§ Now let the Committee look for a moment at the different items in the accounts. First I turn to Customs and Excise in Table 2; it is the best index of the consuming power of the country. There was an estimated decrease under the head of Customs last year of £1,680,000 and in Excise of £550,000. The actual decrease in Excise has almost exactly tallied with the estimate, there being a trifling gain of £30,000, but in Customs there is a substantial improvement, which brings down the actual decrease to £1,255,000, a difference to the good of £425,000. A principal cause of the decrease, estimated and actual, is of course the reduction of the tea duty from 8d. to 6d. Although as a fact worth noting in passing there has been a substantial increase in the consumption of tea of 10,000,000 lbs., or nearly 4 per cent, over that of 1904–5, the yield of the duty has fallen, and the net loss to the revenue is £1,442,000, the fall having been from £8,272,000 to £6,830,000.