§ MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM (Cork County, N. E.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that only one person was authorised by the Beard of Inland Revenue to grow tobacco in Ireland last year and obtain the rebate of 1s. per pound on the produce, and that other persons who carried out experimental growing at the own cost have been refused a rebate; and if he will consider the desirability of recommending the Board of Inland Revenue to grant the rebate to these growers.
§ MR. WALTER LONGThe rebate is only allowed to a limited number of growers selected by, and working under the supervision of, the Department of 381 Agriculture and Technical Instruction. The Department's Advisory Committee on Tobacco recommended that the experiment in 1904 should be confined to one centre, viz., Navan, and that at least twenty acres should be grown there. Others in the district having declined to offer land for the purpose, Colonel Everard undertook to plant the entire twenty acres, and consequently he was the only approved grower entitled to the rebate. The Answer to the concluding inquiry is in the negative.