The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-08 00:00:00

BRAZIL.

Mr. WHITE gave notice`that this day week he would
ask a question in reference to the affairs of Brazil.

QUESTIONS.

The only question on tho paper for this evening was one
by Sir H. Bruce in reference to Ireland, and this was post-
poned, the Chief Secretary for Ireland being absent.
REPEAL OF THE MALT-TAX.

Sir F. KELLY rose to draw the attention of the house
this subject embodied in the formal motion, which was to
in
the following terms :—" That in any future remission Olf
indirect taxation this house should take into consideration
the duty on malt, with a view to its early reduction and
ultimate repeal." The right hon. and learned member said
that people who considered themselves competent autho-
rities upon certain matters found out their mistake, and he
believed the present question was one that would be satis-
factorily answered. lie denied that he aimed at the repeal
of the malt tax, even though it might render necessary an
increase of the income tax, prevent its reduction, or involve
the substitution of another tax upon other articles that
entered more or less into general consumption. His simple
purpose was to urge upon the attention of the house the
claim of those who suffered from the burden of the duty on
malt to some relief, as soon as the financial condition of the
country would admit of a remission of direct taxation. The
main ground upon which he invited assent to his motion
was the principle which had governed commercial legisla-
tion in modern times—namely, that of remitting duties on
Nve
homaterial, and especially on home produce. He reminded
favourthin u of the declaration of the late Sir R. Peel, in 1839,
of the agriculturist manufacturing and constinung
his own malt, that and
r ofthe house the principle received the
of every member approval
who advocated free trade in
corn.
ticularim animadverted upon the impolicy of
,this par-
it: roceeded fo describle its nature and in-
cidence. Pl3tsst' h©
effec
ho
said,
was to increase and multiply
itself at every stage of
the manufacture, until, when the

d,srvtea
ma trebled, cuhaeteoedf htthheoaertb
olconsumer:evorerneconsumed
stuhaumod
quadrupled
ltheiend t
inshaapemouofntb.eAerCcoitrdinlvasg
atatcnlnua lbun doubled,
appearanceis countrye f accuracy,
amounted
to £60,000,000 sterling, one-third of which; or £20,000,000,
was attributable to the existence of the malt tax,
whilst £5,000,000 only of that sum found its way to the
Exchequer for the benefit of the state. Abolish the tax,
then, and there would be at once a saving of £0,000,000
to the public, the advantage of which would be shared in
not by a small section of the community only, but by the
small tradesmen, artisans, and labourers, who constituted
upwards of three-fourths of the consumers of beer, and
were the least able to bear the burden of the tax. Since
the peace in 1815 taxes had been either altogether repealed
or reduced upon 800 different articles ; but that upon malt
alone remained. Every principle of political or financial
administration that should govern a minister of finance for-
bade the continuance of the tax, as it should have forbid-
den its original imposition. And he argued that, upon the
same principle on which the duties on corn, wool, cotton,
paper, wines, and other articles had been repealed, the malt
tax ought to be abolished. The hon. and learned gentle-
man then pointed out the advantages of repeal to the far-
mer as a producer of corn and live stock, by giving him the
unfettered use of barley, and creating a better market for
his produce ; and to .the consuming classes, by supply-
ing them with a cheaper
Sand more wholesome bever-
age. He also contended that it would greatly benefit Ire-
land and Scotland by encouraging them to grow inferior
barleys fit for malting purposes upon tracts of land that
were now altogether unproductive. In conclusion, he called
upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain why it
was that this tax upon an article of British produce and
manufacture, and of universal consumption, should be left
standing alone amongst hundreds of others the duties upon
which had been either reduced or repealed.
Sir E. B. LYTTON (who, upon rising, was received
with cheers) said,—Sir,—l rise to second the motion of my
hon. and learned friend. In his able and exhaustive
speech he did not exaggerate the importance attached to
relief from the malt tax by the great body of agricul-
tural producers ; and the amount of the tax, which, no
doubt, seems to many gentlemen the strong reason for re-
taining it, seems to the farmers the strongest argument in
favour of its repeal. (Hear, hear.) What the farmers say
is this, " When you tell us that this tax produces six mil-
lions a year, you only bring more vividly before our eyes
the extent to which we are defrauded in the fair exercise of
our industry and skill. Here you call in free trade in order
to compel us to vie with the corn-growers throughout the
world, and when in this struggle we turn to that crop on
which we ought most to rely, because in that crop we are
most a match for the foreigner, your free trade resolves it-
self into a tax of six millions on our raw material; and you
make the very amount of the spoliation the reason why we
should submit to be despoiled." (Hear.) But it is not only
against the free cultivation of barley that the tax militates.
Its tendency must be more or less to derange the natural
process of agriculture in the unfettered selection of crops.
(Hear, hear.) Agriculture is a course of tillage spread over
a certain series of years in a certain rotation of crops ; and
in that year in which the farmer would and ought to sow
barley our common sense must tell us that the presence of
this tax at once obtrudes itself on the consideration of his
choice, and will often induce him to select another crop
more exhausting to the land, less appropriate to a judicious
place. in the regular course of husbandry, and less lucrative
than barley would be if barley were left free from the ex-
ciseman. (Hear.) You cannot, therefore, wonder to find
many farmers declaring at the various meetings which have
been held on this subject that they will not grow a bushel
of malt as long as this tax lasts. And if the tax thus deters
farmers from selecting a barley crop even in the barley-grow-
ing districts, how much more will it tend to prevent the in-
troduction of that crop in other parts Of those kingdoms to
which it would be invaluable as an article of cattle food, and
from which it is now frightened away by a duty of 21s. Bd. a
quarter! (Hear.) Thus, by a positive discouragement you
give to a crop in which England naturally excels every other
nation, you exclude it altogether from many soils to which
it would be well adapted, and you stint the whole agricul-
tural wealth of the country to a far greater amount than the
revenue benefits by so mischievous a tax upon the raw ma-
terial. (Hear, hear.) The question becomes still more im-
portant hs to the operation of the tax not only against the •
farmer but against every class of consumer, and against the
elementary source of national wealth, which consists in the
fertility of the soil, when you consider its injurious effect
upon the quantity of stock kept. For stock implies two
things—first, meat to the consumer ; secondly, manure to
the soil. (Hear, hear.) Whatever tends to restrict the quan-
tity of stock kept tends to make meat less plentiful and of
higher price—(hear, hear)—and tends also to rob the land
of the manure necessary for its nourishment. (Hear, hear.)
If you have no stock you have no farmyard heap—if you
no farmyard heap you have no guarantee for the perma-
nent and continuous fertility of the soil. (Hear, hear.)
Artificial manures are like doctors' drugs—they may do
great good for a time, they act as restoratives or alteratives ;
but they can no more supersede the necessity forthe natural
manure of the farmyard heap than doctor's drugs can super-
sede the necessity for food. (Hear, hear.) The farmyard
heap is the food of the soil, and nothing can supply its
place. Now, let me ask any of those distinguished practical
agriculturists, of whom there are so many in this house, if
I am not right when I say that just in proportion as, since
the repeal of the corn laws, successful farming has ceased
to depend upon the price of corn, it ought to depend upon
the increased cultivation and keep of stock? And yet, I ask
again, can there be a greater discouragement to the increase
of stock than a law which restricts the farmer in the growth
of his own food for it ? (Hear.) And what kind of food ?
Why," precisely that which can be grown upon almost any
soil. Therefore, this tax, which some consider only the'
grievance of the fanner, and others ridicule as a mere ques-
tion of beer, operateangainst every constituent you have in
towns or boroughs, because, by discouraging stock, it
raises the price of meat, and by defrauding the soil of
the manure, which is its most lasting fertiliser,
there is dothing that the soil can yield which
it does not render dearer, while it diminishes the
taxable wealth of the whole community. (Hear, hear.)
But the Board of Trade has issued a report of a course of
experiments on cattle food, by which report it is made to
appear that barley =malted gives more weight to cattle
and more milk to cows than barley malted ; and thus, it is
contended by a powerful daily journal that one main argu-
ment for the repeal of the tax is destroyed. That those ex-
periments were made fairly the name of Mr. Lawes is to me
a sufficient guarantee. As a Hertfordshire man, I am too
proud of the fame of that eminent chemist to disparage his
authority. But Mr. Lawes, were ho here, would agree with
me when I say that the whole history of physiological
science shows how little faith is to be placedin any prelimi-
nary course of experiments howeverplausible. For instance,
a series of experiments was made on the transfusion of new
blood into diseased subjects, which appeared at first so
triumphantly successful that it created a profound sensation
throughout Europe. Everywhere medical men adopted the
practice, but the result_so upset the theory founded on these
experiments, and caused so many sudden and violent
deaths that the Parliament of Paris actually declared the
transfusion of blood to be criminal. The inventor, de-
spite the unquestioned success of his early experiments,
was.sent into banishment, and the whole system fell into
discredit till revived in our day and placed on a scientific
basis. But how ? Why, by allowing that the first pro-
cess of experiments though apparently so successful was
altogether fallacious and exceptional, that the subsequent
course was equally wrong, and showing where, by new
experiments made much more in detail, the process may be
beneficial and where it must be fatal. But in the whole
history of experiments nothing has required so many repe-
titions and undergone such revisions of scientific opinion
as experiments analogous to those of the Board of Trade
which have been made upon the relative merits of articles
of nutrition. Here the deductions drawn from the first
course of experiments, made by the ablest authorities,
have been almost invariably disproved by a second
course of experiments, and the second disproved by a
third ; and to this day the whole subject is one of the
most mysterious and the most disputatious on which rival
physiologists can engage. I think that one of the last of
these inquiries on the merit of comparative articles of nutri-
ment made bythe physiologists of the continent was whe-
ther, according to scientific experiments conducted on prin-
ciples of selection exactly similar to those adopted by the
Board of Trade, only selecting varieties of men, instead of
varieties in the inferior animals, more nutrition was con-
tained in the roast beef of Old England or in the boiled leg
of a donkey. (Laughter.) 1 believe the first experiments
were in favour of the donkey, but I am now assured that, on
second thoughts, sound philosophers give the preference to
beef. (Laughter.) Sure I am, however, that if donkeys
yielded to the revenue £6,000,000 a year, a Board of Trade
would never be at a loss to find a preliminary abstract report
to justify its predilection for donkeys. (Cheers and much
laughter.) Then, sir, with all respect to the Board of Trade,
I object to take their report as in any way settling the ques-
tion. We are not to suppose that during all these years farmers
themselves have not been testing the relative merits of
barley and malt as cattle food, with every inducement to
prefer barley because it is untaxed. Numberless persons
have made those experiments. I will single one, because he
is as high an authority as Mr. Lawes on this subject—Mr.
Booth, of Catterick, Yorkshire--who, as the largest stock
breeder in England, and
perhaps, in the world, has tried both
sfounde dth
iatt
mustt hou though bs at
or le epye
d mighte nou gr ehq
tuoi rb
ee t o
barley and malt in every conceivable combination, and
chbaergyeearYblesltioghtthlye
tax in order to be of general advantage, and in that case he
would have given it the most important place in cattle food,
if the tax did not render it too expensive. (Hear, hear.)
Thus, I am quite sure we shall shortly hear from num-
bers of persons of unquestionable authority, that the result of
their experience is totally at variance with the report of
the Board of Trade. But we will now assume, for the sake of
argument that the report establishes the fact at which it aims,
and even then it will not affect, except to strengthen, our
proposition that the Malt-tax operates against the increase
of stock. And for this reason, assuming that unmalted
barley is better than malted barley for the food of cattle,
still it will be the inferior barleys devoted to that object.
But the Malt-tax, as the leading journal I have before re-
ferred to allows, is a fine on the inferior ,barleys, and a fine
which the same authority admits is sufficient to discourage
the sowing of inferior barley, that is, to discourage the growth