The Express.
London, England, 1850-04-03 00:00:00

PROPOSED CHANGE IN THE STAMP LAWS.

SALES. Ate., OF SHIPS.

TO TEN IDITOC OP 711 IIPIIIBII.
Sta,—ln my former communications I add-used
myself to the more popular and obvious additions
which the resolutions agreed to by the House of
Commons made to the property now liable to taxa-
tion, and I purposely avuided those points which
might be called professional or technical, and which
might be open to discu,sion, as arising from the in-
consistency of the proposed new law with other por-
tions of the stamp code, or from the effect to be given
to certain expressions.
The able manner in which you, alone of all your
contemporaries, hove elaborated the subject, cannot
fail to awaken the public to a real sense of the benefit
awaiting them, and I now again offer to intrude upon
your space in reference to the effect which the pro-
paged alteration of the stamp laws will have on sales
and mortgages of shies.
The question may be shortly stated.
It will be admitted that under the words contained
in the actor 55 Gee. lIL (known as the Stamp Act),
sales or mortgages of ships or vessels were subjected
to the payment of an ad valorem duty, and their
exemption from duty depends upon an act passed in
the 6 Oeo. IV. (23 years since), by which all stamp
duties then payabla upon any " deed or instrumect
whatever for the sale, trausfer, or other disposition,
either absolutely or by way of mortgage or other-
wise, of any ship or vessel, or any part interest or
property in any ship or vessel" were repealed.
Now it must be also aimit'ed that the words
" lands, tenements, rents, annuities, or other pro-
perty,"need in the present Stamp Act under the title
of conveyance to describe the property, upon the sale
of which an n,l ralorena duty will attach, do not in-
clude every kind of property which may be the sub-
ject of bomi file sale. On the ground that the sub-
rot matter must be such as is commonly dealt with
in the way of buying and selling, and that the words
" other property" are restricted in their operation
by the antecedent words, it hu been judicially
decided that certain properties are not within
the provision' of the act, and that upon their
sale an ad valorem duty will not attach.
It follows, therefore (confining myself to conveyances
especially for the sake of clearness), that at the pre-
sent moment, by the act of 55 Geo. 111. an ad valorem
duty is imposed upon the sale of the property therein
described—that ships originally included within such
description have been since exempted from duty—and
that it has been judicially decided that the words of
the act are not sufficiently ample to include certain
kinds of property, which have, consequently, re-
mained exempt.
What, then, is the effect of the bill introduced by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon this state of
things?
By the Ist section it is proposed to be enacted that
from the sth July next ail stamp duties then payable
under the title of conveyance in the act of 33 Geo.
HI. shall close and determine, and the act so far is to
be repealed. By that enactment, therefore, all the
property now remaininF liable to duty is placed
within the same exemption as ships now are; and
though the intention may be that such exemption
should be momentary, the effect is the some; and the
point is of great importance when considering the
next clause.

For by the 2nd section, it is proposed to be enacted
that after the 6th of July next, there shall be levied
in respect of the instruments, matters, and things de- 11
scribed in Schedule B, the several duties specified and
set forth in such schedule ; and when reference is
made to such schedule, the duty is not there imposed,
as it now is, upon the conveyance &c. of " lands or
other property., real or personal, heritable or move-
able "—that is, in England upon real or per-
sonal; in Scotland,: upon heritable or move-
able—property, with such re... Weed limit to
the meaning of the word property, as the courts
of law have defined,—but, it is to be henceforward
imposed upon the conveyance, &c. "of any property
real, heritable, personal, or moveable, or of any other
matter or thing whatever, and of whatever nature."
Now, sir, at the moment when there are no duties
whatever existing upon the transfer of property—
when some kinds el property have never been subjected
to an ad valorem stamp, and such stamps have been
repealed as to every other kind of property, the
words above quoted are proposed u the substitute for
the wards by which the repealed duties were imposed,
and if it be considered that they are equal in extent
to the language of the 65, Geo. 111., they
must then include as much, and if they
be intentionally more extensive they must
be admitted to have a wider range than was incident
to the language of the last named act. If, there-
fore, the transfers of ships were liable to an ad valorem
duty (es wan undoubtedly the care) under the stamp
act of 1815 it seems to me to be clear that that lia-
bility is re-imposed by the bill under consideration.
The sot relieving the ship owner conta'ns no special
protection; it simply repeals certain stamp duties
almost in identically the same words as the first
section of the pending bill repeals the remaining
stamp duties on transfers. The owner of an estate
could raise as good an argument against the new
duties applying to him, as the ship-owner could use'
to prevent their operation to hi. case.'
And if, as the fact is, the language
of the proposed bill be adequate to draw
within its range property hitherto entirely exempt,
how impossible it will be to contend that such lan-
guage does net include property which was actually
reached by the more confined definition contained in
the present law.'
My object in this and my previous communications
has been to show the important alterations which the
Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to make in the
test of the stamp laws : and I am very glad that such
a meeting as is advertised for the consideration of the
law affecting the mercantile marine is about to take
place, as this matter cannot fail to be discussed there,
and the mind of the public has been so well prepared
by you that the whole subject will be immediately
taken up.
In conclusion of these remarks I may perhaps be
permitted to express my opinion that, whik some of