THE MALT TAX 



261 



barley as worth 40s. per quarter, barley that will produce one- 

 fifth less strength and quality in beer should be worth 32s. per 

 quarter ; but owing to the payment of a heavy duty, which is 

 not on an ad valorem scale, the maltster cannot afford to give for 

 that barley anything like so much. The better barley at 40s., 

 together with the duty, 21s. 8d., costs 61s. 8d. per quarter, and 

 the lower class barley, being of one -fifth less merit, is worth as 

 malt 49s. 4d. per quarter. Of this sum 21s. 8d. goes for duty, 

 leaving, therefore, only 27s. 8d. as the price given to the farmer 

 for barley worth, according to its intrinsic value, 4s. 4d. more." 



In reply, Mr. Lowe said : =- 



' ' I will make one admission to you : that it is quite impossible 

 to levy a revenue approaching 7,000,000 upon a single article 

 of agricultural produce without very much interfering with the 

 cultivation of the land, and with the business of those who are 

 engaged in it. It would be useless to attempt to conceal that 

 state of things. It is absolutely impossible that the tax should 

 not have a very great and a very embarrassing effect. That 

 cannot be doubted for a moment. I will make another admission : 

 I think it is exceedingly undesirable that a large, most important, 

 most respectable, and respected class like yourselves should live 

 in a state of chronic discontent, thinking itself ill-treated ; and 

 I am bound to say that if we can find any means of putting what- 

 ever duty we collect upon a later stage of the manufacture 

 upon beer instead of malt nothing would give me greater satis- 

 faction than to propose that." 



In February, 1871, and February, 1872, the Council passed 

 resolutions urging that agriculture Avas entitled to relief in 

 the matter of the Malt Tax. On 13th January, 1873, a second 

 deputation interviewed Mr. Lowe, but (to quote from the 

 Annual Report for that year) : 



" instead of returning any favourable response to the appeals 

 for either a reduction of the burden or its commutation for a 

 tax levied nearer to the consumer, the Chancellor coolly charged 

 the gentlemen before him with having been put forward to fight 

 battles which were not their own, and treated them to a homily 

 on political economy, instructing them that they had no grievance 

 because the consumer pays the tax, and that if farmers were 

 really to get any benefit from an increased demand for barley 

 the landowners would promptly take it all out of them in the 

 shape of higher rent." 



At the February meeting following the Council unani- 

 mously resolved that the reply of the Chancellor was singularly 

 fallacious and unsatisfactory, and requested Colonel Barttelot 



