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 L I B R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N I VLRS ITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 J 
 
 DEBATE 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS 
 
 (,)N 5th march, 18G1, 
 
 ON THE MOTION FOR THE 
 
 REPEAL OF THE HOP DUTIES 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 CENTRAL HOP DUTY REPEAL ASSOCLVTION, 
 
 2, New Palace Yard, Westjiixstek. 
 
 GEO. P. BACON, SUSSEX ADVERTISER AND STEAM PRINTING OPPICE 
 
 1861.
 
 DEBATE, &G. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, MAECH 5th, 1861. 
 
 Mr. DoDSON moved tlie following resolution :— 
 
 " That the maintenance of any duties upon hops is impolitic, and that 
 in any remission of taxation or adjustment of financial burdens, provision 
 should be made for the removal of such duties." 
 
 He said — I believe the prevailing idea among persons whose atten- 
 tion has not been specially directed to the Excise duty on hops is, 
 that it operates as taxes on articles of consumption ordinarily do ; that, 
 in the long run, it is paid by the consumer, that it is the beer drinker alone 
 who pays the duty ; that beer is not an absolute necessary of life, and that 
 thus a useful and reliable amount is contributed to the revenue of the 
 country by a duty upon a commodity which is in itself a fair and legiti- 
 mate object of taxation. I must point out that if the case were simply 
 such as is suj^posed, the tax would still be open to this grave objection— 
 that it is a tax on the raw material of a manufacture, and the amount has 
 to be advanced in the first instance by the producer, then by each dealer 
 in succession through whose hands the commodity passes, tUl it comes at 
 last to the consumer increased in price, not only by the amount of the 
 duty, but by successive accumulations of interest. Those, however, who 
 have any experience of the working of the hop duty, or have been led to 
 inquire into it, know that its operation is very peculiar and compUcated. 
 The fundamental reason is to be found in the exceptional nature of the 
 crop, which is itself full of irregularities and anomalies. Hop growing is 
 the most expensive branch of farming. It costs the hop grower fi'om 
 .£22 to <£30 an acre for raising the crop, and from 20s. to 30s. per cwt. 
 for the expenses of picking and bagging. Notwithstanding this enormous 
 expenditure, the result is the most uncertain in the world. I will tell the 
 House what the variation in regard to the growth of hops has been in 
 successive years. In 1849, 42,000 acres produced 145,000 cwt. In 
 1850, the same number of acres produced 420,000 cwt. In 1851, the 
 number of hundred-weights produced on the same number of acres fell to 
 236,000 ; and in 1852 it rose to 447,000 cwt. In 1854, the number of 
 acres under cultivation had increased one-seventh, and the number of 
 hundred-weights produced fell to 86,000. In 1855, the same number of 
 acres produced 728,000 cwt. ; and in the succeeding years, from 1856 tj 
 December, 1858, the crop on the same acreage fell by 300,000 cwt. la 
 1859, the acreage having been reduced by fully one-fifth, the crop avail- 
 able was 599,000 ; and in 1860 the crop, upon the same number of acres.
 
 fell to 97,000 cwt. It will be seen from that return that the hop plant 
 may be taken as the emblem of fickleness, and the symbol of uncertainty. 
 While the supply is so irregular, as to baffle all calculation, the demand is 
 strictly limited, because hops are only required for the purpose of making 
 beer. It is not like a manufactured article, in which the producer has the 
 power of apportioning the supply to demand ; but all hops which were not 
 required for making beer were a dead loss. Without any over-speculation 
 on the part of the farmers, there is always danger of production outrun- 
 ning consumption ; but the duty is not upon consumption, but upon pro- 
 duction. The grower is called upon to pay duty upon every pound of 
 hops produced ; and it may frequently happen that there is an excess 
 of supply over the demand, and then the grower sustains a loss, inas- 
 much as the duty must come out of the pocket of the grower. The duty 
 being a duty on quantity, is contrived with such perverse ingenuity as to 
 be heaviest in those years when prices are lowest, and the grower least 
 able to meet the pressure. I will give the House a statement of what 
 that pressure is. In 1855, the duty in the Sussex collection amounted to 
 ^14 2s. 8d. per acre ; iii 1856, to an average of j£ll lis. Id. ; in 1857 
 to ^6 7s. 7d. ; in 1858 to ^£12 16s. 7d. ; and in 1859 the duty, on an 
 average, was <£14 per acre. The duty on the average of five years was 
 ^11 5s, per acre. On many lands it amounted to more pounds than the 
 rental did to shillings, and in many cases it exceeded the rent, tithes, 
 land tax, poor rate, church rate, highway rate, and county rate, all put 
 together, three or four times over ; and in such years it came not out 
 of the pocket of the consumer, but out of the pocket of the grower. 
 Moreover hops are of various qualities, and their qualities are distinguished 
 by very distinct lines of demarcation, lines as wide and definite as those 
 that distinguish different growths of wine ; yet the duty is uniform and in- 
 flexible. It is 14s. per cwt. Some hops average in value nine or ten 
 guineas per cwt., while others are only worth two or three guineas, so that 
 the average duty on some kinds is as high as 75 per cent, while on others 
 it is only about eight per cent. Looking then at the nature of the com- 
 modity, the great cost of production, the uncertainty of the crop, the ir- 
 regular supply, the limited demand, the unequal value of the articles pro- 
 duced, I say that hops are, a priori, an unfit object for an Excise duty. The 
 growers have so many natural difiiculties and anomalies to contend with, 
 that they cannot bear to be further subjected to artificial ones. The ne- 
 cessary effect of any Excise duty, even the best devised, is to increase the 
 cost of the article on which it is imposed, and to necessitate the employ- 
 ment of a larger amount of capital in that particular stage of manufacture 
 or production at which the Excise duty is levied. Here is a commodity, 
 the cost of producing which is naturally very great, and Government 
 selects that and artificially increases the cost. Here is the branch of farm- 
 ing which naturally requires the largest capital to be embarked in it, and 
 Government selects that and artificially increases the capital to be staked. 
 Here is a business that at best can only pay on a cycle of years, Govern- 
 ment selects that and artificially extends the cycle on which only it can 
 answer, and renders it almost impossible for it to answer imder any cir-
 
 8 
 
 cumstances. Here is a branch of farming that is naturally the most specula- 
 tive, Government selects that and artificially multiphes and aggravates the 
 risks and losses attending it, till it is converted into a perfect lottery, in 
 which the blanks are very numerous and the prizes few and far between. 
 Can it be wondered at, if, under such circumstances, the growers are 
 always in difficulties, whether their crops are good or bad. If the crops 
 are large, prices are low and duties heavy, and the planters are distressed 
 to pay them ; if there is a dearth, the grower, having been compelled to 
 sell the superabimdant crop of the previous year at a sacrifice, in order to 
 pay the duty, found himself deprived of the means of profiting by the turn 
 of the market. And what is the value of this objectionable revenue? 
 Till last year the Excise duty was £l per cwt., and at that rate it has 
 yielded .£300,000 a-year on an average of twenty years. I take twenty 
 years, because with so fluctuating a commodity it is necessaiy to take a 
 long average in order to arrive at an estimate of any value. Last year 
 it was reduced to 14s. per cwt., and, judging from past averages, that rate 
 might, on a succession of years, be estimated to produce about £200,000 
 a-year ; but, owing to the uncertain natui-e of the commodity, the Excise 
 would yield £400,000 one year, and perhaps not more than J£40,000 
 the next. There is a saying in hop-growing counties that^ — 
 
 " Till St. James' s-day be come and gone, 
 There may be bops, or there may be none." 
 
 That refers to old St. James's day, which falls in August. It is impossible 
 for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when setthng his budget in February, 
 to say what he may derive from the hops to be produced in autumn. Last 
 year, in the month of February, the right hon. gentleman stated several 
 times over that the amount which he estimated to receive from the grow- 
 ing crop in 1860 was £300,000. The result has not at all borne out the 
 estimate. The actual amount was £69,000, and the right hon. gentleman 
 can calculate upon receiving only a very small portion of that j£ 69,000 
 within the financial year 1860-01, as he has been obliged, in consequence 
 of the distress of the planters, to postpone payment to the financial 
 year 1861-62. At this moment he is wringing out of the capital 
 of the planters the arrears still due upon the crop of 1859. Why ? 
 Because the planters have had good crops for a few successive years, which 
 the duties have converted into a perfect curse. Nobody ever heard of a 
 farmer being ruined by ha\nng too good a crop of corn, or of hay, or too 
 many lambs, but the effect of the hop duty is that when the grower has 
 laboured to secure a good crop he is ruined by his very success. In fact, 
 he becomes that standing paradox, pithily described by Mr. Bacon in his 
 able pamphlet on this question, " the victim of abundance." I said the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer was at this moment with difliculty wringing 
 out of the capital of the farmers the arrears of the postponed duty of 
 1859. I am far from wishing to taunt the right honble. gentleman with 
 the postponements he has granted. He has only followed the example set 
 him by a long line of predecessors in office. Within the last forty years the 
 collection of the duty has been postponed somewhere about thirty times.
 
 The system of long credits and of postponements is unsound, vicious, and 
 disgraceful. It is bad for the Exchequer, bad for the trade, and bad for 
 other tax-payers, who naturally think that the hop-growers are favoured 
 at their expense. Last year the right hon. gentleman put the tax as he 
 thought upon a sound basis. He proposed to collect it within the financial 
 year in which it was charged, to shorten the credits, and to put a stop to 
 the system of postponements. But in the very first year after- 
 wards he has found it necessary, througb the force of circum- 
 stances, to break through his own resolutions. There could not 
 be a greater condemnation of the tax than this fact. But 
 these long credits and postponements, evils as they undoubtedly are, 
 have been found necessary as palliatives to the evils necessarily inherent 
 in the tax. The right hon. gentleman has only added another to the long 
 list of failures to make this a satisfactory tax that have gone before. If 
 the duty is to be collected at an early stage, or as soon as it is charged, 
 the necessary effect must be to intensify all the evils ah-eady complained 
 of, and to confine the trade to desperate men who have nothing to lose, or 
 to a few great speculators who can afford to gamble on a gigantic scale. 
 I am at a loss to understand why the right hon. gentleman clings with so 
 much pertinacity, not to say obstinacy, to this smaU and unreUable duty, 
 which has not even the merit, which an indirect tax should have, of being 
 paid in the manner least galling to the parties affected by it. The right 
 hon. gentleman is a fearless, some people call him a reckless, financier. It 
 cannot be that the right hon. gentleman is afraid of dealing with the 
 hop duties on account of their amount. Last year he did not hesitate to 
 deal with taxes that amounted in the aggregate to millions ; but when he 
 came to the small sum that composed the hop duty, he hesitated and 
 doubted, and reduced that one-third. He does not belong to that school 
 of financiers who think it wise to levy a revenue by means of a number 
 of small taxes upon a number of different commodities. Quite the con- 
 trary. He made it Ms boast last year that he had swept off 371 articles 
 from the tariff ; but if it be a good policy to abolish small Customs duties, 
 surely it is much more so to do away with small Excise duties that 
 impose restrictions of so many kinds on internal trade. He will not 
 surely, in this instance, make use of that oracular saying he uttered the 
 other night, that " the abatement of one man's taxation is the increase of 
 another's," for in the case of duties on articles of consumption it by no 
 means follows that remission is necessarily attended by loss to the revenue 
 which must be compensated by increased taxation in some other quarter. 
 Since 1844 a number of Excise duties have been abohshed, among others 
 those on glass, bricks, soap, and vinegar, amounting altogether to 
 .£2,500,000; and at the same time additional duties have been imposed 
 upon spirits, estimated to yield £2,000,000. But, in the aggregate, 
 although Excise duties have been remitted to a larger amount than the 
 amount of spirit duties added, the result has been, since 1844, that the 
 excise duties, which then yielded .£17,500,000, have since produced 
 ,£22,000,000. This shows that the remission of Excise duties is not 
 necessarily followed by a loss of revenue. Remit the hop duty, and the
 
 hop growers themselves being more prosperous, and tlie tradesmen tliey 
 deal with, and the labourers they employ, sharing in that prosperity, 
 they will all have more money to spend on tea, on sugar, on malt, on 
 tobacco, and on other dutiable commodities, and the revenue will gain in 
 one direction what it loses in another. But if it be thought a bold ex- 
 periment to abohsh a tax on the chance of an increased revenue to be 
 derived from other duties, at all events the reduction of a tax on the chance 
 of increased revenue from its very reduction was by no means so hazard- 
 ous. But as far as the consumer is concerned, the abolition of the hop 
 duty would only be a reduction of the duties on beer. - For what is the 
 hop duty ? It is merely an unwholesome excrescence of the malt duty. 
 It is thought difficult, if not almost impossible, according to the traditions 
 of the Board of Inland Revenue, to tax satisfactorily the manufactured 
 article, beer ; and therefore it is taxed through its main ingredient, malt ; 
 but the Exchequer, not satisfied with this, goes further, and apparently 
 out of wanton love of taxation — taxation for the sake of taxation — im- 
 poses a small duty, with all the expense, restrictions, and unpopularity of 
 a separate Excise, upon a raw material of beer. I believe that if the hop 
 duty were taken off the consumer would get a benefit either in the price 
 or the quality of beer ; that consumption would be stimulated, and the in- 
 creased revenue derived from malt would in a short time, if not in the 
 first year, compensate the Exchequer. I have good grounds for this belief. 
 There used to be three duties on beer, the beer duty proper, the malt, and 
 the hop duties, in 1829, the three together yielded in round numbers 
 £7,000,000. The beer duty proper, which alone amounted to ^£3,000,000, 
 was swept off in 1830 ; but since its abolition the two remaining duties 
 have yielded as much as the three did formerly. This is the more re- 
 markable, as since 1855 malt, for purposes of distillation, is allowed to be 
 made duty free, and thus, according to the latest returns, upwards of 
 600,000 quarters of malt have been withdrawn from the revenue account. 
 When the beer duty was abohshed, the number of quarters of malt charged 
 with duty immediately rose fi'om three millions and a half to four millions 
 and a half, and the revenue sprang up from four to five millions. Some 
 small Excise duties, that on chicory for instance, are defended avowedly 
 on the ground that they serve to protect an important Customs revenue. 
 Is this the case with the hop duty ? I will tell the House what has been 
 the Customs revenue derived from foreign hops charged for home con- 
 sumption since 1846. The duty has been, in round numbers — 
 
 1846 . . 
 
 £2,500 
 
 1854 . . 
 
 . . £102,000 
 
 1847 . . 
 
 5,000 
 
 1855 .. 
 
 40,000 
 
 1848 . . 
 
 11 
 
 1856 .. 
 
 25,000 
 
 1849 . . 
 
 7,785 
 
 1857 .. 
 
 32,000 
 
 1850 .. 
 
 12,000 
 
 1858 . . 
 
 37,000 
 
 1851 . . 
 
 225 
 
 1859 .. 
 
 4,000 
 
 1852 . . 
 
 300 
 
 1860 .. 
 
 9,600 
 
 1853 . . 
 
 50,000 
 
 
 
 This has been certainly under a system of protection, when the Customs
 
 6 
 
 duty was 45s. per cwt., rather more than double the amount of the 
 Excise. Still it suffices to show that there can have been no important 
 trade in foreign hops to spring up. In fact, in the year 1854, every oppor- 
 tunity was given for the importation of foreign hops, had there been any 
 great quantity to be derived from abroad. In that year there was a very 
 short crop at home ; there was a good crop abroad. The Customs duty 
 was, in the interest of the consumer, reduced temporarily to a level with 
 the Excise, that is, to <£! per cwt. Hops in England were at a famine 
 price ; there was every stimulus to importation ; but the Customs revenue 
 derived from foreign hops amounted only to £2100,000 ; and it is never 
 likely, under any circumstances, to exceed that to any amount. Growers 
 on the continent or in America will not plant with a view solely of sup- 
 plying the English market, when that market is usually amply supplied, 
 and more than supphed, by the produce of our own gardens. All that 
 can be expected is that when there is a short crop at home and a large 
 crop abroad, the surplus of foreign countries may come in to supply our 
 wants. If anything can bring about a steady supply from foreign coun- 
 tries, and permanently reduce the price of hops at home, it is the setting 
 the trade completely free. I say of the Excise and Customs combined 
 what I said before of the Excise alone : that the trade in a commodity so 
 precarious and variable is too delicate and too sensitive to bear the addi- 
 tional derangements which any legislative trammels, be they ever so well 
 devised, necessarily entail. Set the home and foreign produce both com- 
 pletely free ; that and that alone will steady the trade, so far as the nature 
 of things admits of its being steady ; that will, as far as is possible, miti- 
 gate the alternations of dearth and excess under which we suffer ; the 
 deficiencies of one year and of one country will then be, in some degree, 
 balanced by the superabundance of another ; the grower will be relieved, 
 and the consumer benefitted. There will then be less need and less 
 temptation in scarce years to have recourse to quassia, gentian, broom 
 tops, fern leaves, ground ivy, picric acid, grains of paradise, strychnia, 
 cocculus indicus, fee, which we are told on high chemical authority are 
 used in beer as substitutes for hops, Mr. Phillips, the analyst to the 
 Board of Revenue, states in the fourth report of the Commissioners of 
 Excise, that beer is extensively adulterated by the use of other ingredients 
 in heu of hops ; but adds that such adulterations are very difficult of 
 detection, and if the chemist detects them, can scarcely ever be proved to 
 the satisfaction of a court of law. I revert to the Excise duty, which is 
 the main point, and I say of it : it is a duty trifling in amount, unreliable 
 in amount, difficult to be collected, intensely unpopular, unequal in its 
 pressure, heaviest at times when the tax-payer is least able to meet its 
 pressure, heavy in its incidence in an inverse ratio to the ability of the 
 individual to bear it, a blundering duty falling where it was never intended 
 to fall ; and, moreover, owing to the nature of the commodity on which 
 it is levied, a duty that never can be made to work satisfactorily to the 
 exchequer, or fairly to the planter. I go further, and say that even if 
 you could put it on ever so satisfactory a basis, it would be still an 
 absxxrdity and a blunder to maintain it ; because it is contrary to common
 
 sense to keep up the machinery of a separate Excise to tax an article that 
 is already largely and reliably taxed by means of another machinery. 
 Sir, there are objections to he urged against every tax ; but I defy any 
 one to show a tax that combines so many elements of a bad tax and 
 atones for them by such slender advantages. I speak strongly against 
 the duty, but not more strongly than I am warranted by high authorities 
 in doing. Speaking of the Excise duty on hops in 1852, the right honble. 
 baronet the member for Carhsle said : — 
 
 " The cost of collection is great, the amount received is small ; and the im- 
 post is, I believe, vexatious and onerous to the grower, as it certainly is 
 onerous to the consumer. The interest of the consumer certainly is that the 
 entire tax should be remitted." 
 
 With respect to the cost of collection, I vdW here observe that the hop 
 duty is not collected by the regular staff of the Board of Inland Eevenue, 
 but by some 270 officers appointed solely for this particular purpose ; so 
 that whatever the cost of collection is, by the remission of the duty the 
 w^hole expense attending its collection would be saved to the country. 
 Again in 1852 the hon. member for Eochdale said : — 
 
 " He never thought, after the great doings of Peel, we should ever have a 
 half-and-half Chancellor of the Exchequer making two bites at a cherry. 
 Here is a most exceptional tax — the only tax you have collected upon the 
 produce of the fields and gardens of the country — worthy no doubt of Persia 
 or of Turkey, but too ridiculous for this England of 1852. It has all the evils 
 that can attach to any tax ; it is cumbrous and costly in its collection, it is 
 uncertain in its amount, it bears with most unequal pressure on different parts 
 of the country, it falls with the severest pressure upon the poorest soUs and 
 the poorest qualities of hops." 
 
 The late Lord Aberdeen, when prime minister, said to a deputation that 
 waited upon him to urge the repeal of the duty, in the hearing of the right 
 hon. gentleman, who was his Chancellor of the Exchequer, " That no 
 doubt the course advocated by the repealers was the only rational way of 
 deahng with the matter. It was impossible to deny that there were very 
 great objections to the tax, and that if it did not exist already no one 
 would think of putting it on." Again he said, " The tax is contrary to 
 common sense." The light hon. baronet, the Secretary for India, said, 
 speaking of the hop duty in the House, in 1852, " If there be a sound 
 principle with regard to an excise duty it is this ; do not maintain an ex- 
 cise duty unless it brings in a considerable accession of revenue." When 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer he had attempted to defend the tax, hut his 
 praise was of that faint kind which carries condemnation with it. The 
 right hon. baronet, the Home Secretary, when he was appealed to, hstened 
 to the arguments, smiled grimly, but advanced no argument in defence of 
 the duty. I do not ask the right hon. gentleman to cut off a necessary 
 branch of the revenue. I do not ask him to part with this tax if he cannot 
 spare it ; hut only that, if he is about to remit taxation or to shift the 
 burdens of the country, he will provide for the extinction of this ob- 
 noxious duty. I may be told the time is inoi)portuue because our financial 
 burdens must be great. I say the time is opportune, because if our burdens
 
 8 
 
 must be heavy it is the more important that they should be wisely and 
 justly imposed. I know well the abihty of the right hon. gentleman " to 
 make the worse appear the better cause," but I beg the House not to be led 
 away by his refined ingenuity, his brilUant eloquence, or by any special 
 pleading or sophistries ; but to judge and decide this case fairly upon its 
 merits. 
 
 Sir Brook Bkidges, in seconding the motion, said — ^I appeal to the Chan* 
 ceUor of the Exchequer whether his doors have not been beset, whether his 
 table has not been covered with representations upon the subject of the hop- 
 duty ; in fact, whether he has not found this tax to be the most tiresome, 
 the most plaguing one, and the most constant bore with which he has to 
 deal. (Hear, hear ! from the Chancellor of the Exchequer), Is it not the 
 galled jade that winces, and do not these facts prove how oppressive and 
 how obnoxious this duty is ? It is not the object of the hop-growers of 
 the county which I represent to ask for anything unfair to the rest of the 
 community. They may be told they can give up the cultivation of hops if 
 it ceases to be profitable, but a certain portion of the country is suited to 
 the growth of hops, and the hop-growers ought not to be told to give up 
 the growth of an article which is beneficial to the community (hear). The 
 hop duty has some of the worst features of a tax. It is variable, incon- 
 venient in its collection, and of its amount it is impossible to form a correct 
 calculation, I was dehghted to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer state 
 the other night that the merits of a tax depended upon the proportion that 
 came into the coffers of the State as compared with the amount paid by the 
 taxpayer. Judged by this test, the hop duty is ill- devised and wasteful. 
 A large army of persons are appointed for its collection, who are precisely 
 the same in number whether the crop is large or small. They walk the 
 same number of miles and have the same duties to perform, except in the 
 figures in which their return is made. Last year if one of these persons 
 were asked, "Well, what return have you to-day?" he usually rephed, 
 " What is the use of my walking to and fro ? There are no hops grown 
 in the country " (hear, hear). Thus the Government have to pay the same 
 amount as in the most prosperous years to persons who come back to tell 
 them that no hops are grown. The tax not only does not fill the coffers of 
 the State ; it weighs on a very meritorious class of persons (hear). The 
 precarious nature of the crop, and the various enemies by which it is 
 attacked, are well expressed in the old distich — 
 " First the flea, next the fly, 
 Then the louse, and then I die." 
 
 (A laugh). The Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be added to this hst 
 of destructives, for he came in at the end of it all, and if the hop growers 
 got over the flea, the fly, and the louse, then the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer came in and took the little profit they might otherwise reahse (a 
 laugh, and hear, hear). 
 
 Sir J. Shelley said — As a grower of hops of twenty-five years' 
 standing, I wish to say a few words before the conclusion of the debate.
 
 9 
 
 In former years, hop growers were told it would be time enough to 
 attend to them when they were agreed among themselves. That period 
 has arrived, and they are now of the unanimous opinion that they 
 can beat the foreigner if their arms are unshackled. The foreign hop 
 grower has several advantages over the home grower. The former has 
 no duty to pay till he bonds his hops : but the home grower has to pay 
 whether he sells his goods or not. The former can say to the brewer, 
 " You need not pay the duty on the hops till you want them ;" whereas 
 the latter has to call upon the purchaser to pay down. In the Weald of 
 Sussex, where I reside, the hops are of an inferior, though still saleable 
 character, but yet the growers have to pay as much duty per cwt. as the 
 growers of the highest-priced Kent or Farnham hops. Again, the duty 
 is payable on a fixed day, and as every one wishes to prepare for that 
 day by taking his goods to market, the prices fall, and the grower has to 
 make a further sacrifice. In fact, after making a very careful calculation, 
 I have come to the conclusion, after twenty -six years' experience, that I 
 have lost during that period exactly the amount I have paid into the 
 exchequer. It has been remarked that the best way of benefiting the 
 laboui-er is by giving him employment. Now, I am prepared to show that 
 the labour required in the cultivation of the hop is divided most minutely 
 over the whole of the year. It is often said that hop picking is demorali- 
 sing ; but, however true that remark may be in some districts, where 
 there is a large importation of roughs into the hop gardens during the 
 season of hop picking, it is not true with regard to the regular agricultural 
 labourer. The first operation after picking is stripping the poles and 
 putting them away. Then comes the wood-cutting, and stripping off the 
 bark — which latter operation is done by the women and children. These 
 and other employments extend through the winter. With spring comes 
 the cultivation of the hop, which is done entirely by spade husbandry 
 • — the labourer earning good wages by task work. Then follow the 
 poling and tying — the latter of which is done by women and children ; 
 and lastly, the hop picking, in which the labourers and their 
 famihes earn enough to buy their clothes, and partly to pay their rent. 
 Should, therefore, an article, the c^Jtivation of which gives so many 
 benefits to the community, be so heavily taxed ? I have often lost hun- 
 dreds of pounds in a single night, by a gale of wind devastating my 
 gardens and deteriorating the quality of the hop, and, in some instances, 
 have calculated that I should be a less sufferer, considering the payment 
 of duty, if I were not to pick at all. In all other agricultural products, 
 it is the interest of the farmer to get as large a crop as possible ; the hop 
 grower, however, prays that he may only get half a crop, unless he be 
 selfish, and then perhaps he may pray that he may have a full one, and 
 his neighbour none at all (" hear, hear," and laughter). The difficulty of 
 obtainmg a drawback of duty is such, that hop growers have been known 
 to make a false affidavit that they had sold their hops to a foreign pur- 
 chaser, and then to make an arrangement with the captain of the vessel 
 to throw them overboai'd. All these points are well worthy of considera- 
 tion, and should lead to a withdrawal of this wretched tax. My right
 
 10 
 
 hon. friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), with all his talent and 
 ingenuity, is following in the wretched groove of the bunglers that have 
 gone before him (laughter). I beg to call attention to a return respecting 
 the postponement of duty for a number of years, which shows that the 
 tax has been either altered, modified, postponed, or removed during the 
 period between twenty and thirty times (hear). I am sure that hops are 
 the very last article on which my right hon. friend would think of imposing 
 a tax, and I appeal to him for relief in the name of the cultivators of 
 hops and of a large class of agricultural labourers (hear, hear). 
 
 Lord Pevensey said — Having the honour to represent a large hop- 
 producing constituency, I cannot confine myself to a silent vote on this 
 occasion. It is not easy to conceive what are the motives which induce 
 the right hon. gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to resist the 
 resolution before the House. To admit the utter viciousness of this 
 tax and yet still to maintain it for the sake of revenue, when at the 
 same time so far from being a certain source of revenue, it has only 
 tended to mislead the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to embarrass and 
 disturb his financial calculations, is a principle of action which I for one 
 cannot very well understand. There is one very important point which 
 the house will do well to consider, and that is, that whatever estimate the 
 right hon. gentleman may make as to his future sources of revenue, so long 
 as it, or any portion of it, is based upon the supposed amount he wiU 
 receive from this impost, his calculations will be framed upon a most 
 unsound and insecure basis. Nothing is better calculated to show the 
 treacherous character of the tax, than the fact that while the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer calculated on a duty this year of .£300,000, he will not 
 collect £70,000. Whatever may be the deficit with which the right hon. 
 gentleman will have to grapple, not less than £230,000 will be owing to 
 his reliance on a duty which is as much a lottery to the Exchequer as the 
 prices of the crop are to the producer. At the time the right hon. gentle- 
 man came down to the house to introduce his budget the hops might be in 
 a most flourishing condition, promising a most abundant yield, and 
 the right hon. gentleman might feel perfectly secure that he would 
 reap from them a handsome revenue ; but hardly might the words 
 have passed from his lips before a bhght might fall upon the crop, 
 and his expectations be ruined for that year. It is manifest, then, 
 that until the right hon. gentleman can control the wind and the 
 weather, any estimate he may frame upon the probable quantity of hops 
 will be a mere fancy estimate, and his calculations nothing more than 
 vague speculations (cheers). It has been said that we ought not to de- 
 mand a reduction of taxation at the present crisis when there will probably 
 be a considerable deficit ; but for my part I think that renders it a most 
 Opportune moment in which to call the attention of the house to the inse- 
 curity and utter unsafeness of this source from which the right hon. gen- 
 tleman draws Ms revenue. What can be more fluctuating than this tax upon 
 hops? Sometimes the duty is as high as j£ 700,000, sometimes as low as 
 J£40,000. Is it not obvious, then, to every hon. member, that it is utterly
 
 11 
 
 impossible for any Chancellor of the Exchequer to frame any accurate calcu- 
 lations in which the hop duty is an element? (hear). Moreover, in 
 addition to this uncertainty, nothing can exceed the enormous inequality 
 of the pressure of this duty. The amount of Excise duty raised on hops 
 during the last four years was about £2,000,000, and that duty was raised 
 upon from 43,000 to 45,000 acres of land, and the inequality of the pres- 
 sure arises from the fact that in the different districts the price of hops 
 varied from 40s. to .£19, and in some seasons up to ,£40, yet the duty 
 is one imiform amount charged upon all hops alike (cheers). I can state 
 an instance of a planter who, on 50 acres, has lost in one year J£l,000 ; 
 but to give a general notion of its extreme pressure in successive years of 
 large crops, heavy duties and low prices, I will add that the average dead 
 loss per acre on Sussex hop-lands has been ,£18 or JB 19 during the last 
 four years. It has been said that we are in the same position as the class 
 of persons on whom the malt duty is levied. I totally deny the parity of 
 the two things. The malt duty is one which not only brings in a large 
 amount of revenue, but is perfectly sure as regards its collection, in both 
 which points it is entirely distinct to the hop duty. But the greatest point 
 of difference is this. The duty on malt is a duty imposed upon a manu- 
 factured article, whereas the duty on hops is an imposition on the raw 
 material (cheers). Of course, the right hon. gentleman wUl meet our de- 
 mands by saying, " Why, gentlemen, if hop-growing is so very unpro- 
 fitable, and if it subjects you to such intolerable hardships, do you not 
 give up the plant, and devote your energies to the cultivation of some other 
 plant of a more lucrative character ?" That, however, is not a fair argu- 
 ment to employ, and for this reason, that if we are taxed upon fair and 
 equal principles the disadvantageous circumstances under which the hop 
 farmers labour will no longer continue to exist ; and what we complain of 
 is that a most unsound and \'icious principle of taxation is applied to us 
 which is applied to no other interest in the kingdom (cheers). When the 
 right hon. gentleman told us that we ought not to grow hops it might be 
 retorted upon him that last year he came down to the house, and, in a 
 most eloquent and seductive speech, dwelt in the most impressive terms 
 upon the duty of relie^•ing from taxation those products in the manufacture 
 of which there was a great employment of labour (hear, hear, and 
 cheers). I will not for a moment endeavour to insinuate that the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer entertains the slightest feeling of hos- 
 tility to the agriculturists, but when I find the right hon. gentleman 
 taxing beyond their energies a class of farmers who, as it has been 
 shown, are peculiarly distinguished for their emplojonent of labour, while 
 he at the same time expressed himself anxious to reheve a class of the 
 manufacturing interest from taxation on the express ground that it would 
 employ a vast amount of labour, 1 must say that if the right hon. gentle- 
 man does not intend to act ^-ith hostility to the agricultural interest, he 
 appears to be guilty of the greatest inconsistency (cheers), while at the 
 same time he is guilty of great injustice to labour itself. As the reso- 
 lution before the House deals with the Customs duties as well as the 
 Excise, I will not refrain from remarking that it is difiicult to understand
 
 12 
 
 on wliat ground the government desires the retention of the latter. The 
 Import duty of twenty shillings is neither a protection to the home pro- 
 ducer, nor a large nor reliable source of revenue to the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer ; the variable state of the home crop produced corresponding 
 vacillation in the Import duties on foreign produce. Within the last three 
 years the imported hops once rose to 16,000 cwt., then sank the next year 
 to about 1,800 cwt. One year the Customs duties produced .£36,000, the 
 following year a little over £3,000. I need not remind the House that 
 the Customs duty was then at forty -five shillings, which the right hon. 
 gentleman has since reduced to twenty shiUings. I would also remark 
 that the amount paid by government as drawback on exported hops within 
 the last four years, has exceeded by ^£4,000 the whole amount derived 
 from the Customs duties in that period. The right hon. gentleman may 
 tell us that as a favour he has imposed a differential duty of one 
 shilling per cwt. upon the growers of foreign hops, but when 
 we know, as we do, that the English hop-growers are always obhged 
 from the necessities of the case, to pour their hops into the market 
 whatever may be the price, while the foreign hop-growers can hold 
 back, it is obvious that that which the right hon. gentleman would 
 term a protection is nothing more than a preventative against the extinc- 
 tion of hop cultivation in this country, and is not accepted by the home 
 producer as an equivalent for the privilege of bonding, now given to the 
 foreigner, by means of which system he can choose his own opportunity 
 for an advantageous sale, while the English grower is forced into the 
 market in order to meet the home duty, whatever may be the prices, and 
 however ruinously low they may be. Altogether this is a tax so unfair 
 and so utterly indefensible upon the grounds of justice and equality, while 
 at the same its results are so uncertain as to render it almost valueless as 
 a reliable source of revenue, that I am not without hope that the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer may for once listen to the just demands of 
 the hop-planters (cheers). 
 
 Mr, Bright — Sir, whatever difference of opinion may he shewn when 
 you invite us into the lobby, there is no difference of opinion as to the 
 manner in which this matter has been brought before the House by the 
 hon. gentleman who sits near me, or discussed by the hon. gentleman who 
 followed him (hear, hear). It is to me very gratifying to hear good 
 speeches from agricultural gentlemen (laughter). I find that when they 
 have a good case they can talk nearly as well as gentlemen who are con- 
 nected with other branches of industry (laughter). And to-night I don't 
 know that I have heard a single sentence or a single argument with which 
 I would be disposed to find fault (hear, hear) ; and it is one that will tax 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say anything against it ; for, as has 
 been said by the hon. member who introduced the subject, quoting an hon- 
 ourable friend of mine not here, " This tax has in it every bad quality 
 that a tax could possess " (hear, hear). I am afraid that many another tax 
 could have the same character given to it (hear, hear). The question sub- 
 mitted to us is not whether the tax is good or bad — we all agree it is bad
 
 13 
 
 — or whether it should he a permanent source of revenue — for the House 
 must feel by this time that it never can be a permanent source of revenue 
 (hear, hear). But the question which is submitted to us by the hon. gen- 
 tleman is something in the description of a pledge ; for he asks us by his 
 resolution to declare — " that the maintenance of any duties upon hops is 
 impolitic, and that in any remission of taxation or adjustment of financial 
 burdens provision should be made for the removal of such duties." I con- 
 clude from this that what he wants is that the very first ,£200,009, or 
 j£ 300,000, or j£400,000, or whatever amount is necessary, to provide for 
 the aboHtion of the hop duty — the fii'st sum that the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer can by any possibility spare, shall be devoted to that purpose. 
 Well, I do not blame those who have that kind of interest in the question 
 which the hon. member for Westminster (Sir J. Shelley) has, or which 
 those hon. gentlemen have who have spoken on this subject. I do not 
 complain of the course taken by them, because I know that when we are 
 to get anything from a Chancellor of the Exchequer, we are not to be 
 mealy-mouthed in our mode of expressing our opinion (hear, hear, and 
 laughter). But, then, I would ask the House whether it is disposed to 
 pass this resolution and to make this pledge ? I am as much against this 
 tax as anybody here. I believe it is as bad a tax as it is described. I 
 tliink there does not live the man so stupid who, if a Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, would attempt to propose for the first time in our day a tax 
 so odious, so absurd as this (hear, hear). But notwithstandincr all this, 
 and though I believe it must be a very short time before the tax is abol- 
 ished, yet I am not prepared, for one, in the position in which we stand, 
 to give a pledge that the first money the Chancellor of the Exchequer can 
 spare shall be devoted to the repeal of the hop duty, Now, the hon. 
 member for Westminster, I think, has admitted that it is only just now 
 that the hop-growers have become a " happy family " (hear, hear). For 
 several years the hon. member for Rochdale and myself were beset in the 
 lobby by gentlemen wanting something to be done with regard to the hop 
 duty. At that time there was a protective duty on foreign hops, and that 
 always seems to blind the eyes of every one connected with it 
 (hear, hear). Last year it blinded the eyes of the paper- 
 makers. For years before it blinded the eyes of the hop-growers. 
 Well, so long as the protective duty remained the hop-growers of Kent 
 had not the same interest as those of Sussex, and whenever they came be- 
 fore the House there was no united interest, and therefore nothing could 
 be done. Since last year, as I understand it, the scales have dropped 
 from their eyes, and they now see the matter in the light in which we 
 who are free traders have seen it for many years ; and now they come 
 and ask the House that the tax may be wholly abolished. But it is not 
 common, I may tell my honourable friends, in this country for persons who 
 have just found out that a tax is bad, and just agreed to ask for its repeal, 
 to obtain that repeal on the first asking (" hear, hear," and laughter). 
 That is a sort of courtship, I can assure them, which is indeed not very 
 common with Chancellors of the Exchequer (laughter). And as this is 
 the fii'st year when they have asked for this repeal in a plain and resolute
 
 14 
 
 voice, although I should be glad if they had it, yet they will be much 
 better off than their neighbours, and should be very well satisfied if they 
 get it next year or the year after (" hear, hear," and laughter). The ques- 
 tion cannot stand debates like this we have had to-night. The reading of 
 this debate to-morrow necessarily must convince everybody out of doors of 
 matters of which they are not now cognisant. And, therefore, by another 
 session the question will come before the House with a force which pro- 
 bably the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not be able to resist (bear). 
 I undertake to say on behalf of the House, that, however, humbled we 
 may have been by what took place last session, we have not come to that 
 point of subjugation when we shall consent to send up to the other House 
 of Parliament a bill for the repeal of any other tax until we have sent up 
 another bill for the abolition of the excise duty upon paper (cheers). I 
 might compare the paper duties with these, but that really is not my 
 object, because I do not want to show that any tax is on general grounds 
 worse than this tax. But I might tell my hon. friends that if they have 
 the exciseman for a few weeks during the fine weather in autumn, the 
 paper-maker has the exciseman for fifty-two weeks in the year — (hear, 
 hear) — and that he is just as great nuisance to the paper-makers as he can 
 be to the hop-growers. And, further, the paper-maker has pleaded to 
 have his duty abolished for many years, and last year he was treated in 
 a manner in which no other manufacturer in this country has heretofore 
 been treated by Parliament. I think, therefore, he has a right to come 
 here first, and that the House of Commons cannot pass by his case for the 
 purpose of considering any other case, however grievous it may be 
 (hear hear). I do not pretend to make it appear that 
 these injuries are worse than those caused by the tax 
 on hops. I will place them if you like on exactly the same grounds. 
 But this I do say, that if they will do that, which now it is in their power 
 to do, if they take the very first opportunity of re-asserting the right which 
 they embodied in a resolution last year, and of again passing the bill for 
 the abolition of the excise duty upon paper, they will have done much to 
 vindicate themselves (hear, hear). And, when that is once done, and has 
 passed both Houses of Parliament, then I think I should not have the 
 smallest objection to vote for the strongest resolution, for the 
 most instantaneous action on the part of the House of Commons, 
 on behalf of the abolition of the hop duty (hear, hear). 
 
 Lord HoLivtESDALE : Sir, — As representing a district which has been 
 alluded to in the course of this debate, and which is, in no slight degree, 
 interested in this question, I must ask leave to trespass shortly on the 
 time of the house while referring to a few of the observations that have been 
 made. The honourable baronet, the member for Westminster, in speaking 
 of the district in which he resides, observed that while he could, for his 
 part, declare that the immorality spoken of in connection with the hop- 
 picking did not exist, he could not answer for Kent, where a large num- 
 ber of strangers are annually collected for the hop-picking. Well, 
 I have made inquiries with respect to this alleged immorality from the
 
 15 
 
 employers and from various other parties, who, if it had existed, would 
 certainly have been aware of it, and I am justified from their answer in 
 stating it to be a fiction. The alleged immoraUty does not exist. As 
 regards what fell from the honourable member for Birmingham, while I 
 must dechne to follow him over the whole of the ground he has traversed, 
 I must say that his argument seemed to me to amount simply to this : 
 because the paper-makers cannot get their duty remitted, the hop- 
 growers shall not. Why, sir, this is the old argument, if I may use the 
 expression, of the dog in the manger (cheers). The hon. member did not 
 attempt to show that the duty upon paper is more onerous or unjust 
 than that levied on hops ; be did not attempt to prove that the small sum 
 produced by the hop duty is so imperatively required by the country 
 that it cannot be spared. Let us look at the difference between the two 
 duties : The paper duty produces nearly £1,500,000 a year. The hop 
 duty, in one year it is true, produced j£ 728, 123 ; but fifteen years ago, 
 it fell to £62,253. In the five years from 1855 to 1859, it produced 
 on an average over £300,000 per annum, and last year it fell to little 
 over £69,000. How can this duty, variable as I have shown it to be, 
 be placed in the same category with a tax which produces so large and 
 certain a revenue as the paper duty. It must be remembered, too, that this 
 hop duty is a tax on the raw material. The paper-maker can regulate 
 his produce according to the estimated demand — the hop-planter, 
 never. The hop-planter cannot predict what the yield of a given 
 acreage may be. Why, in two nights the better part of his crop may be 
 blasted. But it is not in the years of deficient crops that the planter is 
 most to be pitied. A large crop means a large duty. This large duty 
 forces the planters simultaneously into the market ; they must sell, at what- 
 ever price, to pay the duty; and the result is, the factors, who are well aware 
 of this, will not give the price for hops they would otherwise command. 
 Last year, certainly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer slightly reduced 
 the Excise duties. But, in so doing, he substituted one large payment for 
 two small ones ; so that the interference with the trade is not mitigated, 
 but rather increased. Besides, formerly — when there was still an instal- 
 ment of the tax due — the Chancellor of the Exchequer could calculate 
 with certainty on what he had to come in from the tax. Now, unless the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer is Zadkiel, or one of those persons who 
 can see into futurity, I cannot see how he can count on any certain 
 amount from the hop duty. Last year the right hon. gentleman 
 took credit for £300,000 from this source, while the actual pro- 
 duce was only £69,000. He might again take £300,000 for next year, 
 but who should say that it might not be lower even than £69,000 ? The 
 proof that it presses on the planter is to be found in the number of times 
 he has been compelled to come to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 to ask for a postponement of the period of payment. I am not 
 defending the postponement system. I believe that had that system 
 never been allowed to exist, it would have been better in the end 
 for all parties ; but I maintain that the frequency of the demand for post- 
 ponement shows how oppressively the tax weighs upon the planters
 
 16 
 
 (hear, hear). I have received a communication which demonstrates the 
 unfair nature of this tax. It states that in a part of the country there 
 were 135 tenants, occupying 18,500 acres, of which 1,477 acres were 
 under hops. The average duty paid was <£1 9,420 per annum. The gross 
 rental of the whole of those estates was J£15,146. After deducting 10 
 per cent, for cottage and other expenses, the net rental coming to the 
 landlord was £13,632 per annum. So that while the duty was 
 upwards of £19,000 per annum, the landlord's rent was only 
 J£13,632 per annum. In other words, the hop duty came to 20s. 
 6d. per acre — the rental to only 14s. 2d. (Loud cries of 
 " Hear, hear.") Can there be a stronger proof of the enormous sum 
 thus wrung from those whom I have the honour to represent ? (hear, 
 hear). Well now, the hop planters (united for the first time) come 
 to the House to ask merely for free trade to enable them to compete with 
 the foreigner. It is true, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has gi-anted a 
 countervaihngdutyof Is. per cwt. ; but does he imagine that to be sufficient ? 
 Does he imagine that this paltry shiUing will countervail the enormous 
 advantage the foreigner enjoys in bonding his hops ? Free trade is all we 
 seek. There sit in this House many gentlemen who, in times past, have 
 been engaged in forcing free trade on the producer for the consumer's 
 benefit. Now, that the case is reversed, will they be deaf to our prayer ? 
 We make it no secret, that this is a producer's question ; but I trust that 
 they — I trust that this House — will not in common justice, smaU as a com- 
 munity though we be, deny us our plain, simple request for free trade. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer — Sir, I am bound to say, in 
 common fairness, that the case against the hop duty has been stated to- 
 night, both by my hon. friends behind me, and by the noble lords and 
 others opposite, with very great ability (hear, hear). It is impossible, I 
 think, that greater justice could be done to the case which they had in 
 their hands ; and in what I have to say on that part of the case, though I 
 shall make certain reservations and quahfications, yet speaking with per- 
 fect openness and sincerity, I shall not disguise that upon various points 
 which they have urged I subscribe in a great degree to what has come 
 from them (hear, hear). But what I shall urge upon the House, and 
 which I hope it will bear in mind when it comes to give its vote, is not 
 the merit of the hop duty, not the policy of continuing it as a tax in this 
 country ; but, without raising that question, I shall endeavour to rest the 
 case upon what I conceive to be conclusive grounds against the adoption 
 of the motion. Now, so far as the hop duty is concerned, I agree that it 
 is fairly open to those charges ; it is unequal in its produce as a fiscal 
 resource, unequal in its pressure upon difterent classes of hops in a degree 
 for which it would be very easy to find parallels, but which certainly, 
 with respect to domestic commodities, and commodities liable to excise, 
 may fairly be called peculiar. It tends to aggravate distress in years of 
 very low price in a trade where the reverses are sudden and severe, and 
 I may also add that it is open to the objection of being levied upon an 
 article of raw produce (hear, hear). But there are two other objectious
 
 17 
 
 which were taken in this debate which are not so tenable ; for instance, 
 that this is a very costly duty in the collection. On the contrary, the 
 money derived from the hop duties is among the cheapest, as far as the 
 collection is concerned, that comes into the exchequer, and therefore I 
 must dissent from the noble lord (Holmesdale) when he spoke of destroying 
 this trade by excise restrictions. There are no excise restrictions which, 
 in any appreciable degree, interfere with the production ; and as the hop 
 duty is unfavourably distinguished in the fact that it is levied upon the 
 raw produce, and that the producer is called upon to pay on the inception, 
 as it were, and not on the consumption, so, on the other hand, there is a 
 distinction in its favour as compared with paper and other manufactured 
 articles (hear, hear). My honble. friend wno has made this motion has 
 spoken of the fickleness of the hop plant ; but I would say to him, and to 
 all those who call upon the House to remove this duty, " Do not suppose 
 that you will put an end to distress in the hop districts by the abolition of 
 the duty" (hear, hear). The hon. member for Westminster has stated 
 very candidly, that he had himself, after being a hop planter for twenty- 
 five years, underwent considerable losses ; but in the case of my hon. 
 friend, that statement was incomplete as an exhibition of the general 
 rule, because, he will not contrad'ct me when I say there is an 
 important element in this case which is rarely brought into view in 
 debate, and which has not been mentioned during the three hours 
 that we have been discussing this subject to-night — I mean the interest 
 of the landlord in promoting the hop cultivation, not on account of 
 the special rents he gets for the hop grounds, but on account of the 
 market that he thereby secures for his underwood ; and that is an 
 element without which we cannot understand the amount of inducement 
 there has been to promote this hop cultivation. I will not enter into the 
 question with regard to the morality or immorality arising from the con- 
 course of people collected by the hop picking, but I will look at it simply 
 as a trading question ; and looking at it as a trading question, the truth is 
 that this is unliappily distinct from every other agricultural product by the 
 extraordinary reverses which it offers to those who pursue the trade (hear, 
 hear). In one year a man's plant is not worth the picking (hear, hear). 
 But in the next year he may have ^100 per acre clear of all expenses. 
 In point of fact, the hop cultivation is a lottery (hear, hear). I do not 
 attempt to disguise anything that is connected with it. The duty acts as 
 a deduction from the prizes, and it likewise acts as an aggravation of the 
 blanks (hear, hear). But when we hear of the distress of the hop planters, 
 it would be a gross delusion to suppose that the main cause of that distress 
 is the operation of the duties. The hon. member for Sussex spoke of the 
 amount of this duty, into which it is not necessary for me to enter very 
 largely, but I cannot accede to the basis of his computation. He spoke of 
 the amount as something like ^£200, 000, and in order to reduce it so low, 
 he went back to a long term for striking his average, when the usual 
 average of the hop crop was much less than it is at present, and he also 
 entirely omitted the yield of the customs duty upon hops. Stating the 
 facts as fairly as I can, I should say that the average amount of duty with
 
 18 
 
 respect to wMdli my hon. friend wishes to give an opinion is from 
 £300,000 to £350,000 a year; but I fully admit to him that is a very 
 uncertain amount (hear, hear). It is not, however, so uncertain as you 
 would suppose it to be, if you look at the extreme variation of the British 
 crop ; because when the British crop is low a more considerable revenue 
 is derived from customs' duty. But while I admit that it is an uncertain 
 element of the revenue, I do not think we should on that account do well 
 to part with it ; because, in the case of a country like this, uncertainties 
 upon small and minor elements of the revenue are really almost lost in 
 their effect, for the most part, upon general results, unless under very 
 peculiar circumstances. My hon. friend the member for Sussex was, I 
 thought, much too sanguine in his anticipation of the public and general 
 results which were to follow the abolition of the hop duties. He compared 
 this case with the repeal of the duty upon bricks, soap, and glass, and 
 with the effect of remitting customs' duties. I must say, so far as regards 
 the general public, I know no duty in the repeal of which the general 
 public have so little interest as this (hear, hear). This is precisely one of 
 those small amounts difficult to trace in its incidents. But do not let the 
 House deceive itself. This was not hke the cases where we have been 
 able, by the removal of imposts comparatively small, to give an enormous 
 impetus to trade, to open up new and extensive sources of employment, 
 and almost immediately to bring back to the revenue, through the medium 
 of augmented enterprise and heightened wages, all we had lost. It is, as 
 has been fairly stated, a producer's question, and it is the hardship of the 
 producer you are called upon to deal with (hear, hear). But you must 
 take into account that it is to him, so far as the nature of the case admits, 
 you would be making a present of the duty when you enter upon the con- 
 sideration of its remission. My hon. friend says that I have proved my- 
 self to be either a fearless or reckless financier ; but, at the same time, I 
 am neither so reckless nor so fearless as to be content to accept the reso- 
 lution that he has proposed, and that upon principles which, I am con- 
 vinced, will, notwithstanding the able statements we have heard to-night 
 upon the merits of the hop duties, carry with them the assent of the House. 
 There is one other incidental point upon which I must dwell before I go 
 to the brief statement I will make of those principles, and it is this — that 
 there is a certain connection between the abolition of the hop duty — what 
 amount of connection I do not know — and the augmentation of the malt 
 duty (hear, hear). Many hon. gentlemen who have done me the honour 
 to visit me on the subject of the hop duties, have alluded to that connec- 
 tion, and to the facilities of substituting an increase of the malt duty for the 
 hop duty within the four walls of my room. But, by some strange acci- 
 dent, it appears that topic has always been forgotten by gentlemen who 
 forget nothing else (laughter). When we have entered into a debate in 
 this House, I have never heard a single gentleman connected with the 
 interest of the hop-grower on any single occasion suggest that this 
 is an easy and desirable method of supplying the gap (" hear, hear," 
 and laughter). The case of hops has been referred to for the purpose 
 of exciting compassion, by stating that in certain cases £10 or £15 an
 
 19 
 
 acre has been actually levied in the shape of hop duty, where the rent 
 may be 10s. or <£1. Why, sir, if I were to state what a crop of barley, 
 applied to distillation, yielded to the revenue, some compassion might, 
 perhaps, be entertained for the barley grower (hear, hear). I apprehend 
 that it would not be J£10 or .£15 which it would pay to the revenue, 
 when employed for purposes of distillation, but it would be nearer d£40, 
 j£50, or ^60 upon the crop of the year. The noble lord said, " We ask 
 for free trade, and ask for nothing else" (hear). I am sure the hon. 
 member for Birmingham must really have felt his heart leap within him 
 (" hear, hear," from Mr. Bright) — when he heard that definition of free- 
 trade accepted from such a quarter (hear, hear). Now, there is a very 
 important question arising as to what constitutes free trade. We are now, 
 happily, all agreed in being free traders ; but there is a very serious con- 
 troversy yet remains unsettled. The original free traders always held, 
 I believe, that the essence of free trade consisted in the abolition of 
 preference and of protection ; but there is another school of poUticians who 
 give further development to the principle of free trade, and who say, 
 " You have no free trade in any article which is subject to a tax ; we think 
 free trade means the abolition of all indirect taxes ;" and it is in that sense 
 the noble lord demands from this House — and tliinks it a very small 
 request to make — that we should give him the small boon of free trade he 
 asks at our hands. I must confess I have been very glad to see within 
 proper measure the abolition even of indirect taxes which were not protec- 
 tive, and where it was done with reference to the public interest, to the 
 possibility of reproduction, and with a due regard to the balance of the 
 revenue and the expenditure of the country. But if the noble lord is 
 merely a convert to the doctrine that we can never be safe to establish 
 free trade in any article until we have removed it from the operation of 
 customs and excise duties altogether, I must reluctantly part comj^any 
 with the noble lord, and request him to perform the ulterior stages of that 
 journey towards the consummation of free trade without my having the 
 honour to attend him (cheers and laughter). I think I may pass by, with 
 very few words, the reference made by the hon. member for Westminster 
 to some minor points in this case. He dwelt upon the hardships inflicted 
 upon the hop-grower by the foreigner being allowed to bond his hops. He 
 said that a shilling of extra duty per cwt. was no counterpoise adequate to 
 countervail the advantages the foreigner derived from the privilege of 
 bonding. We need not enter much into that consideration now, because 
 the Is. duty per cwt. is entirely prospective. At present there is 6s, 
 duty in favour of British hops. 1 am bound to say that my own belief is, 
 that the importer of hops from abroad would very gladly indeed abandon 
 his privilege of bontling, if he were to have the enjoyment of an equal 
 rate. This is a matter we need not now enter into. The question which 
 is now raised is of a much broader scope than that to which my hon. friend 
 referred. I must object to the motion of my hon. friend upon the ground 
 that it is an abstract resolution, relating to matter of finance, and 1 cannot 
 but feel that this is a most serious objection (hear, hear). I will not go 
 into the question whether upon any occasion, under any circumstances, the
 
 20 
 
 House of Commons is, or has been, justified in passing such resolutions, 
 because there is in existence a resolution of this House of this character 
 with reference to the paper duty, of which, of course, as a resolution of 
 this House, as well as on account of my right hon. friend (Mr. M. Gibson), 
 its author, I speak with all due respect. In the first place, I think the nature 
 of that resolution up to the present time ought to be a warning to every 
 prudent man how he adds more resolutions to that class (hear, hear). And 
 then let my hon. friend consider what he is about. It is all very well 
 for him to lead the House of Commons into the assertion of a 
 general opinion ; and after the excellent statements which we 
 have heard made to-night against the hop duties, perhaps 
 there are gentlemen in this House who might be disposed to say, " Well, 
 there is no harm in recording opinions against the hop duties in the form 
 of an abstract resolution." But does my hon. friend think that nobody 
 else will follow his example ? There are duties the repeal of which has 
 been constantly called for in this House. The hon. member for Dudley, 
 for example, notwithstanding the pressure of other changes in the revenue, 
 attempted last year to obtain from the Government the repeal of the fire 
 insurance duty (hear, hear). That hon. gentleman will come down with 
 his abstract resolution, and he will invite this House to say that the 
 " maintenance of duties upon fire insurances is impolitic, and that in any re- 
 mission of taxation or adjustment of financial burdens, provision should be 
 made for the remission of such duties." Do not suppose that this is a ques- 
 tion of one resolution only. It is a question of a string of those resolutions, 
 which will be pressed upon you, and every one of which will be supported 
 and authorised by the example of that which has gone before. I ask 
 the House if, as the result of that process, we have four or five resolutions 
 remitting four or five duties, at a time when we find ourselves pressed 
 with bad harvests, with heavy estimates, with high public calls, and with 
 the temper of the country exposed to expenditure rather than retrench- 
 ment, it will conduce to the credit and honour of Parliament ? (cheers). I 
 must tell my hon. friend that nothing can more conduce to lower the 
 House of Commons in the views of the public and to weaken its authority, 
 I will say, even in its relations with other branches of the Legislature, 
 than this practice of inducing it upon statements of hardship, which are in 
 a great degree common to all taxes, to commit itself by expressions of 
 opinion worthless in themselves but dangerous because they give rise to 
 hopes which probably will not be fulfilled, and certainly of a character 
 that leads to contrasts, comparisons, and criticisms unfavourable to the 
 character of this House in the estimation of the country (hear, hear). I 
 have spoken of the paper duty resolution, and I confess it appears to me 
 that the paper duty as it stands — though I entirely hold all the opinions, 
 and time, af&rms them, which I have previously expressed upon the subject 
 of that duty — the paper duty resolution, as it stands, I think, is a warn- 
 ing to us to pause and consider how we commit ourselves by proceedings 
 of this description (hear, hear). Let me make an appeal to the side of the 
 House opposite. These proceedings I may characterise strictly as innova- 
 tions. I do not think it has been the practice of the House of Commons
 
 2\ 
 
 in former times to endeavour to meet a cry out of doors, or to satisfy tlie 
 momentary wish, or even the permanent wish, of any class of the commu- 
 nity by drawing those long bills upon the future, and promising to do at 
 some future time, unknown and undefined, that which it is unable at the 
 present time to do (hear). I must add, as it is in the nature of a very 
 questionable example to be imitated in a form more questionable, so my 
 hon. friend has improved upon the paper duty resolution by the form of 
 the language he uses ; for the paper duty resolution simply said — and I 
 must say it was the mildest form in which it was possible to make trial of 
 the principle — that it was undesirable that the duty should continue per- 
 manently to form part of the arrangements of the country. But my hon. 
 friend does not rest upon promises at all. What he claims is this — that 
 in some way or other this duty should be got rid of at the very first mo- 
 ment when any change whatever in our fiscal arrangements takes place. 
 If this reduction be passed, it would not be lawful to remit the duty upon 
 the smallest article, however urgently it might be required, because this 
 resolution would stand in the way; and we must pay a fine, perhaps of 
 300,000^. or 400,000/. a year, to the hop grower before we could address 
 ourselves to the performance of our duty (cheers). Now, it is the invari- 
 able duty of the person who fills the ofiice I have now the honor to hold 
 to remind the house upon these occasions, when it is asked at an early 
 period of the session to give pledges with regard to a particular duty, of 
 the position in which we all in common stand. In the course of a few 
 weeks the financial year will be at a close — a year of very critical circum- 
 stances on account both of extensive changes introduced into the law, 
 likewise of the condition of trade, and the peculiarly disastrous character 
 of the harvest of last year (hear). But without dwelling upon these pe- 
 culiarities what I put to the house is this. It is our duty not to consider 
 the claims of the people to relief, or to a remission of taxes one by one, 
 separately one from the other, as may be pressed with greater eagerness 
 or skill by the advocates of any particular interest ; but it is our duty to 
 wait until the time comes when we may know, as a whole, the financial 
 condition of the country, as to what is to be our expenditure and what 
 are to be our means, so that in dealing with the claims upon the exchequer 
 if there be an opportunity for remissions, they may be decided upon after 
 a careful consideration of their merits. But such comparison of their 
 merits my hon. friend avoids. He has not entered into any question of the 
 competing claims of other articles which have just as good a right to be 
 beard upon occasions of this kind. He has forgotten for a moment that 
 we are now levying the duties upon tea that were imposed during the 
 war. He has forgotten that the duties upon sugar are also still imposed 
 in the same way ; that the duty upon paper still exists, notwithstanding a 
 resolution of this House ; that the income tax is at lOd. in the pound 
 during a period of peace. He has forgotten many other cases. I might 
 suggest the case of some of the payers of that income tax which the 
 House appears, by a recent vote, to recognise as possessing pecuhar 
 claims upon the consideration of Parliament. I do not, however, want 
 to obtain an advantage of my hon. friend unless it be such as, from the
 
 22 
 
 form of Ws motion, I can justly have. I do not ask the House of Commons 
 to aifirm that the duty upon hops is a perfect duty. Nay, more, I do not 
 ask the House to say there are other and more urgent claims to which it 
 is our duty to give heed. I ask neither the one nor the other ; but I do 
 entreat the House not to prejudge the greater questions which may come 
 before us when the estimates of the expenditure of the year are fully pre- 
 pared, and when we shall have arrived at some view of what our revenue 
 is likely to be. That is the time when my hon. friend will have an oppor- 
 tunity of making his proposals ; but he must see that the nature of a 
 motion like this, the essential and inevitable nature of the motion 
 is, to give to the particular subject of it an unfair and surrep- 
 titious advantage over other claims which may be as well founded, 
 and equally entitled to our consideration. Why is this particular 
 claim to have an exceptional preference ? My hon. friend talks about 
 the advantage of the reduction or abolition of the duty ; but are there not 
 others who could quite as easily point out the enormous advantage that 
 would follow a reduction of the duty upon tea? (hear). I sk my 
 hon. friend, then, to be contented with equality of deahng on the part of 
 this House ; aud that equality of deahng he will have if he remains iu the 
 same predicament as the representatives of other interests, of asking the 
 House at the proper time, when it knows its means and resources, to de- 
 cide upon his claims after a fair and searching comparison of their merits 
 in relation to the merits of others (hear). These are the grounds upon 
 which I feel strongly inclined to apprehend the House will not accede 
 to the request of my hon. friend. I have endeavoured to state my rea- 
 sons for it without concealing or attempting to weaken admissions which 
 I think fairness demands from me with regard to the nature of this 
 particular case. It would be the grossest breach of duty on the part of 
 the Government if, from the popular character of the motion, and from 
 knowing the stout phalanx formed in its support by those who, having 
 hitherto had nothing but civil war between themselves, have made peace, 
 and the first thing they do is to make war upon some one else — I say 
 it would be a gross breach of duty on our part if, from any fears of the 
 power my hon. friend may now have at his back, we were to refrain from 
 entreating the House to hold this question over until the proper time 
 arises for its decision in connection with the financial statement of the 
 year, which a few weeks must bring before us. Above all, let the 
 House avoid the inconvenience of hasty repetitions of resolutions with re- 
 gard to the abstract merits of taxes — resolutions which are valueless, yet 
 iiangefoUs on account of the expectations they excite, and which are 
 innovations upon, and departures from, the practice of former times, 
 from the practice of those who preceded us, and who never stooped to 
 seek the favour of the people by fulfilling pledges, the fulfilment of 
 which was a breach ol pubhc duty (hear, hear). 
 
 Lord Harry Vane said— 1 fully recognise the general objections to 
 abstract resolutions on finance, but I have observed that those who 
 succeed in carrying measures in the House of Commons, succeed
 
 23 
 
 through the means of abstract resolutions. That the hop duty exercises 
 a most injurious influence on the hop districts has not been denied ; but 
 if the consideration were put off till the Budget, I well know that there 
 would then be no hope of obtaining reUef, as the plans of the year would 
 have been so formed that they could not be altered. It is admitted by 
 all conversant with the cultivation of hops that there is the certainty of 
 a bad crop next year through the wetness of the season ; the repeal of 
 the duty now would therefore make little difference to the exchequer, 
 whereas it would make a gi'eat difference to the planters. I hope, there- 
 fore, that the house will not be deterred from supporting the motion. 
 The question has been so ably argued by others, that I will not repeat 
 the conclusive reasons which have been assigned for the motion, and I 
 merely reply to the financial objection of the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. 
 
 Mr. E. Ball — I strongly condemn the tax as injurious to the public, 
 and I despair of any useful result, if the suggestion of the right honble. 
 gentleman is accepted, of deferring its consideration until the budget. I 
 deny that there is any relevancy between the present resolution and that 
 on the paper duties, to which the hon. member for Birmingham has 
 referred; and there is this difference also, that the hop growers are 
 unanimous in desiring the repeal of the duty, whereas the papermakers are 
 not. I believe that a case has been made out in support of the resolution. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli — I hope the House will consider the step which it is 
 asked to take. I am not at all insensible to the claims of the hop growers. 
 It has been my lot to have their case placed before me with great ability 
 and fulness ; but on no occasion have I ever heard it put more efficiently 
 or with greater fulness than it has been this night (hear, hear). My hon. 
 friend the member for Cambridgeshire will pardon me saying to him that 
 he does not establish a case for the remission of a tax when he proves it 
 is a grievance (hear, hear). That is a secondary consideration. He must 
 first look to the state of the revenue. There is no tax which is not an ob- 
 stacle to enterprise; and looked at it in this fight, a triumphant case might 
 be made out for the repeal or remission of every tax on our tariff. Such 
 a resolution as that before the House might be very well if the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer was supposed to have a surplus to dispose of ; but my 
 hon. friends forget that we have actually a great deficiency, and that it is 
 only supplied by an annual and temporary taxation. Will the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, when he places his account before us, be able to carry 
 on the affairs of the country without calling upon the House to continue 
 all the existing taxes ? We all know that it would be a vain dream to 
 indulge in any other hope. I shall not now go into the principles that 
 guided the legislation of last year, or the consequences that have accrued 
 from it, because we shall soon be in possession of a more authentic account ; 
 but that they are considerable, and perhaps serious, no one doubts. We 
 must remember this also, that we have unfortunately experienced the ill 
 effects of a bad harvest ; in the face of increased and increasing taxation.
 
 24> 
 
 I frankly confess tliat my opinion is that the period is so critical that he 
 would be a bad guide of his countrymen who would lead us to indulge 
 in the hope that there would be any great diminution of expenditure. I 
 think this is a period when we should husband and increase our resources, 
 and that this is not an occasion when we should do anything to embarrass 
 the Minister entrusted with the arrangement of our finances (hear, hear). 
 I do not think we should be justified in supporting the motion of the hon. 
 member for Sussex. There is no similarity between the occasion of the 
 present resolution and the period when the resolution on the paper duties 
 was proposed. It is most legitimate for the House of Commons, if it has 
 a strong opinion with reference to any particular tax, and believing that 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a surplus at his disposal, to express 
 its opinion by resolution. That was the case with the paper duty, but this 
 resolution is one that must affect the budget. It is impossible that the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer could put before the House his financial 
 arrangement, if this resolution were carried, without remodelling or alter- 
 ing it. Is it fair or politic that the House should require him to do this ? 
 I think we should consider rather the difficulties of our position, and 
 bring to bear upon them all the resources of the country. And what 
 is the most important of national resources but that spirit in the commu- 
 nity ready to bear great burthens when they are felt to be required for the 
 necessities of the country (hear, hear). 
 
 Mr. DoDSON in reply said — The speech of the Eight ITonble. member 
 for Bucks is quite wide of the mark. I assume neither a surplus nor a 
 deficiency. I do not seek to interfere with the impending budget. The 
 hon. member for Birmingham has admitted that the hop duty is an 
 odious tax, but says that he is pledged first to the repeal of the paper 
 duties. But is the House prepared to say that not a farthing of taxation 
 shall be remitted until there is such a surplus of revenue as will enable 
 a million and a quarter to be dispensed with ? When the hon. 
 member refers to a resolution of that House touching the paper duties 
 as precluding him from supporting the present motion, he ought to bear in 
 mind that in 1853 Mr. Frewen moved a resolution that " the Excise duty 
 upon hops is impolitic and should be removed." For that resolution the 
 hon. member himself and the right hon. gentleman the President of the 
 Board of Trade (Mr. Gibson) voted. On that occasion the hon. member for 
 Birmingham said the Chancellor of Exchequer ought to be obliged to the 
 honourable member for bringing forward the resolution before the budget ; 
 and I claim the vote of the colleague of the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 to-night (Mr. M. Gibson), because on that occasion he voted for the motion 
 of Mr. Frewen. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this night gratified 
 the advocates of the repeal of the hop duty. He has admitted three-fourths 
 of the arguments in favour of that repeal, and he passed over in silence 
 the other fourth. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was not correct on one 
 point, for the acreage of the hop growth was quite as large twenty years 
 ago as it is now (hear). The Chancellor of the Exchequer has objected 
 to an abstract resolution, but that is a stock argument upon such occasions,
 
 25 
 
 and one that the House should not listen to. If an independent memher 
 moved a resolution before the Budget, he was told it was too soon ; if he 
 moved it after the Budget he was told it was too late (hear, hear). Kan 
 independent member moved a resolution, he was told it was an abstract 
 resolution ; if be brought in a bill, either before the Budget or after it, he 
 was told that the measure ought not to be in the hands of a private mem- 
 ber. The mode which I have adopted of bringing forward a hypothetical 
 resolution appears to be the only way of bringing a question of that kind 
 before the house, and it is only by a resolution that the opinion of the 
 House upon the merits of a particular tax can be obtained. I hope the 
 House will not be led astray by the arguments of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer and the right hon. gentleman opposite, but wiU give its assent 
 to the resolution proposed. 
 
 The House then divided — 
 
 Against the motion ... ,.. ... 202 
 For it ... 110 
 
 Majority against the motion ... 92
 
 THE DIVISION. 
 
 Motion made, and Question, " That tlie maintenance of any duties upon hops 
 is impolitic, and that in any remission of taxation or adjustment of financial 
 burdens provision should be made for the removal of such duties." — (Mr. 
 Dodson:)— The House divided : Ayes, 110 ; Noes, 202. 
 
 AYES. 
 
 Adderley, C. B. 
 Alcock, Thomas 
 Anger stein, W. 
 Archdall, Capt. M, 
 Arnott, Sir J. 
 Ball, Edward 
 Barrow, W. H. 
 Barttelot, Major 
 Bathurst, F. H. 
 Bazley, Thomas 
 Beach, W. W. B, 
 Beamish, F. B. 
 Beecroft, G. S. 
 Bentinck, G. W. P, 
 Bramston, T. W. 
 Briscoe, John I. 
 Bristow, A. B. 
 Bruce, Major C. 
 Bruce, H. A. 
 Cayley, B. S. 
 Churchhill, Lord A, 
 Clive, Hon. G. W. 
 Close, M. 0. 
 Cobbett, J. M. 
 Coningham, W. 
 Cubitt, G. 
 Deedes, W. 
 Du Cane, C. 
 Duke, Sir J. 
 
 Acton, Sir J. D. 
 Adeane, H. 
 Agnew, Sir A. 
 Anson, Captain 
 Antrobus, E. 
 Atherton, Sir W. 
 Baillie, H. J. 
 Baines, Edward 
 Baring, Sir F. 
 Baring, T. G. 
 Baxter, W. E. 
 Beaumont, S. A. 
 Bellew, E. M. 
 Bethell, Sir R. 
 Biddulph, Colonel 
 Biggs, John 
 
 Dunne, Colonel 
 
 Edwards, Major 
 
 Egerton, P. E. 
 , Egerton, E. C. 
 
 Egerton, Hon. W. 
 
 Parquhar, Sir M. 
 
 Fenwick, H. 
 
 Filmer, Sir E. 
 
 Foley, J. H. 
 
 Foley, H. W. 
 
 Forster, Sir G. 
 
 Gard, R. S. 
 
 Garnett, W. J. 
 , George, J. 
 
 Gore, J. R. 0. 
 
 Graham, Lord W. 
 
 Greenall, G. 
 
 Greene, J. 
 
 Griffith, C. D. 
 
 Haliburton, T. 0. 
 S.Hanbury, Captain 
 
 Hardy, G. 
 
 Hardy, J. 
 
 Henley, Lord 
 
 Hennessy, J. P. 
 
 Holmesdale, Visct. 
 
 Hubbard, J. G. 
 
 Jervis, Captain 
 
 Johnstone, H. B. 
 
 Kekewich, S. T. 
 Kennard, R. W. 
 King, James K. 
 Kinglake, J. A. 
 Knox, Colonel 
 Lacon, Sir E. 
 Lanigan, J. 
 Layard, A. H. 
 Leader, N. P. 
 Lee, W. 
 Legh, Wm. J. 
 Leighton, Sir B. 
 Lennox, Lord H. 
 Locke, J. 
 Longfield, Robert 
 Macdonogh, F. 
 MacEvoy, E. 
 Mackinnon, W. 
 Malins, Richard 
 Martin, P. W. 
 Mildmay, H. F. 
 Mills, Arthur 
 Morgan, Octav. 
 Nicol, W. 
 Papillon, P. 0. 
 Parker, Major 
 Pevensey, Viscount 
 Redmond, J. E. 
 
 NOES. 
 
 Black, Adam 
 Blencowe, J. G. 
 Bonham-Carter 
 Bouverie, P. P. 
 Bright, John 
 Buchanan, W. 
 Buckley, General 
 BuUer, Sir A. 
 Bury, Viscount 
 Butler, C. S. 
 Caird, J. 
 Cardwell, B. 
 Carnegie, C. 
 
 Clive, G. 
 Coke, Colonel 
 Cowper, W. F. 
 Crauford, E. H. J. 
 Crawford, R. W. 
 Cross, R. A. 
 Dalglish, R. 
 Davie, Sir H. R. 
 Davie, Colonel F. 
 Disraeli, Rt. Hon. 
 Duff, M. E. G. 
 Duff, L. D. G. 
 Dundas, F. 
 
 Rogers, J. J. 
 Rowley, R. T. 
 Salomons, Alderman 
 Sclater-Booth, G. 
 Seymour, H. K. 
 Shelley, J. V. 
 Sibthorp, Major 
 Sidney, T. 
 Smith, Sir F. 
 Somes, J. 
 Stewart, M. R. S. 
 Stracey, Sir H. 
 Taylor, Colonel 
 Tempest, Lord A. 
 Thynne, Lord H. 
 Tomline, G. 
 Upton, General 
 Vane, Lord H. 
 Vansittart, W. 
 Watlington, J. W. 
 White, J. 
 Winnington, T. 
 Wyld, J. 
 Wyndham, P. 
 
 TELLERS. 
 
 Dodson, J. G. 
 Bridges, Sir B. 
 
 Castlerosse, ViscountEgerton, Sir T. 
 Childers, H. C. E. Elphiustone, J. 
 Clay, J. Estcourt, T. H. 
 
 Evans, T. W. 
 Ewart, W. 
 Ewarfc, J. C. 
 Ewing, H. E. 0. 
 Farrer, J. 
 Ferguson, Colonel 
 Fermoy, Lord 
 Finlay, A. S. 
 Fitzwilliam, 0. 
 B.Foljambe, F. J. 
 Forster, C. 
 Forster, W. B. 
 Fortescue, C. S. 
 Gavin, Major 
 Gibson, T. M. 
 Gilpin, C.
 
 27 
 
 Gladstone, W. 
 Glynn, G. C. 
 Glynn, G. G. 
 Goldsmid, Sir F. 
 Gordon, C. W. 
 Gower, F. L. 
 Greenwood, J. 
 Gregson, S. 
 Grenfell, C. P. 
 Grey, Sir G. 
 Gurdon, B. 
 Gurney, J. 
 Gurney, S. 
 Hadfield, G. 
 Hamilton, Viscount 
 Hankey, T. 
 Harcourt, G. G. 
 Hartington, Mar. 
 Hartopp, E. B. 
 Hayter, Sir W. 
 Headlam, T. E. 
 Heneage, G. F. 
 Henley, J. W. 
 Hervey, Lord A. 
 Hodgkinson, G. 
 HoUand, E. 
 Hood, Sir A. A. 
 Howard, C. W. G. 
 Howes, E. 
 Humberston, P. S. 
 Hunt, G. W. 
 Hutt, Hon. W. 
 Ingham, R. 
 James, E. 
 Jermyn, Earl 
 Jervoise, Sir J. 
 
 Johnstone, Sir J. 
 Jones, David 
 Kendall, Nich. 
 Kershaw, J. 
 Kingscote, Colonel 
 Langton, W. H. 
 Lawson, W. 
 Leatham, E. A. 
 Lefroy, Anthony 
 Legh, Major C. 
 Lennox, Lord G. 
 Leslie, William 
 Lewis, Sir G. C. 
 Lindsay, W. S. 
 Lindsay, Colonel 
 Lockhart, A. E. 
 Lowe, Hon. R. 
 Lysley, W. J. 
 Mackie, J. 
 Marsh, M. H. 
 Martin, J. 
 Matheson, A. 
 Miller, W. 
 Mitchell, T. A. 
 Mofiatt, G. 
 MonseU, Hon. W. 
 Monson, W. J. 
 Morris, D. 
 Mowbray, J. R. 
 Mure, David 
 Norris, J. T. 
 Northcote, Sir S. 
 Ogilvy, Sir J. 
 Packe, G. H. 
 Padmore, R. 
 Paget, Charles 
 
 Paget, Clarence 
 Paget, Lord C. 
 Palk, Sir L. 
 Pabnerston, Visct. 
 Patten, Colonel W. 
 Peacocke, G. M. 
 Pease, H. 
 Peel, Sir R. 
 Peel, F. 
 PhiUips, J. H. 
 Pilkington, J. 
 PoUard-Urqt., W. 
 Prichard, J. 
 Proby, Lord 
 Pugh, D. 
 Puller, C. W. G. 
 Quinn, P. 
 
 Raynham, Viscount 
 Ricardo, O. 
 Ridley, Sir M. W. 
 Roebuck, J. A. 
 Rothschild, Baron L 
 RoupeU, W. 
 Russell, Lord J. 
 Russell, H. 
 Russell, A. 
 Russell, Sir W. 
 St. Aubyn, J. 
 Salt, T. 
 Seholefield, W. 
 Scrope, G. P. 
 Selwyn, C. J. 
 Seymour, Sir M. 
 Smith, J. B. 
 Smith, A. 
 
 Smith, M. 
 Smith, A. 
 Smith, S. G. 
 Staniland, M. 
 Stansfeld, J. 
 Steel, J. 
 Steuart, A. 
 Steuart, Colonel 
 Sullivan, M. 
 Taylor, H 
 Thornhill, W. P. 
 Tollemache, F. J. 
 Tollemache, J. 
 Trefusis, C. H. R. 
 Trelawny, Sir J. 
 Tynte, Colonel H. 
 VilUers, C. P. 
 Vivian, H. H. 
 Wallcott, Admiral 
 Walpole, S. H. 
 Warner, E. 
 .Watkins, Colonel L. 
 Wemyss, J. H. E. 
 Westhead, J. 
 Whitbread, S. 
 Wood, Sir C. 
 Woodd, B. T. 
 Woods, H. 
 Wrightson, W. 
 Wynne, W. W. E. 
 Wyvill, M. 
 
 TELLERS. 
 
 Brand, H. 
 Dunbar, Sir W. 
 
 149 Liberals and 53 Conservatives voted in the majority of 202. 
 39 Liberals and 71 Conservatives voted in the minority of 110. 
 
 The following paired in favor of Mr. Dodson's motion :- 
 
 J. A. Blake, Esq., 
 
 J. Butt, Esq., 
 
 C. Buxton, Esq., 
 
 Sir George Bowyer, Bart, 
 
 Lord Robert Cecil, 
 
 Sir John Trollope, Bart. 
 
 H. B. Sheridan, Esq., 
 
 F. North, Esq., 
 
 A. M. Dun] op, Esq., 
 
 CONSERVATIVES. 
 
 A. B. Cochrane, Esq., 
 H. Ker Seymer, Esq., 
 
 G. H. Whalley, Esq., 
 
 G. J. Onslow, Esq., 
 
 Robert Hanbury, jun., Esq. 
 
 Sir Chas. Mordaunt, Bart. 
 Lord Henniker. 
 
 Note.— 132 Petitions in favor of Mr. Dodson's motion were presented to the House 
 of Commons by various Members.
 
 WHAT SHALL THE HOP GROWERS DO ? 
 
 TO THE EDITOR.' 
 
 Sir, — The division upon Mr. Dodson's motion has, I have no doubt, 
 formed the subject of discussion throughout the hop-growing districts. 
 
 I shall not, however, attempt to analise its composition, or do more 
 than express my extreme regret at its result. I rather desire to call your 
 attention to the debate which preceded it. There, at all events, the cause 
 of the hop growers was triumphant, not only in the various very able 
 speeches, which placed their grievance before the house in so many 
 aspects, all equally cogent and indeed unanswerable ; but even in the 
 speeches of those three finished debaters who took on themselves, for 
 reasons which had open reference to their own political positions, to fulfil 
 the ungracious task of inviting the house to reject our righteous plea. 
 
 Several of our speakers were comparatively young men, none of them 
 heads of parties. If our case had not been so good, they would have been 
 -demolished by the combination of those well- trained combatants, yet not 
 one of these chiefs had a word to say in favor of the hop duties, but on the 
 contrary, much in their condemnation ; while the only arguments which 
 they used were borrowed from extraneous considerations. 
 
 Impressed with the value of the debate, the Central Hop Duty Repeal 
 Association proposes to circulate it in a complete form throughout the hop 
 districts, as the most valuable contribution which it can offer towards the 
 future success of the movement. The case of the hop duties has now 
 made good such a parliamentary footing as it has never before succeeded 
 in attaining. Members may, by various reasons, fight shy of it, but they 
 can never pretend to treat it with contempt as an unreal or fortuitant 
 grievance. It is accordingly on the high road to success, whether that 
 success comes a little sooner or a Httle later. We may have much to go 
 through before the goal is attained ; but duty and interest alike prompt us 
 to meet the passing difficulty with a patient yet firm endurance. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the Central Association is at its post, prepared to 
 avail itself of every favourable turn of fortune, and vigilant to arrest every 
 threatened danger. The hop growers will, I trust, continue to repose 
 their confidence in it ; and will be ready to co-operate with it in the 
 measures which it i(iay, from time to time, think necessary to adopt. The 
 beginning of the end of the hop duties has been reached, unanimity and 
 patience are alone requisite to ensure the desired consummation. 
 I have the honor to remain. 
 Sir, 
 Your faithful and obedient Servant, 
 
 A. J. B. BERESFORD-HOPE. 
 
 Bedgebury Park, 
 
 March 8th, 1861. 
 
 * This letter was publislied in various joiirnals.
 
 CASE FOR THE REPEAL OF THE EXCISE AND 
 CUSTOMS DUTIES ON HOPS. 
 
 (Distributed amongst the Members of Parliament prior to the Debate). 
 
 It is now admitted on all sides that the Excise Duty upon Hops ought no 
 longer to be regarded as a legitimate source of National Revenue. 
 
 The hop crop is a very precarious yield, and the circumstances which 
 regulate its fluctuations do not come into operation till late in the year ; 
 yet, levied as the hop Excise duty is, at a fixed rate upon the weight of 
 the crop grown, irrespective of its market, it has the peculiarity of being 
 heaviest when the price is lowest, and almost a penal fine when hops are 
 unsaleable, owing to accidents which no forethought can prevent ; while 
 there are no means of enlarging the market, in proportion to a casual over- 
 production, and very little of prospectively contractmg the area of cultiva- 
 tion. 
 
 Accordingly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer can never, with safety, 
 depend upon this duty in framing his estimates for the ensuing year ; and 
 while it is thus of comparatively little avail for revenue, it periodically in- 
 flicts upon the hop-grower loss, inconvenience, and annoyance, so great as 
 to render its continuance almost insupportable. 
 
 In many cases the duty comes out of the capital of the grower, instead 
 of out of his profits, contrary to every principle ; indeed, in an over abun- 
 dant year the Excise takes from the grower a sum greater than the rental 
 of his entire farm, of which the hop-gardens are but a small portion, and 
 if it be pleaded that the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot dispense with 
 this duty, it would be pertinent to inquire whether it is more just that 
 the amount should be wrung from the fortune of the planter, upon whom 
 it was never intended to fall, than that it should cease to become a de- 
 ceptive item in the minister's Budget. 
 
 The amount of this Excise duty for 1860 was only £69,763 2s. 4|d., 
 whereas Mr. Gladstone, in one of his speeches last year, anticipated 
 £300,000 ; and the average of the last 21 years has not amounted to 
 £300,000 per annum, during which the duty exceeded, by more than 
 one-foui'th, the present amount, so that the average of future years may be 
 estimated at only some £200,000. 
 
 For collecting this comparatively insignificant revenue, the only 
 remaining important tax upon a raw material of our country's produce, 
 an amount of distress and injury is inflicted upon an industrious class 
 which has no parallel in any other branch of imperial taxation, and which 
 may be estimated by the fact that successive Governments have been 
 obliged to grant repeated postponements of the day of payment, in conse-
 
 30 
 
 quence of the utter inability of a large proportion of the planters to pay 
 the duty before having sold their hops. 
 
 This feature of postponement appears to be inseparable from the nature 
 of the impost, and is one of the strongest arguments for its abolition, as it 
 is alike unjust and impolitic to continue a tax, especially one so small in 
 amount which cannot be collected without such an amount of hardship 
 and suffering. 
 
 The legislature has abolished the compensative protection which the 
 English hop-planter once enjoyed against foreign competition, which 
 renders it more than ever necessary that he should be emancipated from 
 the baneful operation of the Excise, especially as the foreign grower enjoys 
 the privilege of bonding, under which he pays no duty, and is enabled 
 to hold his stock until he has effected a suitable sale ; while the English 
 grower is compelled to pay his duty on a fixed day, whether he has sold 
 his hops or not. 
 
 The English hop-grower does not now desire any protection ; all that 
 he asks for is an unfettered home market for himself, and Free Trade for 
 the foreigner ; and he is thus willing to compete with the products of the 
 world, in any mart which may be open to him 
 
 The suggestion that the case may be met by a change on the part of our 
 hop-growers for some other kind of cultivation, is not only as unfeeling as 
 it is unpatriotic, but is one which no person acquainted with their circum- 
 stances can entertain. Not only are the hop districts unfit for any such 
 revolution, but the cultivation itself is intimately bound up with that of 
 underwood, for which large tracts of the hop counties are peculiarly 
 suited, while they are wholly unsuited for an extensive growth of corn. 
 The various operations in the hop gardens during the open months of the 
 year, and the winter woodcutting, maintain a large population in constant 
 employment, so that the abandonment of the hop cultivation would plunge 
 all classes of society in those districts into misery and starvation — thus the 
 hop planters' case is essentially a poor man's question. 
 
 It is therefore respectfully and confidently submitted, that the motion 
 which will be laid before the House of Commons, by Mr. Dodson, M.P., 
 on the 5th March instant — " that the maintenance of any duties upon hops 
 is impolitic, and that, in any remission of taxation or adjustment of finan- 
 cial burdens, provision should be made for the removal of such duties" — is 
 entitled to the support of the House and the country. 
 
 Signed on behalf of the hop-planters in all parts of the 
 Kingdom. 
 
 A J. B. BERESFOKD HOPE, Chairman. 
 
 A. KINTREA, Secretary and Parliamentary Agent. 
 
 2, New Palace Yaed, Westminster, 
 1st March, 1861.
 
 CENTRAL HOP DUTY REPEAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 The earl AMHERST. 
 
 The Marquis Contngham 
 The Earl of AsERGAVENNr 
 The Earl of Sheffield 
 The Lord Harry Vane, M.P. 
 The Viscount Haedinge 
 The Viscount Pevensey, M.P. 
 The Viscount Holmsdale, M.P. 
 The Lord Robert Cecil, M.P. 
 The Lord de Lisle and Dudley 
 The Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, 
 
 Bart., M.P. 
 The Hon. and Rev, Sir F. Stapleton, 
 
 Bart, 
 The Hon. H. Butler Johnstone, M.P. 
 Sir Brook Bridges, Bart., M.P. 
 Sir John V. Shelley, Bart., M.P. 
 Sir E. C. Dering, Bart. 
 Sir N. Knatchbull, Bart. 
 Sir T. M. Wilson, Bart. 
 Sir E. Filmer, Bart., M.P. 
 Sir Percyvall H. Dyke, Bart. 
 Sir Walter Stirling, Bart. 
 Sir J. F. Herschel, Bart. 
 Lieut.-Geneeal Sir J. M. F. Smith, 
 
 M.P. 
 William^Angerstein, Esq., M.P. 
 A. S. Ayrton, Esq., M.P. 
 M. T. Bass, Esq., M.P. 
 Thomas Bazley, Esq., M.P. 
 G. ScLATER Booth, Esq., M.P. 
 W. W. B. Beach, Esq., M.P. 
 Charles Buxton, Esq., M.P. 
 
 G. W. P. Bentinck, Esq., M.P. 
 
 W. CoNiNGHAM, Esq., M.P. 
 
 G. CuBiTT, Esq., M.P. 
 
 J. G. DoDsoN, Esq., M.P. 
 
 E. C. Egerton, Esq., M.P. 
 
 C. H. Frewen, Esq. 
 
 James Gow, Esq. 
 
 G. Hardy, Esq., M.P. 
 
 E. HussEY, Esq. 
 
 J. Pope Hennessey, Esq., M.P. 
 
 J. A. KiNGLAKE, Esq., M.P. 
 
 William Lee, Esq., M.P. 
 
 W. A. MACKINNON, Esq., M.P. 
 
 E. LoYD, Esq. 
 
 C. Wykeham Martin, Esq. 
 
 P. W. Martin, Esq., M.P. 
 
 The Rev. Edward Moore 
 
 G. W. Norman, Esq. 
 
 W. C. MoRLAND, Esq. 
 
 G. Onslow, Esq., M.P. 
 
 William Nicol, Esq., M.P. 
 
 P. 0. Papillon, Esq., M.P. 
 
 David Salomons, Esq., M.P. 
 
 H. B. Sheridan, Esq., M.P. 
 
 W. Masters Smith, Esq. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Scott 
 
 J. G. Talbot, Esq. 
 
 Sir T. E. Winnington, Bart., M.P. 
 
 James White, Esq., M.P. 
 
 G. H. Whalley, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Charles Waeton, Esq. 
 
 Wllliam Wells, Esq. 
 
 Cgawmati. 
 A. J. B. Beresford Hope, Esq. 
 
 ^onornrg Stnasurtr, 
 P. S. Punnett, Esq., Chart Sutton, Staplehtirst, Kent. 
 
 ionorarg Snxdmta. 
 James Harteidge, Esq., Bcickingfold, near Staplehurst. 
 Iden Henham, Esq., Grove House, East Peckham, Tonbridge. 
 John Nash, Esq., 5, Three-Crown Square, Southwark. 
 
 Swrttarg anlr ^arJiamtntarg gigmt. 
 A. KiNTREA, Esq. 
 
 §anhirs. 
 
 Messrs. Masterman and Peters, London. 
 
 Messrs. Randall, Mercer, and Wigan, Maidstone, 
 
 OFFICES. — 2, New Palace Yard, Westminstee, to which Conamunications 
 are to be addressed. 
 
 Subscriptions to be forwarded to the Bankers, or Honorary Treasurer.
 
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