§ MR. PICTON (Leicester)asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention had been called to a memorial addressed by the Leicester Temperance and General Permanent Building Society, in January last, to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue; whether he was aware that, while 95 per cent of the members of this society were in humble circumstances and not liable to income tax, the Board of Inland 607 Revenue insist either on charging the tax, in order to return it, or on making the society collect the tax from the five per cent of members who were liable; whether he had considered the amount of trouble, expense, and friction that must be caused in either case to a society promotive of thrift among the poor; and whether, in view of his statement in the analogous case of cooperative stores, that, "when the shareholders in any such stores are notoriously all, or almost all, persons of an income less than £150, it would not only not be a gain, but would be a positive loss to the Revenue to levy a tax nearly all of which has to be returned," he would cause the memorial of the Leicester Society to be re-considered, with a view to a more favourable answer than had yet been received?
§ *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,) St. George's Hanover SquareI must ask the hon. Gentleman to give me time to obtain information upon the matter, so as to enable me to answer the question.