§ SIR JOHN HAY (for Mr. HUBBARD)asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether any and what reply has been given by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to a Memorial from the merchants interested in the coffee trade, presented on the 6th February last, urging the withdrawal of a Treasury Minute, dated on the 20th January, which purported to sanction the importation, under a duty of 2d. per pound, of coffee or chicory, roasted and ground, and of any other vegetable matter, however worthless, mixed, without any restriction upon the proportion, with coffee or chicory; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, to be printed, a Copy of the Memorial, with the signatures appended, and of the reply returned to the memorialists?
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH, in reply, said, that the Treasury Order simply permitted the importation of a mixture of chicory and coffee, while it was now allowable to import coffee by itself, and chicory by itself. No alteration whatever had been made with regard to the sale of the mixture which 180 had of late been permissible by law. The question of the advisability of allowing the sale was one that related rather to the Adulteration Acts than to the Customs tariff. There was no objection to laying the Correspondence on the Table, if the hon. Gentleman moved for it.