The Legend of the Patriotic Drinker

This is one hell of a statistic:

In Britain, taxes on all types of alcohol contributed 36 percent of national revenue in 1898-99, but they were also 19 percent in France (1898), 18 percent in Germany (1897-98), and 28 percent in the United States (1897-98).

That’s from a new book by James Simpson Creating Wine, the Emergence of a World Industry 1840-1914. This seems hard to believe until one recalls how little governments spent on anything back in the late-Victorian era. Nevertheless, there you have it: boozers kept Britain afloat then just as drinkers and smokers do more than their bit to fund the government these days. Even so: 36%! There’s something almost heroic about that.

 

These days, alcohol taxes raise something like £9bn a year so limiting government spending to three times the money raised by booze would, roughly speaking, like taking the Scottish block grant and using that money to fund the whole of the British government.