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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



creased, to euable succeaaive governments to carry on those 

 accursed aud destructive foreign wars which had carried blood- 

 shed aud devastation into many couutriea, and caused misery 

 aud privation in our own. The first tax was laid on malt iu 

 the reign of William the Third, to assist that monarch in his 

 endeavours to humble the pride of Louis the Fourteenth. Its 

 amount waj 43. per qr., or 6d. per bushel; but when peace 

 was made, the tax was still continued ; and at the close of the 

 reign of George the Second, the country being then engaged 

 in what was called the " Seven Years' War," when Prussia 

 was subsidized by this country, it was increased to 63. per qr. 

 In the year 1780, daring the war which ended in the inde- 

 pendence of the United States of America, the tax was in- 

 creased to 10s. lOd. per qr. ; aud during the long and 

 unnecessary war with our French neighbours, which, with two 

 short intervals of peace, lasted for 22 years, it was raised first 

 (in 1802) to 19s. 4d., and again (in 1803) to the highest point 

 it ever attained — SSs. lOJ. per qr. It remained at this high 

 pivot until the conclusion of peace in 1816, when it was re- 

 duced to 193. 4d., but in 1819 was again increased to 28s. 

 lOd. The year 1822 was a period of almost-unequalled agri- 

 cultural distress ; and in that year the duty was reduced to 

 2O3. 8d. In 1810, there being a great deficiency of revenue, 

 five per cent, was added to it, bringing it to 21s. 8d. ; aud in 

 1854, during the Russian war, it was advanced to 32s., but 

 agaiu reduced to 21s. 8d. on the conclusion of peace in 1857, 

 at which point it has since remaiueJ. Such was the' record of 

 one of the greatest public burdens now pressing on the 

 British farmer; and he now came to the consideration of the 

 subject he had undertaken to bring before them. Having 

 considered the question, he thought, in all, or nearly all, its 

 bearings, he had been able to discover only one advaetage re- 

 sulting from this impost — the noble revenue it brought into 

 the Exchequer, which, in the twelve years commencing at 

 1845 and ending at 1858, and omitting the two exceptional 

 years 1855 and 1856, had averaged £4,765,404 per annum; 

 but as it had slightly increased iu the years 1857 aud 1858, 

 when it stood at £5,314,465 and £5,155,803, he thought they 

 Slight safely say there was, in round numbers, a revenue of 

 five millious annually received from the tax on malt. Ttiis 

 was, of course, an advantage ; but he thought he should be 

 able to show them how greatly it was counterbalanced by the 

 evils accruing from it. Snould gentlemen present be able to 

 point out other advantages, he, for one, should be disabused 

 of the idea he entertained that the tax was an almost unmiti- 

 gated evil. In entering on the second branch of his subject 

 — the disadvantage of the malt-tax — he wished, first of all, to 

 explain that he should look at the whole matter from a free- 

 trade point of view, and in no narrow or restricted light. He 

 agreed, on the whole, with Mr. Gladstone's new Budget, but 

 thought the British corn-growers were hardly treated by the 

 malt-duty not having been reduced as well as the duty on 

 hops and French wines and spirits. He wished also to state 

 that, as regarded the facts and figures he should produce aud 

 had produced, he was under great obligations to Mr. Edward 

 Ball, the excellent MP. for Cambridgeshire; to Mr. G. P. 

 Tuxford, the proprietor of the il/ar/c Lane Express ; to Mr. 

 Corbet, the secretary of the London Farmers' Cluh.under whose 

 auspices the Anti-Malt-Tax Prize Essay was issued; and to other 

 gentlemen. Following the course indicated in this pamphlet, 

 he should endeavour to bring before them — 1st, the disadvan- 

 tage to the farmer ; 2nd, the disadvantage to the labourer; 

 3rd, the disadvantage to the public iu general. F.rst : One 

 of the evils resulting to the British farmer from this tax was, 

 that he was not allowed to use his own productions in the 

 way most profitable to him. He would ask why, in fattening 

 their beasts or their sheep, they should be compelled to pur- 

 chase foreign oilcake and other foreign productions, such as 

 maize, locusts, &c., and be prevented using malt, an article ready 

 to their hand? Wby should they be compelled to send to the 

 East Indies, the United States, the Black Sea, or the Baltic 

 for their produce, while prevented by this ta.x from using their 

 own? Why should the (oreiga grazier be allowed to use un- 

 taxed malt in fattening his cattle, and import those cattle 

 duty free to compete with those fed by the British grazier on 

 malt burdened with a heavy duty ? He had been told that malt 

 used for feeding cattle was of too laxative a nature to be used 

 with advantage ; but he would ask who in his senses would 

 feed cattle entirely upon malt ? Would any man feed en- 

 tirely on linseed, on oilcake, or on corn ? Moat assuredly not. 



Either of these valuable feeding substances would be mixed 

 with chaff, with hay, aud with roots, and given, aa an expeu- 

 aive article of food, in small and judicious quantities. But as 

 one fact was worth many theories, he would bring before them 

 an experiment tried in 1816, by that distinguished practical 

 agriculturist, Mr. John Hudson, of Castle Acre, a gentleman 

 who had made more money by grazing than almost any farmer 

 iu England, and it was well known that where Mr. Hudson 

 led they might very safely follow. He selected six beasts, 

 three of which he fed upon barley- meal, and three upon 

 ground malt, their other food being alike. They were all sent 

 to London, and those fed upon malt realized upwards of £6, 

 or £2 per head moie than those fattened with barley. They 

 were small Highland Scots, weighing when fat from 40 to 50 

 stones of Mlbs , and the price of beef being at the time very 

 low, they realized only about 6s. 6d. per stone. Aud that was 

 not all, for the beasts fed upon malt were selected from the 

 others, and purchased by Her Majesty's purveyor, as being 

 finer grained and altogether of better quality than the others, 

 and this without knowing how they had been fed. Mr. Hud- 

 son, iu his evidence before the Committee of the House of 

 Lords, afterwards cffered to back any number of bullocks fed 

 on malt against any number fed on barley for £100, and he 

 stattd that he believed 5 auarters of malt equal to a ton of 

 linseed cake. Mr. Robert Smith, an extensive farmer and 

 estate agent in Devonshire, had also used maltadvantagecusly 

 in fattening sheep, and it was a well-known fact that malt was 

 used to some extent in getting into condition almost all the 

 cattle shown for prizes iu our great agricultural exhibitious. 

 Another disadvantage was that the tax vastly decreased the 

 consumption, aud reduced the price which the farmer would 

 otherwise receive for his barley. The barley grown iu Eng- 

 land was most of it very superior in quality to the foreigu 

 article, which was coarse and steely, and had been found to 

 malt unkiudly. They had been told that the malt tax, coupled 

 with the prohibition which had hitherto existed to the impor- 

 tation of foreign mult, was a protection to the British 

 farmer ; but he was now glad to see the prohi- 

 bition about to be removed, and with this removal they 

 ought to have taken off not less than half the duty. As the 

 British farmer was now matched against his foreign competi- 

 tors, he ought like them to be unfettered, otherwise it was 

 like setting two men to race with each other, the one having 

 his legs tied while the other's were at liberty. There were 

 only some five or six English counties which sent fine batleys 

 to the Loudon market ; and Suffolk being one of these, the tax 

 was more felt by them ihau it was by Lincolnshire and other 

 counties where the barley was comparatively inferior; although 

 even in those counties the operation of the tax was severely 

 felt, aa it prevented them from malting their ordinary barley 

 at all. When the duty was low, there was a large trade in 

 malt between the West of England and Ireland ; but the in- 

 crease of the duty in 1780 effectually put a stop to the trade, 

 which had never been revived. In former years a malthouse 

 used to be found in almost every village ; but the malt-tax 

 had thrown the trade into the hands of a few large malt- 

 sters, end nearly all the small houses had disappeared. 

 Another injustice which the malt-tax would now effect 

 would be |that while the owners of foreign vineyards would 

 hereafter be allowed to bring in their manufactured produce at 

 a small duty, British beer would still be almost prohibited 

 from coming nito competition with their cheap wines, owing to 

 the enormous duty on both malt and hops. As he had said 

 before, he was in favour of free trade ; but if it was to be free 

 trade, let it not be a one-sided affair, but let the British far- 

 mer have a fair stand-up fight with his foreign competitor. 

 Give him a clear stage and no favour, and he for one had no 

 fear of the result. Secondly, one of the disadvantages of the tax 

 to the labouring classes was that it prevented them from brew- 

 ing their own beer. He would show them how, as the duty 

 on malt had increased, the consumption had fallen, until from 

 a consumption of five bushels of malt per head of the popula- 

 tion in 1750, with a duty of 4s. a quarter, it had decreased to 

 a consumption of one and a-half bushels per head in 1855, 

 with a duty of 323. per quarter. The subjoined table would 

 show how, with an increasing population, the advancing duty 

 had nearly kept the consumption stationary ; and although 

 the blessings of free trade had within the last few years 

 slightly accelerated the consumption, there could be no doubt 

 but a diminished duty would add to the number of quarters 



