1908.] Report on the Hop Industry. 365 



that many influences have been at work, tending to exert a 

 depressing effect on the prices obtainable by English growers. 

 Among these are the reduced consumption of beer and the 

 diminishing proportion ot hops used in the production of beer, 

 coupled with the maintenance of the home produce, which 

 have caused the supply to exceed the demand. To a small 

 extent the use of hop substitutes and supplements, and in 

 1904 and 1905 " the arsenic scare," may have had some effect ; 

 and, in addition to these relatively recent influences, there 

 have been the more permanent factors of the unequal treatment 

 of the home and foreign grower of hops in the matter of " mark- 

 ing " and possibly also in the matter of railway charges, the 

 burden of the extraordinary tithe, the rise in rates, and, 

 according to some witnesses, the system of tenure of hop 

 lands. 



Foreign hops. — Much attention was given by the Committee 

 to the question of the importation of foreign hops, and it 

 appeared that the amount of foreign importation has, during 

 the last thirty years, shown no tendency to increase, but, on 

 the contrary, has exhibited some reduction. The proportion 

 of home-grown hops used by brewers in the United Kingdom 

 amounts to more than 70 per cent, of the total quantity they 

 employ. 



The Committee state that they are not prepared to recom- 

 mend the re-imposition of a duty on foreign hops, but they 

 think that the Legislature might reasonably require that the 

 use of foreign hops should be declared by individual brewers, 

 and that the extent to which foreign hops are used in the brewing 

 -of beer should be indicated on the cask or bottle in which the 

 beer is sold. Consumers would then be in a position to answer 

 the question, which at present is left in doubt by the evidence, 

 as to how far the present taste requires that foreign hops 

 should be used in the brewing of beer or how far the use of such 

 hops can be safely dispensed with. 



Hop Substitutes. — As regards hop substitutes, the Committee 

 observe that growers and brewers appear to be generally agreed 

 that they can be safely dispensed with. They cannot in any 

 true sense supply the peculiar properties of the hop, they 

 introduce an unnecessary and a foreign element into the process 

 of brewing, they may be the source of dangerous contamination, 



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