TABLE VI.-FRANCE. Revenue from Duties on Food, Drink, and Tobacco-Contd.

*Including a special receipt of 700,000l. from the surtax on the quantities catalogued at merchants and depositories of alcohol on 1st January, 1901.

+ Excluding licenses for drink and vinegar excise.

In this table is included the whole of the revenues collected on foodstuffs, drink, and tobacco. For obvious reasons the import duties on hops are added to the revenue from alcoholic drink rather than to any other category. The French revenue system also includes a consumption tax on salt, and this is included. in the table, which shows that the annual yield of the salt tax has remained consistently in the neighbourhood of 950,000l. Some difficulty arises in the proper treatment of the tobacco monopoly. Following the accepted rule, it was tacitly assumed in Table III relating to the United Kingdom that the Post Office revenue was not a tax. To be perfectly consistent it would be necessary to treat the revenue from every State monopoly as being of the same character as the Post Office. The object of this paper is, however, to give information as to the revenues in various countries from food, drink, and tobacco, and some consistency must be sacrificed in order that the statement presented shall be a complete one. No harm will be done if the fact is not forgotten at the proper time. The sum which has been credited to the tobacco tax in the above table is therefore the difference between the gross revenue and the expenses of administration. For the years prior to 1890 this has been assumed at 80 per cent. of the gross revenue.

Returning to Table VI it is seen that the total French revenue derived from the taxation of food, drink, and tobacco amounted in 1906 to 49,800,000l. and was more than double the sum raised in the same way in 1865 when it amounted only to 23,660,000l. A large increase took place after 1870; and between 1880 and the present time, during the whole of which period the Méline tariff has been in force, the food-tax revenues have increased but slowly. They reached the exceptionally high figure of 52,180,000l. in 1900, but this is entirely accounted for by the extraordinarily high yield of the wine duties, owing to an exceptionally bountiful harvest, in that year.

The import duties on foodstuffs have increased from 3,690,000l. in 1865 to 10,080,000l. in 1906. They amounted to 9,940,000l. in 1885 and 10,730,000l. in 1903. The most important food item in the French tariff is coffee which corresponds in the French system with tea in the English. Cocoa yields close on a million sterling per annum, and so also do the duties on cereals. The only other important item is sugar which produced in 1906 a sum of 890,000l. Meat produced about 120,000l. and fish 150,000l.

The duties on imported foreign liquors show a decided fallingoff since 1900. In that year imported drinks provided 1,610,000l. for the French exchequer; in 1906 it amounted to 340,000l. only. The excise duties raised on actual foodstuffs amounted in 1906 to

5,170,000l., being 2,800,000l. more than in 1865.

The principal

item in this total is the sugar duty, which accounted for all but 500,000l. of it in 1906. Salt produced 400,000l. in addition to the consumption tax, and vinegar 110,000l.

Following the plan adopted in the British table, the following statement shows the relation of the French food taxation to the total exchequer receipts of that country :

TABLE VII.-FRANCE. Proportion of Revenue Receipts from Food, Drink, and Tobacco Duties and Licenses to Total Revenue and Tax Revenue respectively.

It will be noted that, compared either with the total budget receipts or compared with the tax-revenue only, the revenue derived from the taxation of foods, &c., amounts to a considerably smaller proportion than in the United Kingdom. It is also noticeable that the proportions have remained fairly constant for more than thirty years, with a slight tendency to decline. It may be said, therefore, that in France about one-third of the total revenue of the State is obtained from the taxation of food, drink, and tobacco. There is not observable in this case that tendency to a rapid increase either in the amount or in the proportion which was a marked feature of the United Kingdom figures.

An analysis of the customs receipts shows, however, a very decided diminution in the proportion of the revenue derived from the importation of food, drink, and tobacco to the total revenue from imports of every description.

TABLE VIII.—FRANCE. Relation of Customs Receipts from Food, Drink, and Tobacco respectively to Total Customs Receipts.

In this, as in the previous table, the net revenue derived from the tobacco monopoly worked by the State has been added to the import duties, on the assumption that in effect the payment of the import duty has been merely deferred through the intervention of the State factories. It will be observed that in 1870 no less than 91 per cent. of the customs receipts came from food, drink, and tobacco; in 1880 the proportion fell to about 84 per cent.; in 1890 it amounted to 80 per cent.; in 1900 to 73 per cent.; and, in the latest year for which the figures are given, to 77 per cent. Or, stated otherwise, between 1875 and 1905 there was an increase of 11,400,000l. in the customs receipts, and of this 7,500,000l. was derived from food, drink, and tobacco and 3,900,000l. from other articles. The 7,500,000l. is further accounted for to the extent of 4,700,000l. by tobacco, and only 2,800,000l. by the taxation of ordinary foodstuffs.

France is regarded as a country with a more or less stationary population. It becomes important, therefore, to examine how far the slow increase in the French population is commensurate with the slight increase in French food taxation. The details are set out in the following table :

TABLE IX.-FRANCE. Yield of Food, &c., Taxes, and other Taxes, per

The total revenue from food, &c., taxes, has increased per head of population by 3'48. only in the interval from 1875 to 1905, compared with 7'48. for all other taxes. The former represents an increase of 16 per cent., and the latter of 25 per cent., per head of the population. If instead of comparing the taxation in France with the total population, the comparison were made with the increased wealth of the country or with the adult male population, it would probably be found that the taxation has increased appreciably less rapidly than either of these other two quantities. So far as the adult male population is concerned, some comparative estimates will be found later in this paper.

Combining both the customs and the excise duties, the following table shows the relation between the sums raised from food (including non-alcoholic beverages) and alcoholic drinks :

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VOL. LXXI. PART II.