Mr. Callaghanpresented a Petition from the Manufacturers of Soap at Cork, which expressed very clearly the grievance of which they had a just right to complain, and praying for an alteration in the law which gave to the manufacturer in England an undue drawback, by which the petitioners were driven out of the trade. He stated that the returns on the Table of that House shewed, that for the last three years the export of soap from England to Ireland was enormous, and that it was every year increasing. By that export the manufacturer in Ire- 1403 land had been driven wholly to abandon his trade. The House would bear in mind, that as no duty existed on soap in Ireland, English soap, going to that country was, justly entitled in principle to a drawback equal to the duty paid in England; but the petitioners believed, that not only was this duty in England imperfectly collected and evaded, though the drawback was certain, that abuses existed which could be proved, and were known to the Excise, and he was enabled to state, that the Government, yielding to the entreaties of his constituents, had sent down to Liverpool one of the Commissioners of Excise, whose report he had read, and it admitted, that a certain allowance of ten per cent in the duty, in lieu of waste, was an abuse—that, in practice, the manufacturer who made soap for export sent it off before it wasted anything whatever, and it recommended that this allowance should be abolished. Notwithstanding this, however, nothing was done by Ministers to remedy this part of the abuse. He quite concurred in the statements on this subject made to the House by the hon. Alderman (the member for London), who had repeatedly addressed the House on the same subject, from information derived from the most intelligent manufacturers in the city of London, who were anxious, and had petitioned the House, for an alteration such as his constituents prayed for. He would assure the House, and especially the right hon. Secretary for Ireland, whose duty he hoped it would be to see that this oppression should not be continued, that he could not more effectually stop much of the growing disaffection that was pervading the mercantile community of Ireland, than by attention to this subject. He could assure the right hon. Gent. that he was personally acquainted with most of those who signed the petition—that they were loyal and respectable; but that many of them felt they were the victims of what he would call English injustice and knavery. Since this unjust drawback had annihilated their trade, they were become more zealous Repealers of the Union than influence, however powerful, or the example of other persons, however respected, could have made them.