Sir Stafford Northcote's increase on the Tobacco Duty does notaappear
to have been a success. Three-fourths of all the tobacco used in the United Kingdom is consumed by the poor, who purchase in half-ounces, and as the extra tax cannot be divided into the amounts due on half-ounces, the tax is doubled to the smoker. Consequently, the sale of tobacco, which has steadily increased for fifteen years, has receded during the nine months of the operation of the new tax by 1,401,115 lb. ; and the duty, which was to have yielded three-quarters of a million, has yielded at the rate of only X447,000 a year, or only 2160,000 more than it would have been under the old rates. A deputation of tobacco manufacturers and dealers have represented these facts to Sir Stafford Northcote, and have asked for a remission of the extra duty. The memorialists have, no doubt, a case ; but it is not, we suspect, quite so strong as they are anxious to believe. 'They have not allowed either for the general decline in the -consumption of excisable articles consequent on the depression, or for the way in which the old stock, which had paid the old duty, but is charged to the Public as if it had paid the new one, has been used up to the last ounce. Another twelve months must pass before the yield of the increased duty is exactly known, and meanwhile the nation is none the worse for smoking a few million ounces less.
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