§ MR. CHRISTOPHERinquired whether the Government intended to ask the House on Friday for a permanent or a temporary measure with regard to the employment of sugar in breweries and distilleries?
LORD J. RUSSELLanswered, that the Government intended to move a resolution empowering the use of sugar in breweries and distilleries absolutely, and afterwards, if the House should agree to that resolution, to propose a Bill to carry it into effect. They would not propose that there should be any limit in point of time; indeed their object was that it should be a permanent law. It would be perfectly competent to the hon. Member, by a clause in the Bill, or in any manner he should think proper, to propose that it should be for a limited time; and he (Lord J. Russell) should be quite ready then to give the question consideration. Not that he meant to say that the Government would propose 178 the measure otherwise than as a permanent measure; but it might be a question for consideration whether or not it were advisable to pass a Bill in the first instance for a short time, proposing afterwards to continue it and make it a permanent measure. That was a question upon which he should be desirous to hear the hon. Member's opinion.