ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF THE BREWING INDUSTRY.

TH

HE late Col. Carroll D. Wright, for many years United States Commissioner of Labor, once remarked that the sudden cessation and destruction of the brewing industry would cause a greater economic disturbance than our country has ever known in times of peace. Only a cataclysm of nature or an unthinkable industrial revolution would produce like results.

Those who prate so incessantly about a time when countrywide prohibition shall prevail give no thought to this subject. They do not grasp the situation and even fail to realize that their own not unsensitive pocket-nerve would be sorely touched if their dreams came true. Indeed, no one who lacks the skill and patience to dig out the facts can fail to see clearly the economic importance of the brewing industry and how closely its interests are interwoven with numerous other industries which all alike are eager to preserve and foster.

Fortunately, the United States Bureau of the Census furnishes a storehouse of information which enables one to state the case lucidly and make the necessary comparisons. And supplementary facts of great significance are obtainable from equally trustworthy

sources.

THE CAPITAL INVESTED IN BREWING.

Let us first consider the extent of the capital invested in the industry. According to the report of the census of manufactures taken in 1910, the manufacture of malt liquors ranked sixth among the great industries of the United States in amount of capital, as shown in the following statement:

To state the matter differently, out of 257 industries specified by the census, only five have a larger amount of capital invested than the brewing industry. Self-evidently, the enormous capital represented by the beer industry would, for the greater part, utterly disappear if manufacture ceased for good and all, for it means chiefly money invested in plants and their appurtenances. To wipe out assets of such proportions would in itself spell a national calamity. But this is only a part of the story. The capital of other industries which depend wholly or in part upon the maintenance of beerbrewing would, in some instances, be lost and, in others, be seriously impaired if the breweries were destroyed. The values which thus might be annihilated can not be stated in exact amounts, but without entering into the realms of speculation one can easily adduce convincing facts in support of the thesis that the total destruction of the brewing industry would cause a financial upheaval of unexampled dimensions.

Some important industries would then be ruined outright. The malt industry, rated separately in the census report, which is a case in point, represented in 1909 a capital of about 60 million dollars. It is wholly dependent upon the brewing business and lives and dies with it. The mention of the industry immediately brings to mind the intimate relation between brewing and the cultivation of certain agricultural products. The matter is so significant that some details must be stated.

As shown by the census, the cost of the materials used in the manufacture of beer amounts to more than one hundred million dollars a year. By far the greater part of this huge sum is paid for barley, hops, corn and rice. In 1909 more than seven and a half million acres of barley were harvested, which is equivalent to four per cent. of the entire cereal acreage of the United States. Four States Minnesota, North Dakota, California and South Dakotahad each more than one million of acres in barley and several other States devoted huge areas to the same cereal. By far the largest part of the barley crop is consumed in the manufacture of beer and ale, and the value of this crop of the last census is more than ninetytwo million dollars! Between the years 1899 and 1909, the barley acreage increased about 72 per cent. Still, in response to the demands of the brewing industry, there is need of more barley, production is increasing and prices range high. Should the making of beer stop, the raising of barley would at once become unprofit

able and financial havoc would overtake farmers over large sections of the country.

Thanks to the brewing industry, hop-raising is becoming of greater and greater agricultural importance. Taking only the States of California, Oregon, New York and Washington, the census shows that in 1909 they harvested more than 44,000 acres of hops, valued at nearly eight million dollars. The value of the 1912 crop Still the domestic supply

of hops is nearer fifteen million dollars. is barely enough to meet the present demands of the breweries. A great impetus to hop-farming is certain to take place and is already being prepared for. Some of the irrigated sections of the Pacific Coast States are likely to depend very largely upon this valuable product. But even now the destruction of the hop industry through the cessation of beer-making would mean ruin to thousands.

There are no available figures showing the precise amounts of corn and rice consumed in beer-making, but we know that they are large enough to be of very material consequence to the farmers.

ALLIED INDUSTRIES.

Now let us turn to other industries that stand in close relation to the manufacture of beer and are more or less wholly dependent upon it. The cooperage business, for instance, represents a capital of over fifty million dollars and distributed in 1909 more than eleven million dollars to wage-earners. How much of the cooperage business would be left if the breweries no longer demanded casks, barrels and kegs? Back of this industry stand the men who grow the wood, and who furnish the metal tools. Then there are scores of industries which furnish the breweries a variety of necessary articles. The glass factories making bottles count the brewers among their best customers and reckon the value of the goods sold them by millions of dollars in capital and wages. Many factories specialize in building the costly and complicated machinery required in the brewing industry, such as bottling and corking machines, washing machines, racking apparatus, filter-presses, refrigerators, pumps and many other things, not to enumerate the commoner products in the way of engines, boilers and the like. The mention of the latter brings to mind the enormous consumption of coal in the brewing industry. There is no means of estimating the cost of the coal consumed annually in this industry. But one

can get a glimmering of it by stating that the total horse-power (excluding duplication) required to run the brewing establishments in 1909 was 347,726. What this means can be made clearer by comparisons. The combined horsepower required in the production of agricultural implements, automobiles, boots and shoes, bread and bakery products, was less than that required in the production of beer. He who reads can see at once how the production and transportation of coal would be affected by the loss of this huge power which must be generated the whole year through. And let it be remembered that if the machines of the brewers should stop, the whirr of thousands of other machines would be heard no more, or in greatly lessened volume, which would mean a further diminution in the demand for coal and electricity.

Only bare reference can be made to the small industries which specialize in certain brewers' supplies, such as varnish, metallic caps, stoppers, labels, etc., etc. In short, how many industries there are depending, directly or indirectly, upon the maintenance of the brewing industry, what their capitalization is, the amount annually distributed in wages, etc., can not be stated in detail. Nor is it worth while to estimate the totals. Enough has been said to show the wide ramifications of the brewing industry and to indicate the enormous agricultural as well as industrial interests at stake. To try and represent the matter in dollars and cents would merely be stating a sum so huge that one fails to grasp it. But there remain other aspects of the situation which lend additional and strong emphasis to the statement that the destruction of the brewing industry would result in economic disturbances of enormous consequence.

WAGES.

The 1,414 breweries in the United States distributed in 1909 no less than $41,206,000 in wages. What this means can best be appreciated by stating that the beer industry ranked No. 18 among 257 specified industries enumerated in actual amount paid wageearners. In other words, only the following industries showed larger wage schedules;

Automobiles. Boots and Shoes. Bread and Bakery Products. Clothing. Cotton Cotton Goods. Electric Machinery. Foundry and Machine Shops. Furniture and Refrigerators. Hosiery and Knit Goods. Iron and Steel. Lumber and Timber. Printing and