FIFTY YEARS OF DRINKING, AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE WEALTH AND INDUSTRIAL WELLBEING OF THE NATION.*

BY WILLIAM HOYLE, Tottington.

Author of "Our National Resources and How they are Wasted."

THE Occasion upon which we are met together is to celebrate the jubilee of the temperance movement, and I have been requested to give a brief epitome of the money spent on intoxicating liquors during the last fifty years, and also to make some reference to the influence which this expenditure has had upon the material well-being of the nation.

The circumstances which existed fifty years ago, when the temperance movement came into life were peculiar, and they were of a nature calculated to retard the spread of temperance truth. For instance, there was virtually a universal belief that intoxicating liquors were not only useful but absolutely essential to secure health and strength; people thought it was impossible to live without them; these drinks especially were favourites in all festive and social gatherings, and they were everywhere regarded as the national beverage. It will be manifest therefore that the work of the temperance reformer must have been most difficult; it was to persuade people to abstain from beverages which they thought they could not live without, beverages that they liked, and which were especially fascinating, and beverages which were regarded with the prestige of a national character.

And more than this, at that time Parliament came in and increased the delusion by passing the Beer Bill. The cause of its passing that bill was the drunkenness which abounded, and the notion was that this drunkenness arose from the use of spirits, and that if the people could only have facilities given for readily procuring beer, then they would cease to use spirits, and thus drunkenness would largely be removed.

Read at the Leeds Temperance Jubilee, September, 1880.

The laws of a country have always a mighty influence upon the minds of the people, but the influence becomes all the stronger when it happens to confirm pre-existing ideas. It was so in 1830. As I have said, people almost universally believed it to be impos sible to live without alcoholic liquors, and yet there was the vice of drunkenness to be dealt with. The problem was to remedy this vice, and at the same time to make provision for this supposed want. This was intended to be done by the passing of the Beer Bill, and thus the country was flooded with beershops. By this action previous notions were strengthened, temptations to intemperance were largely multiplied, and the number of those who were previously interested in the degradation of the country were greatly increased.

And, besides this, there was the great financial interest of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The revenue from drink has long been the source of a large portion of the nation's income, and hence you will see that when the people believed the drink essential, when there was an inveterate appetite for it, when so many individuals were financially interested in the trade, when the articles dealt in had the prestige of being national beverages, and when their sale brought such an enormous revenue into the Exchequer, the difficulties to overcome were almost overwhelming. Some of these difficulties still remain, others have vanished. The notion as to the value or necessity of these drinks is dissipated, and more than this, they are proven to be a great source of disease and premature death, and we have further arrived at the position that the traffic must be put upon a different footing legislatively, and Parliament has endorsed the principle in regard to it that its existence shall have relation to the expressed wish of localities.

Considering the many difficulties of the situation fifty years ago, the progress made by the temperance movement has been marvellous, especially when we remember that this progress has also extended in a considerable degree to other countries. As we look back on the work accomplished we may thank God and take courage, assured that the successes of the past are only earnests of still greater victories in the future.

To understand rightly the position of matters in 1830 it will

be needful to traverse the ground for some few years prior to that date. In 1822 the malt-tax was reduced from 3s. 74d. per bushel to 28. 7d. This reduction, along with other influences, led to a slight increase in the consumption of beer, but the main increase was in British spirits. Between 1823 and 1825 the duty on these spirits was reduced from 11s. 84d. to 7s. 6d. per gallon in England, in Scotland from 6s. 2d. to 2s. 10d., and in Ireland from 5s. 74d. to 2s. 10d. This led to a great rise in the consumption of spirits, for, from the tables which are published in the report of the Inland Revenue, I find that whilst for the five years ending 1823 the total consumption of British spirits in the United Kingdom was 48,745,815 gals., for the five years ending 1830 the consumption reached 106,763,595 gals., being an increase of more than 120 per cent., whereas the population had only grown 15 per cent.

This increase in spirit-drinking shows to what a great extent the action of the legislature influences the habits of the people by affording them opportunities for the indulgence of evil habits; for the consumption of spirits was more than doubled by the reduction of duty, and the history of the drink-trade throughout all its stages proves how potent are the influences which are exercised by legislation, whether those influences are on the side of intemperance or otherwise.

A like result followed the passing of the Beer Bill. For the five years ending 1830 the consumption of malt was 160,992,116 bushels for the subsequent five years, viz., the five years ending 1835, the consumption rose to 200,756,269, being an increase of 25 per cent.

The benefit which the promoters of the Beer Bill hoped to realise was soon proven to be a delusion. In the first place the consumption of spirits instead of decreasing went on increasing, for whilst for the five years ending 1830 the quantity used was 104,763,595 gallons, for the five years ending 1835 it reached 113,174,584 gallons, being an increase of 8 per cent., whilst, as I have shown, beer had also increased 25 per cent., and whilst great evils arose from the increased consumption of spirits, other evils were engendered by the beerhouse pure and simple. So great were those evils that in 1834 the Beer Act was amended, and the preamble began by reciting "That much evil had arisen from the management and

conduct of houses in which beer and cider are sold by retail," and the evidence which was afterwards given before the committee, of which Lord Harrowby was chairman, proves how baneful was the Beer Act in increasing the crime of the country.

These preliminary remarks will be of use in enabling us to form a more correct idea as to the position of matters at the time when the Temperance Reformation first began, and the difficulties with which it was beset, and having made them, I may proceed more immediately to consider the subject of my paper, viz., "Fifty years of drinking, its influence upon the wealth and industrial well-being of the people."

In order that we may be better enabled to grasp the subject, I propose to divide the half-century into periods of ten years, the last period ending with the year 1879. I have already pointed out that during the period prior to 1830 there was a considerable increase in the consumption of spirits and beer; but, notwithstanding this, after the passing of the Beer Bill the increase went on. The extent of this will be seen from the fact that whilst the money spent upon intoxicating liquors in the United Kingdom during the ten years ending 1829 reached £600,249,155, or £60,000,000 yearly; for the ten years ending 1839 it reached £786,662,165, or £78,000,000 per annum, being an increase of 30 per cent.

If we pass on to another decade, I find that during the second ten years of our review there was a falling-off in the consumption of intoxicating liquors as compared to the first, so much so that the total amount expended during the ten years ending 1849 was only £725,656,327, or £72,000,000 yearly, as against £78,000,000 yearly in the previous decade-a reduction of 7 per ent. The causes which led to this were, first, trade had become paralysed (and no wonder that it should be so after the ten years of waste). Hence the terrible depression which existed in trade during a goodly portion of these ten years crippled the buying powers of the people, notably so in 1841-2, the time of plugdrawing, and in 1846-7, the years of the railway panic and Irish famine. And then, too, we must not overlook the growth of temperance principles, and especially so in Ireland, where, under the teaching of Father Mathew and others, the consumption of spirits sank from 11,000,000 gallons annually for the five years

ending 1839 to 6,000,000 gallons for the five years ending 1845. The like influences operated in England and Scotland, though to a much less extent.

The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1848 led to a large development in our foreign trade, wages increased, and, under these influences, coupled with the shortening of the hours of labour, the consumption of intoxicating liquors began to grow again; and for the ten years ending 1859, the money spent upon them amounted to £816,676,092, or £81,000,000 annually, being an increase of 12 per cent. upon the preceding ten years. This increase would probably have been greater but for certain counteracting influences. First and foremost was the passing of the Sunday Closing Act in Scotland, which reduced the consumption of spirits in Scotland from £34,600,000 for the five years prior to the passing of the Act to £27,900,000 for the five years after, being a falling off of 20 per cent.

In addition to this, there was some check given to drinking in England by the passing of a partial Sunday Closing Act in 1848, which closed public-houses till twelve o'clock at noon on Sundays, and, besides these influences, there was an increase in the duties upon spirits in Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland they were advanced from 3s. 8d. per gallon to 4s. 8d. in 1853, and afterwards, in 1856, to 8s.; in Ireland from 2s. 8d. to 3s. 4d. in 1853, and to 6s. 2d. in 1856. In 1855 the malt duty was raised throughout the United Kingdom from 2s. 8d. to 4s. per bushel. All these changes tended to lessen the consumption of alcoholic liquors; still, as we have seen, there was an increase of 10 per cent.

The year 1860 saw the introduction of the grocers' licenses and of the Wine Bill, together with several other changes, almost all of which were calculated to afford facilities for drinking. The result of these changes was a great increase in the consumption of alcoholic liquors, which rose in value from £816,676,092 for the ten years ending 1859 to £1,023,353,312 for the ten years ending 1869, or an average consumption of £102,000,000 yearly instead of £81,000,000, being an increase of 25 per cent. This increase would have been greater but for the fact that in 1860 the duty on spirits was increased from 8s. per gallon to 10s. As a consequence