people are prosperous, the wool and woolen industry, adequately protected as it is under the new law, will inevitably be prosperous also. But it would not be prosperous, however fortunate might be the peculiar legislative and other conditions surrounding it, if the new tariff legislation were not beneficial to the other great interests of the United States.

THE PROSPERITY OF THE BREWING INDUSTRY

BY HUGH F. Fox,

Secretary, United States Brewers Association, New York City.

While the condition of all trades is a matter of common concern, the beer business is specially interesting because it is such an infallible barometer of general industrial conditions. When capital and labor are employed in constructive development, when the building trades are active, railroads prosperous, factories running full time, and the coal and iron men receiving steady wages, the laborer regards beer as a necessity. But in hard times, after his savings are gone and poverty begins to pinch, beer becomes a luxury, which he has to deny himself. He does not, however, lose his taste by self-denial, and the beer-drinking habit is readily resumed as soon as he can afford it. There is a curious analogy to be drawn between the savings bank deposits and the beer sales, for they seem to go up and down together. In times of sudden. panic, neither the savings banks nor the brewers are immediately affected, and it is not until the consequent industrial depression has become general, and the labor market slumps, that savings are withdrawn, and the sales of beer fall off. Thus the beer consumption for the year which ended June 30, 1893, actually showed an increase of 8.58 per cent over the previous year, but the sales for the year following showed a decrease of 3.68 per cent, and the sales for the year ended June 30, 1895, showed a decrease of three per cent, as compared with 1893.

The volume of the beer trade in the United States during the past decade is shown by the table on the next page.

The sales for the year which ended June 30, 1909, showed a decrease of 4.14 per cent, which may be accounted for, in part, by the spread of prohibition, although in the main it is believed to be due to industrial conditions. The detailed figures will not be known until the complete report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue is published. The preliminary report, which was issued on July 27, only gives the gross total, and this shows a decrease

of 2,444,183 barrels. I have, however, obtained reports from several collection districts in the important manufacturing states, which furnish conclusive evidence that the decrease is largely due to industrial conditions. For instance, in the first Pennsylvania district, which takes in Philadelphia and vicinity, there was a decrease of a fraction over five per cent, and the figures for Western Pennsylvania will, it is believed, show a still larger decrease. This is particularly significant, as there is no dry territory in the State of Pennsylvania. Connecticut and Rhode Island show a decrease of 2.40 per cent. In Greater New York, which is certainly not dry territory, the decrease is also nearly five per cent, and the same conditions are reported from the district which includes Newark and Jersey City. It is believed that the tide has now turned, for the months of June, July, August and September, 1909, show a marked increase over the sales of the same months in 1908. The increase in August alone amounted to 480,685 barrels, which makes up for twenty per cent of the entire decrease of the previous fiscal year.

The following table shows the beer sales by states for the fiscal year which ended June 30, 1908, with the increase and decrease as compared with 1907. The total production of 1908 was slightly larger than that of 1907, in spite of the decrease which took place in the business in dry territory. The table indicates the relatively small importance of the prohibition movement in the Southern States. The total of the sales for the entire territory south of Ohio was only 2,817,672 barrels, which is less than five per cent

of the total production, and this includes Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas and the Virginias, which are "wet" states. The total production in Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, now under prohibition, in 1908, was only 471,000, and the Georgia

brewers are still doing business at the old stand. There is, however, a considerable quantity of beer shipped into the Southern States from Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati, and from other points on the border line. I do not know just what the total of these shipments is, but it is estimated at over a million barrels.

By the way, the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1908, published recently by the Department of Commerce and Labor, is illuminating. It reveals that the per capita consumption of wheat flour, corn and corn meal, sugar and coffee decreased in 1908, as compared with 1907, much more largely than the decrease in the per capita consumption of beer. The consumption of tea for some unexplained reason dropped from 1.10 pounds per capita in 1906 to .99 in 1907, and went up again to 1.07 in 1908, but the amount of tea consumed as compared with coffee is very small. The exact figures are as follows:

The enormous expansion of the American beer trade, which has marked the progress of the temperance movement, is, of course, remarkable, but it is due, in part to the unprecedented increase in the urban population. It is generally estimated that eighty-five per cent of the entire beer business of the United States is a city trade. At the same time, the percentage of increase during the past twenty years in beer production, is believed to be much larger than the percentage of increase either in the total population of the country, or in the urban population. The total population of the United States in 1890 was 63,037,704, and in 1900, 76,303,000, an increase of 21.04 per cent. The urban population in 1890 was 20,768,881, and in 1900, 28,411,698, an increase of 36.8 per cent. The beer sales in 1890 were 27,561,944 barrels, and in 1900, 39,330,848 barrels,