§ Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that in their second Report for the year ended 31st March, 1911, the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs and Excise, in commenting upon legislation affecting the customs and excise, state that the distribution of the increased duties in the case of tied houses between the licence holder and the person to whom he is tied is to be provided according to the proportion of profit received by each; whether he is aware that the word profit is nowhere used in Section 46 of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, to which the Report refers; and whether he will take 28 steps to make it clear that Clause 46 is not intended to bear the interpretation that an increase of rent or of the price of intoxicating liquor charged by the owner of a tied house to a tied tenant is a source of profit to the tenant?
Mr. McKINNON WOODI have looked at the paragraph in the second Report of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to which the hon. Member refers. I am informed that the word "benefit" should have been used instead of the word "profit," and that it is due to an oversight in correcting the proofs that the word "profit" appears therein. There is nothing in the paragraph to indicate that Section 46 of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, is intended to bear the interpretation suggested in the last sentence in the question, and, as a matter of fact, it is not so interpreted by the Commissioners.
§ Mr. O'DOWDasked whether changes are being made in the examinations for Excise and Customs, whereby the higher age limit has been cut down to twenty-one; and, if so, whether, seeing that the new syllabus will shut out the majority of national school candidates in Ireland, a source from which the Customs and Excise service has been largely recruited for a number of years past, the whole matter of this syllabus will be reconsidered?
Mr. McKINNON WOODI must refer the hon. Member to the answer which I have just given to the hon. Member for North Fermanagh.