;510 THE DISTILLING INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 



Revenue authorities, and containing- counterfoils, on which the dealers fill 

 in details corresponding to those given in the certificates. These counter- 

 ioils are subsequently collected by the officers of Inland Revenue, and it is 

 in extracting the information contained in them, a task which is always 

 laborious and often difficult, that frequent mistakes have occurred. It will 

 easily be understood that, where the quantities under examination are so 

 great, a number of omissions, each individually slight, may collectively pro- 

 •duce a heavy per-centage of error." 



The result of these errors was that the official returns had for over thirty 

 years set out the consumption of spirits in Ireland 

 Ine present ^^ being much greater than it really was. It was 



f Wli'^k' in stated that the " normal error " during this period had 

 Trpland been about lo per cent., but owing to exceptional 



circumstances it amounted in the year ending 

 J 1st March, 1892, to over 600,000. In the last year for which 

 returns are available, namely the year ended 31st March, 1901, when 

 the population was 4,456,546, the quantity of spirits retained for consump- 

 tion in Ireland as a beverage only was 4,238,334 gallons, i.e., 474,844 gallons, 

 (more than 10 per cent.) less than the quantity consumed in igoo. It will 

 be noticed that the quantity retained was considerably less than one-third 

 •of the quantity distilled in Ireland during that year (14,221,520 gallons), and 

 less than half of the quantity charged with duty in Ireland during the year 

 (8,931,877 gallons). The figures quoted show that the average consumption 

 of spirits in Ireland during the last fifty years has been considerably less 

 than the average consumption during the first part of the nineteenth century, 

 and that the quantity consumed per head of population (.95 of a gallon) is 

 now nearly the same for Ireland as for the rest of the United Kingdom 

 (.88 of a gallon). Though the consumption of beer, as has been already 

 remarked in the preceding article, shows a great increase in the last forty 

 or fifty years, it is still far less than — indeed little more than half of — the 

 average consumption per head of population in the rest of the United 

 Kingdom. The slight decline which has taken place in the consumption of 

 spirits throughout the United Kingdom since 1825, when the consumption 

 was slightly over one gallon per head, is not surprising, in view of the fact 

 that during the last fifty years the taxation on spirits has increased 300 per 

 cent, as compared with an increase of 50 per cent, on beer, and a decrease 

 •of over 75 per cent, in the tax on tea. 



Though this article does not purport to inquire into the comparative merits 

 or demerits of any beverages, alcoholic or otherwise, 

 The Relative or the grievances, real or imaginary, of the makers. 

 Taxation of reference may be made to the question which has 



Whiskey. been so often asked, viz., what is the comparative 



rate of taxation to which spirits, beer, and tea are 

 subjected? The question has not, as far as we are aware, been satisfac- 

 torily answered, though numerous comparisons have been instituted, e.g., 

 the alcohol present in beer and spirits respectively has been calculated, and 

 the tax upon them has been reduced to that standard, and thus it is often 

 stated that the duty on whiskey is four times the duty on beer quoad 

 alcohol. Again, a comparison may be made according to the proporton 

 that the duty bears to the price. According to this test the tax on whiskey 

 is more than double the tax on beer, as the duty on whiskey forms over 



