§ MR. WALDEGRAVE-LESLIEwished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the Government have any intention of bringing in a Bill this Session for the reduction and better collection of the Duty on Dogs? He must remind the Government of the present high value of sheep and of the great loss to a farmer from the destruction of even one sheep from the worrying of a stray dog. He believed that the late Government had prepared a measure on the subject, which he hoped the new Government would take up. Farmers, flockmasters, and the public generally had expressed a strong desire on the subject, and he would, therefore, put the Question of which he had given notice.
§ MR. HUNTsaid, that it was not the intention of the Government to pass a Bill this Session. The Inland Revenue Department had prepared a measure for trans- 1163 ferring the collection of the tax from the assessed taxes branch to the Excise branch of the Inland Revenue. But he thought some of the proposals in the Bill likely to be vexatious to the owners of dogs. The matter was a difficult one, but he hoped to introduce a Bill next Session.
§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHwould like to ask the hon. Member for Pontefract, whether he had prepared a Bill?
§ MR. CHILDERSsaid, that before he left office he received from the Inland Revenue Department a draft of a Bill reducing the tax on dogs. It had not been finally revised, and he thought it better to leave it for his successor, in the shape in which he had received it.