§ MR. EUGENE WASON (Clackmannan and Kinross)I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that inconvenience is caused to grain and other merchants by His Majesty's Customs requiring them to obtain from their customers a certificate that treacle, which has been sold and invoiced to be used for feeding stuffs only, has in fact been so used; and whether he will give instructions that, where a trader has given such a certificate, he shall not be further required to make inquiries from his customers.
(Answered by Mr. Austen. Chamberlain.) Under Section 1 (1) of the Revenue Act, 1903, the Commissioners of Customs are authorised to impose such conditions as may be necessary, in their opinion, for the protection of the revenue, in connection with the duty-free importation of molasses intended to be used as food for stock. Regulations have accordingly been made under which an undertaking is required to be given by the importer or proprietor to produce, whenever called upon to do so, evidence to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Customs that the molasses has been actually used as food for stock only, or in the preparation of articles which can only be used for that purpose. The Commissioners usually require such evidence to be in the form of a certificate that the molasses has been actually used for the prescribed purpose, and such certificates can obviously not be given by traders themselves in respect of molasses which they have sold to other persons. It therefore rests with the traders to make their own arrangements with their customers to provide themselves with the necessary certificates from the actual users for production to the Customs when required.