The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-02 00:00:00

DECEMBER 2, 1854. storrtspoOturt. (IT must be understood that the Pnass is not identified with the opinions of its Correspondents, though wo insert no communication which dues not appear M some way deserving of publicity. The letters of our Correspondents are open to reply. We require only that the language of fair discussion be employed, and that due attention be paid to the facts stated. We beg that no mention may be 11111110 of our " ability, in fluence," d:c., as we unhesitatingly strike our pen through every allusion of the kind.] COST OF STEAM TRANSPORTS. Sir,—To judge from the acknowledged statement of one of the large steam companies of this country, the Government must be carrying on the transport service at an enormous, and, in my opinion, a most unjustifiable, cost. The General Screw Steam Com pany informed their shareholders the other day that their profit from the Government alone, for five months, was 100,0001., or at the rate of more than 200,0001. per annum. Besides this company, there are employed in the transport service the steamers of three other companies, viz., the Cunard Company, the Royal Mail Company, and the Peninsular and Oriental Company. As the vessels belonging to these companies are as numerous, if not more, than those of the General Screw Company, and quite as large, it is not too much to suppose, at a very moderate calculation, that their profits are as consi derable ; and, if we assume that they are, we shall find that the profit to these four companies alone is nearly one million per annum. If the Government pay them this hrge sum over and above the actual working expenses, the cost to the nation of the steamers employed must he enormous, and if the sailing vessels employed as transports are paid for in a like proportion, you can easily see at what an ex travagant rate we are paying for the means of trans port. I am not one who in the slightest degree would grudge the expense necessary to carry on the war—the Go vernment may demand, and they will readily obtain, any amount of money to assist our brave troops in the East and to humble the pride of the Czar; but I am one who has witnessed with disapprobation the parsimony of the Government in some instances and its lavish expenditure in others, and more particularly in this case of the transport service. Of course it will be urged that these large companies will not withdraw their steamers from their regular traffic unless they are well paid : that I at once grant, but there is, in my opinion, a wide difference between paying them handsomely and paying them exorbitantly ; and bad the Government employed a person conversant with this kind of business they would have saved the na tion a very large sum, probably not less than a mil lion per annum. Among other matters of much more importance, which, I trust, at the meeting of Parliament, the Go vernment will be called upon to explain, I hope even this one of reckless mismanagement will not be over looked.—l am, sir, your obedient servant, A CONSTANT READER. London, 23rd November. •• TIIE NEWSPAPER STAMP AND THE DEPU TATION TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE.. EXCHEQUER. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—A more pitiable exhibition than Mr. Glad atone made of himself on Tuesday last I never wit nessed. As you will have observed from the daily papers, a deputation waited upon him on that day for an explanation of the proceedings he has threatened against the news trade for selling what are called " the war papers." These are papers containing war news only, and which, adopting the dictum of the Board of Inland Revenue, the proprietors considered class papers, and, therefore, not liable to the penny stamp. The Government., however, have held that these are not class papers, and have threatened the proprietors with legal proceedings. Not content with that threat, and thinking that/ they must be beaten in an appeal to the Court of Exchequer, they have had recourse to a threat of summary proceed• ings before a police magistrate against all news vendors who may sell the papers alluded to. The object of the deputation on Tuesday was to call on the Government to proceed in the usual way in the Coiurt of Exchequer, where the parties would be fully prepared to meet them. To this representation Mr. Gladstone replied—" What was he to do ; the revenue must be protected?" He was reminded that he bad himself declared in the House of Commons " that the fiscal part of this question is most insignificant." Mr. Gladstone: Yes. Well, the Government have now a measure under consideration to meet the ob jections. I may as well tell you that. " What necessity for these proceedings, then?" Mr. Gladstone: Why, we think the revenue is en dangered. " But these war papers are only class papers, like 260 others that are allowed the privilege of an 2ptional stamp," THE PRESS. The Attorney-General : These papers contain that kind of intelligence which everybody is just now most ' anxious to read. " And is that why you want to suppress them, Mr. Gladstone?" This was a poser for Mr. Gladstone, and he said nothing. " Perhaps the Government do not desire to have intelligence of the war circulated : perhaps thatjis not convenient ?" Mr. Gladstone looked at the Attorney-General and then said, "These are not class papers, but are addressed to all classes." "And so are the police papers. Why do you con sider law and police news class-news?" Mr. Gladstone : Oh ! we never did. We have never done so. Mr. John Wood, the chairman of the Board of In land Revenue, here nudged the right honourable gentleman, who in a whisper said, " Oh ! do you— oh—ah—lium !" Well, sir, a very long conversation ensued, during which the Attorney-General said they really could not wait for the process in the Court of Exchequer, as they were in a great hurry, and after declaring this over and over again, he exclaimed—" But Cod forbid that my name should ever be associated with a prosecution of any newspaper. I should like the press as free as it ought to be." At this declaration several of the deputation thronged round the honourable and learned gentle man, and this causing a little confusion the Chan cellor of the Exchequer took advantage of it, and left the room without giving the deputation any answer, beyond the fact which he communicated, that he has a measure in hand for altering the law with regard to the newspaper stamp. After Mr. Gladstone had made his undignified exit, a gentleman present addressed Mr. John Wood, and asked him plainly if it was intended to go on with the threatened proceedings. Mr. Wood shook his head, smiled, and replied—" It would depend upon the instructions of the Govern ment." 1 am, sir, your obedient servant, ONE OF THE DEPUTATION. OFFICERS OF THE CUSTOMS AND THE BOARD OF TRADE. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir, —Being, like the " Superannuated Officer" whose letter appeared in your paper a fortnight back, desirous of obtaining your advocacy to rectresa the grievances of which we complain, and on which he has very ably remarked, so far as the tyranny of the Board of Trade over us is concerned, I trouble you with some facts and observations, which I trust you will endeavour to find room for. You are, no doubt, aware that there is one matter which, not only the customs, but the civil servants of the Crown generally regard as a great injustice ; I refer to the deduction from their salaries of five per cent. to provide a Superannuation Fund, which is so much in excess of the claims of the superannuated on the fund, that, had a regular debtor and creditor account been kept from the year 1829, and the balance annually invested at interest, such a sum would have by this time accrued as would produce, at the ordi nary rate of interest, a considerable revenue, which, applied to its only legitimate pm pose, would enable the Government to greatly reduce the per centage deduction from our salaries, or to give us a higher rate of superannuation allowance, or to allow us to retire on the present rates at a shorter period of ser vitude. I can only conceive one possible answer to our complaint, which is, that each of us accepted his situation with the knowledge that his salary wali to be subject to the present rate of deduction, in return for which he was to be entitled to the established scale of superannuation allowance. This principle is probably consistent with abstract justice; but I presume, even regarded in that light alone, it might very pertinently be asked, are not the contributions intended solely to meet certain demands, and if they exceed these demands, to whom does the surplus belong? The argument, if good, for anything, ought surely to apply equally against our being deprived of privileges we once possessed, as well as against our looking for advantages we had not stipulated for. If when we entered on our appointments it was with the understanding that our salaries were to be subject to these heavy draw backs, so also was it equally with the expectation that we should enjoy all the then existing privileges of the service; and if I can produce many instances in which we have been deprived of these privileges, I think that I shall have shown good reason why even handed justice should be done us in the matter of the Superannuation Fund. Now allow me, with " A Superannuated Officer," to direct your attention to what has been and is now being done in that branch of the service to which I belong—the Customs—in reference to the collection of the Trinity Dues, and the performance of what we all the' Board of Trade wool." 1143 The several collectors of customs have hitherto been allowed a per centage on all monies collected on account of " lights duties," and for the general management of the business of the Trinity house in their respective ports. The profit derived from this source varies with the trade of the ports, but in many instances it forms a heavy per centage of the incomes of the collectors, who are not few in number nor confined to one class, for each port has its creeks or out-stations, the coast waiters at which act as sub collectors, and share in the profits, as does also one of the clerks in all but the lowest class ports, who assists the collector. By a Treasury minute, dated 21st April last, it is ordered that " the collection of these dues shall hereafter fall to be a part of the regular duties of the collectors of customs," and that only in case of "extra assistance or establishment being required" is anything to be paid for their collection. This is not to apply to the present collectors whilst they remain at their present ports, but its effect will be to blight the hopes entertained by hundreds of officers and clerks who have been for years past anticipating the advent of thatperiod when from this source they should be enabled to allot some small sum annually to the education of their children, providing an annuity for the wife, or some other equally necessary object which the scantiness of their salary at present precludes the possibility of their doing. Do the public expect their servants to collect this large revenue—for large it is, and all the more trouble- some for being paid in very small sums—and keep all the accounts in connection therewith gratuitously, when each and all of us had reason on entering the service to expect we should derive a greater or less benefit from this duty, as we in turn succeeded to the offices entrusted with its collection ? And, if we must submit to this reduction of the advantages of the service, have we not a right to expect that the five per cent. deduction from our salaries for the Superannuation Fund should be so managed as to afford us the largest amount of practical benefit that, can be derived from it ? The lords of her Majesty's Treasury in the minute above quoted give as a reason for charging the " lights dues " with the expense of extra asssistance " that the duties are altogether distinct from the customs revenue." I should like most humbly, and with all the respect due to my superiors, to ask their lordships whether this same circumstance does not give the customs officials a strong claim for some remuneration for collecting these dues ? In the year 1850 was passed the Mercantile Marine Act, the administering of which has, except in a few of the larger ports, devolved on the customs officers, who were allowed for the first two years a small and inadequate remuneration for the additional, and in many respects► most annoying and disagreeable, duty thus imposed upon them. This allowance has now, without a single word of explanation, bean discon tinued ! P , this is justice, but it is not calculated to _'erlitaps . reconcile us to the deduction of five per cent. from our incomes when propably two-and-a-half per cent. would be sufficient for the purpose. I confine myself to the above instances of "sharp practice," as being the most recent and the most glaring, and not as being the only ones in which we have of late years been deprived of valuable aids to our very moderate incomes. I could draw up a long list of minor privileges we have lost., pertaining, unlike the above, to the service itself, and the loss of which far more than counterbalances any benefit we should derive from the equitable administration of the Superannuation Fund; but I fear to encroach too far on your valuable space. I would, in conclusion, observe that it ever there was a time when the loss of the sum deducted was felt by many of us it is the present, with all the necessaries of life enormously high and a fourteen - penny income tax, making together with the one shilling in the pound towards the fund in question and one pennrin the pound compulsory contribution to the Customs Benevolent Fund, exactly two shillings and threepence in the pound, or full eleven per cent. diminution to our salaries before they reach our pockets. _ AN OFFICER or CUSTOMS. November 21, 1851. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRIM." Sir,—A dose of poison requires an antidote. and as Mr. Mechi of Tiptree-farm, has kindly sent 101.-to the Times with a request that thirty copies of that paper may be sent daily to the army in the Crimea, and ten copies to the hospital at Scutari, as long as the 101. lute, I now beg to hand you W. (which you will find enclosed) and I beg that you will send fifty copies of the l'aEas to the same quarter weekly, until the 51. be exhausted. Your obedient servant, December 1, 185.&. Z. Z. [The directions of the writer shall`be complied white—Rah Passel i - p