Abolition of the Hop Duty
The 15th September, 1862, dates the freedom of English Hops from Excise impost, and the abolition of Customs duties upon foreign Hops. Time alone can show the effect so serious a change will have on the average prices of a produce of increasing importance throughout the world. The general opinion is that under perfect freedom of trade hops will vary in price in each district of production only in proportion to their quality and the cost of transport; and that consumers will find prices more uniformly even than has hitherto been known, since the simultaneous failure in the crop at home and abroad is beyond probability.
This tax was first imposed by Mr. Harley in the year 1711; and its removal will make the hopgrower in future free from those heavy losses which the Duty inflicted on him in years of large crops and small prices. Hopgrowing has now become a simple farming operation, left to natural causes. It might be that, owing to the costly nature of the production and the precarious nature of the crop, it would always remain a somewhat more speculative branch of business than any other branch of farming. It is, however, thought that the supply of hops will be more abundant, and, above all, more steady and uniform from year to year. The consequence will be that the beer we drink will be more wholesome. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, says: “Beer made without hops is productive of heaviness and melancholy; but that well hopped is an antidote to it.”