§ To what then is the absolute want of elasticity in Excise and relative want of elasticity in Customs to be ascribed? The question admits of only one answer, as disconcerting to a Chancellor of the Exchequer as it is welcome, at first sight, at any rate, to social reformers—;the steadily diminishing yield of all the duties on alcoholic drinks. If the Committee will keep in mind the total income under this head, £34,500,000, last year, and remember what a large proportion it bears to the whole tax revenue of the country, they will see what a grave matter this is from a revenue point of view. It will be well to review the facts briefly and to show the steadily progressive diminution of the duties under various heads. First I turn to No. 1, and the Committee will note as I go along that the diminution dates from 1899–1900. First, then, wine. The quantity retained for home consumption steadily rose until 1900, when it was 17,150,000 gallons, but since then there has been an almost continuous fall, until last year, 1905–6, the quantity was 11,800,000 gallons. Secondly, I take foreign and colonial spirits, which include, of course, rum and brandy. Here the fall has been from 9,350,000 gallons in 1899–1900 to 6,780,000 gallons in 1905–6. Then home-made spirits, including whisky and gin. Here I find that the quantity of proof gallons retained for consumption in the United Kingdom in 1899–1900 was 38,716,000, and in 1905–6 it was 32,490,000. Finally, if you take beer, 282 the barrels retained for consumption in the United Kingdom in 1899–1900 numbered 36,500,000, and in 1905–6 they were 33,500,000. Meanwhile, of course, the population had grown by somewhere between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000. Now, as I have said, the progressive decline under every head becomes serious when, as I point out, the receipts under all heads show in 1905–6, compared with the previous year, 1904–5, a decrease of no less than £607,000. We are here in face of a change that has affected all strata of society; indeed, the decline in the consumption of wine is more marked than in that of spirits and beer. To what is the change due? Let me say at once I can trace no causal connection between the decreased consumption and the comparatively small increase of taxation proposed in 1900 and continued since. The main reason, I hope and believe, can be found in the growth of temperance principles and the increased power of competing attractions; but I must add for myself that I doubt whether it is safe to base any very wide generalisation as to a lasting change of social habits on the experience of six or seven years, which have been marked by unprecedently large expenditure on a great war, by an enormous increase in the burden of taxation, and by at any rate a very great curtailment of spending power of almost every class of the community. But, for the moment at any rate, no Chancellor of the Exchequer can count any longer upon this as a source of indefinitely expanding revenue. The days in which it used to be said we drank ourselves out of the Alabama claims are days which are over and do not seem likely to return.