VINE CULTURE AS EXEMPLIFIED AT THE PARIS EXHIBITION. 439 



bring in a smaller revenue than a century ago, is a reproach to our 

 common sense as a nation. 



The puny proportion of our consumption of wine compared with the 

 figures given on page 433 is a contrast indeed. The one point, however, 

 which the alert viticulturist of the Antipodes or Africa will no doubt keep in 

 view is that among the forty millions inhabiting the British Isles, not to 

 speak of the present and future millions of Greater Britain, he has a body 

 of customers whose wants, intelligently anticipated, will lead him on to 

 fortune. 



Consumption of Wine in the United Kingdom at each Decade of the 



Nineteenth Century. 



Year 



Population 

 (approximate) 



French 



Portuguese 



Spanish 



other 

 Countries 



Australian 



Total 







Gallons 



Gallons 



Gallons 



Gallons 



Gallons 



Gallons 



1800 



16 millions 



80,24S 







7,214,509 





7,294,752 



1810 



18 millicms 



212,520 







6,308,773 





6,521,293 



1820 



20 millions 



164,292 



2,361,471 



935,971 



1,124,761 





4,586,495 



1830 



23^ millions 



308,294 



2,869,608 



2,081,423 



1,175,120 





6,434,445 



1840 



26 millions 



341,841 



2,668,534 



2,500,760 



1,042,787 





6,553,922 



1850 



27 millions 



340,748 



2,814,979 



2,469,038 



812,457 





6,437,222 



1860 



28^ millions 



1,125,599 



1,776,138 



2,975,769 



1,479,735 



951 



7,358,192 



1870 



31 millions 



4,157,372 



2,947,028 



6,269,325 



1,758,432 



36,147 



15,168,304 



1880 



34^ millions 



6,650,852 



2,815,342 



4,800,410 



1,528,731 



55,000 



15,852,335 



1890 



37^ millions 



5,913,421 



3,625,519 



3,598,027 



1,567,472 



314,401 



15,018,840 



19D0 



41 millions 



5,333,093 



3,610,873 



4,075,106 



2,037,494 



822,503 



15,880,069 



It will be observed that at the end of the first sixty years of the past . 

 century the consumption of wine was the same as at the beginning — a 

 little over seven million gallons. The effect of the great reduction of 

 duty after 1860 was to double the consumption, which in 1870 had risen 

 to fifteen million gallons, at which figure, notwithstanding the country's 

 great increase in population and wealth, it has practically remained for 

 thirty years. The most unsatisfactory feature, and the most convincing 

 argument concerning the unwisdom of the increase of duty last year, was 

 that the consumption of wine in the United Kingdom in 1900 was nearly 

 a million gallons less than in the pre\dous year 1899. 



The merits of the fiscal policy on this question of Great Britain and 

 France respectively may best be illustrated by gi\ing the recent utterances 

 of the Finance Ministers of the two countries. 



In his last Budget speech in April, 1901, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, 

 our Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had raised the wine duties all 

 round in the previous year, said : " I turn to wine — it is a falling revenue 

 — nothing can be got out of wine — absolutely nothing." 



A month later in May, 1901, M. Caillaux, French Minister of Finance, 

 informed the Cabinet that the application of the new law which reduced 

 the duty on natural beverage wines, placing them on the same level as 

 beer, had in the first four months of the present year resulted in an 

 increase of 50 per cent. ; the consumption of white wine having largely 

 replaced that of absinthe." 



Absolutely the only form of adulteration, if so it can be called, which 

 to any extent is practised in wine-growing countries, is the adding of 



