The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-02 00:00:00

'Pies IX., at that time a refereeing pope, censured
Cardinal WISEMAN and the other bishops for having
so much as contemplated so bold an usurpation on
rights lay and clerical, and the effensire measure was
given up. It was called " A Bill for appointing com-
missioners to inquire concerning human catholic
charities in Eagland, and for getting in the ontatand-
ing legal estate in the property of such charities in
certain cases, and for other purposes." We publish
this bill, Os estenso, for the benefit of those whom
it may concern, and, therefore, we shall not
give any thing like an &nabsis of it in this place.
Suffice it to say that the preamble contains a sub.
stantial if not an express acknowledgment of the
systematic breaches of trust imputed to the bishops.
It recites that, "by reason of legal impediments
theretofore existing in the way of duly adininivering
Haman catholic charities according to law, the prc-
petty dedicated to such charities bad, in some cues,
been applied to purposes which though in accordance
with the spirit, had not been in accordance with the
letter if the donor's intentions : and that it cc is rzpe-
' dient to declare legal the actual application of such
property and to ascertain the purposes to which the
same should in future be applied." It was then prc
posed to 'tact that a commission of gentlemen
to be named in the act—Roman Catholics of
course—should make the necessary inquiries in
such canes and should *en " seal with their
common seal, a declaration that such property had
been used, applied, spent, or consumed, for a Roman
catholic charitable or religious trust or porpoise. And
every such declaration should be on absaute and final
her to any proceeding by information or otherwise. for
the declaring oreiforcing of any charitable or religious
trust relating to real or personal property, ith.ther
corpse or income, or both, comprisid in inch declara-
tion, nolicithetanding that such purpose was different
from the purpose for which the same was originally
yiten." These commissioners were to have the like
power with respect to future charitable trues. In
three they might "make such modifications as they
should deem necessary or expedient," without the
possibility of contest by any court of justice.
What Dr. WISEMAN, when Pins IX. was a reformer,
was not permitted to propose to an English legisla-
ture, Cardinal WISEMAN, now that Ptus IX. beads the
boats of reaction, is permitted to impose as law by
authority received from the Pontiff. Can he suppose
that the Queen's courts—above all that the high
court of parliament—will stand tamely by to witness
the aggression? In 11347 the Vicar of the Puri
thought it no sacrifice of Isis church's rights to tempt
the legislature to deal with this matter for his own
pereonal advantage. The cardinal-archbishop will
surely not disown in 1841 the right of the legislature
to interfere, especially if it be for the advantage, not
of himself but of the people.

TIIERE is to be a meeting in L ndoe to-night on
the subject of the Paper Duiy. The repeal of this
duty was emphatically rectmusended by Sir HENRY
PAXISELLIS committee on Taxation. That statesman
himself condemned it in his wurk on " Financial
Reform," as " • tax which places an obstacle in the
way of the progress of knowledge, of the useful and
necessary, arts, and of sober and industrious habits."
"Books," said be, " carry the productions of the
human mind over the whole world, and may be truly
called the raw material of every kind of science, and
of all social improvement." Rut though this tax has
b en thus condemns d, and though a committee of the
Huse of Commons detioctly recommended its
repeal next after the duties upon leather and
on glue, it has been the practice of those wise
financiers who have succeeded Sir HENRY PARNELL—
the immortal Wooos and GOULRERNS Of our pre-
cious Exchequer—it has been their practice not only
to retain this tax in each successive budget, but
absolutely to defend it' when its iaiquittes and
inequ ilities have been brought before the house.
Their kindred brains naturally sympathised with the
first article on which it was recommended that the
tax should be reduced ; but for authors or for
publishers, for any thing that promised an extension
of knowledge or that was calculated to aid the pro-
gress of improvement, they have had neither sympathy
nor sentiment, nor the slightest spark of kindly feeling.
The paper tax remains an impediment to trade—an
injury to authors—an obetac:e to labour—an insur-
mountable barrier to the disseminatioa of cheap and
good knowledge—a national disgrace. It affect.] the
manufacturer at his mill, the author in his
library, the publisher in his counting house,
the printer in his chapel, the tradesman in his
shop, the poor man even in the prices of his sugar
and his tea. How it affects book buyers we cannot
better describe than by quoting the words of Mr.
Coutiv.s, in his recent speech at the .lethanics' Insti-
tute, at Manchester : _

I have bet n astonished, (said he) to find the amount to
which isatitutes like thin are taxed. I fled that in the
course of a year this instituuon purchsses paper in the
tom of books and newspapers, or pap.r for printing, to
the eztint of three tone +slight ; and I hod that the duty
on that paper amounts to somewhere shout 441. Niw even
the copy Gooks that are used in the achools of the Mecha-
, niers' lostitutinne, or Lyceums—l find these copy books, when
vnu sum them up by the hundred wei►bt, pay a tax which
really amounts to a considerable sum. And I do say that
it is most monstrous that, in a country where we profess
to es' et es knowledge and to cultivate education, and de-
sire the people to be instructed-1 say it is monstrous
that taxes should exist which are directly laid upon know-
ledge. (Cheers.)
- - - - -

If the parer duty were repealed what products of
art and science might we not expect to issue from the
paper mill? The genius that can metamorphose the
most filthy and disgusting rag into the purest element
for a ladies' billet dour, what might it not accomplah
if it were untrammelled and unfuttered ? At this

moment, nothing is so urgently demanded in the
paper trade as a species of paper hitherto unmann-
lectured. The demands of the Daguerreotype and
Talbotype are unsatisfied. Paper is not to be obtained
in ans country suited for the delicate purposes of those
wonderful illustrations of visible objects. For some
tine past the most scientific paper makers in the king-
dom have been engaged in experimi ntalising upon pe-
Earlier processes of manufacture with a view expressly
to meet this particular demand. What difficulties and
obstacles must not the excise duty have thrown in
their way? Processes requiring the utmost deli-
cacy of treatment—combinations respecting which the
utmost secrecy needs to be observed—these are frus-
trated in a moment by the appearance of the super-
visor, and his rude inquiry, " What are you doing
here ?" It will probably not be until the layer duty
is repealed that a paper properly suited for the deli-
cate process of the Daguerreotype and Talbotype will
be produced from the paper mills of British manufac-
turers.
If this duty were (repealed how great an impetus
would be given to labour among the poorest of our
tlation. In 1b.13, when paper was charged with
high rates et duty, the quantity produced was
70,000,000 Ibe. a year. In 1816, under a low
rate of duty, 127,000,000 lbs. of paper paid
the tax. If a reduction of only three half-
pence per pound would produce this result what
might not be expected front an entire removal of the
obnoxious tax? And to whom would the additional
labour be given? To the manufacture of paper it is'
sesectial to have a constant, regular, and tolerably
equal supply of the purest water. Paper mills can,
therefore, only be erected in agricultural districts,
where the stream's are generous and pure. We find
them in Kent, in Buckinghamshire, in Somerset, and
in the rural districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire—
but rarely in the neighbourhood of large towns and
populations. They consequently employ the popula-
tion of districts for whom it is uncommonly difficult
to find employment, and whose rate of wages in the
ordinary avocations of husbandry must neces-
sarily be low. They employ the members of
*tallies for whom there wad lre no other employ-
ment: women and girls who would be idling about
the villages, and imbibing all the dissolute habits in-
tridental to idleness : children who ars too young even
to scare away the crows : labourers for whom there
is no employment in the fields, and who would burden
the poorhouse and the union rates if they were not
afforded occupation in the paper mill. This would
be the direct advantage of the repeal of the paper
duty: to dwell upon the indirect employment the
repeal of this duty would afford would lead as to ex-
patiate upon almost every concern of life,—for what
business re there in which paper does not more or less
form en ingredient, and in which, of cons qsence, the
amount annually saved might not be embarked in
some other branch of enterprise requiring the skilled
labour of the artisan? There is no trade, in all the
list of trades, that can compare in any way with the
trade of the pipr maker in regard to the number of
others dependent on and immediately connected
with it.
The paper duty, at the present time, is encourag-
ing foreign manufactures at our expense, and injuring