The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-02-06 00:00:00

upon

for the team with which he has to won
not pretend to say ; but

it is possible for a legis-

lator to outrage justice in the application of a
perfectly sound precept. When men go back to
first principles in law making, they generally
assume that society is in a primitive or natural
state. They forget altogether the thousands of
years of mental darkness, and the many centuries
of political blindness and corruption, which
have afflicted the world. They pass over the
habitual weakness of men in investing their
substance in rights improperly bestowed, and in
abuses at which a more reasoning and moral age
absolutely revolts. Mr. LowE talks of Town Dues,
and other vested rights of Corporate bodies, as
though those rights, derived by individuals for
conspicuous services rendered to the Crown,
and purchased from the descendants of
grantees, could now be swept away with
out doing a gross injustice to that class for
whose benefit they were purchased. The Town
Dues of Liverpool were purchased for the benefit
of the inhabitants of the Borough, and no class
derive greater benefit from them than the ship-
owners of this port, and the persons using this
harbour for the shipment and import of mer-
chandise.

The Legislature have created in this town a

monster corporation with a rapacity unequalled in
the municipal records of this or any other country,
and having created this leviathan of prodigality,
who has already taxed a population of less than half
a million to the tune of about 120,0001. per annum,
exclusive of 125,0001. for town dues,—having
called into existence local bodies, with such powers
of taxation, and having sanctioned their borrowing
millions of money to be expended as they please—
the Legislature cannot, with any show of justice,
turn round and say " notwithstanding, we are the
" authors of all this, we will sweep away the Dues
" wehave sanctioned, and throw the burden upon
" local ratepayers." The Liverpool Corporation
cannot exist if it be denuded of its income, and the
ratepayers of the Borough cannot bear the imposi-
tion of 125,0001. a year added to their present
burthen. They cannot pay the interest of money
borrowed in direct opposition, in almost every
instance, to their most solemn protests. And
according to Mr. LOWE'S own theory, it remains
for the Government to show that the money
raised on the Town Dues was expended for
their benefit, before they tax the town directly for
the payment of the interest and principal of the
Town Dues' debt.

The Liverpool public are no friends of local
taxation. They are always willing to do justice to
the shipping interests of this countr3
second the determination of the Government " to
" enforce the doctrines of Free Trade to their legi-
4. timate consequences." But with regard to our
Town Dues, they put in a special interpleader
setting forth a right obtained for a valuable consi-
deration. It was originally a tax levied on the

and to

trade of the town by an individual, and the inhabi-
tants purchased and continued it for their own
benefit, and we are not at all prepared to admit the
doctrine that Royal Charters or Acts of Parliament
involving large money considerations, can be
abrogated at will by the Legislature without
compensation. The application of such a principle
might lead to the grossest injustice and oppression.
What Corporate Reformers demand is, that the
power of taxation now possessed by Atunicipal
shall be materially curtailed, and that
hall be closed against jobbery.
showed us in the course

bodies

door
Lover
his

speech

taring

necessity