daily necessities. Where, then, and how was he to brew beer? He had in reality no option at all, and no means of avoiding the payment of this unjust and burdensome duty. There was, however, a means by which the weight might be removed; and this was, by placing the duty on malt instead of on beer. The expense of collecting the duty on malt was now 300,000l. per annum. If the alteration he recommended should be adopted, this sum would be saved to the country; because, although the duty on one was 20s., and on the other 40s., the expense of collecting would be the same. Upon the subject to which he now called the attention of the house, he had twice before approached it. He had then, as he trusted he had done now, treated the subject fairly. On the first occasion, in 1823, he had asked only for a committee to inquire into the matter, and he had given the right hon. gentleman (the chancellor of the exchequer) an opportunity, if he had chosen to avail himself of it, of doing what must have given satisfaction. The house then said that the duty was so just, so fair, so proper, that there ought to be no inquiry at all; and this, too, at the very moment when the right hon. gentleman was dabbling (if he might use that expression) with a measure he had since carried respecting beer, and which, although it had done some good, had fallen far short of the remedy which the subject required. At the same moment, too, that the house rejected the inquiry for which he moved, there was lying on the table a petition from Scotland, in which doubts were expressed of

the possiblity of levying the duty. His wish for a committee arose from the experience he had had of the usefulness of such inquiries; for, perhaps, the most valuable and correct information which had ever been obtained on any subject had been through the committees of that house. In the following year (1824) he had proposed a committee to inquire into the expediency of substituting the tax on beer for a tax on malt of the same amount; and this, too, had been refused. If, therefore, in again approaching the house on the subject, he should vary the terms of his proposition, he hoped he should stand excused. The motion he should now submit was much stronger and more extensive than those he had before suggested; but the evil was one which required a strong remedy. His motion would be, that from the 5th of January next all the duties on beer should cease. The inquiries he had asked for had been refused, and there nothing left him but this course. If the principle of the tax against which he contended was right, why was it not followed up in other instances? Why were not tea, candles, soap, leather, glass, wine, and tobacco, all taxed in the same manner? Would the right hon. gentleman dare to put in a schedule to any bill that he should have to propose, such items as that the poor man should pay 6d. a gallon duty on his beer, while the rich man paid only 2§d.? And yet this was the actual operation of the present law. It had been urged by way of excuse for this tax, that it prevented the mixing of noxious ingredients in beer; but if this were really the

was

reason,

sons.

reason, why was is it not applied to wine and tea? or why were not the consumers left to the exercise of their own judgment and taste in that as in other things? The system as it existed encouraged a monopoly, if not to the brewer, at least to the retailer, by means of the licences. All the reasonable good that could be expected to result to the police of the country, would be from having public-houses placed under a proper surveillance, and this might be effected by allowing officers to visit the houses in which beer was retailed, to prevent their being made the resort of improper perIf this were admitted, the house could not refuse to come to the decision that the sale of beer ought to be as free as that of any other commodity. But it would be said, perhaps, that to take off this tax might interfere with what the right hon. gent, called a sinking-fund, but what he (Mr. Maberly) denied to be any such thing; because that only could be called a sinking fund which was an actual surplus in the revenue. He contended that the debt was now twelve millions more than it had been in 1815, and that this was occasioned by the deadweight act. If he had not already pointed out the injustice of the tax on beer, he would refer to the reduction which had been made in the duty on spirits, and which, as they were less necessary, ought to have been postponed in the course of relief to beer. He knew the right hon. gentleman would say that his object in this had been to put a stop to smuggling, but in this he had not succeeded, because the motive still remained strong enough to induce the practice. Looking at

the subject, then, in this point of view alone, the people had a right to ask for a reduction. It would, not, perhaps, be readily believed, but the fact was so, that the right hon. gentleman and his colleagues, in their chambers in the treasury, fixed the price of table beer. Nothing could, in his opinion, be more absurd than this. They might with as good reason fix the price of bread, as interfere with another article not less necessary, nor of less common consumption. After the experience he had already encountered, he was prepared to believe it possible that he might lose the present motion; but he should nevertheless feel it his duty to take the sense of the house on the resolution. He concluded by saying, that he hoped, if he were defeated, his labours might at least have the effect of convincing the house of the injustice of continuing this burdensome tax on the people, and that some other more fortunate person would propose a measure which, if it did not do away with it altogether, would divide its weight equally between the rich and the poor.

The hon. member then moved, "that from and after the 5th day of January, 1826, all the duties on beer should cease."

Mr. Brougham rose to second the motion.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, he was compelled to oppose the former motions of the hon. gentleman, because there was nothing in the subject which required an examination by a committee. Now the hon. gentleman proposed to place the beer duty on malt, and on this he would make a few observations. As to the total repeal of the duty with

out any substitute whatever, he did not feel called upon to argue that question, because the right hon. gentleman himself did not seem to think it was practicable to take off three millions. A few weeks ago the hon. gentleman proposed the reduction of the window-tax, amounting to 1,250,000l. The same arguments which had been used against that measure applied to the present motion, and he did not think the house would choose to listen to a repetition of them. He was aware that in so immense a system of revenue as ours, there might be very sound objections brought against many branches of it, and this might, perhaps, be stated of all; but beyond this general fact the argument could not be urged. The petitioners probably believed that the substitution of the beer duty on malt would materially reduce the price of beer; but he should be able, he thought, to satisfy the house that this was not the case. The beer duty produced at present 3,000,000l. per annum. To raise this tax by the substitution proposed, it would be necessary to lay an additional tax of two shillings on the thirty million bushels of malt which must be consumed; this would raise the price of beer 10s. per barrel of 36 gallons, or about 1d. per quart. If, therefore, he admitted that the objections of the hon. gent. were valid against the inequality of the present duty, still the burden would rest as it did now, upon the consumer, who, although he would have the satisfaction of knowing that his neighbour paid more, would himself pay nothing less. The right hon. gent. could not admit that this tax was paid by

the poor classes of the community exclusively, or chiefly. In this town a great portion of the consumers of beer were not of this description, and in the country a great number of families were in the practice of brewing their own beer. Upon them this substitution would fall very heavily. The hon. gent. had assumed too, in his calculation, that the beer consumed by the rich and the poor was of the same strength-that it took in all cases only one quarter of malt to make three barrels and a half of beer. On the contrary, the beer of the rich man, whether he drank it himself or not, was much stronger than that brewed for ordinary consumption. In this point of view, therefore, the calculation of the hon. gentleman as to the inequality was erroneous. The honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. Brougham) had said it would be highly desirable to give greater facility to the retail trade. He (the chancellor of the exchequer) agreed with him. It was that opinion that induced him to bring in a bill to accomplish that purpose, and which he had got the house to agree to, but with no small difficulty. "The hon. and

learned gentleman," said the chancellor of the exchequer, "may learn fortunam ex aliis; but not ex me. To me the other part of the line, verumque laborem, only applies.' The right honourable gentleman had endeavoured at the same time to effect another measure relative to the estimating and collecting the duty, and although all were agreed upon the principle, so many obstacles were thrown in his way, that he was obliged to abandon every thing else, and to fall back upon the other measure,

which was the real object of the apprehensions of those who caused the obstacles. Although he could not pledge himself to any measure on the subject, he should be very glad if the state of the finances would allow him to take off the duty altogether; but he could not conceive that the proposed substitution would be in any respect desirable. The hon. and learned gentleman had said, that he wished the reduction of the duty on spirits had been postponed to that on beer. If by a wish he (the chancellor of the exchequer) could have managed the matter, it would have been done; but he was obliged, in dealing with the spirits, to provide against any diminution of the revenue, and to do it, in fact, when he could. The object in reducing the duty on wine had been not so much to relieve any particular class of the people as on a principle of commercial policy to bring back the consumption to that point from which, in consequence of the intercourse with the continent, and from other causes, it had fallen off. All he could say on the subject before the house was, that it would give him great satisfaction if he were able to reduce the duty on beer. If his expectations should be realized, he would take the first opportunity of dealing with the subject, but he must not hold out expectations of the fulfilment of which he was not certain. With respect to the hon. gentleman's opinion respecting the collection, he had explained on a former occasion, that this was founded on a misapprehension: it was impossible to ascertain the expense of the collection, because the same individual was frequently employed in collecting various

He

branches of the revenue. could assure the hon. gentleman that if he were more deeply initiated into the mode of collecting the malt duty, he would know there was none in which more frequent attempts at evasion (many of them successful) were made. Frequent prosecutions were the consequence; and if a double duty were imposed, a double temptation would be the consequence. For these reasons he could not consent to the reduction of 3,000,000l. of taxes, nor at present to any other modification of the duty.

The house divided, for the motion, 23, against it, 88-majority,

65.

Mr. J. P. Grant rose, pursuant to the notice he had given, to move for leave to bring in a bill to alter and amend the existing law respecting wrongous imprisonment, and delays of trial in Scotland. The hon. and learned gentleman said, it must be evident that it would be better that all the laws on this subject should be comprehended in one act, rather than spread, as they now were, in a variety of acts over the whole statute-book. It was allowed by every body, that the Scottish law was extremely defective on these points. Nothing could be more absurd, than that the inhabitants of one end of the country should live under one system of laws, so vitally affecting their interests, while the inhabitants of the other end should live under a different system. He could assure the learned lord opposite (the lord advocate), that it was not his intention to interfere with the office of lord advocate. His objects. were principally these,-first, to

throw

throw greater responsibility on the magistrates in granting warrants for the apprehension of criminals; next, to give a more enlarged power to the judges of the criminal courts, for the better protection of the liberty of the subject; also to remove doubts and difficulties where they existed; and lastly, to place the poor man on the same footing as the rich, with respect to trials. The hon. and learned gent. then proceeded to explain to the house the insufficiency of the present law, and the absolute necessity of its amendment. He added, that if the house should allow the bill to be brought in, he would propose that a distant day should be appointed for its second reading, in order that it should in the mean time be printed and sent down to Scotland, for the purpose of being submitted to the law authorities of that country for their opinion. He concluded by moving for leave to bring in the bill.

The Lord Advocate said he did not mean to oppose the bringing in the bill, but at the same time he thought that great caution should be observed in interfering with a law which had existed for upwards of one hundred years, and which might be considered the habeas corpus act of Scotland. The learned lord then proceeded to call the attention of the house to the advantages of the present law, and contended that the act of 1701 afforded a greater protection to the people of Scotland against wrongous imprisonment, than was afforded to the people of England by the habeas corpus act. hoped, however, that his hon. and learned friend would bring in his bill rather for the amendment than

He

the repeal of the present law, as the word " repeal" might excite some alarm among the people of Scotland. The changes which the bill of his hon. and learned friend would introduce into the law of Scotland, would cause all the criminals of that country to be tried in Edinburgh, and would so create an annual expense of 15,000l. or 20,000l., without conferring any benefit on the public.

Mr. Abercromby thought that extreme caution should be used in meddling with an act so dear to the people of Scotland as the act of 1701. He therefore concurred with the learned lord in suggesting to his hon. and learned friend the propriety of denominating his bill a bill to amend rather than a bill to repeal that act. He was aware that there were some defects in that act which required amendment; and he thought that his honourable and learned friend, in bringing them under the attention of parliament, was doing that which would not only confer honour upon himself, but also great benefit upon the community.

Leave was given to bring in the bill.

Mr. Plunkett obtained leave to bring in a bill for the amendment of the laws with respect to special juries and trials in Ireland. He stated his object to be, to assimilate the law in Ireland, for striking special juries, to that in England; and also, in certain cases, to enable parties, as was the case in England by an act of 1798, to remove the venue from towns corporate to the adjoining county.

Mr. Denman hoped that the right honourable gentleman would introduce a clause in his bill, to enable defendants to pray a tales

in