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1^.25,1860.] The Leader and Sa^day Anal ...
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. ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦- " -WINE;; ¦ .. : . '• T\TUN...
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WHAT LONDON" IS COMING TO. NO man, being...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Coal. Of All Tho Natural Possession* Whi...
reader , however , can make this addition for himself , at least-in opinion ; andthen , how momentous a natural endowment is our British coal ! -
1^.25,1860.] The Leader And Sa^Day Anal ...
1 ^ . 25 , 1860 . ] The Leader and Sa ^ day Anal yst . 181
. ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦- " -Wine;; ¦ .. : . '• T\Tun...
. ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦ - " -WINE ;; ¦ .. : . '• T \ TUNC JEST BIBENDUM . A bibulous millennium , dawns if upon these isles . Everybody is to drink his fill , and nobody is to get drunk . A philanthropic Chancellor of the Exchequer , far from seeking to rob the poor man of his beer , offers him potations muchmore noble in addition . England is to become -temperate by adopting-, not the ungrateful process of abstinence , but the inviting system of indulgence . Has not Adam Smith said—and who . may dare in these days to gainsay that sage—that if we consult -experience , the cheapness of wine seems to be a cause of sobriety V The real g-olden age will soon be here ; if churls who grurntle at a tenpeniiy income tax , and hop planters who object to sacrifice thembenefit of their
selves , as good citizens gladly should , for the country , do . not stop its way . In a short time spirited wine merchants will be giving- us a foretaste of our happ iness , and the whole country , iabiindouiTrg itself to " innocent exhilaration , " will listen only to the poets , whose natural aliment is the juice of the grape , and whose genius must have been sadly dimmed these two hundred years by their inability to get at it ; John Barleycobn , with all his virtues , having little poetic inspiration , except perhaps , as our hyperborean friends stoutly contend , when he assumes the shape of whisky . JEn ¦ attendant , let us who deal in facts and figures gossip a little , whilst we can still find serious listeners , about the quantities of wine our fathers consumed , and the capabilities of the countries to which
we must look for our promised feast . Our more remote ancestors , although they laid a duty upon wine , ¦ were too fond of the " drink divine" to let it be at all heavy . At the commencement of the reign of the merry monarch , when the population of England could not have exceeded five millions , some 45 , 000 tuns are said to have been annually consumed ; that is , half as much aarain as the whole consumption of the thirty millions of the United Kingdom in 1859 . At least 20 . 000 tuns were French ; the rest were Portuguese , Spanish , and Rhenish—the first named , liowever , in but very small proportion , as the taste for it only grew up towards the close of the seventeenth -century . Its first introduction was probably . coincident with the marriage of Charles with Catherine of Bragranza ; and a conclusive proof of its novelty , as
well as of the antiquity of the " blending" and doctoring systems , is to be found in an early act of his reign , which pi ; ohibits the mixing of one wine with another , or with cider , sugar ,. & c , and , referring particularly _ to Spanish , French , and " Kinish" wines , makes no ¦ mention dfthose of Portugal . In 1688 , however , in the first year / of " William ; and Mary , an act was-passed , prohibiting all trade and intercourse with France , and Portuguese wines had therefore their own way , except so far as French were smuggled . We should observe hero that the port wine of that day was a very different article from that which the Oporto Wine Company compels us to drink now . Whilst possessing , of course , the flavour of the Portuguese grape it partook rather of the character of Burgundies or clarets . This prohibitive iict lasted only three years , but in 1693 the system of difd 2 Id
ferential duties began , French wine being charge s . ., * md Portuguese and Spanish Is . 8 d . per gallon , according to anost autHorities , for there is a great difference between the ivites of duty as given by different authors and officials , arising partly from the adoption by some of the imperial , and . by the others of the wine gallon ; and partly , perhaps , by the omission of some to include all the multifarious duties levied in virtue of so many acts of . Parliament up to Mr . Pitt ' s consolidation of the tariff in 1787 . In 1697 the duty on French wine was further increased , and the ¦ t otal importation was only 13 , 000 tuns according to Mr . Porter , or -. ibout 2 , 700 , 000 imperial gallons according to the Customs' autho-• j ities—whose figures wo Bhall henceforth quote—of which only «"> 1 , 0 gallons were French , as we were then at war with that country . After the Mjethuen treaty of 1703 , a final blow was given to the French winesthe duty upon them being fixed at < ts . lOd . the
, gallon , whilst on Spanish and Portuguese it was only 2 s . ; even the latter rate , however , was sufficient to prevent the general consumption which formerly took place . The qunntityof all kinds imported—which Tin 1700 had been just five millions , of which 430 , 000 were French , jmd iu 1701 four and a half million gallons—sank in 1700 to two million throe hundred thousand , of yvliiohabout 30 , 000 were French . Jt ttien began to vise again $ reached six millions oT all sorts in 1728 ; then declined anew , until we And . it . touching as low a figure na 2 , 100 , 000 in 174 , 4 , in which yearjhe duty w ' na again increased . In 1780 the importation was < l , 300 , 000 gallons , of which 3 , 500 , 000 Mime from Portugal , 600 , 000 from Spain , and only 80 , 000 from "Franco . In 1782 the duties underwent smother incrouse—that on Proiu . 'h- wna fixed nt 8 s , 9 d ., and on Portuguese at < ta . , 2 ( 1 . the < imperial ) gallon . Tho importation , as might have boon oxyectod , declined considerably , and reached in 1784 only 3 , 000 , 000 , gallons .
In ! 787 Mr . PiTT made that memorable reduction of duty which hns such a special similarity to the proposals of tho present Chancellor of the Exchequer , because it , like them , was the result of a commercial treaty with France . The duty on French was reduced to 4 s . 6 d ., tmd that on Portuguese and Spanish wines to 3 s . the gallon . The consumption increased enormously , so much so that the total importation for 1792 was 8 , ^ 600 , 000 gallons , of which 723 , 000 were French , and tho amount . ' rotained for home consumption—with respect to which wo have no statistics before 1787—was 7 , 850 , 000 gallons ) the not amount of duty received , which in 1787 amounted to d 0848 ; OOO , reaching 431 , 148 , 755 . This period of cheapness did
not last long . The duties were raised in 1795 , and again in 1796 , until thev stood in the latter year at 10 s . 6 d . for French , and 6 s . lid . Tor Portuguese and Spanish . The . taste for ^ wine had grown , however , during : these years of low duty ,, and although the importation fell considerably during 1796 , " 1797 , and 1798 ,. it increased again rapidly , and in l £ 03 we find . the importation 9 , 394 , 000 , o f which 410 , 000 were French , and the quantity retained for home consumption 8 , 226 , 000 gallons . The duty was again increased in 1803 and 1804 , until it stood at 13 s . Sd . French , and 9 s . Id . Portuguese and Spanish ; but the importation instead of diminishing increased up to 1811 , when it fell
from 10 , 818 , 000 gallons * the amount-in 1810 , to 4 * 624 , 000 . ; rising , however , in the next year to eight millions , the consumption being all the while steadily maintained at from five to six million gallons . In 1813 the duty on French wines was raised to the enormous sum of 19 s . 8 d . the gallon ; but the increase was taken off the following vear , and no great effect seems to have followed it . A new claimant for public favour had , meanwhile , been forcing its pretensions upon the notice of the public . Cape wine , which was included with " wine of other sorts " up to 1801 , aiid then appeared only with the modest figure of ten thousand gallons , was , in 1813 , favoured with a reduction to 3 s ., the fostering- influence of which soon showed from
itself . Whilst the total quantity of wine imported sank eight million gallons in 1812 , until the average of the years 1819 to 1844 stood at about six millions , the quantity retained for home consumption showing a diminution of a less decided character , the ^ importation of Cape rose from 8500 gallons in 1812 to 880 , 000 in 1823 , and 616 000 in 1824 . In 1825 the duties were reduced to more reasonable rates ; Cape coming in at 2 s . 5 d , French at 7 s . 3 d ., and Portuguese and Spanish at 4 s . lOd . the gallon . The result was a considerable increase , both in importation arid consumption ; the average importation of the six years , 1825-30 , being over eight millions , and the consumption about six and a-half million gallons . etduen
The absurd and unjust system initiated by the M treaty received its death-blow in 1831 , the duties on all wines being : equalised at 5 s . 6 d . the gallon , except Cape , which , in accordance with the protectionist theories then prevailing , was admitted at halt rates , or 2 s . 9 d . An additional five per cent , was added "V 1840 , bringino- the rates to their present , amount—5 s . 9 £ d . on loreign , and 2 s . 1 O & L on Cape wines . The quantities imported and retained for home consumption from , the equalisation of the duties to I 8 ol remained respectively at the dead levels of about eight million and six million gallons ; the most noticeable features being a declme in the quantify of Ckpe , and an increase in that of French wines ; the Cape imported in 1850 being two hundred arid thirty-four , and tiie French six hundred thousand gallons . The ravages of the vine
disease since 1851 render the returns for subsequent years comparatively worthless . But we are again approaching a normal state ot things , and the statistics of the last two years , 1858 and 1859 , are useful for purposes of comparison . The quantities imported and entered for home consumption in 1858 were respectively 5 , 79 O ; O 0 O and 6 , 697 , 000 gallons , showing a large draught upon old stocks ; whilst the Board of Trade returns just published give the importation of 1859 at 8 , 196 , 026 , and the entries for home consumption at 7 262 965 gallons , Spain , which took the highest place for the first time in 1839 , retains it , sending as her share of the eight millions we
imported last year more than 3 , 600 , 000 gallons ; Portugal sends nearly 1 , 800 , 000 ; France , winning back her old market , more than a miflipri ; Naples and Sicily , a comparatively new source of supply , 250 , 000 ; and South Africa 786 , 000 , a figure which it will hardly attain when deprived of the protection it now enjoys . I he grand result is / that , to leave the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but of the question ; the thirty millions of people inhabiting these islands drank no more wine in 1859 than fifteen millions did m the beo-innjno * ' of the century . So much for the wine Englishmen have drunk ; We will see next week what they are likely to get in the future . . > ¦
What London" Is Coming To. No Man, Being...
WHAT LONDON" IS COMING TO . NO man , being in a hurry for a London Bridge train , is blockaded for ton minutes ir * Cheapside without having very serious thoughts , indeed , that night over his port about the future of that great city which is dominated over by the great black bubble of St . Paul ' s . . ¦ ,.,, i . i , What will they do witji itP is the question that passes through his mind as he that night pokes out his Forest Hill fire , hooks on tho fire-guard , looks at the shutter bolts , rattles the drag chain on the front door handle , and goes , to sec if the servants have fastened the kitchen window , before ho passes up thoughtfully and slowly to bed . Ho goes to « lcep , dreaming of that vexatious * frozen river ot cubs , coaches , light carts , Picklbrd ' s vans and waggons laden with flour sacks and hop packs , that kept him chafing juafc under JJow Church clock , till he had all but lost tho dinner tnuu—the 5 . ^ 0 . Wo thinks of improvements , and goustb sloop to dream of the . London ot 1880 , where they are all carried out . No longer sofb soap or soupor slime upon the pavement . Pour times a day tho streets are scraped by ablo-bodied men from tho pariah workhouses , trim puilc and white men with MacuHsar'd liair niid simpering montha , such as you see in water colour paintings of " Happy peasantry , thojr country ' s pride , "—no danger now on crossings , no racing caba , moving one this way and . one that , like sensor blades—no loathsorrio sweepers to splash you if you are not . chanbablo . Light suspension bridges , at regulated interval * twinging highin air above ti » o principal streets far from aprinlclinff wheel and flying "o' ^ » J "" \ and keepsakes of dirt llunfr you genorouHly by lavwh oirtmw ,, below that , level with first floor rooms , terraced footway foi pas
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 25, 1860, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25021860/page/9/
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