§ Mr. BYLESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the failure to pay the accustomed grants to the local education authorities for secondary schools is due solely to the diminution in the consumption of whisky, or to what other cause?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEThe amount of these grants, as my hon. Friend is aware, depends on the yield of the Local Taxation. (Customs and Excise) Duties on beer and spirits and varies from year to year with the quantities of these commodities on which duty is paid in each year. The reduction in the amount available for these grants in 1909–10 is due to a small extent to a falling off in the yield of the Beer Duties, but in the main to the very large reduction which has taken place in the quantity of spirits upon which duty was paid. This reduction is by no means wholly owing to decreased consumption, since a largo part of the consumption of the year has been supplied from duty-paid stocks which were very largely reduced as between 1st April. 1909, and 31st March, 1910.