THE BREWING INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 491 



the country. This necessitates the investment of a very large capital in 

 casks, and the annual expenditure on the cleaning and the cooperage is ne- 

 cessarily much higher in most Irish breweries than in English establishments,, 

 as the casks in England have not to be sent so far, nor are they subjected 

 to so much exposure to the weather. Another advantage which English 

 brewers possess over their Irish competitors arises from the system of tied 

 houses which characterises nearly every English brewery, and which may be 

 said to be almost an exception in Ireland. There can be no doubt, more- 

 over, that the excessive number of public houses in Ireland unfavourably 

 affects the brewer ; and if these surplus licences could be abolished on pay- 

 ment of a reasonable compensation, brewers, hke other people, would benefit 

 by the change. For each of the 1,688 common brewers in England there 

 are 66 retailers licensed to sell beer; for each of the I2i Scotch brewers 

 there are 91 houses ; but in Ireland for 38 breweries there are 19,702 persons 

 licensed to sell beer, which gives an average of 518 houses for each brewery. 

 The enormous number of these houses in Ireland as compared with Great 

 Britain does not cause a great consumption of beer in Ireland as compared 

 with Great Britain— the average consumption as a matter of fact is little 

 more than half — but it does show how the Irish brewer is handicapped by 

 having to deal with a large number of houses, each of which requires only a 

 small supply, for, whilst an English brewer in order to sell 10,000 gallons of 

 beer has on the average to deal with only about 35 retailers, the Irish brewer 

 has to deal with nearly twice that number. In connection with the subject 

 of licences, it may be remarked that the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors 

 (Licences), Ireland, Bill, which at the time of writing has passed through the 

 House of Commons, will, it is hoped, in time remedy the evils resulting from 

 surplus licences. It may be noted that, at present, when a brewer establishes 

 a district agency or depot for the distribution of beer he is obliged to take 

 out a wholesale licence, and the law does not provide any facilities for 

 enabling him to do so, but forces him to go through a troublesome, expen- 

 sive, and irritating procedure, and he is treated like an ordinary retailer, for 

 his premises have to be of a fixed valuation, and he is supposed to be in 

 exclusive occupation of the premises for at least three months before he 

 can obtan the licence. The success which has attended the efforts of the 

 Licensed Grocers and Vintners Protection Association in promoting the 

 Bill mentioned above will, possibly, encourage the Secretary of the Associa- 

 tion — Mr. Robert Russell — to take up this matter in the interests of the Irish 

 brewers so as to get a short Bill introduced which would place this licence 

 on the same footing as the Brewer's ordinary licence or the Wholesale 

 Spirit Dealer's licence, which can be obtained on application to the Inland 

 Revenue authorities. 



It is not easy to state very accurately the actual consumption of beer 



during the eighteenth century and earlier part of the 



-,, p , . nineteenth century in any particular part of the United 



ine consumption j^i^gjom, owing to the fact that the figures showing 



01 Beer m Irelana. ^^^ production of beer are, necessarily, in the absence 



of other data, mostly estimates based on the 

 quantity of malt used or duty charged. These figures are practically incom- 

 plete m the case of Ireland, because a large quantity of this malt must have 

 been used for distillation, and there seems to be no doubt that, about the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century, the payment was evaded as regards a 

 consideiable proportion of the malt used. According to the estimate of the 



