nd still there is such ample room for increase that
domestic servants are allowed at least four times as much per head as
those working people who value, more than any other class, the
cheerful refreshingness of tea, but who, stinted in its use by the
exorbitant duty, are tempted and almost driven to the use, instead, of
degrading drinks.

And if the general consumption of the population should rise to even
half servants' allowance, or one ounce per head per week, the
consumption of tea would reach 97,500,000 lbs. per annum. And as to
what might be used if the taste for it had free scope, some idea may
be formed from the fact that the consumption of such people as have
found their way from these countries, where the consumption is 1 lb. 9
ozs. per head, to Australia, has there risen to 7 lbs. per head, at
which rate the consumption of the United Kingdom would be about
210,000,000 lbs. per annum, and which, even at a 6d. duty, would
produce five millions and a half. There is nothing in the air of
Australia to give any especial impulse to tea drinking: on the
contrary; in this comparatively cold, damp climate, people would
naturally use a hot beverage more largely than in the dry warm climate
of Australia; and, after all, great as the Australian consumption
seems, it is scarcely more than a quarter of an ounce per head per
week above the allowance to English domestic servants.

The consumption of tea, notwithstanding the dicta of Mr. Montgomery
Martin, is destined to a prodigious increase. Nor is it solely to an
increase in the consumption of tea, that we must look to prevent any
deficiency in the revenue, as there is no doubt that a reduction in
the price of the article would lead to a prodigious increase in the
quantity of sugar consumed, especially by the lower classes, who
seldom take the one without the other.

It is not, however, merely that they would buy sugar in proportion to
the quantity of tea that they consume; the circumstance of a smaller
sum being requisite for their weekly stock of tea, would enable them
to spend a larger amount in other articles, among which sugar would,
undoubtedly, be one of the most important. The merchant, shipowner,
manufacturer, and all connected with the trade between Great Britain
and China, are in a position to see the prodigious advantages that
such a measure as an extensive reduction of the impost on tea would
occasion to the general trade of the country; and the public at l