October 21, 1905.)
TEA DRINKING IN ENGLAND.
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(Daily Press, 18th October). The British people have long been regarded as the greatest ten-drinkers in Europe, but until the Board of Trade published its memorandum which we briefly summarised in our issue of yesterday, few of us can have imagined our tea consumption in the United Kingdom to be so enormously greater than the consumption in any other country of Europe. We have it, however, officially set down that in the United King- dom over 6lbs. of ten per head of the popu- lation are consumed yearly and that there is no other country in Europe, with the exception of Holland, where the consump- tion exceeds 1lb. per head. In view of what the memorandum tells us of the con- sumption of tea and the decline which has taken place in the cost of it to the con- sumer, it is very interesting to glance back over the history of tea in England. One of the earliest recorded instances of te- drinking in England probably is to be found in the eternally interesting "Diary of SAMUEL PEPYS. In 1660, PEPYS wrote: "I did send for a cup of tea (a China drink) of which I never had drank before," but it was not until seven years later apparently that "the berb" found its way to his own house. At all events it is recorded in the year 1667 in these terms: "Home, and there find my wife making of tea: a drink which Mr. PELLING, the Potticary, tells her is good for her cold." Mr. PELLING, the Potticary, had sold the tea to Mrs. PEPYS at a most enormous price-a crown ounce at the very least. She had tasted the liquor once before; but then there was sugar in the infusion-a beverage only for the highest. She reflected that if tea should become fashionable, it would cost in house-keeping as much as their claret. PEPYS, however, assured his wife that the price was coming down; and ho produced the handbill of THOMAS GARWAY, in Ex- change Alley, which the lady perused with great satisfaction, for the worthy merchant Bays that although
"tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds and sometimes for tea pounds the pound weight," he "by continued care and in dustry in obtaining the best tea" was now able to "sell tea for 16s. to 50s. per lb." GARWAY mentions that he not only sold tea in the leaf but " many noblemen, physicians, merchants, etc., daily resort to his house to drink the drink thereof." Coffee and tea came into England as twin brothers, and by-and-by there sprang up all over London the famous coffee-houses, many of which have their merits enshrined in some of the best literature of the country.
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It has been said that the history of tea from its first introduction to England, may be rend in the history of taxation. The first tax is, indeed, a curious illustration of the mode of its sale. By an act of Charles II (1670) a duty of eighteen pence was imposed upon "every gallon of chocolate, sherbet, and tea, made and sold, to be paid by the makers thereof," and we may infer from this that tea Was practically unknown as a general article of diet even of the wealthiest. This mode of taxation must have required the presence of an excise officer in every coffee-house. Though the aforesaid Mr. GARWAY proclaimed that phy. sicians among others daily resorted to his house to drink tea, there is abundant record of fact that doctors generally denounced its use and wits railed against it; but it never- theless grew in favour. In 1688 the method of taxation was changed to a Customs duty of five shillings per pound, and this lasted
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. for balf a century. Tea was so expensive a luxury apparently that in the Tatler of 1710 it is stated on the authority of an "antiquary who has searched the registers in which the bills of fare of the Court are recorded," that instead of tea and bread and butter, which had prevailed of late years, the maids of honour in QUEEN ELIZABETH's time were allowed "three rumps of beef for their breakfast"! We have no record of the number catered for, but in charity assume the number to have been large indeed. Yet in spite of prohibitory tariffs tea forced its
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common use, and when in 1745 the Government reduced the taxation to "1s. per lb. and 25 per cent. on the gross price the consumption increased by leaps and bounds. In 1745 the home consumption was 730,729 lbs,; the following year that figure was trebled. Men began to rail at the excessive use of tea which in 1748 was described as having become "so common that the meanest families, even of labouring people, particu- larly in boroughs, make their morning meil of it, and thereby wholly disuse the ale, which heretofore was their accustomed drink; and the same drug supplies all the labouring women with their afternoon's entertainments to the exclusion of the twoppenny." Notwithstanding the ridicule of the wits, and the prejudices of those who urged that the popular use of tea would ruin agriculture by diminishing the demand for malt liquors, & view taken by various administrations in the eighteenth century, who accordingly adopted as a policy the fiscal folly of prohibition-the ten-drinking habit had become so rooted in the people that no efforts of the government could destroy it. When the excise duty was repealed in 1834, and retail prices were brought down to a figure within the means of the general populace the consumption increased remarkably. In 1833 the consumption of tea in the United Kingdom was teu million pounds more than it was sixteen before.
years In the next fifteen years, bringing us down to 1848, the nation was consuming seventeen millions more than in 1833, the total amount retained for home consump- tion in 1848 being 48,735,791 lbs. When it is stated that the consumption in the United Kingdom is now over 250 million pounds a year, it simply shows what "hardened and shameless tea-drinkers" the English people have become. It is an interesting specula- tion whether the fact of the extraordinary popularity of tea in England is not traceable to the probibitive taxation placed upon it in is early days. Even in the early part of the last century tea which sold for eight shillings in England could be procured for fourteen pence in Hamburg. The very ex- pensiveness of the article, combined with the avowed hostility of the brewers towards it, probably only increased the eagerness of the people to procure it.
EUROPEAN COALITIONS.
(Daily Press, 19th October.) Thanks mainly to the good sense of King OSCAR, the partition of Sweden and Norway, which for some time seemed not unlikely to lead to an internecine struggle between the two Scandinavian monarchies, has been brought to a peaceful conclusion, and the two nations, though not under one bead, have come to recognise the fact that each and both have been saved from a great danger. But not only are the Scandinavian States to be congratulated on the result but the whole of Europe, as there is now no doubt that one of the first results of a war between the States would have been a claim on the part of Russia and Germany to
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declare the Baltic a closed sea. England bound by the traditions of centuries to friendship with both countries could have taken part with neither, Russia does not feel quite assured with regard to her hold on Finland, and has contrived to alienate the Scandinavian population of that coun- try; to render herself more secure she has been desirous of what she calls a rectifica- tion of her frontiers along the Arctic Ocean, have had no objection to cede her Finmark, and it was presumed that Norway would which would have given her what she is most desirous of, an ice-free port opening directly on the Atlantic coast. "Surrounded on all sides, Sweden would have been help.. less, and the moral effect on the Finlanders of having a free Scandinavian State in close proximity would have been effectually coun- teracted, beginning of the dispute Norway did not It seems strange that in the
sufficiently appreciate the consequence of pressing her claims à l'outrance, and that it was only through the superior political prescience of the KING and the Government of Sweden that the great common danger has been momentarily, at least, averted. The only source of gratification left is that at the last moment both nations did come to see the danger to themselves, and that now that all possible sources of dispute have been removed, both are better able to see the primary necessity of a close alliance.
only two countries where internal differ- But Sweden and Norway are not the ences, in reality of very little moment to either, have been raised to the position of international ill-feeling. stance is perhaps of greater importance to The second in.
the peace of Europe. For centuries Austria and Hungary have similarly been two inde pendent countries with different political aspirations united under the one dynastic bend. Such a close connection demands rare administrative abilities on the part of the ruling house, but the House of HAPSBURG has been from its first accession to the Imperial dignity singularly wanting in those qualities which go to make grcat leaders, and from the time of the election of RUDOLF, Count of HAPSBURG, till its final extinction in 1806, their want served as a basis for the continuous weakening of the Empire. The Congress of Vienna did not attempt to restore the Empire, but made a curious compromise, and reinstated the House of HAPSBURG as Emperors of- Austria, giving them a very extensive state indeed, but one composed of very dissim lar - elements, partly German, but also, so far as Magyar and Slavonic. The HAPSBURGS mere population is concerned, more largely had no more loyal subjects than the people of Hungary,
whose traditions always recalled their great "king," as they loved to call the Empress MARIA THERESA, but, acting on the bad traditions of the so-called "Holy Alliance," no sooner was FRANCIS, the first Emperor of Austria, restored to power than he proceeded to treat Hungary as a conquered country, and subordinated her independence to the German provinces. The result was the rebellion of 1848. NICOLAS I. of Russia, which was then in the plenitude of its power, sent an army into Hungary on behalf of
the Holy Alliance and, having routed the insurgents, banded back the country to the HAPSBURGS. Placed between two fires the then Emperor FERDINAND resigned in favour of his nephew FRANCIS JOSEPH, who at first was disposed to accept a liberal constitution; but finding himself overpowered by his German advisers he, however, renewed the old policy. After the loss of the Italian dependencies of the House of Austria wis councils prevailed, and in 1866 the Hu
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