Lord Suffield, in presenting three Petitions from certain inhabitants of Norfolk, praying for a repeal of the Malt Tax, said, he should take that opportunity to explain what he had already stated when presenting a petition of a similar nature on Thursday. The petitioners, on both occasions, complained of the distress which at present affected the agriculturists; they alluded to the burthens under which they suffered, but more particularly they complained of the Malt-tax, He had likewise 962 stated, that the sympathy evinced by the yeomen and farmers of Norfolk for the distresses of the labouring population was highly creditable to their feelings. With respect to the Poor-laws, he thought that they were not so well administered as they might be; but it was to the gentry and magistrates, to the higher classes of society, that he looked for the improvement of them rather than to the farmers. He had been present at a most respectable meeting of the county of Norfolk on the 16th of January last, when all who attended were unanimous in desiring a repeal of the Malt-tax,—the only difference of opinion which existed referred to the amount of taxation from which they expected to be relieved. The whole county of Norfolk, he was persuaded, desired the abolition of this tax, principally because it peculiarly pressed upon the poor.
§ The Duke of Wellingtonprofessed to have a perfect recollection of what the noble Lord had said upon the presentation of the former petition. To the best of his belief, he had expressed himself to the same purport, if not in the same words, then, as he had done upon the present occasion. He remembered his having referred to the ineffectual administration of the Poor-laws in Norfolk, and specified the 9th Geo. 3rd as the source to which they were to look for a remedy.