The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-02-26 00:00:00

THE TOWN DUES.

THE crowded and enthusiastic meeting which took
place on Friday, in St. George's Hall, can leave no
lingering doubt as to the feelings of the inhabitants
of Liverpool on the attempted confiscation of the pro-
perty of the Corporation. There was no mere affirma-
tion of the resolutions by a respectable majority, but a
unanimous and indignant protest against a projected
perpetration of one of the most barefaced schemes of
legalised robbery ever contemplated. There was no
amendment proposed by any apologist for the Govern-
ment stimulated by political sympathy, no voice raised,
no hand held up', no interruption whatever to the
unanimity which denounced the ministerial proposition
as altogether scandalous and indefensible. This is as
it should be, and if the expression of public opinion
has any weight whatever with the House of Commons,
the resolutions of the great meeting must have con-
siderable influence in defeating the nefarious scheme.
It will not be forgotten that this is no party movement,
no demonstration of hostile feelings towards the Go-
vernment as such ; but Conservatives, Whigs, and
Radicals cordially united in defence of those rights
which have been so iniquitously assailed, and amply
proved that in Liverpool there is no second opinion
on the subject.

Had the opposition to the bill been confined to the
movement of the Town Council, as the constitutional
representatives of the public opinion of the borough,
it might have been urged that that body had a direct
interest in maintaining the control over so large an
annual expenditure, and in continuing to enjoy the
patronage which it necessarily conferred. It was a
wise and judicious step, therefore, to summon a public
meeting of the townsmen, for no such argument can
now be used. Liverpool to a man is opposed to the
Government, and if there be any advantage iu the
justice of a cause, the scheme must be given up, for
the sanction of such a barefaced robbery by the legis-
lature would render every man's title to his property
insecure. There can be no longer any virtue in legal
deeds or the decisions of courts of law as to their
validity, if this spoliation be permitted ; and those Cor-
porations who have petitioned Parliament in favour of
the Bill, under the delusive notion of its being for the
benefit of the shipping interest, would do well to look
to their own position, or they may find themselves the
next victims of Ministerial robbery.
The more this subject is considered on its own
merits, the more iniquitous and indefensible appears to
be the whole transaction. Brought forward under
the shallow pretext of affording relief to the shipping
interest, it has not been shown that shipping will have
the slightest fraction of relief in any shape whatever.
The Town-dues are levied only on merchandise im-
ported or exported, and until it can be demonstrated
by some refinement of microscopical arithmetic that
twopence on a bale of cotton of the value of £lO, or
fourpence on a hogshead of sugar worth £3O, can
make any appreciable difference in the value of either
commodity, it is absurd folly to contend that the levy
of Town-dues is the slightest hardship whatever, or
that the Vice-president of the Board of Trade has
offered any argument in support of his measure. There
can be no doubt that he is animated solely by a petty
jealousy of the financial condition of the Corporation
of Liverpool being so much better than that of his
colleagues, and the proposed transfer of the collection
to the Board of Customs is but a stepping-stone
towards the confiscation of the dues to Government
purposes.

The opposition to the Ministerial scheme is not,
however, confined to those who may be supposed to
partake of the advantages offered by the expenditure
of the town dues. The Shipowners, for whose behalf
the measure is said to be propounded, whose claims to
relief constitute the only attempt at justification, are
equally opposed to it. They deny the efficacy of the
pretended boon, and prefer the advantages which they
enjoy from the expenditure of the fund by the Corpo-
ration. At a meeting of the Liverpool Shipowners'
Association, they unanimously resolved to petition
Parliament against the Bill, and that no doubt might
exist as to their feelings and opinions on the subject,
they say in their petition :—" That your petitioners
feel specially called upon to assure your honourable
house that the Shipowners of Liverpool, being im-
pressed with the useful and beneficial application of
the town and anchorage dues by the Corporation,
have never complained of the dues so levied by that
body ; that they never considered them a tax pressing
on British shipping ; that they have never objected to
the demand, or asked to be relieved from the dues ;
and that any such representations that have been
made to your honourable house have been made in
error and without inquiry."
Mr. LowE attempted to persuade his auditors that
the Corporation of Liverpool, in exercising their right
of levying dues on merchandise, appropriated them
with slight exception to municipal purposes, and he
even endeavoured to offer au apology for such appro-
priation by asserting that it was rendered compulsory
by the Municipal Corporation Reform Act; leaving it
consequently to be inferred that the ratepayers of
Liverpool had a direct interest in the maintenance of
the dues in order to save themselves from the payment
lof a borough rate. Such au assumption is positively
false, and the position, therefore, that the Corporation
of Liverpool exercises a right of taxation injurious to,
or regardless of, the public good, is utterly untenable.
It has been proved in abundant instances that the
outlay of the town dues has been ostensibly and really
for the benefit of the public at large, adding materially
to the facilities of commerce, which, without such aid,
might not have been so largely increased ; and, on the
other hand, it cannot be shown that the fund has been
at any time expended for purposes which otherwise
would have been paid for out of a borough rate. The
assertions, therefore, of the Minister are utterly devoid
of foundation, and, consequently, that pretence of
principle with which he vauntingly set out is merely
a cover to hide a scheme of confiscation for which no
legitimate reason could be shown. It is but the thin
edge of a wedge, which, driven home, _may, under
equally shallow excuses, bring all corporate property
into the hands of the government, and should there-
fore be resisted by every means which the Constitu-
tion will allow.