BEER AND THE BEER-TRADE.
A Report of the Lords opines that recent statutes pertaining to these matters have not fulfilled expectations. Beer is certainly a peculiar article, and does not entirely fall within the category of Leave alone ! In the first place, it is never at a stand-still ; it is constantly in process of improvement or deterioration, and it is only at the intermediate stage when the butt is half empty, that a glass of the best it is capable of yielding can be warranted. In- timately connected with this chemical law, is the fact that to secure a palatable and invigorating beverage, it is indispensable
that the draught should be steely sad brisk; otherwise, if the draw-off is uncertain or protracted, the contents of the said butt are certain to become " stale, flat, and unprofitable," both to seller and consumer; and the better and stronger the beer is, the more sour and repellent are its transmutations. As a corollary to these incidents, it is obvious that the supply of the particular commodity of beer, more than of any other, requires to be propor- tioned to the demand, and a slow or fluctuating consumption is specially detrimental to all parties concerned. It follows, apart from any considerations of police, or the inte- rests of the great body of licensed victuallers, that the public is injured by the increase and irregular multiplication of beer- retailers, from its tendency to impair the national drink by a more dilatory or precarious depletion of the cask. Of course, it would be no remedy or preventive of this evil to legislate back into old errors—to replace this great metropolis in the monopolizing grasp of the " big brewers," or the country at the capricious mercy of parson justices or game-preserving magistrates. Altogether, the craft of both brewing and vending beer is one of inscrutable mys- tery. Under the old system, the notorious fact cannot be forgotten, that for a lengthened period, during which population augmented upwards of one-third in number, with a proportionate increase in the consumption of beer, not a single additional quarter of malt was used. in other occupations, a fall in the price of the raw material is usually followed either by an improvement in the quality of the product or a reduction of its price. From the opera- tion of this law of economical science brewers appear wholly pri- vileged. Although barley has recently fallen nearer one-halt than one-third in price, the product of their art is neither better nor cheaper ; and that, too, despite of the competitive stimulus of a more open market.
These paradoxes undoubtedly call for unravelment ; but it is an inquiry fitter for the Commons than the Lords.
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