In the last two periods five per cent is added to all the duties.

Thus, while the consumption of tea and coffee has increased even
beyond the ratio of the population, the consumption of tobacco has
decreased.

This table also exemplifies the greater productiveness of a low duty
compared with a high one; for instance, coffee in 1801, at 1s. 7d.
per lb., yielded L77,654; in 1821, at 1s. per lb., L379,650; and, in
1841, at 6d. per lb., L710,524; tobacco in 1821, at 4s. per lb.,
yielded L3,164,673, and 1841, at 3s. per lb., L3,314,215. But the
difference in duty in the latter case was not sufficient to curtail
the profits of the smuggler to any material extent.

Cigars afford a remarkable example of the amount of duty being
increased by diminishing the rate. In 1828, when the duty was 18s.
per lb., duty was paid on 8,600 lbs. only, yielding L7,740. In 1830,
when the duty was reduced to 9s. per lb., duty was paid on 66,000
lbs., yielding L29,700; and such has been the increase of
consumption, that, in 1841, duty was paid on 213,613 lbs., yielding
L100,899.

We would further illustrate the position by the following facts:

In 1798, Ireland, with a population of 4,000,000, consumed 8,000,000
lbs. of tobacco, and now, with more than double the population, she
consumes about 3,000,000 lbs. of tobacco less than at the former
period. The reason is obvious: in 1789 the duty was 8d. per lb; now
it is 3s. In 1798, England and Scotland, with a population of
10,000,000, consumed 10,000,000 lbs. of tobacco, being one half of
the relative consumption of Ireland at the same period; the duty in
England and Scotland being then 1s. 7d. per lb., and in Ireland only
8d.

But the quantity of tobacco on which duty is paid does not even
approximately show the quantity consumed. If the duty now paid on
tobacco in the United Kingdom retained the same relative proportion
to the population that it held in Ireland in 1798, the duty in 1841
would have been actually levied upon 53,711,856 lbs., instead of
22,094,772 lbs.; and such we believe to be about the actual amount
of consumption, the great bulk of the supply being furnished by the
illicit trader.

In Prussia, it appears that the consumption of tobacco is at the
rate of three pounds per head; while, in England, if we were to
judge from