§ Excise, I am sorry to say, also failed to realise my expectations. Beer was expected to produce £13,100,000; it has reached a total of £12,680,000. Spirits, from which I anticipated a revenue of £17,700,000, have produced only £17,360,000, in spite of the marked decline in the importation of foreign spirits to which I have just alluded, which should naturally have produced a corresponding rise in the production of British spirits. Taking once again Customs and Excise together, the combined revenue from beer and spirits has fallen by no less than £1,370,000 below the estimate, an estimate, I may add, which took no credit for the increase of consumption which might normally be expected to follow from the growth of population, but was itself actually below the net receipts of the preceding year.