§ Mr. Wodehouserose, pursuant to notice, to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information he had to give to the House respecting the memorials that were submitted to the Treasury in the course of last year from the maltsters of England and Wales; first, concerning the injury sustained by them from the alteration in the allowance of seventeen and a half per cent, in lieu of twenty per cent, under the operation of the Act of 11 George 4th, referred to in the 15th Report of the Commissioners of Excise Inquiry, page 21, appendix No. 44, No. 49; and also with respect to the prevalence of illicit malting in Ireland, referred to in the same Report, page 55.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequerstated, that on receiving the memorials to which the hon. Gentleman referred, he felt it to be his duty at once to direct an investigation into the facts of the allegations contained in them. Up to the year 1830, he found that the duty on malt was liable to an allowance or reduction of twenty per cant, but while this allowance was made on the one hand, the maltsters on the other were subject to very severe and very inconvenient excise restrictions. In the year 1830, the maltsters themselves proposed that if Government would relieve them from those severe restrictions, that the allowance of twenty per cent should be reduced to seventeen and a-half per cent; and inconsequence an arrangement, based upon these conditions, was carried into effect. He should be prepared on any future occasion, when it might be more convenient to the House, to state what the reasons were which induced him to think that a compliance with the request set forth in the memorial would not be expedient; but it was right that he should lose no time in stating that the effect of the request contained in the memorial, if it were conceded, would be to afford a reduction in the tax of no more 950 than one penny a bushel, a reduction affording little or no benefit to individuals, whilst the effect of it on the revenue would be to cause a reduction of not less than 164,000l. a year. With respect to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, namely, the prevalence of illicit malting in Ireland, he could only state that the best attention of the Government was directed to the subject, and- that if the present force in that country were not found sufficient to put a stop to the practice, a Bill would be brought into Parliament for the purpose of arming the Government with additional powers.