Much industry is bestowed just at present on a mercantile
movement to reduce the Tea-duties. It would be very desirable to have no duty on tea ; desirable to have a smaller duty : but at present the question is one of revenue. The produce of the Tea- duties is more than four millions sterling, and cannot be risked. No doubt, the tax is excessive. It quite excludes the cheapest kinds of the drug ; the price of which is 4d. or less, and the duty of 2s. 20. excludes it from use. Past reductions of duty have, as they usually do, augmented consumption ; but we do not observe that alterations of these duties have had very uniform results in that respect. On the whole the consumption: has in- creased : it has fallen off with increase of duties, risen with re- duction of duties' but in either case by no means in an equal ratio ; and in 1844 the revenue was higher than ever it had been. Another fact is to be noted : the retail prier has fallen to more than the extent of the whole duty, without any proportionate in- crease of consumption, if we consider how anuch the population has increased. How then can the Chancellor of the Exchequer reckon upon a larger revenue from a lower duty t If that source were to fail, on to what article should he shift 'the tea-tax. The agitation shows itself iu the shape of an industrious association at Liverpool, in pamphleta and newspaper articles ; but it wears the appearance of being " got up." It will not knock down the Tea- duties this year; unless the Wing Ministers should choose to make the sacrifice in order that they may do a little more business in the way of remitting taxes.
