The 1909 People's Budget

Funny how I see everything through beer glasses. Or at least spectacles. It colours the way I think about Lloyg George's 1909 "People's Budget".

It was a landmark for a couple of reasons. First because it was an attempt to not just set up a basic system of social security, but also to redistribute wealth from rich to poor. I won't go through all the details, but there were various new taxes on landowners and high earners. Which pissed off wealthy landowners a treat and they just happened to dominate the House of Lords. Which leads on to the second reason why it's so important: its rejection by the Lords precipitated the reform that removed their power of absolute veto in 1911. A landmark in British constitutional history. All very admirable stuff

Except, Lloyd George being a temperance twat, he also slipped a tax increase on beer into the budget. One that got brewers, publicans and drinkers all riled up. Now rich landowners I haven't got a great deal of time for. But the brewing industry is another matter. I feel sympathy with this point of view:

"The whole contention of the pro-Budget faction is, however, that the Trade is organised gang of quick-witted knaves, lying in wait for an opportunity to victimise the public, under cover of the Budget. How does this square with the actual facts? True, the new tax on beer amounts to only 3d. a barrel, and obviously there is no coin small enough to adjust the difference between retailer and consumer. seeing that a barrel of beer contains 288 pints. But, as a simple matter of fact, the increased taxation on the licensed trade amounts, in all, not to 3d. but to 3s. barrel. This is admitted by the Star and—much more important—it has been proved to the hilt by the calculations of experts. The difference between 3d. and 3s. is made up by the proposed new licence duties. Whether the tax-gatherer comes along at the moment a brew is made or waits until the beer is taken to the place of sale, the result is the same. The money has to be paid to the Revenue.

Even before the Budget proposals, beer was so highly taxed that there was no great margin of profit — no so much, for example, as on the sale of so-called " temperance" drinks, some of which, the way, contain greater percentage of alcohol than mild ale. An official in the town Burnley took samples from one shop for analysis, and these, after having been returned from the laboratory, were certified to contain alcohol in percentage higher than any of the beer brewed by the local brewers. it not grossly and iniquitouslv unjust that the beerdrinker should be penalised the Budget, while the man who slakes his thirst with "fortified" herb beer or dandelion stout goes off scot-free?

As matters stand under our Effete Cobdenite system, the working man's pocket-money is so limited that he cannot afford to pay more money for his beer. While the price must because the Trade cannot stand the strain increased taxation, the consumption must down because the working-man cannot stand increased drain his pocket. He must drink less for the money. That is just what is happening in London now. The same amount of money is being paid, but one-fifth less beer is obtained for it."
Leamington Spa Courier - Friday 03 September 1909, page 6.

The proposal was to raise the tax on beer for 7s 9d to 8s per standard barrel (36 gallons with an OG of 1055º). A really awkward amount because, as the article above states, there was no coin as small as a 288th of 3d. Even the 3s. that all the other taxes were claimed to amount to is a pretty small amount per pint - an eighth of a pence. Though, as that's the wholesale price, I guess it equated to a farthing (a quarter penny and the smallest coin) per pint. Still leaves you a problem with the price of a half pint.

Brewers would, in all probability, simply have reduced their gravities so they could sell the beer at the same price. It was the simplest way of adjusting the proce to take into account the extra tax. I say "would" because in the end the tax increase was revoked. Brewers and drinkers had, at least in the short term, won. Not that it lasted long. Lloyd George got his revenge at the start of WW I, raising the beer tax to 23s a standard barrel. An increase of almost 300%. Bastard.

The License-holders' Burden

We've heard about the reaction of drinkers to the huge increase in the tax on beer at the beginning of WW I. Now it's time to hear the view of the pub trade.

Drinkers were quick to blame the trade - both publicans and brewers - for profitting at their expense from the increse in the price of beer of a penny a pint. That may not sound much to us, but it was a 50% increase on the pre-war price of 2d.

It was a bit more complicated than just scaling down the tax increase per barrel to a pint. For one thing, there's the retailer's markup. You have to add that to the tax increase per pint. I believe it was around 50% for beer. They also wanted an extra markup to compensate for the reduction in the amount of beer that they expected to sell. 35%, by the chancellor's reckoning. Though, at least until the end of 1915, this proved wildly inaccurate.

The tax increase was from 7s 9d per standard barrel to 17s 3d, so 9s 6d. Or 114 pence. 36-gallons is 288 pints. Which means the tax increase per pint was 0.4d. Much less than the 1d increase consumers had to pay. Even factoring in the items above, it still doesn't come to 1d a pint. It makes me think that when chancellor Lloyd George said that he expected the price of a pint to rise by 1d, he was trying to keep the brewers and publicans onside.

Funnily enough, the trade wasn't happy with their cut.

"THE LICENSE-HOLDERS' BURDEN.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE COURIER.
Sir, —With reference to the proposed further curtailment of the hours of license-holders in Dundee we shall be obliged if you will publish the following figures with reference to the extra taxation which has been put upon the licensed trade within the past few years. The figures are from the fourth report of His Majesty's Commissioners of Customs and Excise for the year ended 31st March, 1913. this being the latest report which has so far been issued His Majesty's Commissioners, the one for the current year, so far we know, not yet being printed.

The quantity of spirits retained for home consumption in the United Kingdom for the year 1909, when the spirit duty was increased by 9d per gallon, was 38,939,969 proof gallons. The quantity retained for home consumption in the year 1913 was 30,736,088 proof gallons, a decrease of 8,203,881 proof gallons. The duty paid in the year 1909, at 11s per gallon, was £22,599,287, while in 1913, at 14s 9d per proof gallon, it was £21,417,508, an increased taxation of £1,181,779, against a decrease in consumption of nearly eight and quarter million gallons of spirits.

The amount collected from intoxicating liquor licenses in the year 1913 was £4,508,706, whereas in 1909, before the licenses were increased, it amounted £2,172,549, an increase of £2,336,157.

The number of standard barrels of homemade beer; that is to say, at 1000.55 gravity, retained for home consumption in the United Kingdom in 1913 was 34,088,393, which, at 7s 9d per barrel, paid a net duty of £13,200,343. In his speech on the war budget in the House of Commons Tuesday, 17th November, when dealing with the beer duty, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he anticipated an increase of £17,600,000 on the beer duty at an increase of 17s 3d per barrel, while he believed that the decrease consumption would be 35 per cent. Since then the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a rebate of 2s per barrel for the current year on the price of beer, but by the year 1916 the price will be 17s 3d, so that it is quite competent to accept his calculation of the increase which he originally anticipated; viz., £17,600,000, which will ultimately be paid extra on beer. If the Chancellor's anticipations are correct the result of his taxation will be that, while the beer consumpt will be reduced by 11,930,937 barrels, he will have increased the taxation on beer by £17,600,000, giving him a yield from this source of revenue of £30,800,343. In addition to all the above duties exacted from the trade they pay all the other taxes that flesh is heir to in this country, and, so far as municipal taxation is concerned, in a much higher proportion than other shopkeepers on account of the high rents which they pay.

The general opinion of the man the street is that all extra charges have been passed on to the consumer; this is not the case. We have made a careful calculation, and find that since the year 1909 the Chancellor of the Exchequer has appropriated 37.3 per cent, of the net income of the licensed trade in Scotland, all of which, of course, has gone to reduce the taxation of those not connected with the licensed trade, and who have consequently benefited to this extent.

The increase in taxation, it will be seen, has been as follows:- Spirits £1,181,779, license duties £2,336,157, and now from beer £17,600,000, a total extra taxation of £21,117,936, which will also benefit to a very large extent each individual in the community. If it is proposed to further curtail the hours of license-holders in Dundee, we hope, in justice to the license-holders, that proposal will be put forward at the same time agreeing to compensate them for the loss of trade and also for a rebate of the duty from which those who are putting forward the motions are benefiting to such a huge extent.

We may say that the 0.5d per glass of beer which the Chancellor suggested should be added to meet the extra taxation on beer does not anything like compensate the license-holders for the loss of trade estimated by the Chancellor.—We are, &c..
For James Watson & Company, Ltd.
C. H. Marshall, Director.
97 Seagate, Dundee, 2d December, 1914. "
Dundee Courier - Thursday 03 December 1914, page 6.

What a lovely phrase "all the other taxes that flesh is heir to in this country" is. I'll have to remember that for future use.

James Watson makes a very good point about the taxation that the pub trade paid: it reduced the amount everyone else needed to pay. It's a point completely ignored by temperance (I shouldn't use that word as it means something other than what they truly were) prohibitionist campaigners. The sum the drinkers contributed to the national coffers. And how they would replace it, should their dream come true.

The complaints about the burden put on the pub trade by the government sounds very much like laments of modern publicans. Some things really never change in Britain.

Scheming teetotal bastards

Bunch of lying scum. That's how I'd describe the British temperance movement in the early decades of the 20th-century. They also weren't averse to a bit of opportunism. They saw WW I as their big chance to impose prohibition on Britain. Bastards.

Did they really care that much about the war effort? Probably not. Bunch of bigots and fanatics that they were, many would doubtless have traded defeat for prohibition.

"A GREATER ENEMY THAN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA."
—The Right Hon. D. LLOYD GEORGE,

DRINK

HINDERS THE ARMY & NAVY
delays munitions and transport, causes inefficiency, slows down shipbuilding and repairs.

DECREASES SHIPPING
During twenty months of war shipping has been used for 1,400,000 tons of brewery and distilling materials;  consequently the nation is suffering in tonnage for munitions.

WASTES FOOD
During the war period two and half million tons of food have been destroyed to make beer and other intoxicants. The War Savings Committee says :—
"IF THIS FOOD HAD BEEN AVAILABLE PRICES OF BREAD AND MEAT WOULD BE LOWERED."

DIVERTS RESOURCES
Each year it takes the labour of 500,000 workers ; uses one million acres of arable land; one and half million tons of coal; railway stock and haulage which might better purpose.

SHATTERS MORAL STRENGTH
Relaxes the nation's energy. It is a temptation to women; imperils the home and child life, and is the ally of immorality and disease.

SQUANDERS MONEY
During the war period 300 million pounds have been wasted on drink, which is the measure of untold financial, social and economic evils.

PROHIBITION
Would set free men, money, energy, and consequently
SHORTEN THE WAR.

SIGN THIS MEMORIAL TO THE GOVERNMENT.

NATIONAL MEMORIAL TO THE GOVERNMENT.
We, the undersigned, being impressed with the necessity of avoiding all waste, and of utilising fully the moral and material resources of the nation, and being convinced that the present enormous consumption of intoxicating drink is the most dangerous enemy of national efficiency, health and economy, hereby urge his Majesty's government to prohibit the manufacture, import, export and common sale of intoxicating liquors during war and for six months afterwards.

Name     Address     Town or Parish

Persons over 16 years of age should sign this, cut it out and post it in a halfpenny envelope before July 25th to the Secretaries, 3 Clare Avenue, Bristol, from whom more memorials may be obtained."
Western Daily Press - Saturday 15 July 1916, page 6.

"It is a temptation to women" This is such a recurring theme. Worrying about women drinking. Particularly working class women. They kept going on about it in the 19th century. It continues today. See how often the media get all self-righteous about drunken women or display images of women collapsed in a drunken heap on the street. There's something horribly condescending about it. Continuing the Victorian idea of women being weak, helpless creatures in need of strong moral guidance (from men).

Thankfully, these idiots never got their way. Beer production was severely restricted, but wasn't prohibited. Teetotallers were, however, allowed to continue with this sort of crap right through the war. That some prominent member to government were "teetotal" must have helped.

That stuff about prohibition only lasting until 6 months after the end of the war. A downright lie. Once they had got prohibition passed, temperance campaigners would have fought tooth and nail to keep it.

Temperance groups tried the same thing in WW II and were almost immediately told to shut up, as their campaigning was bad for morale. Churchill had time for such bollocks and insisted on supplies of beer for those fighting. Good on him.

Propaganda war

The temperance killjoys didn't have it all their own. The brewing trade weren't shy of publishing their own propaganda. I'm wondering which side makes me more uneasy. See what you think after reading this lot:

BEER — "MAKES WILLING, HAPPY WORKERS."

MORE FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE.

BEER OR PIGS?

"The food value of beer is more than half that of the brewing materials used, whereas the food value of the pig meat (fed on those materials) is less than one-fifth of that of the same materials."
Professor A. D. Waller, University College,
London, 1940.

PATRIOTIC BEER DRINKERS.
"To-day the beer drinking community obviously does not resent the additional beer tax as an injustice. It is happy enough to contribute what it can. And there is a good reason for that. A good deal of the enduring life of our country has been built up round the places in which this noble community holds its meetings. Here, with talk and song and good comradeship, with darts and shove-ha'penny and devil-among-the-tailors. the spirit has been maintained which makes our people go into war as friends who know and trust one another."
Daily Sketch, May, 1940.

BEER MAKES CONTENTED WORKERS.
"A willing and happy worker will get more work done, and do it better, than an unwilling and discontented worker. It is in this direction that alcoholic beverages like beer make their chief contribution to economic efficiency."
Lord Horder. K.C.V.O., M.D.

ALCOHOL IN TIMES OF STRESS.
"Alcohol is an uplift for the mind. Under the conditions of modern civilisation and in these days of concentration - the constant endeavour to put twelve hours into six — it is obvious that at the end of such a day the mind of man girts into) one track. He has no uplift. There alcohol comes in very well. Alcohol, in moderation, gets that man out of the track. It lightens
his mental touch."
Lord Dawson of Penn, K.C.B., M.D.

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH.
"Hampstead Heath has long heen a favourite Bank Holiday resort of Londoners. When I was young it was littered with men - and women, too — in various stages of intoxication. The streets in all our cities resounded to the tipsy hauling of unsteady roysterers. The magistrates  used to  spend the whole of the next day fining iIn in or indicting short terms of imprisonment. Hampstead especially had a formidable list of such cases. Now there are not any."
Hamilton  Fyfe,  writing to the  Press, on Easter Tuesday, 1940.

TOMMY CAN BE TRUSTED.
"The British soldier can always he trusted to take his glass of beer without any risk of giving away the small amount of knowledge about the war in his possession."
Major-General Sir John Kennedy, in the Weekly Scotsman, February, 1940.


NOW AS THEN.
"There is no man in this House who has fought the licensed trade harder than I have; but I am bound to say that they have met the appeals which I made to them in a patriotic spirit, in an attitude of mind which could leave nothing to be desired from the point of view of anybody who is trying to help this country along."
Mr. Lloyd George, in the House of Commons May 4th, 1915.

A HIGH IDEAL.
"After the church, the public-house ought to be the most sacred spot in town or village: and after the public house, the school."
The Very Rev. Edgar Rogers. Dean of Bocking, Essex, January, 1940.

THANK YOU FOR THAT.
"The statistical evidence at present available does not suggest that a strictly moderate use of alcohol unfavourably affects the mortality rates of the users."
From Suggestions on Health Education,' 1940 Edition. (Published by the Board of Education.)

MORE PRAISE FOR ALCOHOL.
"Alcohol's  general position in medicine has been established by clinical observation over long ages. To begin with, it is the most common vehicle in which standard drugs are prepared and is, of course, a valuable drug itself. It is likewise a food, and supplies energy faster than any other food there is. It is the only food known to medicine which has a drug action, and the only drug  known to medicine which  has food value. Thus it is a provider of energy and a sedative simultaneously. It furthermore provides the energy at a minimum cost to the body, since it does not have to be digested. The energy is liberated into the cells directly, without the work of conversion into another form. Still further, it leaves nothing which has to undergo the process of elimination. If diluted with water it acts as a detoxicant, ridding the body of poisons through the increased urination."
From "Liquor, the Servant of Man," by Dr. Ferdinand C. Helwig and Mr. Walton Hall Smith. Published in the USA, 1940.
"The Brewers' Journal 1940" page 654. (Published August 21st, 1940.)

Roysterer. That's the second time I've come across that word. Public drunkenness, as that little item about Hampstead Heath demonstrates, is nothing new. Talk of a massive increase in excessive boozing in modern Britain aren't so much an exaggeration as an invention.

"Liquor, the Servant of Man," It sounds like the title one of those documentaries presented by Troy Maclure. I'm not sure I share its rosy view of alcohol as both food and drug.

Propaganda. Ugly stuff, whoever's writing it.