CONSUMPTION IN CANADA DAVIDSON. 3 



governmental machinery ; but until the community is so far 

 educated that there is a statistical or economic association in 

 every parish, we can hardly hope for the fullest information. 

 Consumption is in its nature a private concern, and man will 

 require to be much more methodical than he is at present before 

 we can present anything like a picture of the consumption of a 

 people. At the present time we are compelled to use what infor- 

 mation we have as an indication of the complete result ; and 

 generalizing from the experience of individuals, treat the con- 

 sumption of certain articles, for which the government provides 

 statistics which may be relied upon, as representing the whole. 



It is necessary first to shew in what proportions the people 

 of Canada expend their incomes, because otherwise we should 

 not be able to estimate the importance of the results obtainable 

 for the consumption of specific articles. If the total expenditure 

 of a people on food amounts to no more than fifty per cent, of 

 its income, an increase in the consumption of coffee will mean a 

 less increase of prosperity then it does for a people which spends 

 seventy per cent, of its income on food. In the latter case it 

 means that the people are rising fiom the lowest class, where the 

 necessaries of life absorb the greatest part of the income, to a 

 condition where other considerations are becoming important ; in 

 the former case it may mean a change in the form of consump- 

 tion only. This aspect of the question has some immediate 

 practical, importance. In the discussion of the financial aspects 

 of prohibition, little attention has been paid to the fact that not 

 all the expenditure of the Canadian citizen is on taxable goods. 

 Prohibitionists claim that the fifty million dollars annually spent 

 upon intoxicants will necessarily be spent on other articles, and 

 that the government need not confuse the issue by dark sugges- 

 tions of direct taxation; for consumption will not be reduced, but 

 simply changed. But, though the same amount will still be spent, 

 it does not follow that it will be spent in such a way as will 

 provide a reveuue. In so far as it is spent on food, there would 

 be an increased consumption of food-stuffs on which, while the 

 consumer may be paying a tax in the shape of enhanced prices, 



