - - 2,465,837 
 
 1800 - - 854,027 
 
 1805 - - 818,075 
 
 1810 - - 850,229 
 
 1815 - - 608,626 
 
 1820 - - 423,751 
 
 1825 - - 794,716 
 
 Year. Galls. 
 
 1830 - - 757,674 
 
 1835 - - 783,617 
 
 1840 - - 696,825 
 
 1845 - - 668,213 
 
 1850 - - 515,734 
 
 1851 - - 499,131 
 
 1852 - - 523,228 
 
 1853 - - 586,809 
 
 1854 - - 591,591 
 
 Nor has this alteration in the habits of society been con- 
 fined to the UNITED KINGDOM, where the diminution in the 
 individual consumption of wine might be suspected to be an 
 effect of the enhancement of the price by the addition of 
 the import duty. The same social change has for some years 
 back been apparent in FRANCE, the greatest wine-producing 
 country in the world, and where, consequently, its cost can- 
 not be supposed to offer an obstacle to its freest enjoyment. 
 The gross consumption of France has kept pace with the 
 increase of population and the diffusion of wealth. It has 
 increased 98 per cent, since 1831. The lower classes have 
 been enabled to drink more of the ordinary wines ; but the 
 higher classes have accustomed themselves to drink less of 
 the finer. 
 
 A commission was appointed by the National Assembly at 
 Paris, in 1849; " to inquire into the effect of the existing 
 taxes upon the production and consumption of wine and 
 spirits in France"; and the Report of the Commissioners, 
 and the Evidence 1 which they have recorded, presents some 
 striking statements as to this alteration in the taste and habits 
 of the wealthy and middle classes ("/ chsse aisee") in this 
 respect. 
 
 M. CASTERAT, who fills an important office under the 
 
 1 ENQUETE LEGISLATIVE, sur I'lmp6t des Boissons, etc., 2 vols. 4to. 
 Paris. 1851. 
 
40 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Municipality of Paris, as Chef de la Degustation, said it was 
 beyond a doubt that the consumption, in Paris, of wine of 
 the finer descriptions had undergone a diminution within 
 the last fifteen or twenty years ; and that this change had 
 extended to the middle classes of the population as well 
 as to the higher orders. His words are : " Pour les vins 
 fins et demi-fins, il est certain que la consommation a beau- 
 coup diminue. Les gouts et les moeurs ont change. A 
 Paris on boit beaucoup moins de vin, et surtout de vins fins. 
 Autrefois, c'est-a-dire quand j'etais encore jeune homme, on 
 buvait bien da vantage. Aujourd'hui on fait peu de ces 
 repas, de ces soupers ou se consommait une grande quantite 
 de vins; je ne parle pas de la classe ouvriere, qui boit toujours 
 autant ; et meme plus, mais seulement de la classe aisee. . . 
 . . . J'ajouterai qu' a cet egard je suis d' accord avec les 
 commercants en gros et demi-gros de Paris, qui reconnais- 
 sent eux-memes que la consommation des bons vins a 
 considerablement baisse depuis dix ou douze ans." Enquete, 
 etc., p. 4. 
 
 The same gentleman adds, and his statement is sustained 
 by the other witnesses, that whereas in former times it was 
 customary for the opulent classes to keep extensive cellars 
 with supplies of wine of the value of 100,000fr. and up- 
 wards, the practice has entirely ceased ; it began to be felt 
 that too much money was unprofitably invested in such 
 stocks, and the same individuals now purchase of the wine- 
 merchant by the cask, or the demi-piece. 1 
 
 1 "M. PASSY. Permettez-moi de faire encore une observation. 
 Les deux choses existent a la fois : c'est-a-dire une moindre consom- 
 mation, en general, chez les gens riches, et aussi un changement 
 marque dans les gouts a I'Sgard des vins. Aujourd'hui meme, les 
 vins demi-fins sont bannis de DOS tables, ou ils Staient sends 
 abondamment il-y--a vingt-cinq ans, principalement les vins de 
 Bourgogne. Ce que Ton boit de preference aujourd'hui, ce sont les 
 vins des premieres crus de Bourdeaux ; mais le bon macon, le bon 
 
TASTE FOR WINE DECLINING IN ENGLAND. 41 
 
 The same remarks are equally applied to Belgium, both 
 as to the decrease in individual consumption of fine wine, 
 and the discontinuance of keeping large stocks for domestic 
 use. 
 
 The COMMISSIONED in their report thus sum up the 
 case as regards the altered tastes and habits of the French 
 " De nouvelles habitudes alimentaires dans une paitie de la 
 nation, F usage plus repandu des boissons chaudes et des 
 eaux gazeuses, la transformation des gouts, la division des 
 fortunes, en ont restreint la vente et fait tomber les prix. 
 Dans toutes les classes, autrefois, et surtout dans les classes 
 elevees, on buvait beaucoup; ce n'etait pas seulement un 
 besoin, c'etait un plaisir et un luxe, qui s'alliaient alors avec 
 Fesprit de la societe, avec la gaiete des reunions et la duree 
 
 Bourgogne, ont disparu en partie de nos repas. Dans la Bourgogne, 
 on vous sert, commes vins ordinaires, des vins qui etaient reputes 
 vins fins autrefois, sans compter tant d'autres cms qui se vendaient 
 tres-bien alors, ayant les de"bouche~s assures, et qui maintenant, 
 n'en ayant plus, se vendent comme vins ordinaires. 
 
 "M. CASTERAT. Il-y-a quelque chose a aj outer & 1'appui de cette 
 observation. 
 
 "Il-y-avait autrefois en France des gens riches qui avaient des 
 caves de cent mille francs et plus ; aujourd'hui vous visiteriez toutes 
 les caves des plus riches maisons, que vous n'en trouveriez pas une 
 semblable. Ainsi, j'ai connu un grand proprietaire, amateur de vins 
 pourtant, qui avait he" rite" d'un restant de cave, et comme je lui 
 temoignais ma surprise de ce qu'il ne 1'entretenait pas, il me dit : 
 Que voulez-vous ? cela repr^sente un capital e"norme. J'aime bien 
 mieux, quand j'ai besoin de vin fin, 1'acheter par demi-piece. 
 
 "De me'me, en Belgique, c'etait une habitude et un objet d' amour- 
 propre d'avoir des caves de 60 et 80,000 francs. Eh bien ! aujourd' 
 hui, ces caves-la sont tout a fait exceptionnelles, on ne fait plus 
 d'approvisionnements. Autrefois & mesure que Ton consommait, 
 on remplagait, et on avait toujours la une quantite" considerable de 
 marchandises. Tout cela n'existe plus : pendant qu'elles s'ecoulent, 
 au lieu de remplacer, on se dit : Si j'ai besoin de vins fins, j'irai les 
 prendre par bouteilles ou par demi-pieces chez le marchand." 
 Enquete Legislative, etc., p. 6. 
 
42 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 des repas. Aussi les qualites les plus dedicates etaient elles 
 soigneusement recherchees et cherement payees. Aujourd'hui, 
 si les acheteurs sont plus nombreux, les amateurs sont plus 
 rares, on est moins difficile dans le choix des vins, et on y 
 met moins d' argent. Et tandis que les crus inferieurs trou- 
 vent dans le developpement des consommations populaires 
 un ecoulement chaque jour plus facile; tandis que ceux de 
 premier ordre, qui n'ont pas laisse degenerer leur valeur et 
 dechoir leur reputation, conservent, surtout au dehors, une 
 clientele d'elite, les cms intermediates sont negliges et 
 manquent de debouches pour leurs recoltes." l 
 
 In both countries, in France and Belgium alike, but es- 
 pecially in the latter, the increasing use of coffee is assigned 
 as one of the leading causes in the decline in that of wine. 
 The Commissioners, in observing on the fact that the con- 
 sumption of French wines in Belgium had diminished, 
 notwithstanding the establishment of a discriminating duty 
 in their favour, remark, " That the popular drink with their 
 Belgian neighbours is not wine, but beer and coffee, of 
 which latter their four millions of inhabitants consume 19 
 millions of kilogrammes, whilst 15 or 16 millions of kilo- 
 grammes suffice for the wants of 36 millions of French." 2 
 
 A similar fact has been noticed in relation to England. 
 The late Mr. PORTER, in his Progress of the Nation, remarks 
 that " The introduction of tea and coffee into extensive use 
 in the United Kingdom must necessarily have interfered 
 with the consumption of malt liquors" ; 3 and another author, 
 of research and ability, thus speaks of the declining con- 
 sumption of intoxicating drinks generally, and the increase 
 in that of the non-intoxicating, arising from the same 
 cause: " The great increase in the amounts of tea, coffee, 
 
 ENQUETE, etc., Rapport, p. 22. 2 ENQUETE, etc., Rapport, p. 35. 
 3 Progress of the Nation, p. 553. 
 
TASTE FOR WINE DECLINING IN ENGLAND. 
 
 43 
 
 and cocoa consumed in this country within the last few 
 years, as shown by the revenue returns, is far more than 
 can be accounted for by mere increase of population ; and 
 the corresponding diminution in the consumption of spi- 
 rituous liquors of all kinds, clearly indicates that the tastes 
 of the great mass of the people, whether influenced by 
 economy or sanitary considerations, incline in favour of the 
 former beverages. The following table clearly proves the 
 fact of this increase: 
 
 Years 
 end. 
 Jan. 5. 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 Tea. 
 
 Cocoa. 
 
 British Spirits. 
 
 Beer. 
 
 Wiiie. 
 
 1836 
 1840 
 1845 
 1850 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 23,295,046 
 26,789,945 
 31,352,382 
 34,431,074 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 36,574,004 
 35,127,287 
 41,363,770 
 50,024,688 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 1,084,170 
 1,606,800 
 2,589,977 
 3,233,372 
 
 galls. 
 
 24,710,208 
 25,198,843 
 20,608,525 
 22,962,012 
 
 Barrels of 
 36 galls. 
 16,330,010 
 15,883,311 
 14,624,854 
 15,243,681 
 
 galls. 
 
 6,420,342 
 7,000,486 
 6,838,684 
 6,247,689 
 
 If the population of the year ending January 5, 1850, had drunk the same 
 quantity per head as the population of the year ending January 5, 1836, the 
 quantity consumed in 1850 would have been : 
 
 
 27,268,189 
 
 42,444,291 
 
 1,258,067 
 
 28,673,638 
 
 18,949,286 
 
 7,450,142 
 
 Had the population of 1849-50 drunk of coffee, tea, and 
 cocoa the same quantity per head as the population of 
 1835-6, the increase in the consumption of these articles 
 would have been only 10,000, 000 Ibs., whereas it has been 
 nearly 27,000,000 Ibs., or considerably more than one-third. 
 And had the population of 1840-50 drunk of spirits, wine, 
 and beer the same quantity per head as the population of 
 1835-6 did, the increase in the consumption of these articles 
 would have been 100,000,000 gallons; whereas there has 
 been a decrease of 40,000,000 gallons showing the actual 
 difference, taking the increase of population into account, 
 to be upwards of 140,000,000 gallons, or more than one- 
 fifth part of the entire quantity consumed in 1836." 1 
 
 1 KNAPP'S Technology; or Chemistry applied to the Arts and 
 Manufactures, vol. iii. p. 147. 
 
44 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 The following returns bring the results down to a later 
 date: 
 
 Popula- 
 tion. 
 
 Years 
 end. 
 Jan. 5. 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 Tea. 
 
 Cocoa. 
 
 British 
 Spirits. 
 
 Beer. 
 
 Wine. 
 
 27,452,262 
 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 1854 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 32,504,545 
 34,978,432 
 36,983,122 
 37,361,387 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 53,949,059 
 54,713,034 
 
 8,834,087 
 61,949,822 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 2,978,344 
 3,328,527 
 3,997,198 
 4,560,226 
 
 galls. 
 
 23,976,596 
 25,200,879 
 25,021,317 
 25,883584 
 
 Barrels of 
 36 galls. 
 16,117,623 
 16,756,285 
 17,184,033 
 16,270,000 
 
 galls. 
 
 6,280,653 
 6,346,061 
 6,813,830 
 6,775,858 
 
 Pursuing the same course of enquiry as that instituted 
 by Dr. Knapp, these figures sustain the same general results. 
 Had the population of the United Kingdom in 1854 (taking 
 it at 27,600,000) drunk coffee, tea, and cocoa in the same 
 proportion as the population of 1835-6 (the latter being 
 about 24,350,000), the increase in the consumption of these 
 articles ought to have been only 8,125,000 Ibs., whereas it 
 has actually been 42,918,215 Ibs. And had they drunk in 
 1853-4 of spirits and wine in the same proportion as in 
 1835-6, the increase in the quantities consumed would have 
 been 83,875,000 gallons, whereas there is an actual decrease 
 of 631,468 gallons. 1 
 
 1 It has been observed by LANE, the learned annotator of the 
 Arabian Nights (and the observation is confirmed by the experience 
 of Mr. LAYARD, M.P., the explorer of Assyria), that the growth of 
 the use of tobacco amongst oriental nations, has gradually reduced 
 the resort to intoxicating beverages ; and Mr. CRAWFORD, in a paper 
 "On the History and Consumption of Tobacco" in the Journal of the 
 Statistical Society for March, 1853, remarks that simultaneously 
 with the decline in the use of spirits, in Great Britain, has been a 
 corresponding increase in the use of tobacco. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Quantity of 
 Tobacco Consumed. 
 
 Consumption 
 per head. 
 
 1821 
 1831 
 1841 
 1851 
 
 21,282,960 
 24,410,439 
 27,019,672 
 27,452,262 
 
 15,598,152 
 19,533,841 
 22,309,360 
 
 28,062,978 
 
 11-71 oz. 
 12-80 oz. 
 13-21 oz. 
 16-86 oz. 
 
TASTE FOR WINE DECLINING IN ENGLAND. 
 
 45 
 
 In 1835-6, the average consumption of tea, coffee, and 
 cocoa per head of the population was 2|lbs., and in 1853-4 
 it had risen to 3| Ibs. ; whereas the average consumption of 
 wine, spirits, and beer had fallen in 1853-4 to 22^ gallons 
 per head, from 25^ gallons, which it was in 1835-6. 
 
46 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STILL TAXING WINE AS A " LUXURY," IS IT POSSIBLE 
 BY A LOWER DUTY TO INCREASE CONSUMPTION 
 AND SUSTAIN THE REVENUE? 
 
 LOOKING, then, to' the uncontroverted fact, of a great 
 alteration in the taste for wine in these countries, and bear- 
 ing in mind that its ordinary consumers in the United 
 Kingdom are of a class little if at all affected by the mere 
 consideration of cost in an article which they use so 
 moderately, it may reasonably be questioned whether, re- 
 taining wine in the class of luxuries for purposes of taxa- 
 tion, a moderate reduction in the present rate of duty would 
 avail to stimulate increased consumption and sustain the 
 present amount of revenue ? 
 
 Against the prospect of such a result there was a re- 
 markable concurrence of opinion amongst all the wine 
 merchants examined by the House of Commons Committee 
 of 1852. They were unanimous in their conviction that 
 the present price of wine does not prevent those who now 
 drink it from indulging to the extent of their inclination, 
 and that no reduction of the duty, however low, would 
 induce the present class of consumers to take an additional 
 
WILL A SLIGHT REDUCTION INCREASE CONSUMPTION? 47 
 
 bottle from the mere fact of its cheapness. One witness l 
 alone proposed to retain the present classification, but to 
 reduce the duty upon wine as a luxury to 3s. or 3s. 6d. a 
 gallon, as was done by Mr. Pitt in 1787 ; 2 but the proposal 
 did not meet with support from any section of the trade, 
 and it was not entertained in the Committee. 
 
 The idea of returning to a three-shilling duty seems to have 
 originated with Mr. M'Culloch, who, in a former edition of 
 his " Commercial Dictionary" (Art. WINE), suggested that, 
 failing to discover some plan for collecting a duty ad valorem, 
 which he pronounces impracticable, " a duty of 3s. or 3s. 6d. 
 on all wines would not be felt on the finer kinds, and would be 
 no great bar to the consumption of the inferior sorts." The 
 plan of a 3s. duty was, however, considered by all parties in 
 the late Committee as inexpedient ; and I observe that, in a 
 more recent work, Mr. M'Culloch has himself rejected it, and 
 records his opinion that the present rate of duty " 5s. 9</, 
 or rather less than Is. a bottle, cannot be objected to when 
 charged on the superior qualities it is not oppressive ex- 
 cept when applied to the inferior descriptions of wine ; and 
 from the extreme difficulty of assessing ad valorem duties on 
 wine, it is no easy matter to obviate this defect. A reduc- 
 tion to the low rate of 3s. per gallon would probably oc- 
 casion a serious loss of revenue. It would be all but 
 imperceptible as regards the finer and higher priced wines, 
 and though its influence over the lower qualities would be 
 much more considerable, they are not very likely ever to 
 become a popular beverage in these countries. Unless some 
 means should be discovered of obviating the difficulties in 
 the way of assessing an ad valorem duty on wine, there would 
 
 1 Mr. MAXWELL, see evidence 3201. 
 
 2 It is observable that the lowest amount of revenue on record, 
 as having been collected from wine in any one year since 1786, was 
 785,193Z. in 1793, and this was received by Mr. Pitt under a 3s. duty. 
 
48 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 probably be but little advantage in disturbing our subsisting 
 arrangements." 1 
 
 The majority of the witnesses agreed with the later 
 opinion of Mr. M'Culloch that, to the present class of 
 consumers, a change to 3s. would be a matter of indif- 
 ference, whilst so small a reduction would fail to induce 
 others to commence the use of wine who now abstain from 
 motives of economy. This was the opinion of the late Mr. 
 Porter, who held that the reduction of the present amount 
 by 30 or 40 per cent., or even by one-half, would not lead 
 to such an increase of consumption as to make up the loss 
 of revenue. " Such a reduction," he said, " would be 
 almost equivalent to giving away so much of the revenue. 
 It would not induce the present consumers of wine to drink 
 one bottle more, and it would not induce consumption 
 amongst a fresh class of consumers/' 2 
 
 There can be no reasonable doubt that, of so small a 
 saving, scarcely any portion would ever reach the consumer; 
 it would be in part intercepted by the gains of the grower, 
 in part by the profits of the seller, and the alteration would 
 be felt beneficially neither by the public nor by the 
 revenue. 
 
 The propositions at present pressed upon the Government 
 are the natural results of these convictions. It is urged 
 that in the present state of public taste in relation to the 
 use of wine, it will be of no avail to the trade in that 
 article merely to reduce or readjust the duties if it is still 
 to be retained in the category of luxuries, instead of classing 
 it in the tariff amongst articles of primary necessity, with 
 a duty of ONE SHILLING per gallon. 
 
 In taking up this new position, the wine trade of the present 
 
 1 M'CuLLOCH on Taxation and Funding, p. 371. 
 
 2 Evidence of Mr. PORTER, 3749, 3750. 
 
WILL A SLIGHT REDUCTION INCREASE CONSUMPTION? 49 
 
 day abandon entirely the ground held by their predecessors in 
 1825, who then urged on the Earl of Eipon the duty of treat- 
 ing wine as a luxury, and imposing on it duties " to the utmost 
 extent that would be productive of revenue." l On one fun- 
 damental point they all agree. The trade of 1825 promised 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer a gain of half a million by 
 the change; the trade of 1852 have advanced upon that 
 offer, and promise an income of varying from 3,000,000 
 to 6,000,000 2 per annum. The essential difference between 
 the demands of the two periods consists in this: in 1825, 
 the wine trade of London considered that wine as a luxury 
 would still be largely consumed by the same class who had 
 been always accustomed to its use, if not taxed beyond their 
 ability as purchasers; and that at a moderate duty of 5s. 
 or 6s. a gallon, the demand amongst that class would be 
 always sufficient to carry off the supply from those countries 
 which had been our purveyors of wine, thus largely con- 
 tributing to the public income. But now those who are 
 eager for the change, avow that they no longer look to the 
 
 1 Memorial, 1823, p. 3. 
 
 2 Mr. Shaw, one of the witnesses who gave evidence before the 
 Committee of last session, is of opinion, that at a one shilling duty, 
 the consumption of wine would become so general amongst the 
 middle classes as to yield a revenue of from 3,000,0007. to 4,365,8737. 
 per annum. Mr. Lancaster, another of the witnesses, quoted from a 
 publication of his own, in which he calculates that a two shilling 
 duty would produce 6,083,3337. It was not unnatural for Mr. "Warre 
 and the wine trade in 1823, who considered that wine ought to be 
 taxed as a luxury, to estimate an income from it of 2,520,0007. ; but 
 it is something like inconsistency for those who now object to it 
 as unjust towards the lower orders, that 1,700,0007. or 1,800,0007. 
 should be collected from wine as a luxury for the rich, to contem- 
 plate raising double that amount, or even 6,000,0007. a-year, off the 
 very same article when it shall have become a necessary for the poor, 
 They seem to be embarrassed between their desire to tempt the 
 public by the offer of wine at a nominal duty, and to tempt the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer by an immense revenue infuturo. 
 
 E 
 
50 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 old class of consumers, who will continue to drink their* 
 accustomed full-bodied wines at accustomed prices; but that 
 their aim is by a new scale of duties to create an entirely 
 new class of consumers, for whose use they will introduce a 
 new class of wines hitherto unknown in this country, but the 
 demand for which will, they hope, become so extensive, 
 as to raise the consumption of wines to an unexampled and 
 almost unlimited extent, and enrich the exchequer in a 
 corresponding proportion. 
 
 In the previous chapters, I have directed attention to the 
 tax on wine, considered under the head of luxuries, to 
 which it has hitherto belonged : what is to follow shall be 
 devoted to this recent proposal for reconstructing the trade 
 upon an entirely new basis, by transferring wine to the class 
 of necessaries, and realising a large increase of revenue from 
 an almost nominal duty. 
 
AX AD rALOREMDVTV UNATTAINABLE. 51 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AN AD VALOREM DUTY UNATTAINABLE. 
 
 As the present rate of duty is admitted to be no practical 
 grievance, so far as regards the finest and most delicate 
 qualities, which are luxuries for the opulent; but as it is 
 assumed to discourage the importation of the medium 
 growths, which will not bear the same degree of taxation, 
 a remedy naturally suggests itself in an AD VALOREM duty^ 
 which, whilst retaining the existing scale for the highest 
 description of wines, would give admission to the more 
 ordinary at a rate proportioned to their humbler quality. 
 
 The suggestion is as attractive in theory as it has proved 
 unattainable in practice. The varieties of wine are so 
 endless, its qualities so diversified, and its value so arbitrary, 
 that the most skilful connoisseurs become baffled to dis- 
 criminate even between its natural inequalities; and at the 
 same time the facilities are so extreme for disguising and 
 temporarily concealing its real characteristics, that no pre- 
 caution has hitherto been found effectual as a protection 
 against deception. The only expedient which has been 
 tried, short of a simple tax upon quantity, is that of dis- 
 tinguishing between wine in cask and in bottle] the latter 
 being rightly supposed, under ordinary circumstances, to be 
 the higher quality. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 The ad valorem system has been tried in various countries, 
 but with uniform ill success: no vigilance, no ingenuity, or 
 experience being found sufficient to ensure safety to the 
 revenue and justice to the fair dealer. 
 
 It is true, the import duty is so collected at Hamburgh ; 
 but there it is so trifling (one-half per cent.) as to set fraud 
 at defiance. In the United States also the tax is ad valorem*, 
 but there every article in the tariff is similarly assessed; 
 and the American government are well aware, as regards 
 wine, that the formality of valuation is a mere delusion. 1 
 An ad valorem duty of 10 per cent, was formerly levied in 
 the East India Company's territories; but it was discon- 
 tinued in 1845, and a uniform rate of 1 rupee a gallon 
 was imposed in its stead. 2 
 
 In England every Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has 
 had to deal with the wine duties, has rejected the idea of 
 thus assessing them, from a conscious inability to protect 
 the revenue from imposition. 
 
 Mr. M'Culloch, in his treatise on Taxation and Funding, 3 
 
 1 A volume of official correspondence, published by the American 
 Congress in!853, contains, at p. 10, a communication on behalf of 
 the wine-trade of New York, addressed to the Hon. Mr. Guthrie, the 
 secretary to the treasury, in reply to a circular soliciting suggestions 
 for amending the United States' tariff. It embodies these objections 
 to the practical working of the ad valorem assessment of wines, on 
 the following grounds : " 1st. Because all wines are subject, during 
 the voyage, to ' sea-sickness,' and for any appraiser to give the true 
 value of a wine, on landing, is all nonsense. He may tell the differ- 
 ence between good and poor wines, but he cannot tell the difference 
 between 507. and 60/. values. 2nd. Because shippers send wine to 
 the United States with fictitious invoices, making the prices 10/. 
 lower than the charges." The writer adds, " I have stated these 
 facts frequently to Mr. Clay ; and he said he saw the difficulty an ad 
 valorem duty would raise with spirits and wine ; but said it 
 appeared the most equitable mode of collecting the duty. So it is, 
 if all men were honest" 
 
 2 Evidence. House of Commons Committee, 3983. 
 8 Page 117. 
 
AN AD FALOIREMVUT? UNATTAINABLE. 53 
 
 states the advantages and desirability of applying a different 
 scale of duties to the finest and richest, as compared with 
 the lowest and poorest wines; but he avows that the diffi- 
 culties are so great as not to be likely ever to be overcome. 
 " Were the attempt made, a great deal would have to be 
 left (where nothing ever should be left) to the discretion of 
 the officers; and there is good reason to think, that the 
 frauds thence arising would more than counterbalance any 
 advantage to be derived from the adoption of the principle." 
 Mr. PORTER at one time 1 ventured to propose an inter- 
 mediate scheme, compounded of a fixed and a graduated 
 duty. Seeing that " the imposition of a duty, according 
 to the valuation of the importer, might open the door 
 widely to fraud;" he "suggested that every difficulty of this 
 nature might be obviated by fixing maximum and mimimum 
 rates of valuation, within which the declaration of the 
 merchant must be made," continuing to the officers the 
 usual power so to purchase at an advance of 10 per cent. 
 on the declared value, when they considered it much below 
 the real. But at a later period he abandoned this idea, and 
 explained that he had only suggested it, in 1840, during 
 the negotiation for a commercial treaty with France; at 
 which time the duties not having yet been reduced upon 
 many of the great necessaries of life in this country, " it 
 would have been an exceedingly unpopular thing to have 
 ventured to propose a great reduction in the duty on wine, 
 a luxury, while the duties upon articles of necessity were 
 kept up at a high rate;" 2 although it was necessary, in 
 order to induce the French to enter into a commercial 
 understanding with us, to assure them " that their wines 
 should have a better opportunity of being introduced into 
 
 1 PORTER'S Progress of the Nation, p. 561. 
 
 2 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of Mr, Porter, 3960. 
 
54 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 consumption with us." He thereupon proposed that the 
 ad valorem duty should apply to the finest wines " which 
 would have continued to pay the high duty they now do, 
 while a great deal of wine not in consumption by the 
 middle and lower classes would have been admitted at a 
 very moderate rate." * Tn that way Mr. Porter thought the 
 objection might be got over, that we were remitting duties 
 on luxuries, while retaining taxes on necessaries; but as the 
 negotiation failed, and the French treaty was never signed, 
 he would not, " in the present condition of things, propose 
 any such plan, he thought it would be very unwise, and 
 he did not wish to see it carried out." 
 
 In this latter opinion, with one exception, every witness 
 examined by the committee upon the point was unanimous; 
 and all parties concurred unhesitatingly that under such a 
 system it would be utterly hopeless to guard against fraud, 
 to do justice to the fair dealer, or to realize the revenue? 2 
 
 In these views, the authorities and some merchants of 
 France are entirely agreed with the government and traders 
 in England. The "Administration of Indirect Taxes" at 
 one period made the experiment of an ad valorem collection, 
 but they speedily abandoned it as illusory and impossible. 
 The enquiry of the Commissioners of the National Assembly, 
 in 1849. showed the facilities afforded by it for deception to 
 almost an incredible extent. " En mettant trois blancs 
 d'ceufs," said one of the witnesses, " dans une piece de vin de 
 Bordeaux de l,500fr., on le rend tellementmeconnaissable que 
 le vin de Suresne parait preferable a boire." 3 The same gen- 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of Mr. Porter, 3960. 
 
 2 House of Commons Committee. Evidence Mr. BARNES, 343, 
 344 ; Mr. LANCASTER, 459 ; Mr. SHAW, 1344, 1360 ; Mr. TROWER, 1761, 
 1778, 1786 ; Mr. SELBY, 1941 ; Mr. CARBONNELL, 2725 ; Mr. REDDING, 
 5205 ; Mr. HARRISON and Mr. SMITH, 5947. 
 
 3 ENQUETE LEGISLATIVE sur 1'Impdt dcs Boissons, p. 281. 
 
AN AD VALOREM DUTY UNATTAINABLE. 55 
 
 tleman, M. BARRAT, member of the Chamber of Commerce 
 of Paris, goes on to say, that during the interval, when the 
 experiment was in progress of levying the wine taxes ad 
 valorem, the authorities had seized, as they thought, an 
 immense quantity of Burgundy from Macon; but, after 
 keeping it for a few months, it was discovered that there 
 was not one drop of Macon in the entire. 
 
 But independently of these practical obstacles to a duty 
 ad valorem, there are others which, though incidental, are 
 even more conclusive against its adoption. It would be a 
 virtual restoration of the differential duties abolished by 
 Lord Althorp, in 1831. It would be the establishment of 
 a premium on the light wines of France, as compared with 
 the heavier tax to be levied on the strong wines of Por- 
 tugal it would be a bounty to Sicily and a discouragement 
 to Spain and so regarded, an ad valorem duty is incom- 
 patible with our existing treaties with those wine growing 
 countries to whose produce our existing conventions secure 
 the treatment of (i the most favoured nation." 
 
56 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE NATIONAL TASTE IN ENGLAND 
 FOR STRONG WINES. 
 
 THE advocates of a reduction to a one shilling duty, take 
 as the basis of their project, and the ground of their con- 
 fidence for its successful results, the fact, that almost every 
 country of Southern Europe is suitable to the cultivation of 
 the vine; that these countries already abound in wine of a 
 cheap but agreeable and wholesome character, and that the 
 production of these light and exhilarating wines is capable 
 of extension to a comparatively unlimited degree. 1 They 
 urge that of this boundless supply Great Britain takes only 
 an infinitesimal proportion, selecting the finest and most 
 costly descriptions, chiefly the growth of France, Portugal, 
 and Spain; whilst the vast bulk of the economical and 
 healthy wines, not only of these countries, but of Italy, 
 Germany, Hungary, Dalmatia, Sicily, and Greece, are so 
 excluded from consumption in Great Britain as to be un- 
 known even by name. 
 
 This exclusion is ascribed to the undue enhancement of 
 their cost by the addition of the duty of 5s. 9d. a gallon. 
 
 1 The views of those favourable to a one-shilling duty will be 
 found stated very fully in the evidence of Mr. Shaw (1064 to 1384), 
 and in the letters and papers embodied in it. 
 
THE TASTE IN ENGLAND FOR STRONG WINES. 57 
 
 And it is thought, that were the tax reduced to Is., the 
 influence of this saving, combined with the natural cheap- 
 ness of the wines themselves at the place of growth, would 
 effectually bring them within the reach of the middle and 
 lower orders in Great Britain; who would begin to use 
 them in such quantity as to lead to a prodigious annual 
 importation, on which the perception of even a nominal 
 duty would replenish the revenue to an extent hitherto 
 unexampled. 
 
 In considering this proposition, it is superfluous to say, 
 that there exists no doubt as to the gross quantity of wines 
 of all names and varieties grown in Europe and elsewhere. 
 The annual production of France alone exceeds 900,000,000 
 of gallons; that of the Zollverein upwards of 70,000,000 
 gallons, whilst Austria, Italy, and the Peninsula, yield an 
 incalculable quantity. Wherever the grape will ripen, in 
 all quarters of the globe, its juice can be fermented into a 
 beverage which will bear the name of wine, however defi- 
 cient it may be in those refined qualities which we in 
 England have been accustomed to associate with it. But 
 the question is not as to the gross supply, it is one simply 
 of taste and demand; and whether at any price, or under 
 any duty however nominal, the ordinary wines of Europe 
 would be likely to find consumers to any very considerable 
 extent in this country. Mr. Shaw, who strongly pleads 
 for reducing the duty to one shilling, is of opinion that, " if 
 the duty were thus made very low, we should undoubtedly 
 receive the poorest trash that is grown, but even this," he 
 considers, " if pure and strongbodied, as much of it is, is 
 wholesome, and would suit the taste and pocket of many, 
 either drinking it by itself, or diluted with water; and, of 
 course, we would also receive other qualities." 1 It would 
 
 1 SHAW'S Wine Trade and its History, Fourth Letter. LONDON, 
 1853, p. 5. 
 
58 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 be but a waste of time to repudiate the idea that the people 
 of England, on the mere plea of cheapness, would conform 
 to drink " the poorest trash" known as wines on the Con- 
 tinent; the point at issue, and which merits grave inquiry 
 is this,, whether the light and ordinary wines of Europe 
 not the thin vintages of the peasantry, or the acid piquette 
 of the wine districts, but the wholesome and cheap wines 
 which are drunk by the middle classes and the ouvriers of 
 the towns; whether these are so suited to the English 
 palate, that under the influence of an almost nominal duty, 
 they would find consumers to any considerable extent in 
 the United Kingdom? 
 
 It will be well, therefore, before proceeding further, to 
 look into this question of taste commercially; and to see 
 whether, judging from what we know to have been the 
 prevailing fancy for wine from an early period in England, 
 and its fluctuations since, there is good ground for be- 
 lieving that such a demand could now be stimulated for a 
 new class of light and pure wines, as to create a trade in 
 them, by offering them at a price far below the accustomed 
 cost of the wines at present in use. 
 
 The fact is uncontested, that from a very early period the 
 taste of the people of England has been fixed on highly- 
 flavoured and full-bodied wines, in preference to the lighter 
 and lower descriptions. 
 
 It is a fallacy to suppose that this taste is one engendered 
 by the cold of our climate, for the light wines of France 
 find their most valuable markets in the still colder latitudes 
 of Germany and Northern Europe. But, without attempting 
 to scrutinize its origin, without ascribing it to our climate or 
 our cookery (which latter may require a more stimulant 
 digestive than the cuisine of our continental neighbours), 
 without determining whether the preference be spontaneous 
 or produced artificially by political or fiscal adjustments, 
 
THE TASTE IN ENGLAND FOR STKONG WINES. 59 
 
 it is sufficient for the purpose of the present inquiry to 
 advert to the uncontested fact, that from a very early 
 period the people of these countries have rejected liyht wines, 
 and drunk only those which, along with high flavour, com- 
 bined a large proportion of body and spirit. 
 
 In the reign of Elizabeth, the wines chiefly in use in 
 England were those of Gascony, Burgundy, and Guienne; 
 which with Canary, Cyprus, Grecian Malmsey, Italian 
 Vernage, Khenish Tent, Malaga, and others, were " ac- 
 compted of, because of their strength and valure." * 
 
 In the time of Charles II. , " the consumption of French 
 wines was two-fifths that of the whole of England/' 2 The 
 favourite wines were then Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Her- 
 mitage; Champagne, although known in England in the 
 reign of Henry VIII., did not come into use there till that 
 of Charles II. 
 
 The same taste prevailed till nearly the close of the seven- 
 teenth century; and whilst the duty on wines of every 
 description was not only equal, but almost nominal (from 
 6d. to 8d. a gallon), so that light and cheap wines might 
 have come freely into use at the lowest possible charge, 
 this country gave the preference to the strong wines of 
 Burgundy, the white wines of Spain (sherris-sack, or sec 3 ), 
 and the red wines of Portugal, which first came into use 
 about 1690, A.D. 4 Port wine, when first introduced into 
 England, was a much lighter wine than it afterwards be- 
 came; 5 as the Portuguese, in order to adapt it to the 
 
 1 " Hollinshed's Chronicles," quoted by Henderson, " History of 
 Wines," chap, ix., p. 296. 
 
 2 Sir JOHN Bo WRING'S Report, p. 96. 3 Henderson on Wines, p. 298. 
 
 4 Henderson on Wines, p. 313. Redding on Wines, p. 388. Evi- 
 dence of Wine Duties Committee, 1852 (5422). 
 
 5 The first Port Wine introduced into this country was not from 
 the Douro, or even shipped at Oporto. It was a wine resembling 
 Claret of Burgundy, from the Minho, shipped at Vianna. Evidence, 
 Forrester, 1057. Ib. 9. 
 
60 WINE; 1TS~ USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 English palate, speedily learnt to strengthen it with 
 brandy, and heighten its flavour and colour by other 
 ingredients. 1 
 
 Commercial jealousies began to manifest themselves in 
 the mutual tariffs of England and France about the year 
 1667 ; 2 but down to the Revolution, and till the policy of 
 France towards the exiled family had excited the resent- 
 ment of William III., and led to fiscal regulations hostile 
 to French commerce, the wines of that country formed a 
 large proportion, if not a majority, of the supply for Great 
 Britain. 3 But during the wars which prevailed subse- 
 quently to 1689, the proportion of French wines to those 
 of Portugal and Spain became inverted, and their final dis- 
 couragement was consummated by the Methuen Treaty of 
 1703, by which, in consideration of the Portuguese con- 
 senting to admit our woollens into their markets, in pre- 
 ference to those of other countries, we bound ourselves to 
 impose 331 per cent higher duties on the wines of France 
 than on those of Portugal. 
 
 Still national taste was slow in conforming itself to the 
 requirements of legislation, and a very long period elapsed 
 before Portuguese wine succeeded in supplanting French. 
 The official records are defective as to the importations 
 of wine prior to the end of the seventeenth century ; the 
 
 1 Bedding, pp. 236, 389. Henderson, p. 315. 
 
 2 The first discriminating duty on wine as against France was the 
 imposition of 8Z. per tun, 1693 A.D. 
 
 3 It is stated that about the reign of Charles II. the consumption 
 of French wine in England was about 20,000 tuns, equal to 
 5,000,000 gallons ; but Mr. Porter intimates that this assertion must 
 be taken with caution, as the statistics and data of that period are 
 not to be relied on. (Evidence, 3798, 3801.) It must be borne in 
 mind, too, in looking to the comparative consumption of wine in 
 the 17th and 19th centuries, that we have no reliable data as to the 
 simultaneous consumption of spirits and other fermented liquors 
 at the former period. 
 
THE TASTE IN ENGLAND FOR STRONG WINES. 61 
 
 earliest returns, rendered as authentic by Mr. Porter/ go no 
 further back than 1697 ; and they show that in 1702, the year 
 before the Methuen Treaty, the consumption of Portuguese 
 wine was 5,924 tuns, or about 1,500,000 gallons, which, 
 notwithstanding the increase of population, was not doubled 
 till 1770, an interval of '67 years. It might have required even 
 a longer period to eradicate the taste for French wines, had 
 not the policy levelled against their consumption been 
 aided by the concurrent influence of the frequent wars 2 
 which from time to time cut off the supply. 
 
 Mr. M'Culloch, in his Commercial Dictionary, says that 
 the Methuen Treaty and its results afford " the most 
 striking example, perhaps, in the history of commerce, of 
 the influence of custom's duties in directing trade into new 
 channels, and altering the tastes of a people. All but the 
 most opulent classes having been compelled for a long 
 series of years either to renounce wine or to use Port, the 
 taste for the latter has been firmly rooted; and the beve- 
 rage which was originally forced upon us by necessity, has 
 become congenial from habit. It is probable, however, 
 now that the discriminating duty in favour of port has 
 been abolished, that the excellence of the French wines 
 will ultimately regain for them some portion of that favour 
 in the English market which they formerly enjoyed." 
 
 This statement is not altogether convincing. It is not, 
 for example, quite clear that the Methuen Treaty in 1703 
 forced " all but the opulent classes either to renounce wine 
 
 1 Evidence, 3795. These seems to have been compiled from a still 
 more ample return in the Appendix to Henderson on Wines, p. 378. 
 
 3 Wars with France : 
 
 1702 to the Peace of Utrecht, . . 1713 
 
 1744 to . 1748 
 
 1756 "Seven Years' War" . . . 1763 
 
 1778 American War 1783 
 
62 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 altogether, or to use Port;" the fact being, as Mr. M'Culloch 
 has recorded in the same article, that the strong wines of 
 Spain had " been held in the highest estimation " so early 
 as the reign of Elizabeth and James I.; and the opulent 
 classes in England had taken voluntarily to drinking port 
 wine a quarter of a century before it was made " compulsory" 
 by the Methuen Treaty. KEDDING states, in his " History 
 of Wines" (p. 388), that "the durable commencement of 
 the Oporto trade may be fixed '' during the period of the 
 war between this country and France, which broke out in 
 1689, and terminated in 1693, and the Methuen Treaty 
 was not negotiated till 1703, ten years after this date. 1 
 
 Again, I doubt whether the alteration in the taste 
 of the English people, and their abandoning French for 
 Portuguese wines, was exclusively to be attributed to the 
 effect of high duties under the Methuen Treaty. Even 
 under that treaty, the duties were low on French wines, 
 between 1786 and 1795, and their consumption continued 
 to fall, notwithstanding. The inference naturally is, that 
 the taste must have originally been weak which was so 
 easily overthrown. French brandy, on the contrary, for 
 which the taste was strong, was not thrown out of consump- 
 tion by an almost prohibitory duty of 22s. 6d. and 22s. IQd. 
 a gallon, equal to 600 per cent, on the value, which pre- 
 vailed for between thirty and forty years, till its reduction 
 in 1846, when, unlike that of French wines, its consump- 
 tion doubled in a very short time. 
 
 Had the case stood as Mr. M'Culloch puts it, that the 
 English people were to be kept with no alternative but 
 either to " renounce wine " altogether, or to drink a de- 
 
 1 Mr. Forrester, an excellent authority on Port wine, says, "The 
 Methuen Treaty did not create a taste for what is called Port wine 
 in this country ; the taste was established, and the Methuen Treaty 
 maintained it." Evidence, 125, 121. 
 
THE TASTE IN ENGLAND FOB STRONG WINES. 63 
 
 scription they disliked, no minister could have ventured on 
 a policy so despotic. The Methuen Treaty could never have 
 been negotiated had not the national taste been already in- 
 clined towards the wines of Portugal ; and it could not have 
 succeeded to the extent recorded, of rendering them a be- 
 verage " congenial from habit," had they not already been 
 more or less congenial to taste. 
 
 Under the conjoint influences, however, of taste and 
 necessity, the preference for the strong wines of the Penin- 
 sula became in time so predominant, that the English people 
 exhibited the utmost repugnance to revert to the use of 
 those of France. In the debate on the 12th February, 
 when Mr. PITT made his proposal for reducing the duty on 
 French wines from 8s. 9d. to 4s. 6d. a gallon, Mr. FRANCIS 
 observed, in allusion to the predominant taste for those of 
 Portugal, that " If our luxury had converted wine into a 
 necessary, that observation was particularly true of Portu- 
 guese wines, which this country neither would nor could 
 relinquish. The wines of Portugal would continue to be 
 imported ; and if we did not pay for them in manufactures, 
 we would in money." The event proved the correctness of 
 this anticipation : the taste for French wines was found to 
 have so much declined, that their consumption, notwith- 
 standing this large reduction of the duty, decreased instead 
 of augmenting, and persevered in that decline till Mr. PITT 
 again raised the duty to 7s. 4d. per gallon and this, whilst 
 the wines of all other countries continued to grow in popu- 
 lar favour. 
 
 The following table is demonstrative of this result : 
 
64 . 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 
 Duty on 
 French. 
 
 French. 
 
 All other Wines. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 galls. 
 
 galls. 
 
 1787 
 
 8 9 
 
 722,642 
 
 3,799,299 
 
 1788 
 
 4 6 
 
 933,172 
 
 5,717,472 
 
 1789 
 
 
 
 597,924 
 
 5,361,174 
 
 1790 
 
 
 
 618,640 
 
 5,982,398 
 
 1791 
 
 }) 
 
 607,585 
 
 6,966,206 
 
 1792 
 
 ft 
 
 622,494 
 
 7,229,213 
 
 1793 
 
 )) 
 
 376,008 
 
 6,234,693 
 
 1794 
 
 n 
 
 204,097 
 
 6,607,277 
 
 This return seems to show, as regards articles of luxury, 
 that, although it may be practicable to discourage their use 
 by excessive taxation, it is a matter of far more than propor- 
 tionate difficulty to restore their consumption by reductions 
 of duty. 
 
 During the vicissitudes of war which prevailed almost 
 unintermittedly from 1793 to 1815, no fair deductions, as 
 to the influence of public taste, can be drawn from the 
 fluctuations and downward tendency of the demand for 
 French wines, as compared with the ascendant taste for 
 those of Portugal. Besides, wines of France were still 
 discouraged by a high discriminating duty of 13s. 8d. on 
 French wines, whilst those of the Peninsula paid 9s. l^d. 
 In 1831, however, that distinction ceased; the duty on 
 wines was equalized at 5s. Qd. a gallon, and this was effected 
 by a process favourable to France, namely, by raising the 
 duty on all other wines, and lowering that upon French, 
 until they met at the desired level. 
 
 An opportunity was thus given for the latent taste, had 
 it still existed, to have since manifested itself, and recovered 
 its ascendency; and so far as regards the first cost of the 
 wines themselves, the chances were in favour of those of 
 France, inasmuch as the light wines of that country can be 
 bought at the place of growth for one-fourth the price of 
 port and sherry. But, notwithstanding these advantages, 
 
THE TASTE IN ENGLAND FOR STRONG WINES. Go 
 
 French wine has reaped no benefit even from this second 
 change. Within the first few years, Portuguese and Spanish 
 wines, in consequence of the increase of duty, fell six per 
 cent, in consumption, but speedily rallied, and rose again 
 above their original level; while French wine, in the face 
 of a reduction of duty, fell eighteen per cent., 1 and did not re- 
 cover for some years, till the increased demand for a single, 
 full-bodied, and expensive wine (Champagne) repaired the 
 general deficiency. 
 
 COMPARATIVE CONSUMPTION OF FRENCH WINES SINCE THE EQUALIZA- 
 TION OF THE DUTIES, 1831. 
 
 
 PORTUGAL. 
 
 FRENCH. 
 
 SPANISH. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Propor- 
 tion 
 per cent. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Propor- 
 tion 
 per cent. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Propor- 
 tion 
 per cent. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 i 
 
 s. d. 
 
 1831 
 
 2,707,734 
 
 43-53 
 
 5 6 
 
 254,366 
 
 4 09 
 
 5 6 
 
 2,089,532 
 
 33 63 
 
 5 G 
 
 1832 
 
 2,617,405 
 
 43 88 
 
 M 
 
 228,627 
 
 3 83 
 
 
 2,0^0,099 
 
 34-87 
 
 
 1833 
 
 2,596,530 
 
 41 82 
 
 }> 
 
 232,550 
 
 3-75 
 
 
 2,246,085 
 
 36-17 
 
 99 
 
 1834 
 
 2,780,303 
 
 42 90 
 
 ^ 
 
 260,630 
 
 4-20 
 
 
 2,279,854 
 
 35-19 
 
 
 1835 
 
 2,780,024 
 
 43-30 
 
 M 
 
 271,661 
 
 4-23 
 
 
 2,230,187 
 
 34-74 
 
 
 1836 
 
 2,878,359 
 
 42-26 
 
 5J 
 
 352,063 
 
 5 17 
 
 
 2,388,413 
 
 35 07 
 
 
 1837 
 
 2,573,157 
 
 40 26 
 
 M 
 
 440,322 
 
 6-89 ! 
 
 2,297,070 
 
 35 97 
 
 
 1838 
 
 2,900,457 
 
 41-49 
 
 ,9 
 
 417,281 
 
 5-97 
 
 2,497,538 
 
 35-73 
 
 
 1839 
 
 2,921,422 
 
 41 73 
 
 
 378,636 
 
 5-41 
 
 
 2,578,997 
 
 36 84 
 
 
 1840 
 
 2,668,534 
 
 40-72 
 
 5"9 
 
 341,841 
 
 5 21 
 
 5 9 
 
 2,500,760 
 
 38 16 
 
 5 9 
 
 1841 
 
 2,387,017 
 
 38-59 
 
 n 
 
 353,740 
 
 5 72 
 
 
 2,412,821 
 
 39-01 
 
 
 1842 
 
 1,288,953 
 
 26-76 
 
 pi 
 
 360,692 
 
 7-49 
 
 
 2,261,786 
 
 46 97 
 
 
 1843 
 
 2,517,709 
 
 41 48 
 
 
 326,498 
 
 5-38 
 
 
 2,311,639 
 
 38 09 
 
 
 1844 
 
 2,887,501 
 
 42 22 
 
 B 
 
 473,789 
 
 6 94 
 
 
 2.478,360 
 
 36-24 
 
 
 1845 
 
 2,688,084 
 
 39 91 
 
 99 
 
 443,330 
 
 6 58 
 
 
 2,544,877 
 
 37-93 
 
 
 1846 
 
 2,669,798 
 
 39-60 
 
 
 409,506 
 
 6-07 
 
 
 2,602,490 
 
 38-61 
 
 
 1847 
 
 2,360,851 
 
 39-00 
 
 ^ 
 
 397,329 
 
 6-56 
 
 
 2,372,178 
 
 39-18 
 
 
 1848 
 
 2,446,813 
 
 39-87 
 
 n 
 
 355,802 
 
 5 80 
 
 
 2,435,427 
 
 .39-69 
 
 
 1849 
 
 2,648,242 
 
 42-36 
 
 ?J 
 
 331,690 
 
 5 31 
 
 
 2,448,107 
 
 39-16 
 
 
 1850 
 
 2,814,979 
 
 43 73 
 
 n 
 
 340,748 
 
 5 32 
 
 
 2,469,038 
 
 38 36 
 
 n 
 
 1851 
 
 2,524,775 
 
 40-20 
 
 
 447,556 
 
 7-12 
 
 
 2,533,384 
 
 40 33 
 
 
 185a 
 
 2,567,775 
 
 39-23 
 
 ,, 
 
 503.919 
 
 7 49 
 
 
 2,738,089 
 
 41 09 
 
 N 
 
 1853 
 
 2,797,734 
 
 38-87 
 
 
 560,686 
 
 7 79 
 
 
 2,848,318 
 
 39 58 
 
 
 1854 
 
 2,622,881 
 
 36-69 
 
 
 
 580,567 
 
 8-12 
 
 
 2,741,230 
 
 38-34 
 
 " 
 
 The relative proportion in which the wines of different 
 countries have entered into consumption in different years 
 between 1786 and the present time, is shown by the follow- 
 ing Table: 
 
 1 SIR JOHN BOWRING'S tfeport on the Wines of France. 
 P. 163. 
 
 1835. 
 
66 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Period. 
 
 Portugal. 
 
 French. 
 
 Spanish 
 
 Madeira. Canary. 
 
 Sicilian 
 and other 
 sorts. 
 
 Rhenish. 
 
 Cape. 
 
 
 From 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1786 to 1794 
 
 75-67 
 
 3-26 
 
 16-67 
 
 3-55 -36 
 
 11 
 
 38 
 
 
 100 
 
 1795 
 
 73-52 
 
 1-36 
 
 22-94 
 
 1-74 ! -39 
 
 04 
 
 01 
 
 
 100 
 
 1796 
 
 69-44 
 
 81 
 
 26-81 
 
 1-87 j -61 
 
 44 
 
 02 
 
 
 100 
 
 1797 to 1802 
 
 75-90 
 
 99 
 
 19-43 
 
 3-08 
 
 41 
 
 .. 
 
 19 
 
 
 100 
 
 1803 
 
 75-41 
 
 1-82 
 
 17-72 
 
 4-17 
 
 31 
 
 47 
 
 10 
 
 t< 
 
 100 
 
 1804 to 1812 
 
 65-55 
 
 1-98 
 
 25-44 
 
 5-63 
 
 21 
 
 1-02 
 
 17 
 
 
 100 
 
 1813 
 
 64 54 
 
 4-29 
 
 19-99 
 
 6-76 
 
 2.33 
 
 1-65 
 
 44 
 
 
 100 
 
 1814 to 1824 
 
 54-98 
 
 3-67 
 
 20-41 
 
 6-73 
 
 2-22 
 
 2-40 
 
 47 
 
 
 100 
 
 1825 
 
 52-45 
 
 6-56 
 
 22-86 
 
 4-65 ! 2-09 
 
 1-68 
 
 1-34 
 
 8-37 
 
 100 
 
 1826 
 
 46-77 
 
 5-67 
 
 26-78 
 
 4-73 2-22 
 
 2-30 
 
 1-10 
 
 10-41 
 
 100 
 
 1827 
 
 47-20 
 
 4-56 
 
 27-96 
 
 4-40 2-24 
 
 2-30 
 
 I'll 
 
 10-23 
 
 100 
 
 1828 
 
 46-18 
 
 5-88 
 
 29-29 
 
 3-81 1-92 
 
 2-60 
 
 1-21 
 
 9-11 
 
 100 
 
 1829 
 
 43-13 
 
 5-87 
 
 31-60 
 
 3-68 1-64 
 
 3-53 
 
 1-23 
 
 9-32 
 
 100 
 
 1830 
 
 44-60 
 
 4-79 
 
 32-35 
 
 3-38 
 
 1-58 
 
 3.92 
 
 1-06 
 
 8-32 
 
 100 
 
 1831 
 
 43-50 
 
 4-09 
 
 33-63 
 
 3-36 
 
 1-51 
 
 4.18 
 
 93 
 
 8-68 
 
 100 
 
 1832 
 
 43-88 
 
 2-83 
 
 34-87 
 
 2-67 
 
 1-22 
 
 4-26 
 
 63 
 
 8-61 
 
 100 
 
 1833 
 
 41-82 
 
 3-79 
 
 36-17 
 
 2-60 
 
 1-12 
 
 5-05 
 
 70 
 
 8-79 
 
 100 
 
 1834 
 
 42-90 
 
 4-20 
 
 35-19 
 
 2-32 ! -97 
 
 5-75 
 
 77 
 
 8-80 
 
 100 
 
 1835 
 
 43-30 
 
 4-23 
 
 34-74 
 
 2-17 j -82 
 
 5-83 
 
 76 
 
 8-14 
 
 100 
 
 1836 
 
 4:> 26 
 
 5-17 
 
 35-07 
 
 1-96 : -80 
 
 5-92 
 
 87 
 
 7-95 
 
 100 
 
 1837 
 
 40-26 
 
 6-89 
 
 35-94 
 
 1-87 
 
 66 
 
 5-84 
 
 70 
 
 7-83 
 
 100 
 
 1838 
 
 41-49 
 
 5-97 
 
 35 93 
 
 1-58 
 
 1-40 
 
 5-30 
 
 82 
 
 7-70 
 
 100 
 
 1839 
 
 41-73 
 
 5-41 
 
 36-84 
 
 1-67 
 
 50 
 
 5-27 
 
 91 
 
 7-63 
 
 100 
 
 1840 
 
 40-72 
 
 5-21 
 
 38-16 
 
 1-72 
 
 45 
 
 5-86 
 
 92 
 
 6-97 
 
 100 
 
 1841 
 
 38-59 
 
 5.72 
 
 39-01 
 
 1-58 
 
 41 
 
 6-49 
 
 87 
 
 7-13 
 
 100 
 
 1842 
 
 26-76 
 
 7-49 
 
 46-97 
 
 1-36 
 
 44 
 
 8-17 
 
 1-11 
 
 7-70 
 
 100 
 
 1843 
 
 41-38 
 
 5-38 
 
 38-09 
 
 1-54 
 
 34 
 
 6-87 
 
 52 
 
 5-48 
 
 100 
 
 1844 
 
 42-22 
 
 6-93 
 
 36-24 
 
 1-63 
 
 30 
 
 6-78 
 
 79 
 
 5-11 
 
 100 
 
 1845 
 
 39-91 
 
 6-58 
 
 37-93 
 
 1-52 
 
 30 
 
 6-52 
 
 93 
 
 5-31 
 
 100 
 
 1846 
 
 39-60 
 
 6-07 
 
 38-61 
 
 1-40 
 
 38 
 
 7-54 
 
 96 
 
 5-43 
 
 100 
 
 1847 
 
 39-00 
 
 6-56 
 
 39-18 
 
 1-34 
 
 38 
 
 7-78 
 
 92 
 
 4-84 
 
 100 
 
 1848 
 
 39-87 
 
 5-80 
 
 39 69 
 
 1-25 
 
 33 
 
 7-96 
 
 73 
 
 4.37 
 
 100 
 
 1849 
 
 42-36 
 
 5-30 
 
 39-16 
 
 1.13 
 
 32 
 
 7-11 
 
 73 
 
 3-87 
 
 100 
 
 1850 
 
 43-73 
 
 5- -29 
 
 38-36 
 
 1-09 
 
 25 
 
 6-61 
 
 85 
 
 3-82 
 
 100 
 
 1851 
 
 40-20 
 
 7-12 
 
 40-33 
 
 1-14 
 
 25 
 
 6-28 
 
 94 
 
 3-74 
 
 100 
 
 1852 
 
 39-23 
 
 7-50 
 
 41-08 
 
 1-10 
 
 23 
 
 6-12 
 
 92 
 
 3-82 
 
 100 
 
 1853 
 
 38-87 
 
 7-79 
 
 32 88 
 
 1-02 
 
 28 
 
 7-55 
 
 99 
 
 3-92 
 
 100 
 
 1854 
 
 36-69 
 
 8-12 
 
 38-34 
 
 60 
 
 16 
 
 11-18 
 
 1-01 
 
 3-90 100 
 
 From the above table it will be seen that under equal 
 duties, and also with the advantage of price on their side, the 
 light wines of France and the Continent have not yet made 
 their way into the market in competition with the strong 
 and higher priced wines of Portugal and Spain. 
 
 Numerous witnesses before the committee of 1852, with 
 different views as to the operation of the present scale of 
 
THE TASTE IN ENGLAND FOR STRONG WINES. 67 
 
 duties, concurred in painting the unbending obstinacy of 
 English taste in the matter of wines; the difficulty of 
 diverting it from one which has once risen into favour; 
 and the impossibility of successfully introducing into the 
 English market a new wine, however cheap, if differing in 
 name, character, or strength, from those with which the 
 public palate is familiar. One gentleman, who in a publi- 
 cation on the subject, is sanguine, that under a two shilling 
 duty a consumption of new wines may be created to such 
 an extent, as to raise the revenue from its present amount 
 to 6,083,333/. per annum, nevertheless stated to the com- 
 mittee, from the result of his own experience as a wine 
 merchant, that " the most iron prejudice rules over wine, 
 and a new wine coming into the market will not even be 
 tasted. A man would be almost mad to introduce a new 
 wine here: he w r ould have to go and look for every separate 
 customer from door to door." l 
 
 In exemplification of the difficulty thus described by Mr. 
 Lancaster, it is only necessary to point to the remarkable 
 fact repeatedly stated in the committee of the House of 
 commons, and illustrated by numerous instances detailed: 
 that within the last 30 years (that is since the reduction of 
 the wine duties in 1825), repeated exertions have been 
 made by enterprising importers, to introduce into this 
 market cheap but wholesome wines, the lower growths of 
 France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, and other coun- 
 tries, but with one solitary exception, the attempt has in every 
 instance proved abortive. The mere consideration of com- 
 parative cheapness has failed to present such an attraction 
 as to overcome the reigning taste for Port and Sherry, and 
 
 1 Home of Common Committee. Evidence of Mr. LANCASTER, 501, 
 573. This subject of the difficulty hitherto experienced in intro- 
 ducing any new wine into general use, will be found discussed in a 
 subsequent chapter. See p. 102. 
 
 P 2 
 
68 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 their congeners. The one exception alluded to, is that of 
 Sicilian Marsala, a strung wine of fair character, and which 
 has been indebted for its favourable reception to the re- 
 semblance which it presents to many of the qualities of 
 Sherry. 
 
 This subject will be considered in detail in another 
 chapter; meanwhile, in explanation of this admitted fact, 
 those favourable to the reduction of the duty urge, that it 
 is the highness of the existing rate of duty that so enhances 
 the cost, that even cheap wine, loaded with such a tax, 
 cannot make its appearance in the market except under in- 
 surmountable difficulties. This argument is undoubtedly 
 true, so far as it concerns the lower orders of society, to 
 whom price alone would be an obstacle to the consumption 
 of any article they might desire; but as applied to the 
 question of taste the demonstration fails, inasmuch as those 
 who appreciate wine for its flavour and delicacy ; would be 
 well disposed to purchase at a lower cost, if those qualities 
 were found in the cheaper article as well as in the more 
 expensive. Supposing the qualities to be similarly attractive, 
 the duty the same, and the first cost less, low wines, did the 
 taste exist for them, would undoubtedly have made their way 
 in the British market under the present equalized tariff. But 
 it must be taken as an evidence that the taste is very firmly 
 bent in the opposite direction ; that the temptation of 
 cheapness cannot overcome the indifference or dislike to 
 low wines, even when they could be introduced at the same 
 duty as strong. 
 
 Perhaps one cause of the failure of the repeated attempts 
 made within the last 30 years to introduce a new wine into 
 consumption in England, may be found in the fact, that 
 independently of individual judgment in wines (which is 
 not very largely disseminated), there exists a powerful in- 
 fluence of fashion in this country which very much 
 
THE TASTE IN ENGLAND FOR STRONG WINES. 69 
 
 regulates public taste; and even those whose personal pre- 
 dilections might lead them to use a new wine, have not the 
 courage to introduce it at table, especially as there is a 
 tendency to undervalue articles of luxury if they are known 
 to be cheap. 
 
 Be this as it may, the whole current of the evidence 
 taken last year, demonstrates that the public taste in 
 England has been, from a very remote time, in favour of 
 strong and spirituous wines; 1 that even when those of 
 France had possession of this market, those of superior 
 strength and body were the most acceptable; that when 
 the authority of Parliament discouraged the importation of 
 French wines, the English betook themselves to those of 
 Portugal and Spain, possessing similar characteristics of 
 strength and spirit; and that the taste even for the latter 
 was implanted slowly and with difficulty, but, once firmly 
 established, every trial since made has shewn it to be so 
 untractable, that any attempt to alter it, or again divert 
 it to a different object, is met by reluctance so extreme, as 
 to render success difficult if not doubtful, and distant, even 
 were it ultimately certain. 
 
 Our countrymen carry with them to the colonies the 
 same tastes for strong wines acquired in early life at home. 
 And perhaps no more apposite instance can be given 
 than that of AUSTRALIA, to show the little prospect of 
 creating, by means of a low duty, a demand for the light 
 wines of France, when stronger beverages are procurable 
 
 1 Tt is notorious that Claret, of all French wines the most familiar 
 to English taste, is never sent to this country in its pure and 
 genuine character, but heightened both in flavour and strength by 
 Hermitage, brandy, and Benicarlos. Mr. Redding says, in his 
 History of Wines, p. 345, " For England no wine will do without 
 brandy ; and even the delicious Sherries of Spain, which are of a 
 quality sufficiently spirituous by nature, must be strengthened for 
 British consumption." 
 
70 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 even at double the cost. 1 The population of Australia is 
 composed principally of tradesmen, agriculturists, and 
 operatives, the very classes from whom, in this country, 
 it is contended that the free use of wine is withheld by 
 the high rate of duty; and by a happy coincidence the 
 colony has adopted precisely the amount of duty which is 
 so strongly urged in the mother country, namely, one 
 shilling per gallon, on wine of every description. But with 
 every inducement thus held out to choose the light wines 
 of France, claret appears to be unsaleable at the price of 
 beer, while port wine is in demand at double the co&t. The 
 following is an extract from the prices current of the Argus, 
 a Melbourne paper of the 23rd Sept., 1853: 
 
 s. d. s. d. 
 
 Beer, bottled, per dozen 11 to 13 
 
 Porter 12 6 14 
 
 Port wine 1 5 1 10 
 
 Chret (no demand),, 012 ,, 018 
 
 1 SWEDEN is another country which affords a very remarkable 
 instance of the failure of a low duty to induce the population to 
 resort to the use of wine, in preference to more powerful stimulants. 
 The duty on wine is 2.9. lid. per gallon in bottles, and only Is. 5^d. 
 in casks ; but in Sweden, in 1852, there were 43,947 distilleries in 
 active operation in that country, producing annually 54,000,000 
 kaans of spirit from grain. This, at two quarts to a kaan, amounts 
 to about 26,000,000 gallons a consumption equal to 7| gallons for 
 each individual of the Swedish population, man, woman, and child. 
 
COMPARATIVE NATIONAL CONSUMPTION OF WINE. 71 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 COMPARATIVE CONSUMPTION OF WINE IN ENGLAND 
 AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 
 
 IN the course of the enquiry instituted by the House of 
 Commons, much stress was laid on the disproportion appa- 
 rent between the individual consumption of wine in the 
 United Kingdom, as compared with that of France, and 
 even of other countries which do not produce wine for their 
 own supply. In France, the consumption was variously esti- 
 mated at from 1 8 to 20 gallons for every head of the popu- 
 lation, 1 whilst that of Paris alone was said to be equal 
 to 216 bottles for each individual. HAMBURG was like- 
 wise cited as taking 29 bottles per head, whilst England 
 took little more than one ; and the inference desired to be 
 drawn was, that by judicious reduction of duty, a similar 
 
 1 SIR JOHN BOWRING, in his Report on the Wines of France in 1855, 
 states, that the consumption of the population of the great towns 
 is 26^ gallons per head, and that of the inhabitants of the open 
 country 16| gallons ; that is, supposing no wine to be drunk in the 
 towns but that which pays the octroi duty ; " but as there is reason 
 to believe that one-third at least escapes the duty, the average 
 consumption of the towns may be estimated as double that of the 
 agricultural districts ; though so large a proportion of that con- 
 sumed in the country districts is duty free." Report p. 96. 
 
72 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 consumption to that of Hamburg or Paris might be excited 
 in Great Britain. 
 
 The accuracy of the statement regarding the consumption 
 of Hamburg is given on no official authority, and, as a con- 
 jecture, it is liable to doubt. 1 The calculation for Paris will 
 be presently adverted to; but assuming both to be correct, 
 there still remains the difficulty of tracing the extent of 
 consumption in either place to the lowness of the duty, apart 
 from other considerations. The same cause, in that case, 
 would be naturally looked to to produce the same effect in 
 other countries ; but when tried by the test, the theory ab- 
 solutely fails. In Belgium, though the import duty is one 
 penny per gallon, the consumption of wine is but 3 bottles 
 per head of the population. In Holland, where wine is free, 
 if imported in wood, and subject to twopence per gallon in 
 bottle, the individual consumption is 1 pint per annum. 
 In Norway the consumption is the same, 1 pint annually 
 per head, with a duty of Is. 4d. a gallon. In Sweden, the 
 duty is Is. 5%d. a gallon in the cask, and 2s. lie?, in bottle, 
 and the average consumption of wine is one-twelfth of a 
 gallon. In Denmark, with a duty of 7jrf., the consumption 
 is 2J pints. In Russia, the consumption -J a pint per annum, 
 the import duty 2s. 7-Jc?. per gallon. In the United States, 
 the consumption is If pints, and the duty 40 per cent., 
 equal on an average to Is. 6d. per gallon. 
 
 Taking the instance of Paris, the calculation, even if it be 
 
 2 The statement relative to Hamburg was given in the Committee 
 by Mr. SHAW on the authority of a letter from a gentleman, who 
 wrote from "recollection." The large export of wines from France, 
 which go ostensibly to the Hanse Towns, is in reality only in 
 transit to Russia, Germany, and Sweden ; and the commission to 
 inquire into the wine-tax, which sat at Paris in 1849-1850, complain 
 that of these apparent importations, the people of Hamburg "ne 
 retiennent qvtune tres faible partie pour leur propre consummation." 
 Enquete, etc., Rapport, p. 3o. 
 
COMPARATIVE NATIONAL CONSUMPTION OF WINE. 73 
 
 not exaggerated by fixing it at 216 bottles per head, 1 is 
 undoubtedly very considerable; and even taken at the 
 lesser quantity of 138 bottles, as stated in the Annuaire de 
 Paris, so large a consumption, bearing in mind the high 
 taxes and octroi upon wine entering the barriers, would 
 seem to be an evidence that the very freest use of wine is by 
 no means incompatible with a high rate of duty. In most of 
 the cities of France, the various duties on production and 
 retail, when combined with the octroi, would amount to 19 
 francs per hectolitre on every description of wine ; 2 and as the 
 larger proportion of the wine drunk in Paris and the other 
 great towns is of the ordinary and lower qualities, the tax 
 is a considerable element in their cost. Mr. REDDING says, 
 in his History of Modern Wines, that " a great deal of the 
 wine consumed in Paris, not worth more than 12s. 6d. the 
 hectolitre (26 gallons, old measure), yet it is subject to a 
 duty of 17 s. 6d. Thus the duty on wine for home con- 
 sumption in the French capital is greater than the duty 
 charged in England on its import." 3 
 
 But to return to the argument, that the average consump- 
 tion of wine in other countries, under a low scale of taxation, 
 may be taken as an indication of what might be effected 
 in England by judicious reduction of duty, it must be ob- 
 vious that the analogy fails, if the comparison be instituted 
 between the dense community of wealthy cities, such as 
 Paris or Hamburg, and the agricultural and labouring 
 classes of a country like Great Britain. 
 
 1 It is given by Mr. Shaw (Evidence 1137), on the "authority of 
 official documents, and a memorial presented to Lord John Russell 
 eight or ten years ago." Another witness, however, Mr. Prestwich, 
 stated the consumption of Paris to be 22 or 23 gallons, being less by 
 about one-half than the quantity estimated by Mr. Shaw. Mr. 
 Prestwich took his figures from the Annuaire de Paris for 1838 
 (Evidence 2302.) 2 Enquete Legislative, v. p. 81. 
 
 3 REDDING, History of Wines, p. 88. 
 
74 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Besides the inference from wine alone is calculated to 
 mislead, apart from the consideration of other articles which 
 enter simultaneously into consumption and competition with 
 it. In order to make the conclusion valid, the estimate 
 should exhibit the price of wine in the respective countries, 
 and the ability of the inhabitants to buy ; the proportion 
 which the wealthier and higher classes bear to the lower 
 and poorer; and also of the respective quantities of the 
 other stimulating and intoxicating drinks, of which the 
 inhabitants of each country make use, in addition to 
 wine. 
 
 1. To take the instance of France, it is a matter of noto- 
 riety that the large consumption of tea and coffee by the 
 middle and lower orders in England, has very materially 
 interfered with the use of intoxicating drinks in this country, 
 and per contra, the limited use of the first of these articles 
 in France tends to keep up the consumption of wine at 
 breakfast and other times, when the lower orders of England 
 resort to tea. The consumption of tea and coffee in England, 
 as compared with France, is as follows: 
 
 
 UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 1851 
 
 1852 
 
 1853 
 
 Ibs. 
 
 58,834,087 
 
 1854 
 
 1851 
 
 1852 
 
 1853 
 
 Tea . 
 
 IDS. 
 53,965,112 
 
 Ibs. 
 54,724,615 
 
 Ibs. 
 61,949,822 
 
 Ibs. 
 307,227 
 
 Ibs. 
 473,063 
 
 Ibs. 
 329,586 
 
 Coffee 
 
 32,564,194 
 
 35,044,376 
 
 36,983,122 
 
 37,361,387 
 
 41,050,348 
 
 47,461,308 
 
 43,904,876 
 
 Total . 
 
 86,529,336 
 
 89,768,991 
 
 95,817,209 
 
 99,311,209 
 
 41,357,572 
 
 47,934,371 
 
 44,234,462 
 
 2. Again, the article of beer, which enters so largely into 
 the consumption of the middle and lower orders in England, 
 occupies a much less prominent place in the domestic national 
 economy of France. The quantity brewed in 1850 (the only 
 year to whose returns I have access), was 90,310,000 gallons, 
 
COMPARATIVE NATIONAL CONSUMPTION OF WINE. 75 
 
 or about 2*56 gallons per head of the population of France, 
 in addition to which there is an annual importation equal to 
 about 150,000 gallons. In England, on the other hand, 
 there were brewed, in 1854, 16,270,000 barrels of malt 
 liquor, equal to 585,720,000 gallons, or about 21^- gallons 
 per head of the population. 
 
 The average cost of a gallon of beer in England, sixpence- 
 half-penny) is equal to the average value of a gallon of wine 
 in France. 1 Hence it appears, that whilst the people of 
 France consume 20 gallons of light and meagre wine, the 
 people of England consume even a larger quantity of malt, an 
 article of equal value, and perhaps, on an average, of higher 
 quality. 
 
 3. Next come spirits, native, colonial, and foreign, all of 
 which ought properly to be included in any calculation of 
 national consumption. In France, the use of foreign spirits 
 of any description is exceedingly small, and confined chiefly 
 to rum, of which, the total import in 1851 was 161,637 
 gallons. 2 Of brandy, the annual production in former years, 
 before the vine disease had so blighted the vintages, as to 
 render France an importer of alcohol, was from 20,000,000 
 to 25,000,000 gallons, of which 15,500,000 gallons were 
 retained for home consumption, being less than half a 
 gallon (0'46) per head for the population; and even this 
 includes the large quantity of spirits used for fortifying 
 wine for export and carriage. In the United Kingdom, on 
 
 1 See Sir JOHN BOWRING'S Report, p. 95 ; and Mr. PRESTWICH'S 
 Evidence, 2385. 
 
 2 The importation , of rum into France has risen prodigiously 
 within the last two years, owing to the demand for foreign spirits 
 to supply the want of brandy, which has been occasioned by the 
 vine disease. Independently of imports direct from the West 
 Indies, the quantity shipped from the United Kingdom to France, 
 which in 1852 was but 6,241 gallons, rose, in 1854, to 692,01 7 gallons. 
 
76 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 the other hand, the consumption of spirits, both foreign and 
 British, is as follows: 
 
 CONSUMPTION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 Foreign Spirits : 
 Brandy, Geneva, &c. 
 Colonial Spirits . . 
 British Spirits . . . 
 
 1851 
 
 1854 
 
 Imperial galls. 
 1,903,203 
 2,880,425 
 23,976,596 
 
 Imperial galls. 
 
 1,887,687 
 3,232,369 
 
 25,883,584 
 
 28,763,224 
 
 31,003,640 
 
 This gives a consumption of rather more than one im- 
 perial gallon (1*04) per head of the population in 1851, and 
 1^ gallon in 1854, or more than double that of France. 1 
 
 4. The production of cider in France is very great, and 
 much exceeds that of England, where, however, its con- 
 sumption, though local, is considerable. A writer in the 
 " Penny Cyclopedia," understood to be the late Mr. Porter, 
 says, " The quantity consumed by workmen in England is 
 very large ; two or three quarts a day being the usual allow- 
 ance given in Herefordshire by masters, and in harvest time 
 many labourers drink in a day ten or twelve quarts." Mr. 
 M'Culloch, in his " Commercial Dictionary," says, 
 " The production may be estimated at 150,000 to 160,000 
 barrels;" and taking it at 155,000 barrels of 36 gallons 
 
 1 Mr. PORTER, in a paper " On the self-imposed Taxation of the 
 Working Classes in the United Kingdom," published in the Journal 
 of the Statistical Society of London, vol. xiii. part iv., p. 360, com- 
 puted the consumption of spirits (exclusive of brandy) at 
 In England - 0-569 gallons per head 
 
 Scotland 2-647 
 
 Ireland 0-853 
 
 or taking only the adult males, supposing the use of spirits to be 
 confined to them, 
 
 In England 2-330 gallons, or about 2^ gallons. 
 Scotland 11-168 ,, II 1 
 
 Ireland 3-469 3i 
 
COMPARATIVE NATIONAL CONSUMPTION OF WINE, 77 
 
 each, this would give 5,580,000 gallons; equal to an in- 
 dividual consumption of 0'20 gallons per head of the total 
 population. The production of cider in France is very 
 large; 79,530,000! gallons in 1841, being equal to 2- 
 imperial gallons per head of the population. 
 
 5. There is another important article which enters largely 
 into consumption in Great Britain, under the name of 
 *' Sweet or Home-made Wines." It is difficult to ascertain 
 the precise amount of the production ; but it is large. The 
 number of licenses issued for its retail in 1854 was 7,782. 
 Evidence was given in the Committee by one manufacturer 
 whose works supply upwards of 2,000 dealers, 2 and another 
 was mentioned whose stock comprised half a million gal- 
 lons. 3 The gross production has been estimated, in a paper 
 which I have seen, at 3,000,000 gallons; which would give 
 an individual consumption equal to O'll gallons for each 
 head of the total population. 
 
 On the whole, then, taking regard not alone to cubic 
 quantity but to the alcoholic strength of the fermented and 
 intoxicating drinks in use in the two countries respectively, 
 it will be found that whatever excess in volume may pre- 
 ponderate on the side of France, the consumption of 
 England is rendered equal to it by calculating the superior 
 strength and spirit of the drinks taken in each country. Mr. 
 Prestwich 4 estimates that 28,000,000 gallons of spirits 
 (supposing that to be the quantity consumed annually in 
 Great Britain), would be equal to 90,000,000 gallons of a 
 beverage equal to the ordinary strength of French wines. 
 
 1 Enqueue Legislative, Appendix p. 13. 
 
 a Evidence. House of Commons Committee, 9626. 
 
 3 Ibid, 6393. Ibid., 2377. 
 
78 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY OF WINE PROCURABLE, 
 OF A QUALITY SUITABLE TO ENGLISH TASTES? 
 
 SUPPOSING, then, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 and the Legislature should be disposed to entertain the opi- 
 nion that a change is expedient in the course hitherto 
 adopted in dealing with wines for purposes of revenue; 
 and that, viewing wine as a necessary of life for all classes, 
 the duty should be reduced to one or two shillings per 
 gallon, in the conviction that the consumption under such an 
 arrangement would so increase as to yield a revenue of 
 6,000,000/. or of 3,000,000 per annum, or even to replace the 
 present income say 1,800,000/. ; the first question to be settled, 
 before discussing the probability of the demand being fostered 
 to such an extent, turns on the possibility of obtaining this 
 greatly-increased supply of wines, of a quality suited to the 
 taste and habits of the people of these countries. 
 
 At the present duty of 5s. 9d. a gallon, the consumption 
 of wine, yielding a revenue of 1,800,000/. a year, is about 
 6,500,000 gallons: but to realize the same amount from a 
 duty of Is. a gallon, would require a consumption increased 
 to 36,000,000 gallons. To obtain 3,000,000/. at a duty of 
 Is., or 6,000,0007. at a duty of 2s., would require a con- 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 79 
 
 sumption of 60,000,000 gallons, a quantity equal to all the 
 exports of the wine-growing countries in Europe, to all the 
 other countries of the world put together. 
 
 To meet a demand so prodigious, of wine suitable to the 
 prevailing taste of Great Britain, the wine-growing coun- 
 tries could not at present afford us anything approaching to 
 a sufficient supply. But preliminary to looking into the 
 proofs of this, it will be well to see the proportions in which 
 each country, from which we now import, has of late years 
 been our purveyor in the article of wine. 
 
 PROPORTION IN WHICH EACH COUNTRY SUPPLIES ENGLAND WITH WINE. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Total j 
 Home 
 Consump- ' 
 tion, Imp. 
 Gallons. 
 
 Proportion per Cent. 
 
 Cape. 
 
 French. 
 
 Portugal 
 
 Spanish 
 
 Madeira. 
 
 Rhenish. 
 
 Canary 
 
 Sicilian 
 & other 
 Wines. 
 
 1815 
 1816 
 1817 
 1818 
 1819 
 1820 
 1821 
 1822 
 1823 
 1824 
 1825 
 1826 
 1827 
 1828 
 1829 
 1830 
 1831 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 1835 
 1836 
 1837 
 1838 
 1839 
 1840 
 1841 
 1842 
 1843 
 1844 
 1845 
 1846 
 1847 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 1854 
 
 17,635,638 
 
 4,624,105 ! 
 4,057,038 : 
 5,142,829 
 5,635,216 
 4,615,212 
 4,586,495 
 4,686,885 
 4,606,999 
 4,845,060 
 5,030,091 
 8,009,542 
 6,058,443 
 6,826,361 
 7,162,376 
 6,217,652 
 6,434,445 
 6,212,264 
 5,965,542 
 6,207,770 
 6,480,544 
 6,420,342 
 6,809,212 
 6,391,560 
 6,990.271 
 7,000,486 
 6,553,922 
 6,184,960 
 4,815,222 
 6,068,987 
 6,838,684 
 6,736,131 
 6,740,316 
 6,053,847 
 0,136,547 
 6,251,862 
 ! 6,437,222 
 6,280,653 
 6,346,061 
 6,813,830 
 6,775,858 
 
 1-86 
 8-82 
 10 31 
 9-86 
 11-17 
 10 73 
 12 20 
 11 69 
 11 46 
 11-83 
 8-37 
 10-41 
 10-23 
 9-11 
 9-32 
 8 32 
 8-69 
 8 62 
 8-78 
 8-09 
 8-15 
 7'95 
 7'83 
 7-70 
 7 63 
 6 97 
 7 13 
 7 70 
 5-48 
 5-11 
 5 31 
 5-43 
 4-84 
 4-37 
 3 87 
 3-82 
 3'74 
 3-82 
 3 92 
 3-90 
 
 4 34 
 3-04 
 2-84 
 4-60 
 4-63 
 3'58 
 3-40 
 3-66 
 3 54 
 3-73 
 6-56 
 5 67 
 4-56 
 5-89 
 5-88 
 4 79 
 4 09 
 3 83 
 3 75 
 4-02 
 4 23 
 5 17 
 6-89 
 5 97 
 5-41 
 5-21 
 5-72 
 7-49 
 5 38 
 6-93 
 6 58 
 6-07 
 6-56 
 5 80 
 5 30 
 5 29 
 7 12 
 7 50 
 7 79 
 8-12 
 
 59-92 
 55-48 
 58-78 
 57 22 
 52 20 
 51 49 
 50 00 
 51-55 
 51-44 
 49 95 
 52 45 
 46 77 
 47-20 
 46-17 
 43-13 
 44-60 
 43-59 
 43-88 
 41 83 
 42 90 
 43 30. 
 42 27 
 40-26 
 41 49 
 41 73 
 40-71 
 38-60 
 26 77 
 41-48 
 42-22 
 39-91 
 39-61 
 39-00 
 39-87 
 42 36 
 43 73 
 40-20 
 39 23 
 39 87 
 36-69 
 
 21 50 
 20-38 
 18 29 
 18-22 
 19-32 
 20-40 
 20-46 
 20-99 
 22 27 
 24 20 
 22 86 
 26-78 
 27-95 
 29-29 
 31-59 
 32-35 
 33-64 
 34-87 
 36 18 
 35 18 
 34-74 
 35-08 
 35-94 
 35-73 
 36 84 
 38 16 
 39 01 
 46 97 
 38 09 
 36 24 
 37-93 
 38-61 
 39 18 
 39 69 
 39 16 
 38-36 
 40 33 
 41-08 
 39 58 
 38 39 
 
 6 70 
 7-10 
 5-18 
 5-43 
 7-14 
 7 70 
 8-54 
 7-42 
 6-68 
 5 91 
 4 65 
 4-72 
 4-40 
 3 81 
 3-69 
 3-38 
 3-37 
 2 68 
 2-60 
 2-32 
 2-17 
 96 
 88 
 58 
 70 
 72 
 74 
 36 
 54 
 63 
 52 
 40 
 34 
 25 
 14 
 09 
 14 
 10 
 02 
 60 
 
 43 
 0-54 
 32 
 41 
 0-50 
 57 
 48 
 0-44 
 0-43 
 0-52 
 1-34 
 1 11 
 1-12 
 1 21 
 1-23 
 1 06 
 93 
 64 
 0-70 
 77 
 0-76 
 88 
 70 
 0-82 
 91 
 0-92 
 0-89 
 1-11 
 82 
 79 
 93 
 96 
 92 
 0-73 
 74 
 85 
 94 
 92 
 99 
 1 01 
 
 3-99 
 3 65 
 3 25 
 3-05 
 3 48 
 3-76 
 3 23 
 2 75 
 2-54 
 2 33 
 2-09 
 2 22 
 2 24 
 1 92 
 1 64 
 1-58 
 1-51 
 1-22 
 1 11 
 0-93 
 79 
 75 
 0-65 
 58 
 0-50 
 0-45 
 42 
 0-43 
 34 
 0-30 
 30 
 0-38 
 38 
 33 
 32 
 25 
 0-25 
 0-23 
 0-28 
 16 
 
 1 26 
 0-96 
 01 
 21 
 53 
 76 
 65 
 48 
 64 
 53 
 68 
 2-32 
 2-30 
 2-60 
 3 52 
 3-92 
 4-18 
 4 26 
 4-05 
 5-79 
 5-86 
 5-94 
 5-85 
 6-13 
 5-28 
 5-86 
 6-49 
 8 17 
 6-87 
 6-78 
 7-52 
 7-54 
 7-78 
 7 96 
 7-11 
 6-61 
 6 28 
 6-12 
 7-55 
 11-18 
 
 
 
 
 21,873,598 
 
 
 24,008,305 
 
 
 
 
 26,716,157 
 
 
 
 27,309,346 
 
80 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 It will be seen from this table, that the red wine of Por- 
 tugal, and the white wines of Spain, constitute the great 
 staple of British consumption ; and the fact indicates the 
 prevailing taste in this country. Port, Sherry ', and Marsala, 
 taken together, form no less than 86 per cent, of the entire. 
 The fine full-bodied wines of France come next, and are 
 8 per cent of the whole. 
 
 It becomes, therefore, an inquiry of importance to see, 
 whether of these wines, the several countries which produc^ 
 them, could furnish us with their respective quotas to such 
 a reduplicated extent as to meet a demand suddenly aug- 
 mented from 6,000,000 gallons per annum to 120,000,000, 
 or to 60,000,000, or even to 30,000,000 additional. 
 
 And here it is right to state, that whilst we have ample 
 and accurate information, as to the growth and quantities of 
 the finer descriptions of wine produced in Europe, we have 
 no information to be relied on, as to the quantity of the 
 medium or second class, the proportion which they bear in 
 quality to the first, the stocks usually to be found in each 
 country, or the supply that could be relied on of a character 
 suited to the taste of the English people, and at a price con- 
 sistent with their moderate ideas. These are facts which, 
 up to the present, no one in this country had any interest to 
 inquire into, because it was not contemplated that wines of 
 this class were ever likely to come into use in the United 
 Kingdom. But it would be well, if the question of a one 
 shilling duty is to be hereafter taken into consideration, that 
 an inquiry should be systematically made, and information 
 accurately collected in each country, for the guidance of the 
 legislature, not only as to the additional supplies that could 
 be obtained at once of sound and full-bodied wines, at such 
 prices as would give fair play to the exchequer and the 
 public, but also as to the prospect of new wines of a similar 
 character, such as might hereafter enter into fair competition 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 81 
 
 with the old and high priced wines in use in the English 
 market. 
 
 Nature has endowed the earth with a universal and 
 almost inexhaustible power of producing the necessaries of 
 life ; but she has placed the nicest and narrowest limits to the 
 production of luxuries. It is a physical fact of sufficient 
 notoriety, that although the vine is distributed over one- 
 third of the globe, the wines of each country have a peculiar 
 and distinctive character, and that the most accurate and 
 often circumscribed line defines and limits the production, 
 more especially of all the finer descriptions. 
 
 The fruit of the same plant, when transferred to a different 
 soil, loses its peculiar characteristics ; thus one and the same 
 vine produces Hock upon the Rhine, Bucellas in Portugal, 
 and Sercial at Madeira. It has been found that vines from 
 Germany, France, Portugal, and Spain> transplanted to the 
 Cape of Good Hope and Australia, have in no one instance 
 produced wine assimilating to the peculiarities of the ori- 
 ginal plant; and no European vine has hitherto succeeded, 
 when transplanted to the United States, although wine is 
 made at Cincinnati from American grapes. 
 
 The finest known wines are the produce of soils the com- 
 bination and proportions of whose ingredients are extremely 
 rare and exceptional ; and, co-operating with these, they 
 require the agency of peculiar degrees of light, moisture, and 
 heat. The richest wines of France, Italy, Hungary, Ma- 
 deira, and Teneriffe, are grown on the sites of extinct vol- 
 canoes. The district of Xeres, which has so long supplied 
 us with sherry, is mapped out so accurately by the line of 
 its peculiar soil, that its dimensions are known by the acre. 
 
 The vine which produces Port on the hills above the 
 Douro, yields a totally different wine in the vicinity of the 
 Tagus. The wine district of the Ehingau, between Mayence 
 and Rudesheim, is but nine miles in length, by half as much 
 
 G 
 
82 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 broad. The south side of a single hill produces Johannis- 
 berg, and Steinberg is the vineyard of a suppressed 
 monastery. 
 
 The numerous wines of Burgundy and the Garonne take 
 their names respectively from circumscribed spots; and so 
 narrow and apparently capricious are their respective limits, 
 that a ditch divides portions which from time immemorial 
 have been sought with avidity, from others which in the 
 market will bring uniformly but one-fifth the price. 1 The 
 costly Clos Vougeot grows in a farm of eighty acres; 
 Komanee Conti is but six and a half; and the famous Mont 
 Kachet, of the Cote d'Or, is distinguished into three 
 classes, of which one sells at one-third less than the other 
 two ; " yet these qualities are produced from vineyards only 
 separated from one another by a footpath; they have the 
 same aspect, and apparently the same soil, in which the same 
 vines are cultivated, and managed in precisely the same 
 manner. 2 One small valley in Madeira alone produces the 
 finest Malmsey. 
 
 Art and horticultural science have been applied to extend 
 the limits thus circumscribed by nature ; but with such un- 
 satisfactory results that, as a general rule, it may be stated 
 that the higher class wine of any known district has not 
 been successfully reproduced beyond it. The red wines 
 of Portugal grown in the Alto Douro can no more be made 
 
 1 The produce of the celebrated vineyard of Lafitte, near Bour- 
 deaux, for the year 1848, was sold at 4000 francs per tun, while the 
 wines of the immediate neighbourhood realized only 200 francs. 
 I am informed that the proprietor of a vineyard, which is only 
 separated from that of Lafitte by a narrow gulley, a few years since 
 expended large sums of money in endeavouring by improved culti- 
 vation to assimilate his wines to those of Lafitte. To some extent 
 he improved the quality ; but the wines never approached the pecu- 
 liar character of the Lafitte, while the expense incurred was so 
 enormous that the enterprising proprietor was ruined. 
 
 2 Henderson on Wines, p. 167. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 83 
 
 in the adjoining provinces of the Minho or Beira, than the 
 white wines of Spain could be successfully imitated on the 
 Rhine. 
 
 Even the attempt to increase the quantity produced on the 
 same area, by improved cultivation, has, in many instances, 
 been attended with so much detriment to the character and 
 quality of the wine, that it has been necessarily abandoned. 
 The vineyard of the Clos de Vougeot belonged originally to 
 a convent; and when, after the first revolution in France, it 
 came into the hands of private individuals, they endeavoured 
 to enlarge the produce by manuring the vines; but they 
 so destroyed the flavour and delicacy of the wine, that they 
 were obliged to return to the old system, and its character 
 was eventually recovered. 1 
 
 The commission appointed by the National Assembly at 
 Paris, in 1849, to investigate the state of the wine trade, have 
 recorded in their Report, that the extension of cultivation 
 throughout the empire during the last thirty or forty years 
 had been followed by a general lowering of the quality of the 
 wine, and a correspondent reduction in its value and this, 
 they state, has been the case, more especially as regards the 
 medium description. More vineyards have been planted and 
 more wine has been produced, but what the vintages 
 have gained in quantity the wine has lost in character, 
 " C'est un fait notoire, que generalement (a parte les plants 
 de premier choix) la vigne a degenere en France qu'elle a 
 perdu en delicatesse une partie de ce qu'on lui a fait gagner 
 en fecondite; et que 1'adoption des nouvelles methodes de 
 culture, Finvasion des races communes, Tabus des fumures et 
 des engrais n'ont multiplie ses fruits qu'en alterant leur 
 primitive saveur." 2 
 
 1 House of Lords' Committee, 1821. Evidence of M. LE TAVERNIEB. 
 
 2 Enqufae Legislative. Rapport, p. 113. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 With these well established facts before us, it becomes 
 essential to ascertain to what extent the present supply de- 
 rived from the principal producing countries of the world 
 is capable of extension, so as to meet so greatly increased a 
 demand as is now contemplated. Putting aside, then, as 
 chimerical, the estimates of an increase of revenue to either six 
 millions sterling, or three millions per annum, it will be sufficient 
 to inquire whether, for the purpose of merely replacing the 
 present amount of 1,800,000/. it would be practicable to 
 obtain the quantities of wine required, of a quality accept- 
 able to the English palate. 1 
 
 I. PORTUGAL. 
 
 Taking first in order the wines of Portugal, our annual 
 consumption of Port wine is at present about 2,500,000 
 gallons; and, to recover at a one-shilling duty the same 
 amount as is now collected at 5s. 9d., the consumption must 
 be multiplied nearly six-fold, say to 15,000,000 gallons. 
 
 But Port wine is the produce of a single, well-defined 
 district in the north of Portugal, extending eight leagues 
 West and East, from the Serra do Marao (an elevation of 
 4,400 feet above the level of the sea) to the Quinta da 
 Baleira, near San Joao da Pesqueira, and four leagues north 
 and south, between Villa Keal and Lamego. 2 The return 
 of the vintages in this area, known as the Alto Douro, from 
 1843 to 1851, shows the average production of qualities fit 
 for use to be, in ordinary years, 63,568 pipes: in addition 
 
 1 A calculation as to the probable supply of good wine from all 
 quarters, will be found in Mr. Barnes' evidence (6479, 6481, etc.), 
 before the Wine Duties Committee. 
 
 2 See a paper in the Transactions of the Royal Society, by JOSEPH 
 JAMES FORRESTER, Esq., on the Vine Disease in the Port Wine Dis- 
 tricts of the Alto Douro , in April, 1854. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 85 
 
 to which there are 20,633 pipes of refuse fit only for distil- 
 lation; in all 84,211. 
 
 It is necessary here to explain, that previous to the reform 
 which took place in the constitution of the Portuguese cor- 
 poration, known as the " Oporto Wine Company" in 1852, 
 the total produce of the vineyards of the Alto Douro was 
 divided into "first, second, and third qualities," and "re- 
 fuse." Of the first quality, a quantity varying at^the arbitrary 
 will of the government was permitted for exportation to 
 Europe; the remainder and all the second quality were 
 reserved for exportation to America and elsewhere, whilst 
 the third and the " refuse" might be consumed in Portugal, 
 or distilled into brandy. The portion reserved for Great 
 Britain was subject to an export duty and other burthens, 
 varying from 6/. to 71. 10s. per pipe. In September, 
 1852, a provisional decree, which afterwards became law, 
 was promulgated by the Portuguese government, reducing 
 the export charges by nearly 3/. a pipe, abolishing the 
 previous distinction between first and second qualities, and 
 separating the vintage into but two classes, theirs/ " for 
 export" to all parts of the world, and the second for con- 
 sumption in Portugal. The following particulars of the 
 vintage in the Alto Douro, from 1843 to 1851, is from the 
 returns of the provadores or official tasters, of the Oporto 
 Company. 
 
 NUMBER OF PIPES OF WINE, PRODUCE OF THE PORT VINTAGES IN THE 
 ALTO DOURO. 
 
 
 1843. 
 
 1844. 
 
 1845. 
 
 1846. 
 
 1847. 
 
 1848. 
 
 1849. 
 
 1850. 
 
 1851. 
 
 1st. Quality. 
 2nd. do. 
 3rd. do. 
 Refuse . . 
 
 TOTALS . 
 
 Qualified for 
 Exportation 
 to Europe 
 in same 
 years. 
 
 18,002 
 15,720 
 17,160 
 21,580 
 
 21,338 
 12,754 
 15,643 
 16,931 
 
 6,565 
 10,162 
 16,127 
 37,322 
 
 35,801 
 18,101* 
 29,384 
 19,471*. 
 
 38,214* 
 
 18,708* 
 24,448 
 10,356*. 
 
 25,721 
 21,843* 
 36,998* 
 22,552 
 
 12,450 
 10,909 
 14,239 
 30,030 
 
 34,226 
 18,908 
 19,864 
 12,346 
 
 41,403* 
 18,472* 
 19,257 
 14,990*. 
 
 72,462 
 
 66,666 
 
 70,176 
 
 102,758 
 
 91,727*. 
 
 107,115 
 
 67,628 
 
 85,344 
 
 94,123*. 
 
 12,000 
 
 14,000 
 
 5,000 
 
 20,000 
 
 18,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 25,000 
 
 20,000 
 
86 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 The return continued in its altered form after the changes 
 of September, 1852, which applied to the vintage of that 
 year, exhibits the following result : 
 
 For Exportation 
 
 Vintage. 
 1852 
 
 Vintage. 
 1853 
 
 Vintage. 
 
 1854 
 
 Pipes. 
 35,833 
 
 Pipes. 
 49,742 
 
 Pipes. 
 35,190 
 
 For Consumption 
 
 56,217 
 
 20,982 
 
 12,058 
 
 Total .... 
 
 92,050 
 
 70,724 
 
 47,248 
 
 The cause of the striking deficiency in the two last years, 
 during which the vintage has fallen off nearly one-half 
 (from 92,500 pipes to 47,248), has been the destruction of 
 the grapes, by the formidable vine disease, which has recently 
 afflicted Portugal, and threatens serious destruction to the 
 vineyards of the Alto Douro. The consequence has been 
 a rise in the price of wine at Oporto, of from 200 to 400 
 per cent; a convincing proof that the export and con- 
 sumption of Portugal have been nearly equal to its produc- 
 tion ; and that it has not been the practice of late years to 
 keep large stocks of wine in that country. 
 
 Treating the recent vintages, however, as altogether ex- 
 ceptional, and regarding the returns of the previous period as 
 representing fairly the ordinary produce of the Alto Douro, 
 the annual growth of Port wine may be set down at 84,211 
 pipes. It is always understood that this includes about 3000 
 pipes of wholesome red wine, grown beyond the legalized dis- 
 trict; but of such quality as to be surreptitiously introduced 
 and brought to market as " Port." A very considerable 
 quantity of what is technically called " green" wine is also 
 grown in the same district, and even within the legal line 
 of demarcation; but it is too coarse for exportation, and is 
 retained for distillation and consumption at home. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 87 
 
 Assuming, then, the entire produce of the Alto Douro, 
 refuse included, at the possible extent of the export, say 
 
 Gallons. Gallons. 
 
 84,211 pipes of 115 gallons each 9,684,265 
 
 Deduct for loss, leakage, and evaporation, ) , no QKO 
 20 per cent - - - _ } 1,936,85 
 
 And for export to all other countries 1,220,100 
 
 3,156,953 
 
 There remains for the supply of ) KO|T 01 
 
 Great Britain - - -| 6,527,312 
 
 This does not leave a single gallon for distillation or the 
 home consumption of Portugal, and yet these are most 
 important items. The annual consumption of the city of 
 Oporto alone is stated officially to be 18,000 pipes which 
 pay the octroi, but as the facilities for smuggling are con- 
 siderable, the quantity really consumed in the city is said 
 to be nearer 30,000,* and the quantity required for distilla- 
 tion may be inferred from the fact, that the produce of 
 brandy in the Alto Douro, and its immediate vicinity, in 
 1853, was 10,523 pipes, seven pipes of wine being required 
 to make one of brandy. 
 
 But whilst it is admitted on all hands, that the supply 
 of Port wine itself cannot be expected greatly, if at all, to 
 exceed the above estimate, the north of Portugal produces 
 largely other varieties so nearly approaching the charac- 
 teristics of Port, that those who look to their introduction 
 under a one shilling duty, are sanguine, that a quantity can 
 be found sufficient to meet the entire of the anticipated 
 demand from Great Britain. 
 
 But if the quality of these wines be such as has been 
 represented, there are two circumstances in connexion 
 with them, which seem to require explanation the first is 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Document at p. 63, sec. 1.4. 
 
88 \VINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 that they are not imported here at the present time in 
 competition with Port; although their first cost is said to 
 be one-fourth in comparison. The second is, that although 
 low-priced wines are used in England for blending with 
 Port, to increase the quantity and reduce the cost, these 
 cheap wines of Portugal itself are not adapted even to that 
 purpose, but give way to importations of light red wines 
 from France, 1 Spain, 2 Sicily, 3 and even the Cape. 4 
 
 Red wine, of good character, is undoubtedly grown 
 largely in the vicinity of Figueira, and sometimes in peculiar 
 years, when prices have ruled high on the Douro, shipments 
 have taken place from that port and from Aveiro. 5 But it 
 is a curious fact, that whilst taxes and absurd restrictions 
 were imposed on wines exported -from Oporto, and no duty 
 and no restriction was at any time placed on wine shipped 
 either at Aveiro or Figueira, still the wines of their districts 
 were too poor to maintain a position in the English market, 
 and their importation ceased altogether notwithstanding 
 their low cost. 6 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. FORRESTER, 270, etc. 
 
 2 Ibid. SHAW, 1216. 
 
 3 Ibid. FORRESTER, 230, etc. 
 * Ibid. W. E. TUKE. 
 
 6 Ibid. ROBSON and others, 4453. 
 
 6 The following is an account of wines exported from Aveiro to 
 Great Britain, from 1832 to 1852 : 
 
 Pipes. 
 
 1832 - 326 
 
 *1833 - 1744 
 
 *1834 - 1383 
 
 1835 - 936 
 
 1836 - 52 
 
 1837 - Nil. 
 1838 
 
 Pipes. 
 
 1839 - Nil. 
 
 1840 - 147 
 
 1841 - Nil. 
 
 1842 - 
 
 1843 - 
 
 1844 - 4 
 
 1845 - Nil. 
 
 Pipes. 
 
 1846 - 107 
 
 1847 - 388 
 
 1848 - Nil. 
 
 1849 - 
 
 1850 - 
 1851 
 1852 - 
 
 * In 1832 and 1833 the exportation from Oporto was much reduced, 
 and this arose from the civil war, which continued over a portion of 
 1834; hence the necessity of the shipments in those years via 
 Aveiro. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 89 
 
 But Portugal, in addition to port wine and its congeners, 
 yields a variety of other wines of a sound and good character ; 
 and at one time England consumed, though never very 
 largely, the white wines of Lisbon and Bucellas, and the 
 red wines of the Minho and Beira ; but the taste for them 
 changed it was transferred to the drier and stronger- 
 bodied wines of Spain, and their importation came to an 
 end. 
 
 And here again it must be observed, that although, as 
 already stated, the vicious policy of the Oporto Company 
 placed restrictions on the shipment of port wine from 
 Oporto to England, and loaded it with export charges equal 
 to 61. a pipe, no limitation was ever placed on the exportation 
 of the other red wines of the surrounding districts, nor 
 on the white wines of Lisbon and its vicinity. -The 
 decay of the trade, therefore, was not ascribable to fiscal 
 obstructions; and it may fairly be inferred, that had the 
 taste for light wines at moderate prices prevailed in this 
 country, Portugal would have continued her supplies from 
 the Minho, via Vianna, where as at Aveiro, Figueira, 
 and Lisbon no restriction prevailed or export duty was 
 levied. 
 
 It was stated in the Committee of 1852, by the agent in 
 this country for the sale of some of these light wines of Por- 
 tugal, that they are now sparingly introduced, at a first cost, 
 including duty, of 20 shillings a dozen, and that adding 50 
 per cent, for merchant's profit, they could be sold on the 
 same terms as good sherry, that is, for 30 shillings a dozen. 
 This seems to require explanation. If these wines be of the 
 quality stated, their first cost less than that of sherry, and 
 the duty on both the same, what are the causes that render 
 them unable to sustain a competition, on which they enter 
 under circumstances so peculiarly favourable, unless it be 
 that the taste of the people of England does not now ac- 
 
90 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 commodate itself to their flavour, notwithstanding the 
 lowness of their price. 1 
 
 Presuming, however, the taste for these wines to be only 
 dormant and not extinct, and that their sale has been, as 
 alleged, paralysed under the influence of high duties in 
 England, but capable of revival on their reduction; and 
 presuming that a demand could, in like manner, be created 
 for Colares, and the better class of the inferior red wines 
 of Portugal, it may be assumed that on a moderate calcu- 
 lation a supply equal to 1,680,000 gallons could be obtained 
 of the former, 2 and that the import of the latter might be 
 restored even to a greater amount than the ordinary exports 
 at a former period, say 320,000 gallons, or 2,000,000 gallons 
 of both white wine and red. 
 
 Adding, then, this quantity to the 84,211 pipes of port, 
 obtainable from the Alto Douro, it follows that we might 
 draw from Portugal a supply equal to 8,500,000 gallons of 
 all sorts, more or less suited to the taste of this country. It 
 is possible that in insulated places there may exist growths 
 of wine to which notice has not hitherto been favourably 
 directed; but at the present moment, 8,500,000 gallons 
 appears to be the utmost quantity on which we could safely 
 calculate to meet a consumption increased to 15,000,000 of 
 port wine alone, exclusive of all other varieties. 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of Mr. OLIVEIRA, 1585. 
 This gentleman stated that Tojal and other light Portuguese wines, 
 under a duty of Is. per gallon, could be imported into this country 
 and sold for 6s. or 8s. per dozen (1584). It is difficult to reconcile 
 this calculation with a statement previously made (1548), that their 
 first cost, including the present duty of 5s. 9d., is 20s. a dozen ; and, 
 that adding merchants' profit, they might now be sold for 30s. De- 
 ducting the difference between a Is. and a 5s. 9d. duty (4s. 9d. a 
 gallon, or 9s. 6d. a dozen), this would bring Mr. Oliveira's calcu- 
 lation to 20s. 6d. instead of 6s. a dozen, including his merchant's 
 profit, or 10s. 6d. without profit whatsoever. 
 
 3 Board of Trade Foreign Returns, 1842, p. 19. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 91 
 
 As to the future there can be very little doubt, that as 
 the soil suitable to the vine is by no means fully covered by 
 it in Portugal, cultivation, if the impulse were given, might 
 be largely extended there; and although port wine would 
 admit of no expansion, still the general production might 
 be augmented of a quality fit for export to Great Britain. 
 But such an extension must, under any circumstances, be 
 more or less experimental; and as the vine will not yield a 
 vintage under four or five years' culture, and two or three 
 years more must be allowed to prepare the wine for market, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer would probably consider 
 it prudent to await the result of the trial, before consenting 
 to part with so large an amount of revenue. 
 
 II. SPAIN. 
 
 Spain supplies us with wine to an extent greater than 
 Portugal. The taste for her produce has for the last thirty 
 years been steadily increasing, and about 1840 the con- 
 sumption attained an average of 2,500,000 gallons. It has 
 risen to 2,741,230 gallons in 1854. 
 
 The consumption of sherry in the United States is rapidly 
 extending; it was upwards of 800,000 gallons in 1853, 
 being more than double the quantity imported in 1852, and 
 Russia in the same year took 444,537 gallons. 
 
 This increasing demand in other countries supplies an 
 explanation of the increasing price of sherry in Spain, as 
 well as of the efforts which have been made of late years 
 to introduce Sicilian Marsala into England, as a substitute 
 for its lower qualities. 
 
 To meet the anticipated demand in Great Britain under 
 a Is. duty, it would be necessary that our importation 
 should be increased to 16,000,000 gallons per annum. 
 
92 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Mr. Porter, 1 in his evidence, stated trie produce of An- 
 dalusia to be 40,000,000 gallons. But he did not give his 
 authority, and the estimate would appear to be incorrect, as 
 it is not reconcileable with a return published by the Board 
 of Trade, 2 which shows the produce of 
 
 Galls. 
 
 Xeres de la Frontera to be - 3,578,947 
 
 Puerto Santa Maria - 1,073,684 
 
 Kota - - 63,167 
 
 St. Lucar 1,470,568 
 
 6,186,366 
 
 This latter calculation is corroborated by the evidence of 
 Dr. Gorman, a gentleman of large experience, before the 
 Committee of 1852, who makes the gross production of 
 Xeres and Saint Mary (25,000 acres, at four butts per acre) 
 equal to 5,647,860 gallons. 
 
 Dr. Gorman's estimate is in turn sustained by an official 
 statement of the total quantity of sherry exported in each 
 of the following years : 
 
 Butts. 
 
 1850 - 42,572 
 
 1851 - 38,574 
 
 1852 - 37,054 
 
 1853 - - - 53,358 
 
 1854 - - 52,746 
 
 At 108 gallons to a butt, the exports of 1854 amounted to 
 5,696,568 gallons. But taking the larger estimate, and 
 deducting the smallest amount for loss, breakage, and 
 evaporation, which is very great in wine kept to the age at 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Evidence 3757. 
 9 Tables of Revenue, etc. Sup. Part. xiv. p. 270. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 93 
 
 which sherry is ordinarily shipped, the quantity available 
 for exportation may be taken at 5,000,000 gallons. 
 
 From this must be deducted the shipments to North and 
 South America, to Eussia and Northern Europe, equal to 
 1,500,000 gallons, leaving 3,500,000 gallons of sherry 
 available for England. This calculation is made without 
 leaving a single gallon for distillation or home consumption. 
 
 There are, however, other wines, the produce of Spain, 
 small quantities of which make their way into the English 
 market. They are chiefly the growth of Malaga and the 
 south-eastern provinces. Valencia and Catalonia also pro- 
 duce wines of a character which formerly obtained a certain 
 amount of favour here, but which have long since ceased to 
 be imported, with the exception of Benecarlos, which is 
 quietly introduced for mixing with Port. Supposing, under 
 any new influences, the trade in these latter wines to be here- 
 after revived, it is perhaps not too low an estimate to say, 
 that our imports from these places might equal our present 
 imports from all the rest of Spain about 2,500,000 gallons. 
 These, added to 3,500,000 gallons of sherry, would give us 
 6,000,000 gallons from Spain of wine of all sorts, to meet 
 a sudden demand for 16,000,000 of sherry alone. 
 
 Like Portugal, Spain produces an astonishing quantity of 
 wine of other descriptions, different from those suitable to 
 the English market. Mr. Porter estimates it at 120,000,000 
 gallons good, passable, and bad; but the testimony is con- 
 current, that except in Andalusia and a few other very 
 minor localities, its manufacture is so imperfect, its qualities 
 so peculiar, and its flavour so extraordinary, from careless- 
 ness, dirt, and other causes, that in the present state of taste 
 in Great Britain, it is not presentable in this market. Dr. 
 Gorman says, 1 that none of the wines of Spain come to 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of Dr. GORMAN, 5717 
 to 5723. 
 
94 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Great Britain in any other than an adulterated and artificial 
 state. " No natural sherry comes to this country; no wine- 
 house will send it ; the article you get is a mixed article : if 
 they gave you the natural produce of Xeres it would not 
 suit you ; in all probability, you would say it was an inferior 
 wine: our taste is artificial, because we are not a wine- 
 drinking people. If your tastes were directed to natural 
 wines, Spain alone could supply this country with hundreds 
 of thousands of butts of beautiful choice wines, which are 
 not known in this market. They do not come here : first, 
 because you would not drink them ; secondly, because they 
 cannot come, owing to the position of the wine- growing 
 countries. There are no cross-roads in Spain, no coopers, 
 no casks, and the best wine-districts are 150 to 200 miles 
 from the seaport towns. What comes to this country from 
 remote places must come in skins, which communicate a 
 nasty taste to the wine." 
 
 No doubt in process of time the improved prosperity of 
 Spain will correct all these disadvantages of her wine trade, 
 derived from the habits of the people, and the absence of 
 convenience and conveyance; but meanwhile, any calcula- 
 tion of a revenue to be hereafter drawn from an article 
 which as yet cannot be brought to market, and which 
 " would not be drunk" if it could, must necessarily be con- 
 tingent and certainly remote. 
 
 III. SICILY. 
 
 The wine next in importance to Port and Sherry, and that 
 which presents the next largest proportion in the returns of 
 consumption, is Sicilian Marsala. 
 
 It is indicative of the prevailing taste and its influence, 
 that this wine owes the share of favour shown to it, to its 
 resemblance to ordinary sherry ; and although it wants the 
 peculiar flavour of the finer descriptions of the latter, still 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 95 
 
 Marsala is a wholesome, and, as it is technically described in 
 the trade, a " clean" wine. For this reason I am inclined to 
 believe that in the event of a reduction of the duty, Sicily is 
 of all others the country most likely to benefit by the change, 
 and to send an increased export of her white wine to England ; 
 although, hitherto its consumption has scarcely exceeded 
 500,000 gallons, and of late years it has fallen below 
 400,000. 1 Its characteristics approach so nearly to the wines 
 we are most familiar with, that Marsala has already over- 
 come the prejudice which so effectually obstructs the re- 
 ception of a " new" wine in England, and once established 
 in popular favour, I apprehend less difficulty will be found 
 than in the case of almost any other wine to extend its 
 consumption. 
 
 There are no Sicilian statistics to afford a correct idea 
 of the extent to which Marsala might be obtained of a 
 quality fit for this market; but from private information I 
 am assured that, for several years past, the shipments from 
 Sicily to all parts of the world have been about 12,000 
 pipes, 2 but that the cultivation may be greatly increased, as 
 it has been ascertained that the soil prevails extensively 
 in which it has heretofore been successfully grown. In 
 corroboration of this, I find, by a recent letter from Marsala, 
 
 1 The quantity of Marsala entered for Home consumption was, in 
 
 Galls. Galls. 
 
 1850 - - 395,611 1853 - - 352,306 
 
 1851 - - 366,727 1854 - - 323,681 
 
 1852 - - 355,858 
 
 2 I have seen a trade circular of 1853, which says, "The 
 shipments from Marsala, during the year 1852, to all parts, were 
 12,434 pipes, being an increase, over the year 1851, of 1785 pipes. 
 This increase, however, is exclusively in shipments to Mediterranean 
 ports and to Russia ; the quantity shipped to England and America 
 having fallen off to some extent during the last three years. Prices 
 of wines in Sicily have advanced considerably, and a further rise is 
 expected." 
 
96 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 that the export of 1853 amounted to 23,047 pipes, equal to 
 2,143,371 gallons. 
 
 Under the system proposed of nominal duties, the quota 
 to be supplied by Sicily to make up the newly stimulated 
 consumption, must be six times the present quantity, or 
 about 2,400,000 gallons per annum, an amount that would 
 more than absorb the entire exports to all parts of the world 
 at the present date. 1 
 
 Presuming, however, that within a few years the culti- 
 vation, urged forward under the influence of rising prices, 
 might be extended to double the present area, and assuming, 
 for the purpose of the present enquiry, that England might 
 absorb the whole of the increased produce, in addition to the 
 present importations, we might then hope to draw from 
 Sicily a supply of wine nearly equal to that which we now 
 receive from Portugal or Spain. 
 
 Looking then to these three countries, Portugal, Spain, 
 and Sicily, which furnish at present 86 per cent, of our 
 consumption, and estimating the possible extension of 
 supply to meet a demand increased to six times the present 
 amount, the result is as follows : 
 
 QUANTITY PROCURABLE. QUANTITY REQUIRED. 
 
 Gallons. Gallons. 
 
 From Portugal Port wines 6,527,000 From Portugal 15,000,000 
 
 Other sorts 2,000,000 Spain 16,000,000 
 
 Spain Sherry - - 3,500,000 Sicily 2,400,000 
 
 France ") 
 
 Other sorts 2,500,000 and else- V 2,600,000 
 
 where ) 
 
 Sicily Marsala - - 2,500,000 
 
 36,000,000 
 
 16,027,000 Deduct 16,027,000 
 
 Deficiency 19,973,000 
 
 1 Sicily produces red wine, but of a very coarse quality. One 
 witness, Mr. Tuke, stated that being encouraged by the increasing 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 97 
 
 The deficiency of nearly 20,000,000 gallons, seeing it 
 cannot be obtained from these sources, nor of the class of 
 wines to which we have been hitherto accustomed to resort, 
 must, of necessity, be sought for from France, Germany, 
 Italy, the Cape, or other countries whose produce has not 
 as yet been popularly known in Great Britain. From all 
 these places taken together, the gross importation of wine 
 in 1854 was under one million gallons; and looking to these 
 severally, the prospect is not encouraging of multiplying 
 that supply twenty-fold of a quality adapted to the wants of 
 the English consumer. 
 
 IV. THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 
 
 From the Cape, our importations have been decreasing 
 year by year since 1825. Up to that period a fictitious 
 demand for this cheap colonial wine was created by the 
 excessive duties on foreign growths, which paid 13s. 8d. 
 and 9s- ]\d. a gallon, whilst Cape was admitted at 3s. and 
 2s. 5d. Under this artificial stimulus the consumption rose 
 to 670,000 gallons in 1825; but after the reduction of the 
 duties on foreign wine in that year, and subsequently in 
 1831, it declined to 
 
 456,773 in 1840 
 
 357,793 1845 
 
 246,132 1850 
 
 234,672 1851 
 
 242,805 1852 
 
 182,322 1853 
 
 275,382 1854 
 
 price of Oporto wine in England, to believe that these Sicilian red 
 wines might successfully be introduced as a substitute for it, at a 
 low price, he made the attempt by importing lately 600 pipes at but 
 4/. a pipe, which he hoped to be able to sell in substitution for port, 
 but it turned out that after having been kept in bond for upwards 
 of a year, and offered for sale at the end of that period, it was 
 bought in at 2Z. 17.?. 6d. a pipe (see Evidence 971, 3979). 
 
 H 
 
98 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 The history of the trade in Cape wines is an illustration 
 of the fact, that in the absence of those qualities which 
 consort with the taste of this country, mere cheapness can- 
 not force a wine into favour, or maintain it in uniform 
 demand. 
 
 The existence of a discriminatory duty on Cape wine at 
 the present moment, in the face of a declining demand, 
 serves no other purpose than to keep up the supply of an 
 ingredient for adulteration, 1 and its decreasing importation 
 shows how little it is sought after, even for this base use. 
 No increase in its legitimate consumption is likely to follow 
 a reduction of the duty to one shilling a gallon. 
 
 V. MADEIRA AND THE CANARIES. 
 
 Madeira is another country from which, unfortunately, 
 no increase of supply can reasonably be expected. Its con- 
 sumption in this country has always been small. The 
 highest point it has attained since 1814 was 400,476 
 gallons, in 1821. It has since declined gradually to a very 
 low quantity. 
 
 300,295 gallons in 1827 
 
 217,138 1830 
 
 " 139,422 1835 
 
 112,555 1840 
 
 102,745 1845 
 
 70,360 1851 
 
 82,064 1852 
 
 73,447 1853 
 
 42,874 1854 
 
 The total produce of the island in former years has been 
 
 1 Cape wine is also used in the manufacture of what are called 
 " British Wines," of some of which it forms the basis. 5610, 5615. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 99 
 
 estimated at 20,000 to 25,000 pipes, equal to 1,950,000 
 gallons; but not only does the above table prove the de- 
 parting taste for the wine in this country, but even its 
 growth has lately received a formidable check by the sud- 
 den destruction of the vines by blight, to such an extent 
 that it is even yet doubtful whether Madeira may not cease 
 altogether to be a wine-producing country. 
 
 From the Azores and Canaries, which send us respect- 
 ively 131 gallons and 15,928, it would be idle to speculate 
 on any large supply. 
 
 VI. GERMANY. 
 
 If the question of supply turned on quantity alone, the 
 resources of Germany are so unbounded as to enable 
 her to furnish wine for the consumption of the civilised 
 world. Bavaria, Wurtemburgh, and Baden, each produce 
 wine in the utmost abundance; Prussia and Nassau supply 
 us with Khenish and sparkling Moselle ; Hungary has been 
 ever famed for Tokay and vins de liqueur; the empire 
 of Austria alone produces annually 500,000,000 gallons, 
 chiefly of white wine, and the rest of Germany above 
 45,000,000 more. 
 
 The cheapness of these wines is so extreme, that their 
 value is frequently lower than that of the cask which con- 
 tains them; but so inferior is their quality, that Germany 
 imports for its own use a larger quantity of wine of all sorts 
 than she exports to all the rest of the world. Our own con- 
 sumption of her wines has rarely reached 60,000 gallons in 
 any recent year, being something under one hundredth 
 part of our import; and it may safely be said, looking to 
 the prevailing taste of these countries, that we have no 
 prospect of obtaining from Germany any largely increased 
 supplies. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 VII. ITALY. 
 
 Italy is another country which produces wine in pro- 
 fusion, but from which we in England import none. The 
 explanation is to be found not alone in the fact, that the 
 quality of the Italian vintages differs so widely from that 
 on which our tastes have been formed, that they would fail 
 to find consumption among us; but also in the circumstance 
 that however delicious their flavour at the place of growth 
 they are of too delicate a nature to bear carriage to any 
 distance. The agreeable wines of Naples and Capri are 
 scarcely procurable even at Rome; those of the Roman 
 States are incapable of being carried with safety to Flo- 
 rence ; and the light ones of Tuscany are not to be had in 
 Sardinia. Under these circumstances an entire change must 
 take place in the process of the vintage, as well as in the 
 characteristics of the wine, before the produce of Italy can 
 hope for any extensive demand in the United Kingdom. 
 
 VIIL FRANCE. 
 
 In this admitted inability to obtain from other sources an 
 increased supply of our accustomed wines equivalent to the 
 anticipated demand, or of others of a quality correspond- 
 ing or approaching to them; the country to which all eyes 
 are turned to make good the deficiency is FRANCE. 1 Even 
 from this quarter, it is admitted that little or no increase is 
 to be hoped for of the finer descriptions, the produce of 
 Burgundy, Champagne, and the Bordelais, since Nature 
 herself has fixed an impassable limit to their production; 
 but confidence is inspired by the fact that France produces 
 
 1 Much valuable information on the production and capabilities of 
 France will be found in the elaborate report of Sir John Bowring on 
 the Commercial Relations between France and Great Britain. Silks 
 and Wines. 1835. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 101 
 
 annually so vast a profusion of wine, that it is estimated at 
 no less than 924,000,000 gallons. 
 
 LE NoiR, in his treatise on the culture of the vine in 
 France says, that one-sixth of the produce may be called 
 more or less good another sixth is passable a third can 
 be drunk without absolute, disgust and the remaining 
 three comprise all grades between bad and detestable. 1 
 
 Out of this vast variety of growths, it is hoped that a 
 considerable number must be found suitable to the taste and 
 wants of the United Kingdom. 
 
 The average value of the wine crop of France in ordi- 
 nary years is estimated at sixpence halfpenny per gallon, 2 
 but the quantity deserving the name of wine becomes greatly 
 reduced, when distinguished in proportional divisions of 
 good, bad, and indifferent. 
 
 From this vast production, it is hoped, in the event 
 of the reduction of the duty to one shilling, although 
 even at that ratio the rich and highly-flavoured wines of 
 France could not be obtained in much greater quantity 
 than at present, that an importation would arise of medium 
 and ordinary qualities chiefly from the south and south-east 
 of France, from the Rhone and the Pyrenees, to an extent 
 without precedent; and such as would speedily, if not im- 
 mediately, satisfy the largest demands of the United King- 
 dom, and replace, if it does not double the amount of revenue 
 surrendered. 
 
 There are, however, grounds for questioning the sound- 
 ness of this conclusion. 3 It must be remembered that the 
 
 1 LE NOIR Traite de la Culture de la Vigne, p, 593. 
 
 2 Sir John Bo wring's Report, p. 95. 
 
 3 A French merchant, M. Maire, a very extensive importer of 
 French wines, who was examined before the Committee of 1852, 
 sajjs, the proportion of wine of a quality likely to be consumed in 
 this country, which France is capable of producing, " is another 
 very great and difficult question to answer. As far as my know- 
 
102 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 prevailing taste in England has always been for loaded 
 rather than for lighter wines ; that for the last twenty-seven 
 years, under an equal duty of 5s. 6d. and 5s. 9d. upon each, 
 we have rejected the latter at a lower first-cost to take the 
 former at a higher; and that as yet neither argument nor 
 experience has been so convincing or demonstrative as to 
 lead to the belief that under a uniform duty of Is., the 
 same result would not continue to be exhibited; and that 
 the inducement would not still remain, to take the full- 
 bodied wines rather than the light and acidulous beverages 
 of France. 
 
 From Bourdeaux, it is well-known that little or no in- 
 crease is to be looked for of claret, or the more generous 
 wines of the Gironde. The strong wines of Burgundy 
 have long since ceased to be brought to England, among 
 other causes, from their inability to bear the sea-voyage; 
 and even in France their use has been gradually declining 
 from a similar reason. They are easily injured by removal; 
 and a damp cellar, or even the agitation occasioned by the 
 rolling of a carriage along the street is sometimes sufficient to 
 turn them sour. 1 The produce of Champagne does not enter 
 into calculation; and on the whole, the portion of France 
 which is most relied on to meet the newly created demand is 
 
 ledge goes, I do not think we produce such wines as would procure 
 between the two countries a very large increase of trade " (2079, 
 2080). This gentleman's evidence is curious as to his observation, 
 during twenty years' residence in England, of our taste for French 
 wine. He thinks the lower orders in this country will not give up 
 beer to take light wine (2093, 2097, 2112). 
 
 1 " Pour les vins fins de Bourgogne on n'en consomme presque 
 plus. Quelques particuliers en font venir encore, mais vous en 
 
 trouveriez tres-peu dans le commerce de Paris Us sont tres- 
 
 sujets a maladies. Us passent quelquefois a I'amertume si on les 
 place dans des caves humides, ou bien dans celles on le mouvement 
 de la rue se fait un peu sentir." M. CASTERAT. Enquete Legislative 
 sur Boissons, vol. i. p. 13. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 103 
 
 the district of Kousillon, including the departments of the 
 Pyrenees Orient ales and Herault-, whence, of late years, the 
 Masdeu, or spurious port, and Picardan for adulterating 
 Sherry have been imported into England. The vine on 
 this northern side of the Pyrenees seems to participate in 
 the character of the vintages of Portugal and Spain on their 
 southern aspect ; and the similarity has suggested the 
 attempt to obtain a place for them in the English market; 
 but failing to establish them in public favour, they hare 
 been gradually withdrawn from consumption under their own 
 name, but continue to be introduced for the purpose of 
 " blending" with other wines more familiar and popular. 
 
 Very ample details of those endeavours to bring Masdeu 
 into use in this country, were given by some wine-mer- 
 chants of experience, who were examined as witnesses by 
 the committee of the House of Commons in 1852. * The 
 attempt was first made as a substitute for Port wine, at a 
 moment when the exports were interrupted during the 
 the siege of Oporto in 1832; it was taken a little at first, 
 but it obtained no permanent footing, and soon ceased to 
 sell for domestic use. 
 
 Those who have travelled in the South of France, pleased 
 with the abundance of its ordinary wines, and the lowness 
 of their cost, and amused by the novelty of drinking them 
 on the place of growth, frequently return with an impression 
 in their favour, and a supply for future use. But whether it 
 be that they overlook the difference between tasting these 
 low wines at home and under the charming climate in 
 which they ripen, or whether the change which they per- 
 ceive in their flavour is the result of a sea voyage, the 
 taste proves but transient; their guests do not approve of 
 the new wine ; the fancy is soon satisfied the adventure is 
 
 1 See Evidence of Mr. SELBY, Mr. TBOWEB, Mr. HART, Mr. RED- 
 DING, Mr. REAY, etc. 
 
104 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 not repeated and the traveller relapses into his accustomed 
 round of stronger wines. 
 
 The evidence taken by the committee of 1852, abounds 
 in examples of the difficulty before adverted to of intro- 
 ducing a new wine, especially of a light and thin descrip- 
 tion, into use in the United Kingdom; and the most 
 striking illustrations have been drawn from the wines of 
 France. It was attested by some merchants of large ex- 
 perience, that every attempt made within the last half century 
 to introduce a new wine of this character into use in these 
 countries, has been an almost total failure; although the 
 experiment has been made with sound and pure wines 
 at a cost greatly below the prevailing prices of Port and 
 Sherry. 
 
 One gentleman, Mr. Gassiot, 1 stated, that in 1825, on 
 the reduction which then took place in the duty, he, firmly 
 relying on the effect of that measure, in leading to a 
 consumption of light wines, imported low-priced wines 
 from France, Figueiras and Colares from Portugal, Spanish 
 red wine from. Barcelona, and others from Italy and Sicily ; 
 but the entire speculation ended in failure and loss. 
 
 Mr. Maxwell, 2 another extensive importer, stated, that in 
 1841, his house had made a large importation of light 
 French wines on speculation ; they were sent to Calais, "after 
 being a long while in the Docks, thinking that as the 
 English would not drink them, the French would; but it 
 was a total loss; and the importers did not even get the 
 price of the casks." 
 
 Mr. Carbonell tried to bring Masdeu into use, but failed, 3 
 and numerous other examples are recorded in the Evidence, 
 each singularly unsuccessful, the taste of this country 
 
 1 Evidence 697, etc. 2 Evidence 3185, etc. 
 
 3 Evidence 1970, etc. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 105 
 
 hitherto being decidedly averse from all but wines of high 
 flavours, full body, and strong spirituous character. 1 
 
 SIR JOHN BOWRING, who investigated this subject with 
 much care and industry, in 1834, as a government com- 
 missioner, records in his Report on the wine trade of 
 France, the " great variety of opinions" which he " found 
 to exist as to the increased consumption in the United 
 Kingdom, which would follow a diminution of duties on 
 the lower qualities of French wines." 2 
 
 " In France generally/' he says, at that time, " the notion 
 prevailed that an enormous augmentation of demand would 
 follow any considerable reduction of duty," and that it 
 " would bring into our market the strong-bodied wines of 
 the Rhone and the south-eastern provinces." But these 
 hopes and expectations were based on the adoption, by 
 Great Britain, of an ad valorem duty, which all parties now 
 pronounce impracticable. 
 
 In Great Britain, on the contrary, he found opinion very 
 unsettled as to any great increase likely to arise in the 
 demand for light wines under diminished duties. In 
 Scotland he found " a considerable difference of opinion as 
 to their probable effect on consumption : several persons of 
 the leading houses in the wine trade apprehended that no 
 price, however low, would create a demand for the ordinary 
 classes of French wines, while the very superior would be 
 consumed by the opulent, whatever their price might be. 
 Some of the most eminent wine merchants mentioned that 
 they had made several attempts to introduce new qualities 
 of French wines, but with no success, and that re-exporta- 
 tion to Hamburg or Holland had been the result. But 
 others asserted, that some of the lower growths of Claret 
 
 1 Evidence. Mr. WHITE 1442, 1474. Mason 2175. Hart 2956. 
 
 2 Sir JOHN Bo WRING'S Report, p. 109. 
 
106 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 had come into demand; and a decided expectation was 
 then expressed of a considerable extension of that demand. 1 
 
 From Ireland, Sir John Bo wring expected no great de- 
 mand; and in England, although the reductions of 1831 
 had slightly increased consumption, and some letters spoke 
 confidently of a great augmentation if the lower wines were 
 let in at a low duty ; still, " other communications left a 
 doubt whether even a considerable reduction in cost would 
 be sufficient to restore the ancient taste " for French wines. 
 Sir John quotes, in the Appendix to his Report, a letter of 
 el an eminent Scotch importer," to which he attaches 
 value; the writer says: " Expectations were entertained, 
 that when the duties were equalised, the lower-priced 
 French wines would come into demand; the extent to 
 which they have done so I believe to be a mere trifle. 
 I know that my own house has given this description of 
 wine a fair trial : we have had it at all prices ; some of it 
 at a lower price than our port wine, and excellent wine of 
 the kind sound, well-flavoured, and agreeable. During 
 the few months of summer, some people were induced to 
 try it, and we disposed of a few hogsheads in bottle ; but 
 with the exception of the mess of one Dragoon regiment, 
 no one returned a second time for it, and the demand very 
 soon ceased entirely; and from anything that I can see, I 
 do not think that the demand for that description of French 
 wine would be much increased if the duty were taken off 
 altogether." 2 
 
 Still it must not be lost sight of, that these successive 
 attempts between the years 1825 and 1854, have all been 
 made under the present scale of duties (5s. 6d. and 5s. 9d.) ; 
 and that their failure is not a conclusive reply to the antici- 
 pations of those who calculate the probable effects of a re- 
 
 1 Report, p. 110. 2 Report, pp. 151, 152. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 107 
 
 newed effort on a vastly more extended scale, and under the 
 influence of a duty reduced to Is. 
 
 Judging of a trial hitherto unattempted, with a supply 
 of hitherto unknown wines to tempt the appetite 
 and these offered at a cost so low as to neutralise every 
 scruple on the score of economy; it would be presump- 
 tuous to foreclose the argument by pronouncing authori- 
 tatively against all probability of a greatly increased intro- 
 duction of French wine into this country. On the contrary, 
 so far as mere importation is concerned, there is every 
 reason to believe that the full effect of the measure would 
 be an instant introduction of light wines, as an experiment, 
 to such an extent as to flood the market 1 with those readily 
 procurable. But whilst the advocates of reduction are 
 sanguine in their anticipation that these importations would 
 find an eager and uniform sale, those favourable to the 
 present scale of duty appear to be equally convinced, that, 
 as in the former instance in 1825, the demand would not 
 carry off the supply, and that if, contrary to their expecta- 
 tions, any material increase of consumption ensued, it would 
 eventually decline in deference to the recognised taste for 
 stronger wines. A similar opinion was conveyed to the 
 Committee appointed by the House of Lords, in 1821, to 
 enquire into the means " of extending the foreign trade of 
 this country," of which the MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE was 
 Chairman. Amongst other subjects they investigated the 
 probability of increasing the consumption of French wine, 
 by introducing the lighter qualities under a reduced scale of 
 duties; but the evidence they received was so discouraging, 
 that the Committee forebore to recommend the experiment. 
 One witness, Mr. Gowen, in reply to the question, " Whe- 
 ther he conceived that a taste for French wines might be 
 created amongst those who do not now drink them, pro- 
 1 Evidence, 2723, 5881, 5882. 
 
108 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 vided tkey could be brought in at an inferior price?" said 
 " I should doubt it. The light description of Port wines 
 is considered too light for the drinkers in this country ; they 
 like stout Port wine, and light Port is stronger than the best 
 descriptions of French wines. I should doubt, therefore, 
 the demand being continued after the novelty had ceased. 
 I should be enabled to sell a larger quantity immediately, 
 but I should doubt its continuing." l Even if the new taste 
 could be permanently implanted, there is a very general con- 
 currence of belief, that an interval more or less prolonged 
 must intervene before it could be extensively developed. 
 
 As regards French wine in particular, it is a remarkable 
 fact, and one that by no means encourages to the hopes of 
 a very large importation from France, that whilst France 
 produces 924,000,000 gallons of wine, her average exports 
 to all the countries of the world, on an average of the ten 
 years which preceded 1851, when the vine disease began to 
 appear, was but 33,294,889 gallons ; and, for the last fifty 
 years, the consumption in England has rarely exceeded 
 500,000 gallons of which a considerable portion has been 
 Champagne. If the bulk of her vintage were of a class 
 suited to the taste of the rest of mankind, her exports 
 would not be limited to so trifling a part of her produce, 
 and that only of the finer growths. 
 
 Bearing in mind the very limited area within which the 
 existence of a suitable climate and soil permits the cultiva- 
 tion of those finer wines to be carried on, looking to the 
 comparatively small supply which is capable of being pro- 
 duced, and the increasing demand, not only from the grow- 
 ing population of the old world, but amongst the 23,000,000 
 of North American citizens, and the new communities 
 which the discovery of gold is distributing over the coasts 
 
 1 Lords' Committee, 1821, p. 52. 
 
IS A VASTLY INCREASED SUPPLY PROCURABLE? 109 
 
 of the Pacific, and the Continent and Islands of Australia/ 
 it is scarcely to be hoped that the reduction of the duty in 
 England will lead to a very largely increased supply of 
 wines at present shipped to us by France. And it certainly 
 would be vain to expect that at any gradation of price, how- 
 ever low, the use of French wines of a light class could be 
 so stimulated as to raise the annual consumption from 
 400,000 gallons to 20,582,000. 
 
 1 The present consumption of wine in Algeria is equal to 9,314,236 
 gallons of French wine. That of the United States is already equal 
 to the entire imports into Great Britain, and must go on to increase. 
 
110 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 OPINION IN FRANCE, AS TO THE PROBABLE EFFECTS 
 OF A FURTHER REDUCTION OF THE DUTY, ON THE 
 CONSUMPTION OF WINE IN ENGLAND. 
 
 SOME misapprehension appears to exist on the part of the 
 manufacturers of the United Kingdom, as to the feeling in 
 France upon this subject. There is an impression that ex- 
 cessive duties are maintained in the French tariff, against the 
 principal articles of British produce, merely in retaliation 
 for those levied on the importation of wine; and memorials 
 have been presented to the Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs, from those interested in the manufacture of linen 
 in Ireland and Scotland, urging that better terms could be 
 obtained for the admission of their produce into France, 
 were England to reduce her import duty on French wines. 
 
 This idea has prevailed, since Sir Robert Peel, in 1842, 
 announced the probability of a more liberal revision of the 
 restrictive tariffs of Spain, Portugal, and France, on'which 
 occasion he made use of these words: " I must say, when 
 we make such reductions on articles imported, we ought to 
 do our utmost to obtain from foreign countries, benefitted 
 thereby, corresponding advantages for England. Nor do I 
 
OPINION IN FRANCE. Ill 
 
 wish to diminish the hope ^satisfactorily arranging these 
 relaxations with foreign nations, by rashly reducing the 
 amount of duties on articles which must form the basis 
 of negotiation. I do not, therefore, propose any reduction 
 on the amount of duties on brandy or wines." l 
 
 But although it was quite competent to Sir Kobert Peel 
 thus to treat simultaneously with all the great wine-growing 
 countries for a simultaneous reduction of the import duties 
 on their wines and brandy ; it would not have been possible 
 for him then, nor is it for us now, to negotiate separately 
 with France for a reduction of duty on her own peculiar 
 produce; as the state of our treaties, and the insertion of 
 the " most favoured nation clause," binds us to give to 
 Portugal, Spain, and Naples, (whether they reduce their 
 own tariffs or not), the benefit of any change which we 
 may make in favour of the wines of France. 
 
 It is to be observed also, as regards this suggestion 
 of stipulating with France for reductions in her tariff 
 in favour of English manufactures, on condition of our 
 reducing the present duty on French wines; that the 
 French government, since 1842, have exhibited compara- 
 tively little interest on the subject of their wines, compared 
 with the anxiety which they have since expressed for 
 further concessions to encourage the importation of their 
 brandy into Great Britain. 
 
 The desire evinced by France on the subject of wine, 
 when negotiating with Sir Robert Peel in 1841-1842, has 
 since abated, in consequence of a growing conviction that 
 such a measure would only stimulate the consumption of 
 the finer qualities, of which France could not extend her 
 supply; but would fail to excite a demand for the lower 
 
 1 Speech of Sir ROBERT PEEL, March 11, 1842. 
 
112 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 descriptions, for which a tase has yet to be created amongst 
 the consumers in this country. 1 
 
 M. MAIRE, a gentleman largely engaged in the French 
 wine trade, who was examined by the Committee of 1852, 
 in answer to an inquiry, whether the French Government 
 would be inclined now to grant us reciprocal advantages 
 for our manufactures, on condition of our reducing the 
 duty on their wines, replied, that he had advised his 
 friends in the French Chambers against such an arrange- 
 ment. He had " always felt that, whatever concession you 
 might make upon their wines only, and not upon brandies, 
 the relief to the growers of wine would be very small 
 indeed and that the French Government would not have 
 been warranted, or wise, to grant you corresponding ad- 
 vantages upon any British produce to be introduced into 
 into France; because it would not lead to the increased 
 consumption in this country which they might anticipate or 
 wish." 2 
 
 This feeling on the part of France, at the present moment, 
 is somewhat different from that described by SIR JOHN 
 BOWRING in 1835, when he says he found the conviction 
 prevalent then, that French wines were excluded from the 
 English market by the rigour of our tariff, which, in turn, 
 they believed to be but a reprisal for the prohibitory system 
 of France ; which sacrificed the interests of the wine growers 
 of the south to sustain the monopoly of the iron masters 
 and cotton manufacturers in the northern departments. 
 The population of the wine districts were then eager for a 
 
 1 Mr. Redding, who advocates the reduction of the duty to Is., 
 admits, that even the inferior wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy, 
 though they are consumed in Paris at 6d. a bottle, are scarcely 
 palatable to an Englishman. REDDING, " On "Wines," p. 88. 
 
 2 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of M. Maire, 2033, 
 2035. 
 
OPINION IN FRANCE. 113 
 
 re-adjustment of the French duties upon coal, iron, and 
 yarns; in the hope that it would lead to a corresponding 
 concession on the side of England in relief of French wine, 
 and that under an ad valorem duty which would enable 
 them to be drunk at Is. or 2s. a bottle, the " strong-bodied 
 wines of the Rhone and the south-eastern provinces" would 
 find their way into the English market. 1 
 
 The change which has since, to some extent, come over 
 public opinion in France upon this subject, is no doubt the 
 result of further experience of the disappointment which 
 followed the reduction of the duty in 1831, combined with 
 a more extended observation as to the well-defined taste in 
 England for strong and highly alcoholised wines. 
 
 Almost every experiment made on the wine duties 
 between 1787 and 1831, was undertaken with a view to 
 facilitate the introduction of French wines into England. 
 The reduction by Mr. Pitt, in the former year, was with an 
 expressed design to favour their importation, but it failed 
 to produce that effect; and, as shown in a former passage, 
 the importation of French wine, between 1787 and 1795, 
 fell off from 933,172 gallons in 1788, A.D., to 204,097 
 gallons in 1794, A.D. 
 
 1 SIR JOHN BOWRING'S Report, p. 103, 110, 112. The opinion of 
 SIR JOHN BOWRING and his colleagues is thus recorded in their 
 report, " after examining a variety of evidence, the English Com- 
 missioners have come to the conclusion, that a large consumption of 
 French wine would take place in England, if the duty were regulated 
 at something like cent, per cent, on value ; and we think there would 
 be little difficulty in classing the wines of France under these 
 heads : 
 
 Per Gall. 
 
 Wine not exceeding in value l,600f. per tun = 24Z. sterling, s. d. 
 on which a duty should be levied of . . .18 
 
 Do., not exceeding l,200f., or 48l 34 
 
 On all wines above that value the present duty . . .56" 
 
 REPORT, p. 113. 
 
114 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Again, the lowering of the duties by Lord Kipon (1825), 
 resulted in a similar disappointment ; the consumption of 
 French wine, so far from increasing, has declined yearly, 
 from 525,579 gallons in 1823, to 308,294 gallons in 1830; 
 271,661 in 1835; and it has only recently regained the level 
 of 1825; and that not owing to any newly developed taste 
 for light wine, but to an increasing import of Champagne. 
 
 A third, and the most important experiment of the three, 
 was that of equalizing the duties on French and Peninsular 
 wines in 1831; thus annulling the great provision of the 
 Methuen Treaty, which stipulated for a perpetual preference 
 for the wines of Portugal. But under the equalised scale, 
 the wines of Portugal have, in every year since, exhibited 
 an increase, whilst those of France have evinced little or no 
 revival. The consumption was 
 
 308,294 gallons - - in 1830 
 
 271,661 - 1835 
 
 341,841 1840 
 
 443,330 - 1845 
 
 340,748 1850 
 
 447,556 1851 
 
 503,919 1852 
 
 560,686 1853 
 
 .580,567 1854 
 
 In 1835, the people of France, somewhat surprised by 
 this decline, were disposed to attribute the failure of the ex- 
 periment " to the prejudices created by the cholera in 1832 
 and 1833. " x But later experience has led the authorities 
 there, and the more intelligent portion of the wine-growers, 
 to ascribe it to more permanent and enduring causes. 
 
 The investigation instituted by the Commission appointed 
 
 1 SIR JOHN BOWRING'S Report, p. 99. 
 
OPINION IN FRANCE. 115 
 
 by the National Assembly in 1849, to inquire into the 
 operation of the taxes on wine, and the general condition of 
 that branch of native industry, led to a very frank expres- 
 sion of opinion, as to the prospect of an increased export to 
 England, on the part both of the wine-growers and of the 
 finance ministers of France. An idea having been ex- 
 pressed, on the sitting of the 20th March, 1850, by M. 
 GRETERIN, Direct eur General des Douanes, that the duty in 
 England did not prejudice the consumption of French 
 wines of the finest growth; but that if lowered to 50 per 
 cent., ad valorem, a considerable increase might be expected 
 in the consumption of the strong-bodied common wines of 
 the south. The President, M. THIERS, interposed with an 
 expression of his own views and experience. He said that 
 when in office, he had found the utmost difficulty in obtain- 
 ing any concession in favour of French wines in England. 
 He argued as if the Methuen Treaty were still in force, and 
 he reproached the British Government with maintaining it, 
 in order to favour the wines of Portugal, because Portugal, in 
 return, consumed British manufactures. But, he said, 
 whatever opening Great Britain might appear to present for 
 the wines of France, those who had lived in that country 
 must have arrived at the conviction that, in reality, the 
 people of England have no liking for French wines the rich 
 have on their tables the finest Bordeaux, but they exhibit a 
 decided preference for Port and Sherry, and as for the 
 middle classes, they had no taste for the coarse wines of 
 France (vins capiteux) ; and M. THIERS, from these com- 
 bined causes, the partial policy of the English Government, 
 and the peculiar taste of the English people, had arrived at 
 the conviction, that there was no hope of any largely- 
 increased demand froin the United Kingdom. 
 
 M. BOCHER, one of the commissioners, put a question to 
 M. GRETERIN, whether there had not already been in 
 
 I 2 
 
116 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 England, as well as in Belgium and Holland, a sensible dimi- 
 nution in the duty levied on French wines, and whether 
 this had been followed by a corresponding increase of ex- 
 portation ? 
 
 M. GRETERIN, in reply, corrected the error of M. 
 THIERS as to the Methuen Treaty, reminded him that it 
 had been terminated, and the duties equalized in England 
 upon French and all other wines, and this in the mode the 
 most favourable to France ; not by raising their wines to her 
 level, but by lowering hers to theirs. Yet no benefit had 
 arisen from the change, and the consumption of French 
 wine remained the same under the lesser tax, as it had been 
 under the previous one of double the amount " sous le 
 regime d'une taxe presque double de ce qu'elle est aujourd' 
 hui, le chiffre des exportations etait a peu pres le meme que 
 le chiffre actuel." In like manner, the reduction of the im- 
 port duty had led to no increased demand either in Belgium 
 or Holland. 
 
 This result M. GRETERIN contrasted with the effect pro- 
 duced by Sir Robert PeeFs reduction on French brandy, 
 for which a demand had previously existed in England, and 
 of which the export had risen prodigiously in consequence, 
 notwithstanding that the cost exceeded that of British 
 spirit. In like manner, Portuguese and Spanish wines 
 still maintained their supremacy in England, although their 
 price was considerably higher than French a proof, inter- 
 posed M. THIERS, " that our brandy can compete success- 
 fully with the distilled spirits of Great Britain, but that our 
 wines cannot maintain the struggle against those of Portugal 
 and Spain." 1 
 
 1 " LE PRESIDENT M. THIERS, 
 
 Le pays oh nous pourrions v6ritablement esp6rer un grand 
 d6bouche serait 1'Angleterre ; mais, quand on a vecu au milieu des 
 Anglais des differentes classes, il est facile de voir qu'au fond ii 
 
OPINION IN FRANCE. 117 
 
 M. FOULD, the MINISTER of FINANCE, 1 avowed his 
 concurrence in the opinion of M. Thiers. Of brandy he 
 
 pas nos vins. Chez les grands seigneurs, ou fait rouler sur 
 la table, dans de petits chariots, des vins de Bourdeaux de haute 
 quality mais il circule fort peu de nos autres vins. Us ont une 
 preference marqu6e pour les vins d'Espagne ; et, a mesure que 
 s'etablit cette preference des vins capiteux, 1'usage des ndtres, qui 
 suppose un palais delicat, diminue peu a peu. Je ne crois done 
 pas, en supposant qu'on put arracher 1'Angleterre a 1' influence de 
 de ses principes cornmerciaux, que nos vins intermediaires s'y pro- 
 pageassent sensiblement. Dans les classes superieures, on boit un 
 peu de Bordeaux et bien plus de Porto ; dans les classes moyennes 
 on ne trouve gu&re que 1'habitude de vins capiteux : de sorte que 
 je crains fort, en presence de ces deux causes reunies, les principes 
 de commerce et le gout particulier a la nation Anglaise, que, la 
 encore, nous n'ayons pas Vesperance d"un grand debouche. 
 
 " M. BOCHER. Je prierai M. GRETERIN de nous dire, en me"me 
 temps qu'il repondra a M. le President, s'il n'y a pas eu en Angle- 
 terre, en Belgique et en Hollande, un abaissement sensible des 
 droits, et si cet abaissement a ete" suivi d'une augmentation egale- 
 ment sensible dans nos exportations? 
 
 " M. GRETERIN. Je commence par les observations de M. le Pre"- 
 sident. En eflfet, les raisons qui ont fait pr6ferer aux Anglais les 
 vins des centre" es du Midi aux ndtres sont bien celles que M. le 
 President vient d'indiquer : leur gout pour les vins d'Espagne, de 
 Portugal, de Sicile, et ensuite la faveur qu'ils accordaient a ces 
 derniers, quant au droit, dans la vue de trouver dans ces pays des 
 marches plus accessibles pour leur propres produits. Mais au- 
 jourd'hui, et meme depuis dix ann6es, les vins d'Espagne, de 
 Portugal, etc., sont traites a l'6gal des vius de France, le droit est le 
 meme pour tous. Sous ce rapport done les principes du Traite" de 
 Methuen ne subsistent plus. Mais le raison qui fait que VAngleterre 
 maintent le droit sur les vins me semble tout a fait financiere. 
 
 " LE PRESIDENT, M. THIERS. L'egalite entre les vins Francais et 
 ceux des contrees meridionales s'est-elle e"tablie parce qu'on a reduit 
 le droit sur les ndtres ou parce qu'on a sureleve le droit des vins de 
 ces contrees ? 
 
 " M. GRETERIN. Les ndtres payaient le double de ceux des pays 
 plus favorises. On les a ramenes au droit qui frappait les autres, 
 
 1 Enquete Legislative, etc., M. FOULD, p. 41. 
 
118 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 considered that there was still an opening for large ex- 
 portations into England, but not for wine "pour les vins 
 je ne vois pas que cela puisse aller bien loin" and M. 
 BUFFET, and others of the commissioners, reverted re- 
 peatedly to the fact, that the lowering of the duty in 
 England had been followed by a decrease instead of an in- 
 crease of consumption. 1 
 
 In the course of enquiry, deputies were examined by the 
 commissioners from the several wine countries of France, 
 from Burgundy and the Cote d'Or, from Herault, Bordeaux, 
 and the Gironde and the statements of these representatives 
 of each province exhibit, very distinctly, the varying 
 economy of those distinct districts, as influenced by the 
 destination of their peculiar produce. The deputies from 
 Burgundy, sensible of the declining taste for their finer 
 growths in other countries, and solicitous chiefly for the 
 home market, dwelt on the hardships of internal taxation, 
 which raised its cost to the people of France ; and they 
 glanced at the same time at the heavy duties levied on corn, 
 cattle, and iron, imported from abroad, which had led to 
 reprisals in the form of high duties upon wine, to which 
 they attributed the diminished consumption of Burgundy 
 in other countries. 2 But as a similar decline has taken 
 place in the use of Burgundy in France itself, as well as in 
 
 et on a etabli une taxe uniforme, saufe pour les produits du Cap. 
 
 Quant aux vins, sous le regime d'une taxe 
 
 presque double de ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui, le chiffre des exporta- 
 tions etait a peu pres le meme que le chiffre actuel. 
 
 " M. LE PRESIDENT. En somme, cela veut dire que les eaux-de-vie 
 Fransaises ont pu lutter avec les spiritueux dont se servaient 
 1'Angleterre, mais que nos vins n'ont pu hitter avec les vins 
 d'Espagne et de Portugal." EnqueU Legislative v. p. 39. 
 
 1 Enquete Legislative, M. BUFFET, p. 354, etc. 
 
 2 Hid, M. MAREY-MONGE, p. 357. 
 
OPINION IN FKANCE. 119 
 
 Belgium and Holland, where the duty is very trifling; it is 
 clear that some other cause has been in operation besides 
 the mere action of a tariff. 
 
 From Herault and the Bouches de Rhone, the districts 
 which produce the strong and spirituous wines, which are 
 profitably converted into alcohol, the deputation barely 
 glanced at the burthens imposed upon wine ; but urged with 
 earnestness the relaxation of the government taxes on dis- 
 tillation. Aware that the coarseness of their vintages but 
 little suited them for table use or exportation, they sought 
 the removal of every impediment to their free conversion 
 into spirit and they pressed with eagerness the renewal of 
 negotiations on the part of the government to obtain some 
 further reduction in the import duty on brandy in England. 
 
 It admits of little doubt, that in this view the wine pro- 
 prietors of Herault are correct. They have the instinct to 
 perceive, that to reduce the duty on the import of their 
 produce as wine into Great Britain, would expose them to 
 disappointment, as its reception there might be doubtful; 
 whereas, to admit it in the shape of brandy, the market 
 having already been tested and found favourable, was to 
 the proprietor certain gain; and what could not find a 
 market as vins de commerce would be certain of consumption 
 as vins de chaudiere. 1 
 
 M. DESMERAIL, who appeared on behalf of the wine 
 growers of Medoc and Bordeaux, made a passionate appeal 
 against the injustice of the French government in imposing 
 the octroi and inland taxes upon the harvest of the wine 
 districts, and exempting from local taxation the cotton 
 manufactures and iron-works of the north. These taxes, 
 by which the government of France raise an annual 
 
 1 Enqutie Legislative, M. MARES, p. 336, 
 
120 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 income of 4,000,000/., sterling, and the municipalities 
 1,200,0007. he denounced as the utter destruction of the 
 wine trade, " aneantissement de la propriete vinceole" He 
 demanded for the home market the utter abolition of 
 all internal taxation; and for the export trade of the 
 Gironde, he urged the negotiation of tariff treaties, es- 
 pecially with Kussia and with Sweden, the latter of which 
 would take claret in exchange for iron. 1 As to England 
 (whilst he made the same error as M. THIERS, in supposing 
 that duties were still levied under the Methuen treaty three- 
 fold greater upon French wines than upon those of the 
 Peninsula), he declared that the reduction of the duty, in 
 1831, had been attended with injury rather than advantage to 
 the interests of Bordeaux; as it had made the wines that ought 
 to be dear so cheap that the wealthy did not think it worth 
 their while to buy them, " cela peut etre bizarre, mais c'est 
 
 * f >9 
 
 vrai. * 
 
 The commissioners themselves, as the result of their 
 investigation upon this point, declared in their Report, that 
 Great Britain no longer favoured the produce of other 
 countries, to the prejudice of France, her wine and brandy 
 being placed on an absolute equality with those of Portugal 
 and Spain ; and that in every alteration in the British tariff, 
 the gain had been considerably on the side of France; 
 but nevertheless, the consumption of French wines had de- 
 clined even under these advantages, whilst that of brandy 
 
 1 M. Desmirail seems to have been imperfectly informed as to the 
 state of Sweden in relation to wines. The duty upon wine in 
 Sweden is but one shilling and fivepence halfpenny per gallon in 
 wood, and two shillings and elevenpence in the bottle. But this low 
 duty does not lead to any large consumption of wine ; and perhaps 
 no country in the civilized world exhibits so lamentable an instance 
 of the excessive consumption of ardent spirits. 
 
 2 Enquete Legislative, M. DESMIRAIL, p. 348 357. 
 
OPINION IN FRANCE. 121 
 
 had considerably risen. The commissioners subjoin the 
 remark, that the question, as regards England herself, is 
 purely a consideration of finance, involving the income de- 
 rived from an extensive class of articles, many of them of 
 native production, whose importance may be inferred from 
 the fact that they yield an immense revenue, equal to 410 
 millions of francs per annum. 1 
 
 These sentiments, and the opinions expressed in other 
 quarters, both official and mercantile, afford grounds for 
 believing, that in France the feelings of the government 
 and the wine-growers have undergone some modification 
 since 1835, and that the change has extended, if my infor- 
 mation be correct, to a more exalted and potential quarter. 
 
 The Baron du Cluzeau de Clerant, a French proprietor, 
 gave to the Committee of 1852 some interesting information 
 as to the personal views and wishes of the Emperor of 
 France, then Prince President, regarding the reduction of 
 the English duties on French wines. 2 I have, however, 
 been informed, that the Emperor, on the occasion of a 
 recent visit to Bordeaux, in reply to an appeal that he 
 would exert himself to procure a reduction of the duty on 
 French wine in England, expressed himself in terms not 
 dissimilar to those of M. THIERS in 1850. He replied 
 that it was a delusion to suppose, that even if the duty were 
 altogether abolished, the people of England could be in- 
 duced to drink the light wines of France. That he had 
 lived in this country and knew our taste, and was well 
 aware that it would be only deceiving themselves, were the 
 French wine-growers to suppose that the English people 
 would take largely of their produce, whatsoever favour 
 might be exhibited to English manufactures in France. I 
 
 1 Enquete Legislative, etc. Report, p. 33. 
 
 2 Committee, House of Commons, 6631. 
 
122 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 applied to the gentleman who gave me this information for 
 the name of the parties from whom he obtained it; and I 
 received from him a reply, of which the following is an 
 extract : 
 
 " I find that in the present political state of France, 
 every Frenchman connected with commerce is extremely 
 nervous as to giving information which might tend to com- 
 promise his friends in that country. The fact which I 
 mentioned to you is true in every respect. Louis Napoleon, 
 on a recent visit to Bordeaux, examined some of the larger 
 wine stores in that city. It was considered a good oppor- 
 tunity to obtain his opinion as to a Treaty of Commerce 
 with England, when he, in the most emphatic manner, 
 stated in the presence of several parties, that such a treaty 
 would not benefit the wine-growers or wine-merchants of 
 France, as, from his personal knowledge of the tastes and 
 habits of Englishmen, he knew that they would prefer their 
 own good beer to the wines of France or Germany. 
 
 " Not satisfied with this declaration, the wine-merchants 
 subsequently obtained from the Chamber of Commerce of 
 Bordeaux directions that its chairman should proceed to 
 Paris, and request an interview with the Emperor; this 
 gentleman is himself a large holder of wines; the result 
 has been that the Emperor was still more decided in his 
 opinion than he had been as President. Louis Napoleon 
 repeated the declaration he had made at Bordeaux, stating 
 that it was founded on his personal experience ; and from a 
 letter I have seen, I may state that the Bordeaux merchants 
 are satisfied that all hope of interference on his part is 
 hopeless." 
 
 It admits of no doubt, that both the people and the 
 government of France must naturally desire the reduction 
 of the duty in foreign states upon an article of so much 
 importance as wine-, nor can there be a question that con- 
 
OPINION IN FRANCE. 123 
 
 siderable impulse would be communicated to their exports 
 by sucli a measure ; but with an intuitive perception of her 
 real interest in this important question, France appears to 
 have recently altered the direction of her exertions; and 
 instead of pressing for a lower duty on wine, she has adopted 
 the sounder policy of seeking better terms for her brandy. A 
 duty upon brandy is, in reality, a concentrated duty upon the 
 wine from which brandy is distilled. In its original form as 
 wine, it may fail to find a place in the English market ; but 
 when converted into spirit, for which a universal taste has 
 been found to prevail here, the extent of its consumption 
 would be proportionate to the lowness of its cost. 
 
 Taking the whole of the vast production of wines in 
 France, there are two divisions of it which may be said to 
 be almost independent of import duties and customs tariffs, 
 the veiy finest and the very poorest. The Gironde and Marne, 
 with their peerless vintages of Claret and Champagne, can 
 year after year calculate with confidence on a uniform and 
 certain demand to the utmost limits of their growth, re- 
 gardless of the imposts that foreign states may levy on their 
 importation. In like manner, the many millions of gallons 
 whose poverty and coarseness condemns them to home con- 
 sumption by the peasantry and the lower orders, being 
 incapable of removal, are indifferent to taxation. But 
 the case is very different with the produce of vast por- 
 tions of the south and west of France; Herault, Var, and 
 the Oriental Pyrenees, Charente, Gers, and the Garonne 
 abound in wines of an intermediate class, too deficient in 
 delicacy and flavour to be admitted generally to the table, 
 and from this and other causes meeting a very limited and 
 uncertain demand for exportation. But these are the dis- 
 tricts from which England draws her chief supplies of 
 brandy; the strength and other qualities of these coarser 
 wines renders them profitable for conversion into alcohol; 
 
124 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 and vast quantities are annually distilled, or, as is technically 
 termed, " burnt for brandy? 1 
 
 In all vicissitudes of seasons, 2 and in all the fluctuations of 
 the markets, were the foreign demand for brandy increased, 
 the conversion of their wines into spirit would be a safe 
 resource for the French proprietor, if his strong wines 
 were too coarse to find purchasers, or his light wines 
 too poor to be kept with safety, there would be always a 
 remedy at hand by distilling them. In this way upwards 
 of 200,000,000 gallons of wine in ordinary years have been 
 converted into 25,000,000 gallons of alcohol and brandy, 
 of which nearly one-twelfth was consumed in the United 
 Kingdom. 3 
 
 So prevalent is the taste for French brandy in England, 
 that, even under the prohibitory duty of IL 2s. I0d. per 
 
 1 In the early works on medicine, brandy ranked in the Pharma- 
 copoeia as vinum adustum, "burnt winej" whence the German brannt- 
 wein and the modern name brandy. 
 
 2 The number of gallons of wine required to produce one gallon of 
 brandy, varies according to the vintage ; the poorer the quality of the 
 wine the larger the quantity to be distilled to produce a given amount 
 of spirit. By a recent return, the proportion during four years, 
 from 1848 ,to 1852, appears to have been one gallon of brandy 
 from 7-| of wine. In PORTUGAL "from seven to nine pipes of 
 ordinary wine generally give a pipe of brandy 20 per cent, above 
 British proof but in the year 1853 (owing to the prevalence of the 
 vine-disease) from ten to twelve pipes of ordinary wine were required 
 to give one pipe of brandy of that strength." From a paper by J. 
 J. Fo ESTER, ESQ., On the Vine Disease in the Alto Douro, in April, 1854. 
 Trans. Roy. Soc. 
 
 3 " Le progres de la distillation a, dans les provinces du Sud et du 
 Sud-ouest, soutenu la valeur des plantations malgre la depreciation 
 des vins : Et 1'importance sans cesse croissante de nos exp6ditions 
 d' alcohol, la prosperite du commerce des eaux de vie de cognac avec 
 Angleterre et l'Am6rique, ont fait aisement oublier & ceux de nos 
 departements qui s'y livrent les benefices qu'ils realisent autre fois 
 sur les vius que leur demandaient nos voisins de la Belgique et 
 d'outre-Rhin." Enquete Legislative, etc., Report, p. 31. 
 
OPINION IN FRANCE. 125 
 
 gallon, we took annually upwards of a million gallons; an 
 amount which was doubled in three years, after the re- 
 duction of the duty by Sir Robert Peel, in 1846, and 
 there can be no doubt, were it in the power of the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer to make a still further reduction, 
 a further increase of consumption would follow. France 
 has the discrimination to perceive this; and to feel that if, 
 instead of reducing the duty upon wine to one shilling a 
 gallon, England could be induced to lower the duty on 
 brandy to one-half the present tax, while the boon to" the 
 wine districts would be the same in ostensible amount, the 
 real gain would be infinitely greater both in value and in 
 permanence, The vintages of Rousillon and Provence, which 
 might be doubtful of finding purchasers in the United 
 Kingdom, even under a nominal rate of duty, would come 
 into active and uniform request, when distilled into spirit; 
 and every gallon introduced in the concentrated form of 
 brandy would represent seven or more of wine, which would 
 have been unsaleable in their original character. But prelimi- 
 nary to such a reduction, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must 
 pause to consider, to what extent such an alteration in the cus- 
 toms dues upon an article of foreign produce, would necessitate 
 a simultaneous change in the excise duties upon home distil- 
 lation. 
 
126 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF THE VINE-DISEASE IN 
 FRANCE. 
 
 AMONGST the reasons assigned by the Association formed 
 by Mr. Chisholm Anstey, " for the reduction of the duty on 
 wine," for suspending the agitation of that question for the 
 present, the most forcible is the destruction of the grapes in 
 the principal wine-producing countries of the world during 
 the recent ravages of the vine disease. This vegetable pesti- 
 lence, which, since 1852, has been pervading the vineyards of 
 Europe, has reduced the production of exportable wine in 
 Portugal to one-half; and that of France to one-fifth, and 
 constrained her, the greatest wine-producing country in the 
 the world, to become herself an importer of wine from the 
 Peninsula, and of spirits from Ihe United Kingdom. 
 
 This fearful visitation of Providence has more than a 
 merely temporary bearing upon the question under con- 
 sideration. The same disaster, which, in its present 
 aggravated shape, has paralyzed the operations of the 
 wine-growers, is liable to recurrence, in those mitigated 
 forms which, in unfavourable years, give rise to "bad vintages" 
 These do not, it is true, produce revolutions in commerce, 
 such as that which we are now witnessing ; they may not 
 
RAVAGES OP THE VINE-DISEASE. 127 
 
 so far destroy the wine harvest as to convert exporting into 
 importing countries; but, to a greater or a less extent, they 
 derange the ordinary course of trade ; they force the pro- 
 duce of one year to sustain the consumption of another, with 
 all the variation of value incident to irregular supply. The 
 public revenue, at such periods, would be subject to violent 
 fluctuations, if it were true, as it is now urged, that wine 
 is an article of which the consumption is entirely dependent 
 on its price, or if its consumers in this country were of a 
 class liable to be influenced by mere considerations of cost. 
 
 The question of supply, as contingent on ' ' good " and 
 "bad" vintages, is comparatively unimportant to us at the 
 present moment, and so long as England is dependent on 
 France for merely some half million gallons of her finest wines, 
 of which a quantity equal to many years' consumption is 
 always ripening in her cellars. But, presuming the anticipa- 
 tions to be realized of a vastly-augmented demand, consequent 
 on a greatly reduced duty ; and supposing this country to be 
 annually expecting from France 20,000,000 gallons of 
 medium wines (the class always most liable to inj ury in un- 
 favourable vintages) it may be well to glance at the possible 
 inconvenience of such a state of things, by adverting to 
 the frequency with which the economy of the wine trade 
 in that country has been disturbed, by the occurrence of 
 " bad vintages" during the last thirty years. 
 
 Mr. JOHNSTON, a member of the Chamber of Commerce 
 of Bordeaux, and head of one of the greatest wine esta- 
 blishments in the Gironde, has supplied me with data, 
 from which it appears that the vintages in France, between 
 1820 and 1854, may be classed as follows: 
 
128 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Good. 
 
 1822 
 1823 
 
 1825 
 
 1827 
 
 1828 
 
 1831 
 1834 
 1837 
 
 1841 
 
 1844 
 
 1846 
 1847 
 1848 
 
 1851 
 
 Bad. 
 1820 
 1821 
 
 1824 
 1826 
 
 1822 
 1830 
 
 1832 
 1833 
 
 1835 
 1836 
 
 1839- 
 1840 
 
 1842 
 1843 
 
 1845 
 
 1849 
 1850 
 
 1852 
 1853 
 1854 
 
 From this it will be seen, that, in thirty-five years, there 
 have been but fourteen " good" vintages in France, and, as 
 a natural consequence, these exceptional years have had to 
 make good the deficiencies of the unsuccessful ones, and to 
 supply the demand for export to all parts of the world. My 
 informant, who, being one of the largest shippers of wine 
 to the United Kingdom, has a personal interest in the reduc- 
 tion of the duty, as naturally tending to increased demand, 
 remarks upon this state of things, that " in case of reducing 
 the duty on wine in England so low as one shilling , it would 
 be necessary, in order to produce an amount of revenue 
 equal to the present, that there should be an increased con- 
 sumption equal to 36,000,000 gallons, of which France 
 would have to supply at least one-half. During thirty-three 
 
 1 The vintage of 1851 was good only in the Bordeaux district. 
 It was a failure throughout the rest of France. 
 
RAVAGES OP THE VINE-DISEASE. 129 
 
 years, this would amount to 495,000,000 gallons, which, 
 divided over the fourteen tolerable, or good vintages, would 
 represent 35,357,140 gallons for each year an amount ex- 
 ceeding the entire annual export of wine from France to all 
 quarters of the world. Such an increased export could not 
 take place without running prices up considerably, and thus 
 the possibility would be done away of introducing good 
 and agreeable wines into England at a low figure." 
 
 However undoubted may be this principle as regards the 
 general economy of the wine trade, it applies with singular 
 distinctness to the actual condition of France at the present 
 moment, after a series of disastrous vintages in every year 
 since 1848, with the exception of 1851, which was suc- 
 cessful in the Bordelais, but a failure throughout the other 
 districts of France. Then followed the ravages of the vine- 
 disease in 1852, 1853, and 1854 ; till, diminished in quantity, 
 and still more deteriorated in quality, the stocks of wine 
 have been reduced almost to exhaustion, whilst prices, 
 under such a combination of causes, have been ** raised to 
 famine pitch." During this long period of exhaustion and 
 disease, the produce of the vines throughout the extent of 
 France has been thin, coarse, and acid, wanting flavour 
 and delicacy for domestic use, and deficient in saccharine, 
 which constitutes their value for distillation. The only 
 spots which have escaped are the choicest vineyards of the 
 Gironde, and some of those of Burgundy, which, being in 
 elevated situations, above the damps and other influences 
 that have engendered ' ' oidium " and fungi amongst the 
 vines which yield the medium class of wines. 
 
 The deterioration of this latter class of wines is alluded 
 to in a letter which 1 have had from Mr. Scott, Her 
 Majesty's Consul at Bordeaux, a gentleman who is favour- 
 able to some reduction of the duty in England, as tending 
 to increase the consumption of the fine wines of Bordeaux; 
 
 K 
 
130 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 but "he is, at the same time, of opinion, that to reduce it so 
 low as one shilling, would lead to the importation of 
 trash" for the purpose of adulteration. Mr. Scott says, 
 writing in February, 1854, " Very few wines of the last 
 five vintages would find a sale in England; and it is the 
 conviction of all those conversant with the tastes and habits 
 of Englishmen, that the meagre, poor, red wines of the 
 Gironde, known as " clarets," would never find a sale there. 
 A reduction of the duty, such as is proposed, to One Shilling, 
 would not only produce an immense loss to the Revenue, 
 but, by favouring the admission of these miserable wines, 
 the mass of the consumers would be disgusted, and the re- 
 sult a decided prejudice against clarets." 
 
 Looking to the average production of wine in France, 
 and contrasting it with the diminished quantity of late 
 years, the destruction occasioned by the vine-disease appears 
 most remarkable. The return is as follows: 1 
 
 1848 ... - 51,622,152 Hectolitres 
 
 1849 - 35,555,213 
 
 1850 - - 44,717,553 
 
 1851 - 39,429,229 
 
 1852 - 28,460,601 
 
 1853 - 22,661,717 
 
 1854 - - - 10,789,869 
 
 This shows a falling off in 1854 of upwards of 400 per cent., 
 compared with the quantity of wine produced in 1848. 
 
 But the destruction is still more apparent in turning to 
 particular districts, with whose names we are familiar. In 
 Burgundy, for example, the produce of 1854 was less than 
 one-half that of 1853, and below one-sixth the vintage of 
 1848. 
 
 1 A table, shewing the production of wine in France, in each 
 district, since 1848, will be found in the Appendix, No. III. 
 
RAVAGES OF THE VINE-DISEASE. 
 
 PRODUCE OF BURGUNDY. 
 
 131 
 
 
 1848 
 
 1849 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 
 
 1852 
 
 1853 
 
 1854 
 
 C6te* d'Or 
 Youne 
 
 968,904 
 1 835 335 
 
 575,552 
 979 2H7 
 
 726,189 
 
 434,357 
 
 178,043 
 
 392,423 
 
 183,418 
 
 Saoneand Loire. 
 
 1,443,900 
 
 1,011,400 
 
 1,163,300 
 
 660,900 
 
 464,300 
 
 305,600 
 
 379,800 
 
 
 4,248,139 
 
 2,566,189 
 
 2,826,702 
 
 2,178,371 
 
 1,224,576 
 
 1,511,890 
 
 708,307 
 
 In like manner, the wines of Bordeaux and the Gironde, 
 which were nearly two millions of hectolitres in 1848, were 
 under halfa, million in 1854. 
 
 PRODUCE OF WINE IN THE GIRONDE. 
 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 1854 
 
 Hect. 
 1,990,800 
 1,423,611 
 2,296,559 
 1,798,450 
 1,263,643 
 726,589 
 300,742 
 
 An equally important district is that of the Rhone, pro- 
 ducing the strong red wines, of which it was repeatedly stated 
 before the Wine Duties committee, of 1852, that under a 
 duty of one shilling per gallon supplies could uniformly be 
 had in such abundance, as to satisfy the whole demand of 
 the United Kingdom. Taking the departments on both 
 banks of the Rhone, the results of the recent harvests are 
 as follows: 
 
 PRODUCE OF WINE ON THE RHONE. 
 
 Departments. 
 
 1848 
 
 1849 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 
 
 1852 
 
 1853 
 
 1854 
 
 
 954 858 
 
 841,458 
 
 904 910 
 
 489 681 
 
 352 282 
 
 177 662 
 
 314,387 
 
 Isere 
 
 529,000 
 
 307,753 
 
 344,553 
 
 274,306 
 
 204,775 
 
 94,380 
 
 104,468 
 
 Ardeche 
 
 294,114 
 
 256,863 
 
 223 040 
 
 148 209 
 
 126 000 
 
 69,805 
 
 62,133 
 
 
 312 973 
 
 295 017 
 
 332 938 
 
 354 000 
 
 296 000 
 
 166 300 
 
 210,000 
 
 Gard 
 Vaucluse 
 
 1,706,447 
 346,630 
 
 1,046,360 
 251,800 
 
 1,258,461 
 319,230 
 
 1,286,031 
 228,580 
 
 1,193,986 
 249,850 
 
 641,060 
 130,396 
 
 795,324 
 126,275 
 
 Bouches du Rhone 
 
 811,603 
 
 514,064 
 
 472,535 
 
 330,831 
 
 317,849 
 
 210,266 
 
 194,713 
 
 
 4,957,625 
 
 3,513,315 
 
 3,855,667 
 
 3,111,638 
 
 2,740,742 
 
 1,489,859 
 
 1,807,300 
 
 K 2 
 
132 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 The discouragement arising from these combined causes 
 of defective quality, deficient quantity, and augmented 
 price have their natural effect in diminishing the quantity 
 of wine of all kinds exported from France of late years. 
 
 EXPORTS OF WINE FROM FRANCE. 
 
 Hectolitre. Imperial Gallons. 
 
 1851 2,279,549 50,149,078 
 
 1852 2,454,145 53,991,190 
 
 1853 2,005,929 44,130,438 
 
 1854 1,309,495 28,808,912 
 
 But the bad quality of the late vintages, though sufficient 
 to check exportation, has had no corresponding effect on 
 the home consumption of the wine in France. Its poverty 
 and coarseness do not operate as a discouragement to its use 
 by the lower classes, accustomed as they are to take under 
 the name of wine, liquids barely discernible from vinegar. 
 The peasantry in the wine countries even consume a 
 beverage called piquette, made by pouring water over the 
 stalks and residue of grapes, from which the juice had pre- 
 viously been expressed. Hence, whilst none but good 
 vintages are fit for exportation to any country except Ger- 
 many, the acidity of a vintage is no check to its home con- 
 sumption, so long as the price of bad wine is kept down 
 by the abundance of better. 
 
 Notwithstanding the failure of the late vintages, there- 
 fore, the internal consumption of France underwent no 
 reduction till within a recent period, when the gradual 
 disappearance of stocks, and the failure of supply so tended 
 to elevate the price, as to place it beyond the reach of the 
 people, who resorted to beer and cider as a substitute. 
 , To illustrate the fact of the exhaustion of the stock of 
 wine in France, it may be sufficient to revert to the return 
 already given of the production of wine in France for the 
 last few years, comparing it with the ascertained annual 
 
RAVAGES OF THE VINE-DISEASE. 133 
 
 consumption. SIR JOHN Bo WRING quotes l the latter at 
 about 35,000,000 hectolitres, including the portion used 
 for conversion into brandy and vinegar; a calculation which 
 is sustained by the French authorities. This, on an aggre- 
 gate of seven years, would require 245,000,000 hectolitres. 
 To meet this, the gross produce of the same period was but 
 233,236,334 hectolitres, indicating, not a surplus of stock 
 at the close of 1854, but an excess of consumption, which 
 could only have been provided out of the reserves of 
 previous years. This resource, however, became necessarily 
 exhausted, and for the last three years France has been 
 compelled to supply the wants of her own population by 
 importing the wine of other countries, in the following 
 proportions : 
 
 IMPORT OF FOREIGN WINE FOR HOME CONSUMPTION IN FRANCE. 
 
 Years. Hectolitres. Imperial Gallons. 
 
 1852 3,477 76,494 
 
 1853 4,477 98,494 
 
 1854 121,390 2,670,580 
 
 No more striking proof of the prevailing scarcity can be 
 adduced, than the measures which have been resorted to by 
 the public departments in consequence. In the course of last 
 year, MARSHAL ST. ARNAUD, then Minister of War, in 
 France, was compelled by the increase in the cost of wine, 
 and the difficulty of finding a supply of a quality suitable 
 for the use of the troops, to reduce the allowance of wine 
 for the soldiers, and to substitute sugar and coffee, in the 
 proportion of two rations of the latter in place of one 
 of wine. 
 
 The contract for the supply of wine for the French navy 
 
 for 1854, was taken at Bordeaux, at rates varying from 
 
 420 frs. the lowest, to 460 frs. the best. Taking the average 
 
 at 450, this price is more than double that for 1853, and the 
 
 1 Sir JOHN BOWRING'S Report, p. 95. 
 
134 
 
 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION, 
 
 price for 1853 was double 1852 for the common wines, and 
 nearly treble for the better qualities. 
 
 The following return of the terms on which the contract 
 for the French Marine has been taken for each of the last 
 six years, will show the advance which has taken place in 
 these classes of wine. The vin de journaliere for ships' 
 use in port, has risen upwards of one hundred per cent, 
 since 1849, and the better quality, or vin de champagne, 
 nearly three hundred. 
 
 PRICES OF WINE BOUGHT FOR THE FRENCH NAVY. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Vin de Journaliere. 
 
 Vin de Champagne. 
 
 per Litre. 
 
 per Gallon. 
 
 per Litre. 
 
 per Gallon. 
 
 
 fr. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 1848 
 
 0-1208 
 
 55 
 
 0-1226 
 
 56 
 
 1849 
 
 0-1136 
 
 51 
 
 0-0999 
 
 45 
 
 1850 
 
 0-1394 
 
 63 
 
 0-1519 
 
 69 
 
 1851 
 
 0-1231 
 
 56 
 
 0-1285 
 
 59 
 
 1852 
 
 0-1620 
 
 74 
 
 0-2322 
 
 1 05 
 
 1853 
 
 0-2545 
 
 1 15 
 
 0-3548 
 
 1 65 
 
 Being desirous to ascertain by actual inspection the 
 quality of the wine provided at this price for the French 
 navy for 1854, I applied to the British Consul at Bordeaux, 
 to procure me a sample, and the following is the reply of 
 Mr. Scott: 
 
 " I applied this day to the Commissary of Marine for 
 permission to take samples of the wine that has lately been 
 purchased for the use of the French navy ; and trn answer 
 given me was, that these wines were of such inferior qua- 
 lity, that in their present state they would not bear the car- 
 riage to England, but that before a week had elapsed they 
 would be totally spoiled. This was corroborated by a 
 regular wine-broker. The only method of making these 
 wines fit for service, and able to last for the next six 
 
RAVAGES OF THE VINE-DISPiASE. 
 
 135 
 
 months, is to blend them together, and to add a certain 
 quantity of brandy, so as to raise the alcohol to about 10 
 per cent. The price paid for these wretched wines ranges 
 from 420 fr. to 460 fr, per tun." 
 
 Turning to the Rhone, and the south of France, from which 
 large supplies of wine are relied on for England, in the event 
 of a reduction of the import duty ; so far from these districts 
 being in a condition to meet any demand from Great Bri- 
 tain, they have been themselves forced to resort to Burgundy 
 to make good their own deficiency. M. AUDIFFRED, of 
 Dijon, one of the largest wine proprietors in France, writing 
 to me in February, 1854, says " Even the lowest and worst 
 description of wines of the recent spoiled vintage (les mau- 
 vais vins de cabarets de la dernier recolte) have risen in price 
 to 65, 70, and 75 fr., and the demand from Lyons, and the 
 Soutli of France, has swept away all these wines, till little 
 or none remains in Burgundy itself." As for the medium 
 and middle-class wines of Burgundy, M. Audiffred says, 
 " the good vins ordinaires have been excessively rare; and 
 continually rising in price, till what could have been bought 
 for 70 fr. and 75 fr. fifteen months ago is worth 120 fr. to 
 125 fr. to-day, and is scarcely to be found even at that 
 price." 
 
 Lastly, in proof of the exhausted state of France in the 
 article of wine, it will be sufficient to point to the follow- 
 ing table, which shows the increasing price of wine by retail 
 in the principal cities and towns during each of the last few 
 years : 
 
 PRICE OF WINE BY RETAIL IN THE PRINCIPAL TOWNS OF FRANCE. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Lyons. 
 
 Marseilles. 
 
 Bordeaux. 
 
 Rouen. 
 
 Nautes. 
 
 Lille. 
 
 Strasbourg 
 
 Thonlouse. 
 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 fr. c. 
 
 1848 
 
 40 
 
 37 
 
 23 
 
 28 
 
 1 20 
 
 28 
 
 1 30 
 
 69 
 
 25 
 
 1849 
 
 45 
 
 39 
 
 24 
 
 30 
 
 1 25 
 
 35 
 
 1 28 
 
 68 
 
 24 
 
 1850 
 
 50 
 
 40 1 24 
 
 31 
 
 1 28 
 
 37 
 
 1 29 
 
 72 
 
 25 
 
 1851 
 
 45 
 
 31 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 1 13 
 
 30 
 
 1 02 
 
 51 
 
 17 
 
 1852 
 
 60 42 '' 25 
 
 32 
 
 1 01 39 
 
 95 
 
 66 
 
 19 
 
 1853 
 
 70 51 
 
 37 
 
 37 i 96 40 1 OS 
 
 70 
 
 27 
 
136 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Since this table was prepared, in the beginning of 1854, 
 the prices have risen higher. In Bordeaux I understand 
 that the wine which sold in 1853 at 37 centimes, was selling 
 in 1854 at 60. 
 
 The above return represents the retail prices of wine of a 
 very low character; yet this very ordinary wine, almost 
 approaching to vinegar, is selling at present at Bordeaux, 
 in the heart of the wine district, at sixpence per quart, and 
 at seven pence in Paris. At Rouen and Lille, which are 
 remote from the wine countries, it was selling, in 1853, 
 for ninepence halfpenny and tenpence farthing . 
 
 The same calamity which has thus disorganised the wine 
 trade of France, has exerted a more disastrous influence, if 
 possible, on the manufacture of spirits. The vineyards 
 which chiefly suffered, are those which produce the strong 
 growths best adapted to be " burnt for brandy'* A portion 
 of the quantity thus reduced by the vine disease was, never- 
 theless, forced into consumption at table, to make up the 
 deficiency of the finer qualities, which have suffered, though 
 in a minor degree, from the same disaster. To replace 
 the ordinary material so abstracted from distillation, the 
 proprietors have been forced to make use of the poor wines 
 of other districts, of which a much larger quantity is re- 
 quired to produce a given portion of spirit, thus aggra- 
 vating, by distillation, the scarcity of ordinary wines for 
 the consumption of the population. Quantities of im- 
 poverished wines have also been distilled to anticipate its 
 loss by spoiling; or in order to provide a supply of alcohol 
 from one portion of the vintage in order to fortify the re- 
 mainder, and thus prevent its turning sour. Recourse 
 was also had to distillation from beet, from which large 
 quantities of spirit have been recently produced, com- 
 manding a price nearly equal to brandy. 
 
 The following return exhibits, in a very striking manner, 
 
RAVAGES OF THE VINE-DISEASE. 137 
 
 the failure of the supply of wine as material for distillation 
 into brandy and alcohol. 
 
 Quantity of 
 
 Years. Wine Quantity of Spirit produced, 
 
 distilled. 
 Hect. Hect. Hect. 
 
 1848.. 6,900,000 f Wi - ' 900,000 
 
 1849 .. 8,400,000 grand " 315000J 1 ' 100 ' 000 
 
 1850 .. 8,100,000 | IP^ W ;; - >'0 1 1,050,000 
 
 1851 . . 9,800,000 | |S y f Wine ; ; ; ; 37o'o j 1,300,000 
 
 1852 .. 9,600,000 { 1?!"^ WmC ' ' " SJJS2 1 1,250,000 
 
 1853 .. 5,000,000 
 
 IQKA A onr ^n ' K^J./XJ.XUO v*. TT mv . . .. 41Uj(JOO ( 
 
 * .. 4,^uu,uuu , _., 135,000) 
 
 Under these adverse circumstances, the export of French 
 brandy has fallen off during the last three years in the fol- 
 lowing proportions: 
 
 EXPORTS OF BRANDY FROM FRANCE. 
 
 Years. Hectolitre. Imp. Gallons. 
 
 1852 337,884 7,433,448 
 
 1853 268,127 5,898,794 
 
 1854 155,111 3,412,442 
 
 What is still more unprecedented, France, within the same 
 period, has been forced to import spirits for her own use, to 
 make up for her deficient production of brandy. 
 
 IMPORTS OF FOREIGN SPIRITS FOR HOME CONSUMPTION IN FRANCE. 
 
 Years. Hectolitre. Imp. Gallons. 
 
 1852 12,999 285,978 
 
 1855 12,741 280,302 
 1854 60,839 1,338,458 
 
 Of the quantity thus imported into France, in 1854, 
 802,019 gallons of rum, and British spirits, etc., were 
 exported from the United Kingdom, 
 
138 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Meanwhile, from this combination of causes, the increased 
 cost of the material, the augmented demand and decreasing 
 production of brandy, its price has risen to a point previously 
 unprecedented. 
 
 AVERAGE PRICE OF BRANDY IN FRANCE. 
 
 1848 50fr. per Hect. 
 
 1849 56 
 
 1850 60 
 
 1851 55 
 
 1852 131 
 
 1853 215 
 
 The contract prices for brandy for the French navy during 
 the last few years present the same result. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Price per 
 
 Per 
 Gallon. 
 
 1848 
 
 0-3631 
 
 fr. c. 
 1 65 
 
 1849 
 
 0-3301 
 
 1 50 
 
 1850 
 
 0-3844 
 
 1 75 
 
 1851 
 
 0-3-224 
 
 1 51 
 
 1852 
 
 0.5202 
 
 2 37 
 
 1853 
 
 0-9299 
 
 4 22 
 
 It is needless to point out, that this condition of the wine 
 trade of France is exceptional, and in our times unprece- 
 dented, the result of a fearful and, it is to be hoped, a 
 passing visitation. But it would be unwise to close our 
 eyes to the fact, that a long period must elapse before the 
 cultivation of the vine can effectually recover from the 
 shock of such a calamity, and occurring, as it does, at a 
 time when the same epidemic has extended its ravages to 
 all the wine countries of Europe, it will be prudent to 
 await its subsidence, before embarking in an experiment, 
 the success of which must be contingent on obtaining a 
 vast supply of pure and healthy wines, whilst nature herself 
 has interposed to render that supply unattainable. 
 
EFFECT OF A " ONE SHILLING*' DUTY AS REVENUE. 139 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE PUBLIC REVENUE. 
 
 THE expediency of reducing the wine duty is exclusively 
 a question of revenue. In whatever class it may be assessed, 
 whether as a luxury or a necessary of life, a tax on wine is 
 essentially a tax on the consumer; and no element of " pro- 
 tection " enters into the consideration either of its policy or 
 of its amount. With a due perception of this fact, those 
 who are friendly to the proposed change have addressed 
 themselves not to the multitude, who are to be gratified by 
 the boon of abundant wine, but to a solitary individual, 
 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom it is sought to 
 overpower by the prospect of adding four or five millions 
 annually to the public income. It is curious, that, up to 
 this time, no one advocate of the change has ventured to 
 propound it as a simple project for increasing the comforts 
 of the people, without regard to the public revenue. 
 
 Its probable operation in this respect is entirely a specu- 
 lative question, in which we can only be guided by the 
 observation of those who have been long accustomed to 
 study public taste in such matters, and to watch the ten- 
 dencies of consumption. Amongst the wine merchants 
 
140 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 themselves there is a very large body, whose experience 
 entitles their opinion to deference, and whose personal in- 
 terests as shippers, importers, and holders of bonded wine would 
 be served by a reduction of the duties, 1 but who are nevertheless 
 opposed to the public policy of the measure, in the belief 
 that the present duties have been adjusted to a point so 
 nicely balanced between consumption, on the one hand and 
 revenue on the other, that no Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 is likely to gain by either advance or reduction. 2 They 
 are of opinion that loss of income would ensue from a one 
 shilling duty, and that a return to something like the 
 present standard would eventually follow. 
 
 On one point, at least, there is an universal concurrence 
 of opinion : that, as a national taste for light wines has to 
 be created in the interim, a considerable interval must un- 
 
 1 Mr. GASSIOTT, at the head of one of the largest wine-houses con- 
 nected with Spain and Oporto, said to the Committee of the House 
 of Commons, " From my own experience, during former reductions 
 of duty, I may say, that there would be nothing so much to tiie 
 interest of the wine merchants and shippers who have wine of 
 Portugal, as the reduction of the duty. The former reduction was 
 the foundation of my own fortune ; and if the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer can be persuaded to reduce the duty to Is., no doubt 
 others will make fortunes also." 
 
 Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT. " On what ground do you then object 
 to the change ?" 
 
 Mr. GASSIOTT. " I do not object to the change. You asked me, 
 if the revenue would be injured. Apart from the question of reve- 
 nue, it would be advisable to make the change. 1 object to it on the 
 ground of revenue. My evidence is that the revenue would be in- 
 jured" (812, 813, 815, 817). 
 
 A similar opinion is expressed by Mr. White (1418), who advo- 
 cates a 2s. duty ; but thinks even at that rate the revenue must 
 lose (1420). 
 
 See also evidence of Mr. Trower, who advocates reduction ; but 
 with the conviction that it is inconsistent with maintaining the 
 revenue : 1787, and 1835. M. Maire, 1985. Carbonell, 2686, et seq. 
 Barnes, 6527, 6528. 
 
 8 Barnes, 306, 308. Maire, 1986. Carbonell, 2690, et seq. 
 
EFFECT OF A " ONE SHILLING" DUTY AS REVENUE. 141 
 
 avoidably elapse before the public income could regain its 
 present level. 
 
 Several witnesses favourable to a one shilling duty, when 
 pressed by the committee of 1852, hesitated to define any 
 precise number of years within which the revenue might 
 possibly regain its original amount; 1 others named one, two, 
 or three years as a probable period ; 2 and one extended that 
 term to eight or ten years, 3 and even believed that " proba- 
 bly a new generation must arise before the full effects were 
 felt," or the public had become consumers of French wines 
 even under these reduced duties. 
 
 The official gentlemen examined expressed a similar ap- 
 prehension. Mr. PORTER, of the Board of Trade, thought 
 that, at a one shilling duty, the revenue " might and would 
 suffer at first;" but that the trade of the country would ulti- 
 mately benefit. 4 And Mr. Ross, Surveyor General of 
 Customs, an officer long accustomed to watch the effects of 
 relaxations and increase of duties, gave it as his opinion 
 that, from a reduction of the duty to Is., a very material re- 
 duction of revenue would ensue; that the consumption could 
 not possibly be so increased as to recover the amount of in- 
 come proposed to be surrendered ; that it must be a work of 
 time to teach the people of this country to use the low- 
 priced wines of the continent, and that such a measure 
 would be attended by ultimate loss." 5 
 
 It must be borne in mind that very cheap wines, such as 
 " the inferior wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy, sold in 
 Paris at 6d. a bottle," are " scarcely palatable to English- 
 
 1 Forrester, 259, 274 ; Trower, 1739 ; Stephens, 5569. 
 
 2 Shaw. Selby, 1922 ; Doser, 5018 ; Redding, 5188 ; Short, 6098. 
 
 3 Prestwick, 2278, 2281, 2354. 
 Evidence, 3918, 3968. 
 
 * Evidence, 6311, 6317. 
 
142 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 men," 1 and yet these are the wines that would have to enter 
 into competition in this country with the established na- 
 tional beverage, beer. The most earnest advocates of low 
 duties do not profess that the cheapest wines could be sup- 
 plied to the consumer at less than 65. a gallon, or about 12s. 2 
 a dozen; and it is hardly to be expected that the people of 
 this country would prefer the worst wine (for such the 
 lowest priced would be) when they could have the best ale 
 for less than one-half the cost. 
 
 At the present moment, beer, as an article of import for 
 consumption, is in extraordinary demand in Australia, 
 California, and other countries, where wine quite as cheap 
 is certainly not excluded by high duties. The quantity of 
 beer imported into our Australian Colonies in 1853 was 
 6,584,328 gallons, whilst that of wines of all sorts was less 
 than 1,157,954 gallons. At Melbourne, in the same year, 
 the price of porter was 12s. 6d. a dozen, whilst claret (ad- 
 mitted at a one shilling duty) was unsaleable, though adver- 
 tised at 125. 
 
 Mr. BUSHELL, who appeared before the Wine Committee 
 of 1852, on behalf of the Wine Trade of Liverpool, gave 
 it as his opinion, in relation to light wines, that "you can- 
 not get, under any circumstances, the great mass of the 
 people of this country to drink very low wines. My expe- 
 rience of these low wines is, that their qualities are such, 
 that exhibiting them to the working man, and telling him 
 that he may have them without any duty at all, he would 
 not drink them ; he would prefer beer." 3 
 
 1 REDDING, History of Wines, p. 88. 
 
 2 In the Committee of 1 852, it was stated that at a 2s. duty, port 
 could be sold at 14s. a dozen (White, 1401) ; but another witness of 
 equal experience said, that at a Is. duty, port could be sold for 15s. 
 (Forrester, 103). Sherries are promised at the same price (Short). 
 12s., 15s., 18s. (Lancaster, 568, 570). 
 
 3 Evidence, House of Commons, 5859. 
 
EFFECT OF A " ONE SHILLING" DUTY AS REVENUE. 143 
 
 Mr. MAXWELL, a wine merchant of London, as an illus- 
 tration of his belief that the labouring classes will not 
 surrender the use of beer for wine, stated that, as a wine 
 merchant it is his custom to offer occasional labourers wine 
 to drink, but they either refuse it, or swallow it thanklessly; 
 and although, from the nature of his business, exposed to 
 pillage, " his men, if you put beer into the cellar, will take 
 the beer in preference to the wine, though they may take 
 the finest wine in the cellar." 1 
 
 In the course of the inquiry by the House of Commons, 
 the fact was mentioned that, within the last year, some spirit- 
 shops in London had begun to retail wine in gills over the 
 counter, to the lower orders and artisans, who are generally 
 supposed to use only gin and beer. Hence an inference was 
 somewhat hastily drawn, by generalising a few instances, 
 that the taste of these classes is changing; and that light 
 wines would be eagerly sought after by them, if offered at 
 a reduced duty. 
 
 The evidence of two of the proprietors of these houses 
 was taken in the Committee; and it appeared that the en- 
 tire number of such establishments did not exceed four or 
 five. The largest in the kingdom retailed about two and a 
 half or three pipes per week (including the sales in dozens 
 and half-dozens), 2 the other, one pipe in three or four 
 weeks. 3 
 
 1 Evidence, 3192. In France itself, a country overflowing with 
 light wines, the consumption of beer is rapidly increasing; upwards 
 of 90,000,000 gallons is the present consumption : large breweries 
 are multiplying in Paris and the northern towns. Good beer is 
 made not only in French Flanders, but in Alsace ; and, in the coun- 
 try around Strasburg, the peasantry drink their own wine when 
 they produce it ; but those who do not, prefer beer. The export of 
 ale and porter to France, from the United Kingdom, amounted to 
 43,368 gallons in 1854. 
 
 2 House of Commons' Committee, 6041, 6054, 6176. 3 Ibid. 6039. 
 
144 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 But these men stated that they could only sell strong and 
 good wines with considerable body and spirit, principally 
 port and sherry, bucellas and hock, which they draw all at 
 one and the same price. 1 But so far from their discovering 
 any taste in the working classes for light wines, or cheap 
 French wines, they concur in declaring that cheap claret 
 does not suit them, and would not be in demand by the 
 middle classes; 2 that it must be strong wine, else they will 
 not have it at all; 3 that Benecarlos, and Sicilian red wines, 
 they cannot sell, and that even Masdeu they hold to be 
 " detestable." 4 
 
 I am sorry to add, that subsequent experience has demon- 
 strated that no great increase in the consumption even of 
 strong wines, by the lower orders, is to be anticipated, in 
 establishments of this kind. The proprietor of one of them, 
 who made a communication to the Committee, 5 has since 
 stated, that in consequence of the first success of two or 
 three dealers who, like himself, had tried the experiment 
 of selling wine over the counter, many others attempted 
 a similar system, but the result was unsatisfactory, they 
 soon desisted from the attempt ; and, from his own expe- 
 rience, he now believes that the attempt is hopeless, to 
 induce a consumption of wine by the class accustomed to 
 spirits. 
 
 From all these considerations of the difficulty of creating 
 a new class of consumers of wine, it is to be apprehended 
 that any Chancellor of the Exchequer who will venture on 
 the experiment of reducing the duty to one shilling, must 
 be prepared to do so as a boon to the wine merchant and 
 
 1 House of Common^ Committee, 6045, 6067, 6095. 
 
 2 Ibid. 6067, 6091. 
 
 3 Ibid. 6135, 6140. 
 
 4 Ibid. 6231, 6239. 
 Ibid. 6180. 
 
EFFECT OF A " ONE SHILLING " DUTY AS REVENUE. 145 
 
 the public, with an immediate loss to the revenue ; con- 
 tented to await for a reasonable time the benefit which he 
 or his successor may possibly derive from the result. Lord 
 Ripon, in reducing the wine duties in 1825, did so as a 
 concession to the consumer, with the anticipation of a loss 
 to the revenue equal to 230,000/. per annum. But the 
 actual exceeded the estimated loss by more than double. 
 Sir ROBERT PEEL urged this result of Lord Ripon's re- 
 ductions in 1825, as a sufficient ground for abstaining 
 from any similar measure in 1842; not alone because they 
 had failed to replace the revenue surrendered, but from his 
 firm conviction that, even if the capability of doing so 
 existed, a considerable interval must elapse, before the re- 
 action could arrive. 
 
 Mr. GLADSTONE, in 1853, assigned the same reason as 
 conclusive against the experiment of a change, " the taste 
 respecting wine was not to be revolutionized in a day. The 
 present state of the taste for wine in this country he con- 
 sidered to be the result of the long prevalence of our 
 financial system, but you could not alter it essentially ex- 
 cept in the course of years." 1 
 
 The example of the increased consumption of tea, coffee, 
 and sugar, consequent on a reduction of the respective 
 duty and cost of each, has been repeatedly cited as an en- 
 couragement to hope for the same result in the instance of 
 wine. But the parallel fails not merely because these 
 articles approach very closely, if they do not come within the 
 line, which separates the luxuries from the necessaries of 
 life ; but for another and more obvious reason. The con- 
 ventions and the compulsion of society have placed a prac- 
 tical limit to the use of even the mildest fermented and in- 
 toxicating drinks. There are certain classes whom age, 
 sex, and other causes practically exclude from the use of 
 
 1 Speech of the Eight Hon. W. GLADSTONE, April 18th, 18 53. 
 
 L 
 
146 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 spirits and wine ; and even those who resort to them are 
 restricted by custom and the obligation of temperance to a 
 limited quantity. But the use of non-intoxicating stimu- 
 lants, such as coffee and tea, has no limit but those of 
 ability to buy and appetite to consume; they are the enjoy- 
 ment of all ranks, from the richest to the humblest, of 
 both sexes and all ages, fiom infancy to decrepitude. Hence 
 as the cost of tea declined, its consumption was stimulated 
 and spread amongst all classes, and the same result followed 
 the double operation of lowering the duty upon coffee and 
 multiplying the supply by extending the cultivation in 
 Ceylon and elsewhere. 
 
 It must also be borne in mind, that coffee and tea have 
 no cheaper substitutes to contend with, whilst both present 
 in some sort a rivalry to fermented drinks ; and it has been 
 observed and commented on before, that as the use of coffee 
 and tea extended, the use of spirits and beer has declined, 
 though not in a corresponding ratio. 
 
 Besides, reduction of duty on similar articles, have not 
 uniformly been followed by increase of consumption. When 
 the tax on malt was reduced in 1823, and the excise upon 
 beer repealed in 1830, the effect failed to realise the ex- 
 pectation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the con- 
 sumption has not since increased proportionately to the 
 increase of population. It would appear that the people 
 already made use of malt liquor to an extent limited by 
 discretion, and that the mere temptation of a lower price 
 influenced but very slightly further indulgence of appetite. 
 
 Duty on Malt. Consumption per Head. 
 s. d. Bushels. 
 
 1822 3 7| 1-36 
 
 1823 2 7 1-29 
 
 1824 1-48 
 
 1825 1-64 
 1830 1-37 
 1835 1-70 
 
EFFECT OF A " ONE SHILLING " DUTY AS REVENUE. 147 
 
 Duty on Malt. Consumption per head. 
 
 1840 2 7 and 5 per cent. 1-60 
 1845 1-30 
 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 
 1-50 
 1-48 
 1-49 
 1-51 
 
 1854 4 1-32 
 
 Brandy, on the other hand, presents a striking illustration 
 of the success of relaxation in stimulating consumption. 
 But in this instance, by a judicious reduction of the duty, 
 the public were admitted to participate more freely of an 
 article for which they entertained a decided preference, but 
 from the use of which they had long been excluded by an 
 almost prohibiting tax. The taste for brandy has prevailed 
 in the United Kingdom for centuries, and even the tax of 
 \l. 2s. IQd. a gallon did not prevent an annual importation 
 of upwards of a million gallons ; * so that when Sir ROBERT 
 PEEL, in 1846, reduced the duty to 155., the effect was 
 immediate, and the consumption nearly doubled in a few 
 years, notwithstanding a considerable rise in its price. 
 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 
 
 1845 
 
 1,073,778 
 
 1,225,869 
 
 1846 
 
 1,554,348 
 
 1,195,439 
 
 1847 
 
 1,566,038 
 
 1,174,365 
 
 1848 
 
 1,632,743 
 
 1,224,552 
 
 1849 
 
 2,214,275 
 
 1,659,659 
 
 1850 
 
 1,860,809 
 
 1,395,110 
 
 1851 
 
 1,903,203 
 
 1,428,970 
 
 1852 
 
 1,924,395 
 
 1,442,683 
 
 1853 
 
 1,869,343 
 
 1,402,088 
 
 1854 
 
 1,861,965 
 
 1,396,175 
 
 1 Tobacco is perhaps the most remarkable illustration of an arti- 
 cle defying all the discouragements of taxation, by the sheer force 
 of the public taste in its favour. The consumption of wine is 
 alleged to have declined under the influence of a duty equal to 300 
 per cent, on its value. But the duty on tobacco has been equal to 
 1200 per cent, on its cost, and yet the consumption has risen from 
 1 6,904,752 Ibs. in 1801, to 28,062,9 78 Ibs. in 1851. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 Mr. M'CuLLOCH, in the last edition of his Commercial 
 Dictionary, has recorded his opinion against the policy of a 
 one shilling duty on wine. Such a reduction, he says ' ' would 
 not have any considerable influence in reducing the price of 
 the finer description, and it is very questionable whether the 
 inferior and low priced wines that are now excluded would, 
 though there were no duty, be very generally introduced into 
 this country. The better opinion seems to be, that beer 
 would continue as at present to be preferred by the bulk of 
 the population; and if so, the measure would have little 
 more effect than to occasion a loss of revenue" l 
 
 1 M'CuLLOCH's Commer. Diet., edit. 1854, art. Wine, p. 141 6. 
 
ADVANTAGES OF A " ONE SHILLING" DUTY. 149 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE PRESENT PRICE OF WINE WILL BE RAISED, UNDER 
 A ONE SHILLING DUTY. 
 
 ONE important consideration was adverted to in the Wine 
 Committee of the House of Commons, in 1852, namely, the 
 effect which a greatly increased demand, consequently on a 
 greatly diminished duty, would have on raising the first 
 cost of wine at the place of growth. Within the last fifty 
 years, the ordinary increase of population in Europe and 
 North America, the peopling of Australia and California, 
 and the extension of European tastes in Algeria and South 
 America, have produced a vastly augmented demand for 
 wine, and this acting on a supply which nature has limited 
 to an area almost insusceptible of extension, has tended 
 gradually, but sensibly, to increase the cost of the better 
 descriptions of wine universally. Since 1793, the price 
 of a pipe of port wine has nearly doubled in England: 
 it has risen from 521. to 93/.,the difference, after deducting 
 the duty and charges incident to each period, being 
 261. 13s. 9d. 
 
 From the year 1787, when Mr. PITT reduced the duties, 
 to the year 1795, when he increased them, the duty on 
 
150 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 wine was 3*. per gallon; and the price to the consumer, 
 about 20s. to 26s. per dozen for port wine of first quality, 
 and others in proportion. The first cost of the wine is 
 now so much increased, that if the duty were reduced to 
 Is., wine of the same age and quality could not be sold at 
 the same price as in the time of Mr. PITT. 
 
 Judging, therefore, from the effect even of a naturally and 
 gradually increasing demand ; an extraordinary and unpre- 
 cedented one such as it is now suggested to create, would 
 have the effect of adding so largely to the first cost of the 
 wine, as to give an augmented profit to the foreign grower, 
 equal at least to the reduction of the duty: so that on 
 wines of this description the consumer would reap little or 
 no advantage from the change. 1 
 
 The purchases of Spanish red wine made for the British 
 navy between the years 1805 and 1813, averaging about 
 600,000 gallons, and never but in one year amounting to 
 1,000,000, had the effect of raising the price in Catalonia 
 150 per cent. 2 A more recent example has lately occurred 
 
 1 See the Evidence of Mr. BARNES and Mr. CARBONELL, House of 
 Commons' Committee, 6400, 2733. Mr. Hart, an extensive importer, 
 said, on the same occasion, that he thought " if you reduce the duty 
 on wine, and on the low wines of France and Sicily, the benefit 
 would go entirely to the French and Sicilians. We have proof 
 before us that they would advance the price of wine in the ratio 
 that we reduce the duty. When the Government reduced the duties 
 on brandy from 225. lOd. to 15s. a gallon, the French immediately 
 raised their price in precisely the same ratio" (Evidence, 2923, 2940). 
 And Mr. Harrison, of the house of Alanson and Braudreth, of 
 Liverpool, said, " The result of his experience of many years is, that 
 the value of fine wines is considerably increasing now, and, there- 
 fore, if you take off the duty, the growers will immediately raise 
 their prices, because they know the English consumer does not 
 object to pay it" (Evidence, 5941, 5954). 
 
 2 See the Evidence of Mr. PORTER, House of Commons' Committee, 
 3770. 
 
ADVANTAGES OF A " ONE SHILLING " DUTY. 151 
 
 in Portugal. In September, 1852, the Portuguese govern- 
 ment reduced the export charges on port wine at Oporto 
 12 millreis, or 21. 14s. per pipe. About the same time a 
 sudden demand arose for Australia, and about 2000 or 
 3000 pipes were exported to that colony. This has had such 
 an effect, that the first cost of port wine rose from 20 to 30 
 millreis (4/. 10s. to 6/. 15s.) per pipe, not only absorbing 
 the amount of the duty reduced, but actually increasing the 
 cost to double the reduction. 
 
 But it is not the finer wines alone, of which the produc- 
 tion is limited, that are liable to be thus affected in price 
 by increased demand. Recent events have demonstrated 
 that the medium and ordinary descriptions, whose growth 
 is much more extensive, are all subject to the same influ- 
 ences. The red wine of Roussillon, which under the name 
 of Masdeu has been sought to be introduced in England as a 
 substitute for ordinary port, has risen in value since the appear- 
 ance of the vine disease at Oporto ; and its price, which was 
 about 12/. a pipe, prior to 1852, rose to 18/. in 1854, and is 
 now 221. 
 
 Benecarlos, a red wine of somewhat similar character, from 
 Valentia, used for blending with Port, has received a similar 
 impulse, from the recent demand for Spanish wines in 
 France. Its price, which was 61. a pipe, in 1851, is now 
 10/., the rise being attributable to the demand in England 
 consequent on the destruction of Port Wine by the vine- 
 disease; and to the fact, that Benecarlos forms a portion of 
 2,600,000 gallons of wine imported into France in 1854. 
 From this circumstance an inference may be fairly drawn 
 of the influence likely to be produced on the price of 
 all Peninsular wines, were the annual consumption of 
 Great Britain to be suddenly raised from six million gallons 
 to thirty-six. 
 
 Sicilian Marsala has participated in the general rise: with- 
 
152 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 in the last two years its export has been nearly doubled, 
 and its price has advanced from 101. to 14/. a pipe. 
 
 Leaving aside for the moment the finer descriptions of 
 Port and Sherry, which can always command something of 
 a fancy price, and looking only to the lowest qualities im- 
 ported into the United Kingdom, being those in the con- 
 sumption of which a vast increase is looked for, I find by 
 the trade circular of the leading houses in London, that the 
 shipping price of the cheapest Sherry has risen 50 per cent, 
 since 1850, and that of Port has been doubled within the same 
 period, especially since the appearance of the vine disease in 
 France, in 1822. 
 
 LOWEST SHIPPING PRICE OP PORT AND SHERRY SINCE 1850. 
 
 Port. Sherry. 
 
 18 15 
 
 26 17 
 
 22 17 
 
 22 20 
 
 32 20 
 
 36 22 
 
 From instances such as these, it is clear, that any great 
 augmentation of the demand even for the lowest class of 
 wines the supply of which is assumed to be unlimited is 
 pretty certain to be followed by a considerable enhancement 
 of their cost at the places of their growth and shipment. 
 
 Again, look to the prospect from France, apart from the 
 great calamity which for the moment has paralysed the in- 
 dustry of the wine districts. Within the last twenty-four 
 years the home consumption of wine in France has nearly 
 doubled; that of brandy has increased 70 per cent., and the 
 value of both, exported, has risen from 44,000,000 fr. to 
 85,000,000 fr. between 1831 and 1848. The produce of 
 Algeria alone, an entirely new destination, now absorbs 
 
ADVANTAGES OF A " ONE SHILLING" DUTY. 153 
 
 annually 8,800,000 gallons of French wines; and the South 
 American States are year by year increasing their demands. 
 Since the peace of 1815, Kussia has become one of the 
 principal consumers of the finest wines of France, cham- 
 pagne and claret; and so ardent is her taste for these, that 
 the Commissioners of the National Assembly, in 1849, 
 have expressed a doubt, whether any reduction of the duty 
 on their entry would produce any sensible increase in their 
 consumption in Russia. 1 
 
 The wines thus eagerly sought after, happen to be those for 
 which the taste is predominant in England. Not only are 
 they increasing in request in the countries to which France 
 is accustomed to export them ; but in Paris, and amongst 
 the higher classes of society in France, the wines of Bor- 
 deaux have of late years superseded those of Burgundy. 
 It has recently become the habit amongst the medical 
 profession in Paris to decry Burgundy as being injurious to 
 the brain and to digestion, and to extol claret, " comme 
 un vin froid, mais tonique et le plus hygienique de tons." 2 
 Bordeaux, in consequence, has become the fashion; and at 
 the present moment it forms at least two-thirds of the 
 consumption of Paris. 
 
 If then, simultaneously with this rapidly increasing use 
 of those French wines abroad, it were possible, by a course 
 such as now contemplated, to create a vastly augmented 
 demand in the United Kingdom, it follows as a matter of 
 course, that the price at the place of growth must be sen- 
 sibly affected. It is not consistent with the course of trade, 
 that the consumption could be suddenly expanded from six 
 million gallons to thirty-six millions, without occasioning a 
 rise in its cost in every country from which we draw our 
 
 1 Enqu&te Legislative, Rapport, p. 38. 
 * Ibid., p. 6, 13. 
 
154 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 supplies. It may be a question what proportion this addi- 
 tion to the first cost of the wine might bear to the amount 
 deducted from the tax; but there is little room to doubt, 
 that whatever loss might be entailed on the revenues of this 
 country by a one shilling duty; the change would be a 
 lucrative one for the vine-growers of the Peninsula, and 
 Sicily ; and, in a less degree, for those of France. 
 
WILL WINE SUPERSEDE BEER AND SPIRIT? 155 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IF THE USE OF WINE IS TO SUPERSEDE THAT OF BEER 
 
 AND SPIRITS, WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE 
 
 MALT DUTY AND EXCISE? 
 
 IT is in the contemplation of the advocates for reducing the 
 duty to Is., that the demand is thereby to be increased 
 from 6,000,000 gallons per annum to 60,000,000 gallons. 
 Even to recover the present amount of revenue, it will be 
 indispensable to add 30,000,000 gallons to the present con- 
 sumption of wine. 
 
 Is this largely increased consumption to arise in addition 
 to the quantities of beer, spirits, and cider at present in use 
 in the United Kingdom ; or is it to supersede, in the same 
 proportion, the present consumption of these articles? 
 
 If the former; if all this wine is to be drunk by the lower 
 orders' over and above their present allowance of beer, 
 whisky, and gin, it is to be feared that demoralisation will 
 keep pace with the equally augmented use of intoxicating 
 stimulants. 
 
 If, on the other hand, this newly excited demand for 
 wine is to supersede the demand for beer and spirits, and 
 the use of the latter is to fall as the taste for the other rises, 
 the consequences of such an alteration of national habits 
 
156 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 must prove seriously detrimental to the interests of the 
 public revenue. 
 
 At present, the whole series of intoxicating liquors (cider 
 excepted) form a class, every member of which contributes 
 largely to the public revenue, and the duties appear to have 
 been so nicely adjusted as to afford to each a fair field for 
 competition with all its rivals, without jealousy on any side. 
 The burthen is no doubt heavy, and the bearers unequal, but 
 the adaptation has been so successful that no one is galled; 
 those who pay the tax npon wine do not complain of the 
 duty on beer; and the manufacturer of British spirits, ex- 
 presses no discontent with the terms imposed on rum and 
 brandy. 
 
 On due reflection, it will be found, that if we disturb this 
 well-balanced arrangement by shifting the weight from 
 any one of its supporters the change cannot stop there it 
 must involve the re-adjustment of the entire system of tax- 
 ation on fermented and spirituous liquors. 
 
 In the first place, the reduction of the duty on wine in 
 the United Kingdom, must be followed by a corresponding 
 reduction upon brandy. The same policy of extending our 
 trade with the wine countries, which recommends the 
 alteration as regards wine, will make it equally expedient 
 to extend the measure to wine converted into spirits, and 
 the reasons have been already particularised, which render 
 the latter a greater boon than the first. But there is a 
 further consideration, affecting the safety of our own re- 
 venue, which will oblige us to lower the duty on brandy, 
 in order to remove the temptation, which would be other- 
 wise irresistible, to introduce highly alcoholised wine under 
 the one shilling duty, for the purpose of afterwards separating 
 the spirit by rectification, and thus evading the duty of 
 15s a gallon. 
 
 All wine, as is well known, contains a proportion of 
 
WILL WINE SUPERSEDE BEER AND SPIRIT? 157 
 
 spirit either inherent or introduced by the shipper to 
 fortify it for the voyage. The proportion of alcohol is in 
 
 Port wine - - 22 per cent. Colares - - 19 per cent. 
 
 Sauterne - - 14 Madeira 22 to 24 
 
 White Hermitage 17 ,, Marsala 25 
 
 Masdeu - - - 19 Etna Port 30 
 
 Malaga - - - 18 Cape 22 
 
 TenerifFe - - 19 ,, 
 
 The average in sixty-six varieties of wine submitted to 
 analysis, was seventeen per cent, of spirit; and to enable the 
 light wines of France to bear the voyage to this country, 
 a still larger infusion of brandy would be indispensable, in 
 addition to their native proportion. 
 
 It admits of no doubt, that low wines could be imported 
 so highly loaded with alcohol, as to render it a safe specula- 
 tion to sacrifice the wine for the sake of the brandy con- 
 tained in it. Such an operation could not be profitable 
 under the present duty of 5s. 96?., but it may be very 
 different under a duty of one shilling. It is true the scheme 
 might be defeated by an analysis of every package and 
 bottle of wine introduced, with a view to testing its pro- 
 portion of spirit; but the operation would be liable to 
 many of the objections that now apply to the examination 
 of wines, for an assessment ad valorem. The only satisfac- 
 tory security would be to remove the temptation to fraud, 
 by diminishing the duty on brandy. 
 
 If, then, the duty on brandy be reduced simultaneously 
 with that on wine, it would be impossible, consistently with 
 justice, to retain the excise duty on British spirits, and on 
 Scotch and Irish whiskey. "The public will not consent to 
 have that greatly cheapened, which is drunk by the higher 
 
158 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 and middle classes, and to retain un diminished the duty on 
 that which is consumed by the masses of the people." l 
 
 It may be urged, that the consumption of brandy conse- 
 quent on the reduction of duty in 1846, took place without 
 any simultaneous diminution of the consumption of British 
 spirits. But the reduction on brandy was from 22s. lOd. pei 
 gallon to 155., leaving so wide an interval between it and 
 British spirits at 7s. lOd. English, 3s. Sd. Scotch, and 2s. 8d. 
 Irish, respectively, as to confine the use of brandy to limits 
 within which it does not come into competition with gin or 
 whiskey, the consumption of which belongs to lower classes 
 of society. But a further reduction from 15s. a gallon to 
 any rate very nearly approaching the scale of the tax on 
 British spirits, would be productive of a different result. 
 
 Some of the witnesses before the Committee of 1852, had 
 doubts whether an enlarged consumption of wine might not 
 be excited, without greatly interfering with the consump- 
 tion of beer; but nearly all were unanimous in their belief, 
 and extolled it as one of the leading recommendations of 
 reduced duties, that it would substitute the use of wine for that 
 of spirits. In that honest conviction, the tax on British 
 spirits ought in fairness to be submitted to a similar re- 
 adjustment; and if home-made spirits undergo a change, 
 rum, the produce of our own colonies, cannot be left under 
 the present rate of taxation. 
 
 But the alterations cannot halt even here; an intelligent 
 witness before the Committee of 1852, urged, with every 
 show of reason, that " if you reduce the duty on wine to 
 Is., you must of necessity get rid of the malt tax. I take it 
 for granted, you could not maintain a tax upon that which 
 you produce at home, and reduce to a nominal sum the tax 
 
 1 Evidence of Mr. BUSHELL, of Liverpool, House of Commons 
 Committee, 5854. 
 
WILL WINE SUPERSEDE BEER AND SPIRIT? 159 
 
 on that which is produced abroad; therefore I assume the 
 malt tax must of necessity be abolished." 1 
 
 The argument of this gentleman becomes irresistible, if, 
 in addition to reducing the duty upon wine, the measure is 
 to be extended till it includes the taxes upon foreign and 
 colonial spirits, and British gin and Scotch and Irish 
 whiskey. In short, the whole system by which we raise 
 a revenue from distilled and fermented liquors, must ne- 
 cessarily be subjected to re-construction in the event of 
 such an alteration in the wine duties as would disturb the 
 present balance of taxation, whose incidence may be re- 
 garded as falling pretty equably upon each. 
 
 One is scarcely prepared for the magnitude of the amount 
 involved in a measure so comprehensive. Attention is 
 exclusively fixed upon the " wine duties," under the im- 
 pression that they can be separately dealt with; but the 
 speculator is induced to pause, when he discovers that wine 
 forms but one item, and by no means the most important 
 one, in a class of articles which produce nearly one half the 
 imperial revenue of England. It is a startling fact, that 
 from spirituous and fermented drinks alone, the treasury of 
 the United Kingdom receives upwards of 19,000,0007. a 
 year. The receipts were as follows in 1854: 
 
 Wine - - 1,795,013 
 
 Foreign Spirits - 1,415,468 
 
 Colonial Spirits - 1,276,324 
 
 British Spirits 7,660,778 
 
 Malt Duty - 6,093,038 
 
 Hops - 86,422 
 
 Licenses - - - 1,038,396 
 
 19,315,439 
 
 1 Evidence of Mr. BUSHELL, of Liverpool, House of Commons' 
 Committee, 5854. 
 
160 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 In this table, I have included the proceeds of licenses to 
 manufacture and sell wine, spirits, and beer in the United 
 Kingdom, a fundamental change, which is represented as 
 necessary, in order to give the new experiment a fair chance 
 of success. It is urged, that in order to facilitate the sale 
 and distribution of wine, with a consumption augmented to 
 36,000,000 gallons, it will be essential to increase the 
 number of retailers; in fact, to take the granting of licenses 
 from under the jurisdiction of the magistracy and transfer 
 it to the Excise, who should be authorised to issue a license 
 for the sale of wine as for the sale of tobacco, to any appli- 
 cant on the payment of a small annual fee. It is declared, 
 that this course is indispensable to the new state of things, 
 and that without it the expectation of a greatly increased 
 consumption of wine would fail, and all alterations of the 
 duty prove unavailing 3 ; and looking to the object in con- 
 templation, there is nothing inconsistent or unreasonable in 
 the suggestion. 
 
 I find that Mr. M'Culloch in the last edition of his Com- 
 mercial Dictionary, has borne testimony to the justice of 
 the view here taken, as to the claims of all the taxes on 
 spirituous liquors to re-adjustment in the event of a relaxa- 
 tion on the duty on wine. " If the wine duties," he says, 
 " are to be lowered to Is. a gallon, and the consumption to 
 increase to the extent that has been anticipated, there would 
 certainly be a serious decline in the consumption of malt 
 and spirits, and consequently in the revenue derived from 
 them. To do justice to all parties, to the growers of barley 
 and the distillers, as well as the importers of wine, it would 
 be necessary to make a corresponding reduction in the du- 
 ties on malt and spirits. Unless this were done, a reduc- 
 
 3 House 'of Commons' Committee. Evidence of Mr. PORTER, 387 ; 
 Mr. TUKE, 963, 1059 ; Mr. TROWER, 1851. 
 
WILL WINE SUPERSEDE BEER AND SPIRITS? 161 
 
 tion of the wine duties to Is. a gallon would be really equi- 
 valent to a bounty, or premium, on the consumption of 
 wine. But there should be no favouritism in taxation, and 
 however desirable, the substitution of one sort of stimulus 
 for another is not to be effected by encroaching on the 
 equality of taxation, which should be a fundamental prin- 
 ciple in every sound system of finance." 
 
 Another consideration, which will no doubt weigh with 
 any Chancellor of the Exchequer who may contemplate so 
 great a reduction of the duty on wines, will be the equit- 
 able obligation of making to the holders of duty-paid 
 wines at the moment of the change, a refund of the differ- 
 ence upon all stocks in hand. 
 
 As any additional duty imposed has hitherto been col- 
 lected upon the stock in the dealer's cellars, in all fairness, 
 as well in conformity with practice and precedent, there is 
 a corresponding obligation to grant a drawback in the event 
 of reductions. 
 
 When the duties were increased, the additional rate was 
 charged upon the dealer's stock in 1795, 1796, 1803, 1804, 
 1813, and 1831; and, on the other hand, when reductions 
 were made, a refund took place to the holders of wine in 
 1787, 1814, 1815, 1825, and 1831. 
 
 The probable amount of such a drawback in the event of 
 a reduction of the duty from 5s. 9d. to Is. has been va- 
 riously estimated at from 1,500,0007. to 4,600,0007.* The 
 latter estimate is too high ; the first is conjectural ; but 
 assuming that the retail wine trade hold a stock of duty- 
 paid wine equal to one year's consumption, it cannot be a 
 wide estimate to suppose that the drawback might amount 
 to 1,000,0007. 
 
 1 M'CuLLOcn's Commer. Diet., Art. WINE. 
 31 
 
162 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ADULTERATION OF WINE. 
 
 IT has been urged that the high duty on wine has a ten- 
 dency, by increasing its price, to hold out inducements to 
 its adulteration. But I apprehend that the temptation lies 
 not so much in the duty (which is equal upon all wine) as 
 in the varying values of the wines themselves, and the inequali- 
 ties of the first cost, which invite a dishonest dealer to use a 
 cheap wine for the purpose of augmenting the quantity of 
 one which sells for five times its price. This facility would 
 exist alike under a Is. as under a 55. duty, so long as Sicilian 
 red wine and Benecarlos could be bought for 4Z. a pipe, while 
 port costs from 30/. to 50/. 
 
 The article in which the largest amount of deception is 
 practised in this market is believed to be Champagne. But 
 the fraud consists not in adulterations in this country, but 
 in imitations shipped from Bremen, and other places, where 
 light French wines, such as Sauterne, are submitted to a 
 certain process to communicate flavour; and after forcing 
 in carbonic acid gas, they are corked for exportation. This 
 is an imposition entirely unconnected with high or low du- 
 ties ; but originating in the temptation to substitute an 
 article whose first cost is a few pence, for one worth 4s. or 
 
ADULTERATION OF WINE. 163 
 
 5s. ; and wine so compounded is made up for every Eu- 
 ropean market, as well as that of Great Britain. 
 
 The adulterations chiefly complained of are not those 
 which are practised in the place of growth in order to fit 
 the article to the taste of this market, (such as mingling 
 claret with hermitage, and port and sherry with other 
 wholesome wines of their own vicinity to adapt them to 
 the English palate 1 ) but the mixing of cape and other base 
 wines with sherry; and the adulteration of sound port with 
 low-priced substitutes. But it is observable, that in the 
 course of the inquiry before the Committee of 1852, little 
 or no evidence in support of these allegations was re- 
 corded. 2 
 
 1 FORRESTER, 86, 86, 126, et seq. 
 
 2 Two very disgraceful instances were adduced, one in which a 
 wine dealer at Birmingham was brought before the magistrates of 
 that town for offering as port wine a liquid compounded of Cider, 
 Pontac, and British Brandy ; but it was admitted that this mixture 
 had not been prepared with any view of actual sale, but with a 
 fraudulent design to raise a loan upon its deposit, under the repre- 
 sentation that it was genuine wine. This transaction, therefore, 
 was a swindle upon a money-lender, rather than a deception on the 
 drinkers of port. 
 
 The other case was that of a party who, in 1850, was implicated 
 in mixing certain proportions of low- class red wines, intending to 
 ship them to the Channel Islands, and bring them back under the 
 false description of "port." The wine was seized (the owner be- 
 came insolvent in the meantime), and his creditors were compelled 
 by the Customs to re-export the fictitious article to Guernsey. 
 Scarcely a cask had been admitted to pay the duty, and the scheme 
 proved a total loss, 
 
 The intention in this instance was to obtain a Customs sanction 
 to the assertion of the shipper that the cargo was " port" wine, and 
 under that pretence to dispose of it to some unsuspecting trader ; 
 thus, as in the previous instance, perpetrating a fraud not upon the 
 public and the consumer, but on the retail dealer, an attempt which 
 was checked by the vigilance of the Customs, and its repetition 
 prevented by 'their precautions. Evidence, etc., 2615, 5234, 3765. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 " Vatting" or, as it is called, " blending," in bond, is 
 another custom of the trade, sanctioned by law, and car- 
 ried on under the immediate superintendence of the Cus- 
 tom-house authorities, which has been somewhat unfairly 
 described as adulteration. 
 
 The process is little more than an extension to this 
 country of the recognized usages of the trade abroad; 
 mixing, after importation, wines which, without the 
 slightest imputation of fraud, are blended habitually at 
 the place of export. The Act 8 and 9 Vic., cap. 91, regu- 
 lates the mode in which it is to be done, permitting exclu- 
 sively the mixing of different descriptions of one and the 
 same wine sherries with sherries, ports with ports and 
 obliterating the original brand upon the casks, so as to give 
 the public due notice that the contents have been so dealt 
 with. This process is one entirely for the convenience of 
 the trade in its dealings with the public. One of the lead- 
 ing objects is to supply large parcels of wine of one uniform 
 flavour, and, fairly availed of, under the supervision of the 
 Customs, it is by no means calculated to expose the public 
 to loss or deception. Besides, it is a practice entirely un- 
 connected with questions of duty, and is as certain to be 
 continued under a 1 s. as a 5*. rate. 
 
 It is constantly stated, that tricks are resorted to by re- 
 tailers and publicans, to impose on their customers by 
 spurious imitations and compounds of inferior wines. 1 In 
 the Committee of the House of Commons, the prevalence 
 of such practices was strongly denied by those familiar 
 with all the economy of the trade; 2 although it admits of 
 no doubt that such frauds are capable of being perpetrated 
 
 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of Mr. LANCASTER, 610, 
 614, and Mr. REDDING, 5227, \et seq. 
 
 2 Ibid. Evidence of Mr. SHORT and Mr. ROOK, 6122, 6124. 
 
ADULTERATION OF WINE. 165 
 
 in the instance of wine, as readily as in that of tea, coffee, 
 or any other article for which it is practicable to substitute 
 mixtures of less value. 
 
 But a little reflection will satisfy, that, in the case of an 
 article so delicate as wine, such frauds could only be at- 
 tempted in the very coarsest and most inferior descriptions, 
 and by dealers of very low repute. Mr. Lancaster, one of 
 the witnesses, who considers the tendency of high duty is to 
 promote adulteration, qualifies this by stating that it would 
 not exist except on a very small scale, as " wine is so 
 limited in its use, that a man will get none used at all if he 
 spoils it;" 1 and he named as the only two ingredients em- 
 ployed for the purpose, Cape wine and water. But "water" 
 as an ingredient to adulterate wine, seems unsuitable; and 
 the use of Cape for any purpose in this country, must be on 
 the decline, as its importation is less in 1854 than it was in 
 1816, and only one-third what it was in 1827. 
 
 As to frauds ascribed to publicans, of imitating port wine 
 by compounds of oak-bark, and elder, brazil-wood, and 
 turnsole, 2 it must be observed, that any one accustomed to 
 take wine could never be deceived by such a clumsy prepa- 
 ration. The imitation of sound and good wine by such a 
 process is utterly impossible; and as it could only succeed 
 if practised on the lower orders, by offering them a nau- 
 seous substitute instead of a cheap wine, its prevalence 
 would be more likely to arise in the event of light wines 
 coming into general use amongst that class of society. One 
 witness, in fact, states that adulteration would be more 
 likely to be stimulated than discouraged by a reduction of 
 duty, as he has always observed that the tendency of cheap- 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of Mr. LANCASTER, 610, 
 et seq. 
 
 2 Ibid. Evidence of Mr* BEDDING, 5227 
 
166 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 en ing a thing is to increase the desire to cheapen it more 
 and more. 1 
 
 It is obvious, too, that as adulteration, by mixing one 
 wine with a cheaper one, can only operate upon that pro- 
 portion of the price which consists of the " first cost," 
 and cannot possibly affect the remaining element, viz., the 
 " duty ;" so in proportion to the magnitude of the latter 
 item, the incitement to adulteration will be reduced. For 
 instance, were there no duty to pay whatsoever upon wine, 
 the dishonest profit of mixing one pipe of 100 gallons, 
 worth 20/., with another worth only 10/., would be equal to 
 one-third the value of the entire. But if a duty of 2()/. per 
 pipe is added, the gain by the fraud would be reduced 
 to one-seventh', and, on the other hand, were the duty to be 
 brought so low as Is. per gallon, or 51. for a pipe of 100 
 gallons, the profit of the unscrupulous dealer would rise by 
 the operation from one-seventh to a fourth, so that the 
 lower the duty the higher the premium on fraud. 
 
 1 House of Commons Committee. Evidence of Mr. BUSHELL, 5865, 
 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 167 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 RESULT OP THE INQUIRY. 
 
 THE conclusion to which the foregoing considerations lead, 
 is unfavourable to the extreme measure of reducing the 
 duty on wine from its present rate of five shillings and nine- 
 pence to one shilling a gallon. It admits of no question, that 
 so great a reduction in the cost would tend to increased con- 
 sumption, and bring wine within the reach of a class now 
 unaccustomed to its use. And putting aside all considera- 
 tions of revenue, even those opposed to reduction from a 
 conviction of its injury to the public income, are fully im- 
 pressed with the advantages which an enlarged trade in wine 
 would confer on the country, both in its external relations 
 and in its internal economy. 
 
 It would strengthen our hands in contending with Por- 
 tugal and Spain for the admission of British manufactures on 
 more equitable terms; and a more extended and intimate 
 intercourse with France through the medium of her wine 
 trade, would increase the securities for peace with that 
 country. 
 
 As regards the United Kingdom, an increased import of 
 wine would necessarily imply an increased employment of 
 shipping, and would involve in all probability an increased 
 
168 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 export of our manufactures, giving increased employment 
 at the same time to the various handicrafts dependent on 
 the preparation and distribution of wine. 
 
 Apart from financial considerations, therefore, these and 
 many other advantages can readily be foreseen as soon as the 
 state of the revenue would permit the surrender of so much 
 income. But, on the other hand, were the reduction to take 
 place, on the calculation of such an increased consumption 
 of wine as would replace if not redouble the present re- 
 venue, the preponderance of facts does not encourage us to 
 look with confidence to that result. 
 
 It is by no means clear that a sufficient supply of suitable 
 wines could be obtained to meet so vastly enlarged a de- 
 mand. It is more than doubtful whether wine of the 
 quality obtainable would suit the tastes, the palate, or the 
 health of the people of England; and it is unquestionable 
 that the cost of wine, such as we now use, would be im- 
 mensely raised in price were a sudden demand to arise, 
 to anything approaching the extent contemplated. 
 
 But even admitting all these disputed points to be settled 
 affirmatively and to the satisfaction of the advocates for 
 reduction, still, as a matter of course, such a fundamental 
 alteration in our national habits and fiscal system could not 
 be confined to the article of wine individually, but must be 
 simultaneously extended to all the members of the same 
 family to beer, to home-made spirits, to colonial rum and 
 foreign brandy articles from which we no^ raise an income 
 of 1 9,000, 0001 per annum, a sum exceeding one-third the 
 income of the United Kingdom. 
 
 Whatever the ultimate decision may be, one thing is most 
 desirable for the wine-trade of this country, that that deci- 
 sion should be early and distinctly declared. It is highly 
 prejudicial to their interests, as well as those of the revenue, 
 that after being so frequently agitated, the question should 
 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 169 
 
 be left in any uncertainty. Within the last seventy years, 
 the duties on wine have been altered no less than eighteen 
 times. Such perpetual alarms of change tend to flutter the 
 market, to unsettle prices, and to perplex the operations of 
 commerce in every stage, from the growth of the vine to 
 the retail of its produce. 
 
 In one particular, those who deal in wine are more obnoxious 
 to injury from such a source than the dealers in any other 
 article; inasmuch as a long interval must elapse between 
 production and consumption, to render wine fit for use at 
 the table. Every consumer endeavours to store a supply, 
 however small, in his private cellar; and every wine-mer- 
 chant must keep up his stocks to acquire age and mellowness; 
 Port wine and others can only ripen in bottle, and as bot- 
 tling is prohibited in bond, this operation can only take 
 place after the duty has been paid and the wine removed to 
 the merchant's premises. The apprehension of coming 
 changes, therefore, operates to the discouragement of both 
 classes, neither the seller nor the consumer being willing to 
 invest largely in an article whose value is exposed to dimi- 
 nution. Besides, on the announcement of a reduction of 
 duties, the revenue is always certain to be the first suf- 
 ferer. 
 
 A very striking illustration of this occurred in the last 
 instance, when an impending change of duties was officially 
 announced by Sir Robert Peel, in March, 1842. The ne- 
 gociation failed both with Portugal and France, and the 
 duties eventually underwent no change whatsoever; but 
 whilst the panic endured, the consumption fell from 
 6,184,960 gallons to 4,815,222 gallons, and the revenue 
 from l,720,47y/. to 1,334,469/. As Port wine was that 
 chiefly affected by the expected change, its import fell off 
 in a single year upwards of 1 ,000,000 gallons. Tt had been 
 2,387,017 in 1841, it suddenly fell to 1,288,953 in 1852; 
 
170 WINE; ITS USE AND TAXATION. 
 
 and it was not till the alarm had entirely subsided in 
 1844 1845, that the trade returned to its accustomed 
 level. 
 
 Should any Chancellor of the Exchequer come to the 
 determination to try this great experiment, and take wine 
 out of the category of articles from which, as " luxu- 
 ries" it has been hitherto customary to raise a revenue, and 
 transfer it to the class of necessaries, with an almost nominal 
 duty, it is but justice to the trade that they should be early 
 apprised of such an intention, in order that the continental 
 growers of wine may be prepared for any suddenly -increased 
 demand in this country, and that the trade at home may 
 be enabled to take the necessary precautions for its own 
 re-organization under such a revolution in its economy. 
 
 On the other hand, should it be decided, that wine ought 
 still to be regarded as the legitimate source from which a 
 revenue of nearly 2,000,0007. can be annually raised off an 
 article of exclusively foreign production, without a murmur 
 from those who pay it; and that the duty on wine could not 
 be greatly lowered without at the same time re-adjusting, in 
 a similar proportion, the taxes on all the other fermented 
 liquors and articles of the same family, which now contribute 
 so largely to the income of the United Kingdom, it 
 would be but just to those embarked in the trade, that 
 that decision should be speedily and clearly enunciated, as 
 well for restoring confidence to wine-merchants, as ensuring 
 the stability of the revenue. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Analysis of the Duty chargeable on French Wine (imported into 
 the Port of London in a British Ship) as it stood between July 
 25, 1782, and July 5, 1786 [i.e., as last altered pveviously to 
 the Consolidation Act, 27 Geo. HI, c. 13.] 
 
 Old Subsidy 
 
 Additional Duty - - - 
 
 Part of the ancient 
 
 duties of "of Ton- 
 nage and Poundage ;" 
 
 made perpetual by 
 
 Act 1 Geo. I, stat. 2, 
 
 c. 12. 
 First granted by 9 & ] 
 
 10 Wm. Ill, c. 23 ;( 
 
 continued by subse- ( 
 
 quent Acts. ) 
 
 2 & 3 Anne, c. 9 ; 
 continued by subse- 
 quent Acts, and made 
 perpetual by 1 1 Geo. 
 I, c. 9. 
 3 & 4 Anne, c. 5 ; made } 
 perpetual by 11 Geo. > Two-thirds Subsidy 
 I, c. 9. ) 
 
 Per Tun 
 
 Wine Measure. 
 
 s. d. 
 4 10 
 
 300 
 4 10 
 
 One-third Subsidy- - 1 10 
 
 --300 
 
172 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 1 Jac. II, c. 3; made ] 
 
 perpetual by 3 Geo. > Impost on Wines (1685) 
 
 I, c. 9. j 
 
 4 & 5 Wm. and Mary, j Impost of 1692-3 on 
 
 c. 5 ; made perpetual > French Wines (and other 
 
 by 3 ) goods) ------ 8 
 
 Per Tun 
 Wine Measure. 
 
 s. d. 
 800 
 
 
 
 18 Car. II, c. 5 ; con- 
 tinued by subsequent 
 Acts, and made per- 
 petual by 9 Geo. Ill, 
 c. 25. 
 
 18 Geo. II, c. 9 - - 
 
 3 Geo. Ill, c. 12 - - 
 18 Geo. Ill, c. 27 - 
 
 57 10 
 
 The Duties enumerated 
 above were all subject 
 to an abatement of 6 
 per cent, in commuta- 
 tion of previous arbi- 
 trary allowances for 
 damage (under Act 6 
 Geo. I, c. 12, 2); and 
 the first six to a further 
 abatement of 12 per 
 cent, in respect of leak- 
 age (under the 8th Rule 
 of the "Book of Rates," 
 annexed to the Act 12 
 Car. II, c. 4, and recog- 
 nised in subsequent Acts 
 of Parliament) ; which 
 abatement of 6 per cent, 
 on an aggregate of 
 571. 10s., and 12 per 
 cent, on an aggregate 
 of 241. 10s., are here 
 conjointly deducted - 6 7 9 T 6 
 
 51 2 
 
 Coinage due - per tun 10 
 
 Additional Duty on Wine 
 
 from March 25, 1745 - 8 
 
 31, 1763 - 8 
 
 April 20, 1777 -880 
 
 76 2 
 
APPENDIX. 173 
 
 Per Tun 
 
 Wine Measure. 
 
 A s. d. 
 
 19 Geo. Ill, c. 25 - Additional Impost of 5 per 
 
 cent, on all former Sub- 
 sidies, Duties, etc,, from 
 April 5, 1779 - - 3 16 T \> 
 
 20 Geo. Ill, c. 30 - Additional Duty on Wine 
 
 from May 10, 1780- - 8 8 
 
 88 
 
 22 Geo. Ill, c. 66 Additional Impost of 5 per 
 
 cent, on all former Sub- 
 sidies, etc., except the 
 previous Impost of like 
 per centage in 1779, 
 from July 25, 1 782 - - 4 
 
 Aggregate rate of Duty 
 chargeable from and 
 after July 25, 1782 - - 92 8 7-^ 
 Or 8s. 9^d. per imperial gallon. 
 
174 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
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APPENDIX. 
 
 175 
 
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176 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
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 ir^oq^i-^ I 
 
 r-i Tj< <M (N i-i 
 
 " 
 
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 55 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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APPENDIX. 
 
 177 
 
 O 50 
 
 _ .. 00 O 
 
 co. oo o o^ < 
 
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 S2^^ 
 
 W -* 
 
 gggs 
 
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178 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 .2 of 00" 06" oo~ o" 
 
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 00 
 
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 Messenger. 
 
 " The author's knowledge of Arab character and manners enables him to impart reality to 
 many of his passages ; and, as a general survey of Turkish history, is faithful in spirit and 
 animated in style."- Press. 
 
JAMES MADDENS RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Ready, the Second Edition, price Is. Qd. 
 
 The THISTLE and the CEDAE of LEBANON. 
 
 By HABEEB RISK ALLAH EFFENDI. 
 
 " One of the most delightful books on the East that we have read." Standard. 
 
 " Often as Syria and its inhabitants have been described by English travellers, strangers 
 and pilgrims in the land, we have now, for the first time, a more vivid picture drawn by the 
 graphic pencil of a native artist, and marked by the simplicity of truth. Both the Syrian and 
 the English scenes possess the charm of novelty in manner, style, and feeling." Times. 
 
 In imperial 16mo. 300 pages, price 14s. 
 
 TURKISH READING BOOK, 
 
 With GRAMMAR and VOCABULARY, and a selection of Original Tales, literally 
 translated, with copious Critical, Explanatory, and Idiomatical Notes, and 
 accompanied by Grammatical References : the Pronunciation of each 
 Word being given as now used in Constantinople. 
 
 By WILLIAM BURCKHARDT BARKER, M.R.A.S. 
 Oriental Interpreter, and Professor of the Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and 
 
 Hindustani Languages, at Eton ; 
 
 Author of " Lares and Penates ;" " Turkish Tales in English," 
 &c. &c. 
 
 " Mr. Barker tells us in his preface that ' for a person who aspires to read and write a lan- 
 guage with any degree of accuracy, something more is necessary than a superficial knowledge 
 of grammatical rules ;' and this ' something else ' his grammar helps the student to. ' Simple 
 but necessary forms and rules' are given as a ' foundation for observations of a more critical 
 nature ; and are followed by a grammatical analysis of every difficult word,' by which the rules 
 are rendered more familiar; while constant repetition fixes them upon the memory. The book 
 opens with a table showing the power and position of each letter in the alphabet. This is fol- 
 lowed by an explanation of the vowel points and signs supplementary to the alphabet, in use 
 among Arab writers. The parts of speech are then treated of with great fulness and clear- 
 ness, the table of verbs being extremely complete, and so arranged as to show the conjuga- 
 tions at one view. The chapters on ' Derivation ' and ' Syntax ' will also greatly facilitate the 
 study of the language. Then we have, further to assist the student, a literal interlinear 
 translation of the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, and of the ' Pleasing 
 Tales of Khoja Nasr-il-deen Effendi,' and a vocabulary of nearly 4,000 words. . . . 
 
 " The notes, critical, explanatory, and idiomatical, at the foot of each page, contain copious 
 references to the rules of Grammar and Syntax, so that, at every step he takes, the memory 
 of the student is refreshed, and the rules which he has learnt by heart so applied, as to fix 
 them indelibly on his memory. Great advantage will also be derived from the plan which the 
 author has adopted of representing all the Oriental characters by Roman letters. . . . We have 
 said enough to show that the Grammar before us has merits which are peculiarly its own; 
 and that it offers such facilities for acquiring the Turkish language, that there is no gentle- 
 man who may not in a few months make himself as well acquainted with it as with any lan- 
 guage of modern Europe." Hertford Mercury, August, 1854. 
 
 THE AMIRS OF SINDH. 
 
 DRY LEAVES FROM YOUNG EGYPT; 
 With 12 Plates, and a Portrait in Chromo-lithography of Mir Muhammad. 
 
 By an EX-POLITICAL. 
 Third Edition, demy Svo. price 22s. 
 
 " A very entertain ing and instructive narrative it is." Morning Chronicle. 
 
 ' The work is exceedingly well written." Morning Herald. 
 
 " His descriptions are graphic, and many of the adventures recorded of startling interest." 
 Economist. 
 
 " A pleasant, lively, and informing volume of travelling observation." Spectator. 
 
 " The volume before us is one of those rare productions ; and apart from its literary merits, 
 which are considerable, the quantity of information it contains makes the publication one of 
 great value to all who take any interest in Indian affairs. The author has a keen sense both 
 of the picturesque and the ludicrous, and there is a raciness and degage air about some of his 
 sketches which put us in mind of ' Eb'then.' " Daily News. 
 
JAMES MADDEN S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT; 
 
 Her Monuments, Hieroglyphics, History, and Archaeology, and other subjects 
 connected with Hieroglyphical Literature. 
 
 By GEORGE GLIDDON, late U.S. Consul at Cairo. 
 Nearly 20,000 copies of this work have been sold in America. 
 
 Small folio, containing as much matter as an ordinal-sized 8wo. vol. 
 with nearly 100 Woodcuts, 2s. 
 
 In one volume 8vo. price 7*. Qd. 
 
 OTIA ^IGYPTIACA. 
 
 Discourses on Egyptian Archaeology, and Hieroglyphical Discoveries. 
 By GEORGE R. GLIDDON. 
 
 This volume contains some of the latest results of Egyptian inquiry, and 
 is a most useful index to all the most recent publications on the subject : 
 English, French, German. Italian, and American. 
 
 ARIANA ANTIQUA; 
 
 A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Affghanistan. 
 
 By PROFESSOR H. H. WILSON. 
 With a Memoir of the Buildings called Topes. 
 
 There are only a few copies of this work remaining it will never be reprinted, 
 as the Plates are destroyed. 
 
 Royal ito. many Engravings and Maps, 21. 2s. 
 
 THE ANGLO-INDIAN PASSAGE, 
 
 OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD; 
 
 Or, a Card for the Overland Traveller.from Southampton to Bombay, Madras, 
 and Calcutta : with Notices of Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Aden, 
 Bombay, Point de Galle, Madras, and Calcutta. 
 
 By CAPTAIN DAVID LESTER RICHARDSON, Author of " Literary Leaves," &c. 
 In one vol. post 8vo. with numerous Illustrations and Maps, price 5s. 
 
 " There is really much useful information in this work; and its descriptive passages are 
 especially calculated to convey a correct impression of the places described." Atlas. 
 
 CRANIA JEGYPTIACA; 
 
 Or, Observations on Egyptian Ethnography, derived from Anatomy, History, 
 and the Monuments. 
 
 By SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M.D. 
 In one volume 4to. with numerous Illustrations, price 21s. 
 
 a 2 
 
JAMES MADDENS RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 CRANIA AMERICANA; 
 
 Or, a Comparative View of the Skulls of various Aboriginal Nations of 
 North and South America. 
 
 By SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M.D. 
 
 ! In one volume, folio, illustrated by Seventy-eight Plates and a Coloured Map, 
 
 price 1. 6s. 
 
 MEMOIR ON THE COUNTRIES ABOUT 
 
 THE CASPIAN AND ARAL SEAS; 
 
 Illustrative of the late Russian Expedition against Khiva. Translated from 
 
 the German. 
 By CAPTAIN MORIER, R.N. With a Map by JOHN ARROWSMITH. 
 
 In one volume 8i> o. price 7s. 6d. 
 
 "This is purely a scientific work, treated in a scientific manner, and as unlike the flashy, 
 unsatisfactory, and ephemeral tours that are abundantly published, as light is to darkness. 
 This book contains facts valuable to all ages, and is a sort of landmark by which to note that 
 silent progress of alternation which is slowly changing the face of the crust of this globe. 
 This book, though a small one, is eminently deserving of a conspicuous station in all well- 
 provided libraries ; and we recommend it also to the attention of the general reader." 
 Metropolitan, March. 
 
 In one thick volume, the Second Edition, 
 
 A Popular HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Commercial Intercourse with China and the Insular Possessions of Engiauci. 
 in the Eastern Seas. 
 
 By W. COOKE TAYLOR, LL.D. M.K.A.S. of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 In one vol crown Svo. oj 508 closely-printed pages, price 12s. 
 
 " It is precisely such a summary as was wanted by the general reader, and will be most 
 acceptaole to those who have not the leisure or the opportunity to master more elaborate 
 works on the subject. Such a volume in particular has long been wanted in our schools, 
 where little is taught of India more than may be learnt as a geographical exercise ; and yet 
 the stirring and romantic interest of the theme, leaving out of view its importance, should 
 recommend it to the teacher as likely to prove a welcome and animating addition to the 
 usual course of historical instruction. Dr. Taylor confines himself for the most part to 
 facts, avoiding a strong expression of political opinion one way or the other ; and hence his 
 work may be the more safely entrusted to the youthful reader." John Bull, November 13. 
 
 The Second Edition, in one thick volume, price 12s. 
 
 What to Observe ; or, the Traveller's Remembrancer. 
 
 By COLONEL J. R. JACKSON, Secretary to the Royal Geographical 
 Society. 
 
 In this portable volume are propounded questions on almost every subject 
 of human investigation. 
 
 " This volume may be declared to be a library in itself. It contains so much information 
 in the shape of instruction to travellers ' what to observe,' that it makes travelling for the 
 sake of acquiring knowledge almost superfluous." Literary Gazette, June 26. 
 
 " A work that should be put into the trunk of every traveller, and especially of those who 
 travel with a view to publication." Westminster Review. 
 
 " For directing an individual how to qualify himself to be an intelligent traveller, both at 
 home and broad, we know of no book equal to Colonel Jackson's ' What to Observe.'" The 
 National. 
 
 " This admirable work has just reached a second edition." The League. 
 
 " It is seldom that a book is published which can be rec mmended to every class of society ; 
 yet such is the case of this volume. It has already gone through an edition, and deserves to 
 go through many." Britannia. 
 
JAMES MADDENS EECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 The OEIENTAL ALBUM-The Valley of the Nile, 
 
 Consisting of a Series of Drawings of the Costumes of Egypt and the Red 
 Sea, with Letter-press description, beautifully Illustrated with Wood 
 Engravings, and printed on the finest paper, corresponding in size with 
 the Mounted Plates, so that the whole may be bound in one splendid 
 volume. 
 
 Thirty-one Plates, mounted on card-board, and coloured equal to the most 
 highly-finished water-colour drawing, and executed by the first artists of 
 Paris, in portfolio. Published at 151. 15,?., now reduced to 101. 10s. 
 An inspection of this work is respectfully solicited. Another 
 
 edition, at 21. 15s. and 41. 4s. 
 No expense has been spared to make this one of the most beautiful Works 
 
 which have ever issued from the press. 
 
 " Mr. Prisse is a very skilful draughtsman ; his works are not, as the illustrations of travels 
 too often are, mere diagrams, but they reproduce to the sight the forms as they appear in life. 
 The lithographic copyist has bestowed commensurate pains and skill on the prints, and has 
 very happily caught the style of his original. The air of life, the force of effect, the brilliant 
 but harmonious colouring, render the prints among the very finest works of their kind. 
 
 " A book of this kind is not only entertaining as an ornament for the drawing-room table 
 not only interesting as a specimen of book-work in the cultivation of art but is most valu- 
 able as supplying information which no writing, even by the most graphic hand, can convey. 
 Written description is vague, and is inevitably eked out by epithets, which are always equi- 
 vocal or doubtful ; the skilful artist defines objects with the lucidity of sunlight, and needs 
 no epithets. But the aspect and make of things are essential elements for a true judgment. 
 The politician, for example, will derive valuable information, in the most restricted and utili- 
 tarian sense of the word, from seeing the soldiers and the peasantry of Egypt paraded before 
 him, as they are by Mr. Prisse. The influence of such a book on the mind is analogous to that 
 of travelling ; it extends our knowledge of different modes of existence, and helps us to limit 
 our category of necessaries. To possess such a work, therefore, is a luxury which counteracts 
 the influence of luxury; though, indeed, to many it will furnish materials much more sub- 
 stantially useful than any mere luxury." Spectator. 
 
 A JOURNEY from NAPLES to JERUSALEM, 
 
 By way of Athens, Egypt, and the Peninsula of Sinai ; including a Trip to 
 
 the Valley of Fayoum, 
 Together with a Translation of M. LIN ANT DK BELLEFOND'S " MSmoire 
 
 sur le Lac Moeris." 
 
 By DAWSON BOERER, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. 8vo. ivith numerous Illustrations, and a Map of the 
 
 Valley of Fayoum, price 14s. 
 
 " It is not only a pleasant but an attractive narrative from beginning to end, with which the 
 reader never tires. In conclusion, we would say, that, with the strong lights the deep 
 shadows the bold, though sometimes highly-coloured, pictures the brief and rapid glances 
 at Oriental life and habits and customs but, above all, with the fresh and ever-buoyant spirit 
 which pervades this work, we have been much interested." Atlas, Dec. 28. 
 
 ENTERPRISE IN TROPICAL AUSTRALIA. 
 
 By GEORGE WINDSOR EARL. 
 One volume, post Svo. price 4s. with Map. 
 
 Recollections of Scenes and Institutions in Italy and 
 
 the East. 
 
 By JOSEPH BELDAM, Esq. F.R.G.S. Barrister-at-Law. 
 Two volumes, Svo. price 24s. 
 
JAMES MADDEN S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Stansbury's Arithmetical Class Tablets, 
 
 Simple Addition, Simple Subtraction, Simple Multiplication, No. 1, Simple 
 Multiplication, No. 2, Simple Division, Simple Long Division, Reduction. 
 
 By the use of these Cards, a Schoolmaster or -Teacher may keep 
 any number of boys employed at one time. 
 
 Cloth case, containing seventy-five cards, closely printed on both sides, with 
 Key, price 5s. 
 
 HAND-BOOK OF HYDKOPATHY. 
 
 For the use of Medical Men and others, 
 
 Showing how almost every Disease ought to be treated, and explaining the 
 whole rationale of the Water Cure, as practised by Vincent Priessnitz 
 and himself for the last Fifteen Years. 
 
 By DR. WEISS, of Friewaldau, near Grafenberg. 
 The Second Edition, now ready, in one volume, &vo. price 5s. 
 
 " Mr. Weiss understood and practised the water-cure with greater safety, and more unde- 
 viating success, than any other of its professors, with the exception of Priessnitz himself." 
 Vide Claridge's Hydropathy. 
 
 INITIA LATINA : a Guide to Latin for Beginners. 
 
 By the Rev. J. EDWARDS, King's College, and W. CROSS, 
 Queens' College, Cambridge. 
 
 The Third Edition, greatly improved, in one volume, \Zrno. price 3*. 
 
 " A clear, simple, and efficient introduction to the study of Latin." Atlas. 
 
 "Notwithstanding the many other ' Collectaneje Sententiae ' and 'Delectuses' used at 
 schools, we consider this the most serviceable that has as yet issued from the press." 
 Mirror. 
 
 Oral Exercises for Beginners in Latin Composition; 
 
 With a Hand- Book to ditto. 
 
 By the Author of, and intended as, a Companion to the "Initia Latina." 
 In two volumes, 12mo. price 3s. 6d. 
 
 " We do not know that, in all our experience, we ever saw lessons better calculated to effect 
 these objects, with ease both to the pupil and the master. Had we to commence our educa- 
 tion again, they are just the books we would select for our instruction." Britannia. 
 
 In one volume, post 8vo. price 6s. 
 
 FACTS AND EEFLECTIONS, 
 
 By a SUBALTERN of the INDIAN ARMY. 
 
 - 
 
JAMES MADDENS RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 In two volumes, 8vo. 'illustrated with numerous Portraits, &c. price 24s. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE SIKHS, 
 
 With a PERSONAL NARRATIVE of the WAR between the BRITISH and SIKHS. 
 
 By W. L. M'GREGOR, M.D. Surgeon H.E.I. Company's 1st European 
 Fusileers, late 1st E. Light Infantry. 
 
 The first volume contains the lives "of the Gooroos, the history of the In- 
 dependent Sirdars or Missuls, and the life of the Great Founder of the Sikh 
 Monarchy, Maharajah Runjeet Singh. The second volume is devoted to an 
 account of the War between the British and Sikhs, during the latter part of 
 1845, and the early part of 1846. The work is embellished with correct and 
 faithful likenesses of the Maharajah Runjeet Singh, and Khurruk Singh, as 
 well as of Prince Nonehal Singh, and the Rajah Goolab Singh, and Dyan 
 Singh, Soochet Singh of Jummoo, and Sirdars Juwaheer Singh and Lall 
 Singh, the late Prime Ministers of Lahore. "With a most complete Map of 
 the Jalindhur Doab, lately ceded to the British ; and a Plan of all the Battle. 
 
 In one volume, folio, with 33 Plates. Plain copies, 11. Us. Qd. ; 
 coloured, 21. 2s. 
 
 Historical Researches on the Origin and Principles of 
 the BUDDHA and JAINA RELIGIONS ; 
 
 Embracing the leading Tenets of their System, as found prevailing in various 
 countries. Illustrated with Descriptive Account of the Sculptures in 
 the Caves of Western India. 
 
 By JAMES BIRD, M.R.A.S. &c. 
 
 In one volume, post Svo. price 7s. 6d. 
 
 KOSSUTH AND MAGYAR LAND; 
 
 OR, PERSONAL ADVENTURES DURING THE WAR IN' HUNGARY. 
 
 By CHARLES PRIDHAM, Esq. B.A. F.R.S.S. late Correspondent of 
 " The Times," in Hungary. 
 
 In one volume, post Svo. price 10s. 6tZ. 
 
 TRADE AND TRAVEL IN THE FAR EAST ; 
 
 Or, Recollections of Twenty-one Years passed in Java, Singapore, Australia 
 
 and China. 
 
 By G. F. DAVIDSON. 
 
 " The production of an active, intelligent, and impartial mind, and as such deserving of a 
 thorough perusal." Chambers. 
 
JAMES MADDEN'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 HYDKOPATHY; or, the Cold- Water Cure: 
 
 As practised by VINCENT PRIESSNITZ, at Griifenberg ; showing how this extra- 
 ordinary Man, by the sole aid of Water, Air, and Exercise, cures all 
 Diseases which can be cured by any other means, and many which are 
 declared by the Faculty beyond the power of their art. 
 
 By CAPT. R. T. CLARIDGE. 
 May be had of any Bookseller in the kingdom, price 64, 
 
 " The first point which impressed and struck me was the extreme and utter innocence of 
 the water cure in skilful hands in any hand not thoroughly new to the system. I fancied 
 it must be a very violent remedy, and-that it doubtless might effect great magical cures, but 
 that if it failed it might be fatal. Now I speak not alone of my own case, but of the immense 
 number of cases I have seen patients of all ages, all species and genera of disease, all kinds 
 and conditions of constitution when I declare upon my honour, that I never witnessed one 
 dangerous symptom produced by the water cure in any of the numerous institutions I have 
 visited." SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON on the Water Cure. 
 
 A CHINESE MANUAL. 
 
 Recueil de Phrases Chinoises Compose'es de Quatre Caracterea et dont Expli- 
 cation sont ranges dans 1'ordre Alphabetique Frai^ais. 
 
 Just published, in small folio, price 12s. 
 
 In three volumes, 8vo. price 31. 7s. 
 
 BOPP'S COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR, 
 
 Translated by Professor EASTWICK and Edited by Professor H. H. WILSON. 
 
 (The Second Edition of Vol. I. is now ready, and may be had separately.) 
 
 " Bopp has created a new epoch in the science of comparative philology." Edinburgh 
 Review. 
 
 " I find your translation very clear, and a true and exact rendering of the sense of the 
 original." PROFESSOR BOPP. 
 
 " I have frequently compared your translation with the original, and I am certain there 
 are few books so carefully translated into English as this." PROFESSOR MAX MULLER. 
 
 M It is out of the question for us to attempt to do full justice to a production of such 
 magnitude, and such recondite learning we must content ourselves with simply calling the 
 attention of English scholars to the translation, as worthy of their deepest study." 
 Athenaeum, Dec, 1854. 
 
JAMES MADDEN'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 9 
 
 PROFESSOR H. H. WILSON'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE. 
 
 In one volume, &vo. price 18s. doth. 
 
 THE HITOPADESA. 
 
 THE FIRST BOOK, OR MITRA-LABHA. 
 
 The Sanscrit Text, with an Analytical Glossary, Sanscrit and English, 
 showing the Construction as well as the Signification of the Words. 
 
 By Professor F. JOHNSON, of the East-India College, Haileybury. 
 In one volume ito. price 10s. 
 
 MAKAMAT ; 
 
 Or, Conversational Anecdotes of Abou'l Kasem al Hariri of Basra. During 
 Seven Centuries acknowledged in the East as the Model of Rhythmical 
 Elegance. 
 
 Translated into English Verse and Prose, and Illustrated with Annotations. 
 
 By THEODORE PRESTON, M.A. &c. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
 One handsome volume, 8vo. 18s. ; on large paper, 24s. 
 
 ^ f3 ey. 
 
 THE 
 
 EASTERN TRAVELLER'S REMEMBRANCER; 
 
 Containing Dialogues, Familiar Phrases, &c. in the Arabic and Roman Cha- 
 racters, for the use of Travellers by the Overland Route. 
 
 By ASSAAD YACOOB KAYAT. 
 In a neat volume, l.'2mo. price 10s. boards. 
 
 ARABIC SYNTAX, 
 
 Chiefly selected from the Hidayut-oon-Nuhvi, a Treatise on Syntax in the 
 original Arabic. 
 
 By H. B. BERESFORD, B. C. S. 
 In one volume, royal 8m price 10s, Qd. cloth. 
 
10 JAMES MADDEN'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 In one volume, 12 wo. price 3s. 6d. 
 
 ARABIC DERIVATIVES IN HINDUSTANI, 
 
 Their formation and application to the above Language ; 
 
 Being an easy method of acquiring a vast number of useful Hindustani 
 
 Words. 
 
 By LIEUT. BENSON, Madras Army. 
 
 In one volume, greatly enlarged, a Second Edition, 
 
 ARABIC GRAMMAR. 
 
 A Grammar, with a selection of Dialogues and Familiar Phrases, and a short 
 Vocabulary in Modern Arabic. 
 
 By CAPTAIN FLETCHER HAYES, M.A. 
 
 In one volume, royal 12 wo. cloth, 8s. 
 
 A Pocket Dictionary of ENGLISH & HINDUSTANI, 
 
 By CAPTAIN ROBERT SHEDDEN BOBBIE. 
 
 In one volume, royal 12 wo. cloth, price Is. 6d. 
 
 A Pocket Dictionary of ENGLISH and PERSIAN. 
 
 By WILLIAM THORN HILL TUCKER, Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 In one volume, 12 wo. price 12s. 
 
 A Dictionary of ENGLISH and GUJARATI. 
 
 By E. P. ROBERTSON, Esq. C.S. 
 
 Gujarati is one of the languages necessary for a Student to pass his 
 Examination. 
 
 Now ready, in royal Svo. price 21. 2s. 
 
 About 700 pages, handsomely printed, with copioxis critical and explanatory 
 foot-notes; a new and literal English Translation, in prose and verse 
 (being the first entire English Version), of the 
 
 ANVAR-I SUHAILI. 
 
 By E. B. EASTWICK, F.R.S. F.S.A. M.R.A.S. Professor of Urdu 
 and Librarian in the East India College. 
 
 A Translation of this Persian Classic has long been a desideratum to the 
 student, and it is hoped that this Version will be found to meet the require- 
 ment, as well as that of the literary public at large. 
 
JAMES MADDEN'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 11 
 
 ANVAR-I SUHELL 
 
 A NEW EDITION OF THE PERSIAN TEXT. 
 
 Edited by Lieut.-Col. J. W. J. OUSELEY, Professor of Arabic and Persian in 
 the East India College, Herts. 4to. 
 
 " Your edition of the Anvar-i Suheli beats all that have hitherto appeared. The correct- 
 ness of the text reflects the highest credit on Colonel Ouseley's care, as the neatness of the 
 typography does to your press. It is really a luxury to read such a book." DUNCAN 
 FORBES, LL.D., Professor of the Oriental Languages at King's College, London. 
 
 ANVAR-I SUHELI. 
 
 THE FIRST BOOK. THE PERSIAN TEXT. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. H. G. KEENE, late Arabic and Persian Professor at the 
 East India College, Haileybury, Herts. 8vo. 
 
 ANVAR-I SUHELI. 
 
 THE FIRST BOOK, LITERALLY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH. 
 By the Rev. H. G. KEENE. 8vo. 
 
 AKHLAK-I MUHSINI. 
 
 To which are prefixed A FEW EASY STORIES for Beginners. 
 Edited by Lieut.-Colonel OUSELEY. 8vo. 
 
 AKHLAK-I MUHSINI. 
 
 TRANSLATED LITERALLY INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 By the Rev. H. G. KEENE, sometime Professor at the East India College. 
 
 Second Edition. 8vo. 
 
 BAGH BAHAR. 
 
 AN ENTIRELY NEW ENGLISH VERSION, WITH NOTES. 
 
 By E. B. EASTWICK, F.R.S. F.S.A. M.R.A.S. &c. 
 
 Royal Svo. 
 
 " The ' Bagh o Bahar is unquestionably a work of more value and importance than Solwan ; 
 and we are not surprised that Mr. Eastwick, who is Professor of Urdu at Haileybury, under- 
 took its translation. Urdu, some of our readers may like to know, is the Hindu word for a 
 camp ; but the Urdu language means the colloquial and ordinary tongue spoken by all classes 
 Hindus, Mussulmans, grown people and children of our Eastern possessions. Hence its 
 value to every person about to become a resident in India, and the reason why the Company 
 require all candidates for office, civil or military, to be, to a certain extent, proficient in it. 
 The 'Bagh o Bahar' is one of the works in which they are examined ; and Mr. Eastwick's 
 main reason for publishing this very literal and accurate version is, that it may be of use to 
 all learners of Urdu. In this point of view it is valuable ; and although we may not agree 
 entirely with the translator as to the positive merit and interest of the work, we are quite 
 ready to admit that the version was wanted, and that it must from its style and accuracy (as 
 far as we are able to form a judgment on the point) supersede Mr. L. F. Smith's version, to 
 the second edition of which Professor Forbes lent his name." Athenccum. 
 
._ 
 
 12 JAMES MADDEN'S KECENT PUBLICATION^. 
 
 Nearly ready, handsomely printed in imperial I6mo. 
 
 BHAGAVAD-GITA; 
 
 Or, DISCOURSES on DIVINE MATTERS of KRISHNA and ARJUNA 
 A Philosophical Poem. The SANSKRIT TEXT, with a VOCABULARY. 
 
 Also, a New Translation in Prose, of the 
 
 BHAGAVAD-GITA. 
 
 With very copious Critical, Philosophical, and Explanatory Notes ; and 
 Introductory Chapters on the Hindu System of Philosophy, a Critical 
 Examination of the Book, and an Index of Proper Names. 
 
 By J. COOKBURN THOMSON, Member of the Asiatic Society 
 of France. 
 
 In post Svo. price 7s. 6d. cloth, 
 
 Concise Grammar of the Hindustani Language, 
 
 To which are added, Selections for Reading. 
 
 By B. EASTWICK, M.R.A.S. 
 Professor of Urdu in the East India College, Haileybury. 
 
 GULISTAN. 
 
 A NEW EDITION of the PERSIAN TEXT, with a VOCABULARY. 
 By E. B. EASTWICK, F.R.S. F.S.A. M.R.A.S. &c. 8vo. 
 
 " I consider it everything to be desired. Three grand requisites for beginners you have 
 supplied 1st, a good vocabulary ; 2d, the division of the work into sentences, by means of a 
 simnle punctuation. This part particularly pleases and flatters me, for I was myself the first 
 that had the courage to introduce into this country this very rational and palpable improve- 
 ment." DUNCAN FORBES, LL.D. Professor of Oriental, Languages, at King's College, London. 
 
 Beautifully printed with Coloured Border, and head and tail-pieces, and with 
 Illuminated fac-simile Illustrations (in gold and colours), from a valuable 
 MS. copy of the Gulistdn, in the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
 Demy 8vo. elegantly bound. 
 
 GULISTAN. 
 
 Or, ROSE GARDEN of SADI OF SHIRAZ. Translated for the first 
 time into Prose and Verse. 
 
 By EDWARD B. EASTWICK, F.R.S. F.S.A. M.R.A.S. &c. 
 
 The Publisher has the high satisfaction of referring to the following expressions in a note 
 from the Hon. C. B. Phipps, Keeper of the Privy Purse to Her Majesty, dated " Windsor 
 Castle, January 3, 1853," acknowledging a copy of " The Gulistan," forwarded by the Pub- 
 lisher for presentation to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen : 
 
 " I have presented the beautiful copy of ' Gulistdn' to the Queen. H<>r Majesty has accepted 
 the book, and it was very much admired." 
 
 " The translation is careful, and executed with great skill, as might be expected from one 
 who has edited the text of the ' Gulistdn.' .... The exterior of the book is quite in Oriental 
 style. Many pictures in illuminated colour-printing faithful copies of Persian MSS. 
 vignettes, and the binding ornamented with arabesques in gold exhibit the skill and taste 
 of the Publisher." DR. MAX MULLER, Professor of Modern Languages in the University of 
 Oxford: in the " Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes." 
 
JAMES MADDEN'a RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 13 
 
 PEEM SAGAR, 
 
 A New Edition of the HINDI TEXT, with Notes and a complete Vocabulary. 
 By E. B. EASTWIOK, F.R.S. F.S.A. M.R.A.S. &c. 4to. 
 
 " En 1851, M. Edward B. Eastwick, Professeur d'Ourdoo a 1'East-India College d'Hailey- 
 bury, donna une excellente edition du Prem Sdgar, a laquelle il joignit une traduction, 
 remarquable par sa scrupuleuse fidelite et par I'elegance du style. Ce travail du Professeur 
 d'Haileybury a prouve une fois de plus, que la langue anglaise, maniee avec habilite, s'adapte 
 admirablernent aux inversions moderees et au mouvement general d'un recit poetique. Entre 
 le texte introuvable de Tchatourbhoudj-Misr et la version du Prem Sdgar traduite de maniere 
 a n'y plus revenir, se placait le manuscrit de Lalatch, moins ancien que le premier de ces deux 
 ouvrages, et superieur au second comme monument litteraire (puisque le Prem Sdgar, a etc 
 redige en prose par Cri-lallou-dji-Lal en 1804)." M.THEODORE PAVIE. Extract from the 
 Preface to a French Translation of the Tenth Chapter of the Bhdgavat Purdna. 
 
 PREM SAGAR. 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, 
 By E. B. EASTWICK, F.R.S. F.S.A. M.R.A.S. 4to. 
 
 " ' At a time," says the translator, ' when tbe Brans'? t^'on o p the Vedas ia unfolding to the 
 world the religion of the Hindus as it existed in the dim ages of antiquity, a tiansiatioa uf 
 tne " Prem Sagar " may be thought opportune, displaying, as it does, the religion of that great 
 nation at the present day.' . . . The ' Prem Sdgar ' is a Hindi version of the Braj Bhakha trans- 
 lation of the tenth chapter of the ' Bhagavat Purana.' . . . We must not omit to mention the 
 highly creditable way in which the original text is printed ; the type is very clear, and great 
 care seems to have been taken to render the work accurate, and the edition, indeed, in all 
 respects, will bear a most favourable comparison with any published." Westminster Review. 
 
 HITOPADESA. 
 
 THE SANSKRIT TEXT, WITH A GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS, 
 
 Alphabetically arranged, and an English Index of Words, serving the purpose 
 of a reversed Dictionary. 
 
 By FRANCIS JOHNSON, Professor of Sanskrit at the East India College. 
 Imperial 8vo. 
 
 " The Hitopadesa is the original of the celebrated ' Pilpay's Fables.' The great merits of 
 this work as a CLASS BOOK, long since led to its introduction into the East India College at 
 Haileybury, near Hertford." 
 
 HITOPADESA. 
 
 TRANSLATED LITERALLY INTO ENGLISH. 
 By FRANCIS JOHNSON. Imperial 8vo. 
 
14 JAMES MADDEN'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 SAKUNTALA. 
 
 OR, SAKUNTALA RECOGNISED BY THE RING; 
 
 A Sanskit Drama, by Kalida'sa ; the Devandgari Recension of the Text, now 
 for the first time edited in England, with literal English Translations of 
 all the Metrical Passages, schemes of the Metres, and copious Critical and 
 Explanatory Notes. 
 
 By MONIER WILLIAMS, M.A. 
 
 Professor of Sanskrit in the East India College ; formerly Boden Sancrit 
 Scholar in the University of Oxford. 
 
 " It was not till 1835 that he (Sir William Jones) was discovered to have used one of the 
 MSS. which the meddlesome pundits of Bengal have grievously injured by their interpolations 
 and fancied emendations. The text of the present edition, on the contrary, is based on MSS. 
 of a more ancient date, and the copyists of which were less disposed to tamper with its 
 integrity. The editor has also freely availed himself of Dr. Boehtlingk's edition of the same 
 recension. He has done everything in his power to meet the wants of the student by sup- 
 plying him with useful translations and explanatory notes, as well as by adopting excellent 
 typographical arrangements. The manner in which the work is got up does great credit both 
 to editor and publisher. If English scholars do not now attain to a more correct appreciation 
 of this great dramatist, it will be their own fault." Athenceum. 
 
 Royal 8vo. 230 pages. 
 
 PRAKRITA-PRAKASA; 
 
 Or, the PRAKRIT GRAMMAR of VARARUCHI, with the COMMENTARY 
 (Manorama') of Bhdmaha. 
 
 By EDWARD BYLES COWELL, of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. 
 
 The first complete Edition of the Original Text, with various readings from 
 a collation of six MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the Libraries 
 of the Royal Asiatic Society and the East India House. With copious Notes, 
 an English Translation, and an Index of Prdkrit Words ; to which is prefixed 
 an easy Introduction to Prdkrit Grammar. 
 
 " II etait done important de publier en entier le texte original de son ouvrage, et M. Cowell, 
 jeune et digne eleve de M. Wilson, et deja connu par son Vikramorvasl, dont nous avons parle 
 en temps opportun, a voulu rendre service aux indianistes ; et non seulement il a publie les 
 sutras de Vararuchi, d'apres six manuscrits, mais il les a accompagnes du commentaire de 
 Bhamaha, de nombreuses notes, d'une traduction, d'appendices importants, et d'un index 
 des mots pracrits, qui est de la plus grand utilite pour I'usage de ce volume. De plus, 
 M. Cowell a place en tete de cet ouvrage une introduction a la grammaire pracrit, qui se dis- 
 tingue par la clarte et la precision." M. GARCIN DE TASSY, Membre de VInstitut, in the 
 "Journal Asialique," Feb. 1854. 
 
 VIKRAMORVASL 
 
 A Drama, by Kdlida'sa. 
 The Sanskrit Text. Edited by MONIER WILLIAMS, M.A. Svo. 
 
 This edition of the " Vikramorvasi" has been favourably noticed in aa 
 article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, October, 1850. 
 
JAMES MADDEN'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 15 
 
 VIKRAMORVASI. 
 
 Translated into English. By E. B. COWELL, of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. 
 
 8vo. 
 
 "II y a deja longtemps que le celebre Wilson a, dans son Theatre Hindou, fait connaitre 
 ce drame que la tradition attribue a 1'auteur de Sakuntala. Mais M. Cowell a voulu en 
 donner une traduction litterale, en prose, en faveur des eleves du College civil de la Com- 
 pagnie des Indes a Haileybury, et pour accompagner le texte recemment public par M. Monier 
 Williams, Professeur de Sanscrit an meme etablissement. Ce dernier texte est la reproduc- 
 tion de celui de Calcutta, si ce n'est que le savant editeur a, dans 1'interet de ses eleves, 
 remplace les passages Pracrits par leur traduction en Sanscrit : et qu'il a admis, en outre, 
 quelques corrections de 1'edition de Lenz. Quant a la traduction de M. Cowell, elle est tres- 
 propre a rintelligence du 'texte; elle est de plus, enrichie de quelques notes d'erudition, et 
 d'un tableau raisonne de metres employees dans le drame." M. GARCIN DE TASSY, Membre 
 de I'lnttitut, in the "Journal Aaiatique." 
 
 Selections from the MAEABEARATA. 
 
 With a VOCABULARY. 
 
 By FRANCIS JOHNSON, Professor of Sanskrit at the East India College. 
 Royal 8vo. 
 
 SANSKRIT VOCABULARY. 
 
 ENGLISH AND SANSKRIT VOCABULARY. 
 
 By E. A. PBINSEP, 
 
 Of the Hon. East India Company's Civil Service. 
 Royal 8vo. 
 
 INDIAN PENAL CODE. 
 
 Copy of a Penal Code prepared by the Indian Law Commissioners. 
 Royal 8vo. 
 
 SANSCRIT, PERSIAN, ARABIC. 
 
 BALLANTYNE'S SANSCRIT CATECHISM. U 
 BOPP'S COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR. 3 vols. 3J. 7. 
 YATES' SANSCRIT DICTIONARY. 21. 5s. 
 WILSON'S SANSCRIT GRAMMAR. IS*. 
 WILSON'S SANSCRIT DICTIONARY. Second Edition. 
 HITOPADESA, by JOHNSON, 11. Us. Qd. 
 
16 JAMES MADDEN'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Sanscrit, Persian, Arabic Works continued. 
 
 HITOPADESA, by JOHNSON. First Book. 10*. 
 
 INSTITUTES OF MENU. 4 to. 11. 1*. 
 
 ALIF LAILA, MACNAUGHTEN. 4 vols. 51. 5s. 
 
 HAYES' ARABIC GRAMMAR. 2s. 6d. 
 
 DOBBIE S HINDOSTANEE DICTIONARY. 8*. 
 
 TUCKER'S PERSIAN DICTIONARY. 7*. 6d. 
 
 MAKAMAT OF HARIRI, PRESTON. 18*. 
 
 AKHLAKI MUHSINY, OUSELEY. 7*. 6d. 
 
 ANVAR SUHEILI, OUSELEY. 4to. U 11*. 6rf. 
 
 HINDEE AND HINDOOSTANEE SELECTIONS. 2 vols. 4to. II. Us. Qd. 
 
 GULISTAN. Translated by EASTWICK. 11. Is. 
 
 PROFESSOR H. H. WILSON'S SANSCRIT GRAMMAR. New Edition. 
 8vo. 18*. 
 
 WORKS BY DR. JAMES R. BALLANTYNE, 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF BENARES COLLEGE. 
 
 HINDUSTANI SELECTIONS. Third Edition. Royal 8vo. 6*. 
 
 POCKET GUIDE TO HINDOOSTANEE CONVERSATION ; containing 
 Grammatical Principles, Familiar Phrases, and a Vocabulary, English and 
 Hiudoostanee. Fourth Edition, 32mo. 3*. 
 
 PERSIAN CALIGRAPHY. Second Edition. Lithographed. 4to. 6*. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF HINDI AND BRAJ BHAKHA. Prepared for the use of 
 the East India College, Haileybury. 4to. 8s. 
 
 MAHRATTA GRAMMAR. Lithographed. 4to. 10*. 6d 
 
 THE PRACTICAL ORIENTAL INTERPRETER; or, Hints on the Art of 
 Translating readily from English into Hindustani and Persian. Royal 
 8vo. 5s. 
 
 A CATECHISM OF SANSCRIT GRAMMAR. 24mo. 1*. 
 A CATECHISM OF PERSIAN GRAMMAR. 24mo. 1*. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 NOV 20 1947 
 
 
 
 3fllar 1 56?T 
 
 ICLF (N) 
 
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