Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-02 00:00:00

iug of a ship, and is it more fair to tax that
instrument than it is to tax the ship which brings the

produce, and tlillbart which carries it to the warehousE

I put these points to show that there are debateable
vuestions, and questions of great difficulty, if we con-
s subject as a matter of principle. It therefore
appears to me more desirable to have our consideration
of the question upon what may seem the lower, but
which is certainly the more practical ground of expo-
- • and I think that in doing so we shall carry with
support of many not directly enraged in the opera-
tions of commerce, but who will see that it is a question
materially affecting their own interests, and will find

der thi

thency
as the

that they ought to ivork with us in opposing the_liability

When

we Consider thal
ha;

of the -docks to rating,
the whole recent policy of the country
been to free commerce from restrictions and front
injurious impositions, and to place on the same footing the
Produce and the subjects of foreign countries with our
own, would it not be unwise to seek to re-impose expenses
which, however small in degree, must be levied upon
carriers and upon the produce in transit, and which
must be paid out of the profits of commerce ? It seems
to me that foreigners would very justly complain if they
were placed in such a position. They may be called upon
to pay rates for the use they derive from the docks as a
quid pro quo ; but would it not be most unwise to impose .
upon them a tax for the support of our poor, as for the
cleansing of our streets, from which they are to derive no
/enefit ? If by the imposition of higher dock rates, or by
exii sting the diminution of dock rates through the appli-
caton of the surplus revenue, we thus drive away
Dom Liverpool any portion of that stream of commerce which now flows through it and enriches it,
Will not that be a result as directly affecting those who
are not' actually engaged in the operations of commerce,
as those who are ? (Hear, hear.) I venture to think it
withe sakery be 3 veoor consolation for them to reflect, that
o pf
a few shillings or pounds which e
''t have saved from the ordinary rates they have
.?prived of the.
thegreater profits which were within
their reach by extendinitradeguite
at
oeftishe
hepdo,rtthoaft L
ifivtietri-s
(Hear, hear.) am
rioelsiion' ba fairly considered by them, even upon the
ground of, their own interests, they will go with us in
endeavouring I. exempt the docks from any additional
Zates. I cannot, however, conceal from myself that, coming
forwurd as we do to oppose the rating o. f the docks, we
the
placed in a somewhat invidious position as regards h
test of the community ; we are told, and I fear with some
trath, that the persons who derive the greater portion of

been d

their wealth from the commerce of the port are contri-
buting less to the local burthens of the town than any
others; We have lists set before us of persons whose in-
comes are large, but whose contributions to the local
burthens are very much out of proportion; hncl we have
other lists set up against these, of persons resident in the
town, who are much more highly taxed in proportion to
their income. It appears to me, that this is a very fair
ground of complaint, but I dispute altogether the efficacy
of the remedy, which is proposed in the rating of the
Docks. (Hear, hear,) I admit that they have a very
fair ground to ask for an equal appropriation
of the local burthens ; but it appears to me that it would
be far better to go to the municipal and parochial autho-
rities, and say to them—" Gentlemen, we are convinced
that we do pay less than a fair proportion of the local
burthens. The law as it stands places us in that position
—we are not placed in it by our own act. We shall be
quite happy to go with you for the purpose of ascertain-
ing whether there can be any mode devised by which the
burthen of local taxation can be made more fair in its
application, whether, by altering the mode of assessment,
or by widening the area of taxation so that a very large
district in the neighbourhood of Liverpool may be in-
cluded in one, and made to contribute to the support of
the poor within that district, the present ground
of complaint can be removed." (Hear, hear.) By such
a course as this, I think we should awaken a sympathy
for our movement, and place ourselves in a better and
more honourable position than at Resent. (Hear, hear.)
I feel that that is really the pinch of the question, and
that very much of the irritation of feeling which now
exists arises from this very point. Hear, hear.) The
Chairman then concluded by declaring himself ready to
receive any resolution which might be brought forward,
or to hear any remarks which might be offered.
Mr. B. Hall said, he was afraid that he should, in the
remarks he had to make, have to differ from the feelings
of the chairman, because the views he held and the few
words he should utter, would have an opposite tendency
to what he had said. As a merchant of Liverpool, of
course, he was in favour of the rating of the dock property,
for it was clear that the smaller the rates were made the
better it would be for him and others. But in view of this
question, they must look at that which would be just to
all parties. When they looked round in other towns, they
did not find such property exempt from dock rating.
They were all rated. There was the arsenal of
Woolwich, over which he had gone on Friday last,
they were also rated, because, they being large properties,
they are the cause of creating a large amount of la-
bcrur, which at times become decrepid and poor, and have
to be supported. Again, the foreigner might complain,
in coming here, to find that he was paying to local rates.
Again, all other such property was rated. Let them
look to London. The London docks were rated, and
their property was the same as those in Liverpool. This
view of the question was, therefore, as large estates, and
they would admit that the dock estate was an immense
estate, which could not be worked without creating a
very large amount of labourine•'' population, and as
such labouring population must, at some time, suffer deep
distress, they must, at some time or other, call for sup-
port, and must be supported ; it is not right that the dock
estate should be exempted from their fair share of the
burthen that is cast upon them, because if they did, the
other portion of the town would have an additional
burthen cast upon them. It had been urged that the
rating of the docks would be found a great disadvantage
and drawback to the shipping trade of Liverpool, as the
trade would be exported, but he did not see that from
that source they had anything to fear. In the first place
they were paying froth 50 to 60 per cent. They had but
a small, a trifling debt. They had an immense capital,
the largest capital of any dock property in the world.
In London it was not so, but a large diiidend had to be
paid by the docks ; but; the debt of Liverpool was
insignificant. Therefore, from that source he did Not
think that they had anything to fear from the' trade
leaving them. With those experienced views the Council
would see that he was not an anti-dock rater. He had
no proposition, however, to make to the meeting.
Mr. Denson said, he was prepared with a' resolution,
and, as he took the opposite side to Mr. Hall, he would
now take the liberty of proposing it. Mr. Hall had dealt
with it as he should after considerable attention to the
subject; but.what he said referred entirely to the justice,
and not to the expediency of the question. He believed
that the great difficulty of arriving at a clear opinion
and satisfactory to themselves arose in a
great measure from the whole subject being
mixed up with two great national measures which they
had not made up their minds about, those were as to the
rating of public property for the poor. Since the days
of Elizabeth this question was in the greatest confusion,
and he had observed a great want of reason and common
sense on the part of the legislature in dealing with this
subject. They passed annually an act exempting stock
in trade - -from being rated for the poor, and only for
-one reason, and that was, that they could not find out a
satisfactory mode of rating it, although everyone acknow-
ledged that it ought to be rated. The whole policy of
the legislature lately was to free all foreigners from in-
ternal taxation. Mr. Hall bad referred to the. great
London docks being taxed, but they were private pro-
perty, or in the hands of joint-stock companies. He
believed this was a great national mistake, ever to com-
mit its docks into the hands of joint-stock monopolies, or
any other form of monopoly. He thought they might as
well give over as private property, to a company, the
clearing of the river Mersey, and allow the company to
charge toll on account of the sums they had expended in
clearing it from filth. This would be quite as consistent.
He believed this was a great national error, but
they should not folllow what was done elsewhere.
He did not hold that their docks were anything that
could be called private property. They were mealy an
enlargement of the water -an estuary. If they looked
back to former days, they bad the river wanting walls,
&c., and when the vessels came into the shore, they went
smack into the mud. That was a state of barbarism in
which they could not carry on their commerce. They
had improved it, and in such a way as to give no private
profit ; and with regard to the channels of the Mersey,
the nationally-benefitting channels of the estuary were
precisely the same, and he could not see why they should
not tax the channels as well as the docks, from which it
was said mercantile men, as distinguished from shop-
keepers, derived some peculiar profit. What was the
community of Liverpool which sought to fix the rates
on these docks.? Their , chairman spoke of political
economy, and he (Mr. Danson) would say that
every town like this was, in fact, an aggregation of
capitalists and labourers, collected together to exert their
energies for mutual profit, and the poor rate, if it had
as yet, any fixed basis, was one perfectly just ; it was
wherever they found capitalists employing the labourers
of the country— there was the liability for the poor rate.
The Docks undoubtedly employed labourers, but
the profit was national. With reference to this
being an internal taxation, it was impossible
to charge it as a mere national rate, it was local in every
respect. With regard to merchants receiving profit by
these docks, and others not ; and shopkeepers not receiv-
ing any greater profits than in any other towns, they,
therefore, ought not to be called upon to pay an extra
share of rate. This was a great fallacy, a similar fallacy
as that which was held in reference to house tax,
where persons had leases and purchased the houses
under the tax, with no idea that ever the house-tax
would be taken off; and it was, therefore, their private
profit to have this house-tax repealed. If the shopkeepers
had no greater profits than those in other towns, they
made such charges as enabled them to carry on their
business ; and it was absurd to say that a gentleman
paying some thousands a year for a collection
of shops, in some principal street in the town, and
who had them leased, would not put into his own private
pocket a very large sum if this dock rate were levied.
But these were petty questions, in the presence of the
great question itself. The question was, was it expedient
that the docks should be rated ? He most decidedly
thought they shonld not. (Hear, hear.) In regard to
the position of Liverpool, as referred to by Mr. Hall :
Liverpool had thriven because her docks were what they
were. They had now the country covered with a net-
work of railways, which took away that distinction which
once existed between one class of docks and another, and
they had docks competing with theirs. He thought they
ought to be aware how, in a growing community
and growing pauperism, they. allowed, for any

trivial purpose Or mere shallow or plausible
policy, any body of people to injure the efficiency

Of the docks. It was not because the people
in the various districtS cared one straw for the port of
Liverpool, but that they might use it for their own

purpose. , They should take are how they run in a race
that was even now against them. They should remember

the old motto of their town, Dues nobis fun otia fecit,

It was God that did these things for them

They should

ever remember what had been the means of giving effect
to that wish which sprung spontaneously to them all—
" Prosperity to the good old town of Liverpool." The
motion which he had to move was—" That this meeting,
composed of the members of the Liverpool Chaniber of
Commerce, is of opinion that the rating of the docks .of
Liverpool, for the purposes of the poor, is inexpedient,
and the meeting accordingly thereby instructs the council
of the chamber to oppose the movement for that

- Sir. Charles Holland seconded the motion. He could
not pretend to speak in the same eloquent terms as the
gentleman who had moved the resolution ; but as a
Liverpool man, he thought he should say a word on such
an important question. He thought that nothing would
be more impossible and unwise than for the community of
Liverpool to rate the docks in the light in which they
had been put as a part of the machinery of increasing

1 the trade which passed through them to the rest of the
world —in that light they could not but be impressed
with the conviction that every rate was a detraction from
the produce of the world that entered the docks. He
differed from Mr. Hall with respect to the debt on the
docks. There was a prospect of an augmentation on the
bond of debt on the docks. With all his confi-
fidence of the great resources of the country,
as a Liverpool man, and having an interest in the town
of Liverpool, he could not view such an attempt as rating
the docks with any other than that of feelings of regret.
There was one view that had been lost sight, of, that the
docks were at present paying a sum of £60,000 a-year,
that in fact there was a very charge on the docks in favour
of the town. He would say, under these circnmstances,
it was hardly reasonable that any should come forward
and ask for addition to that sum. When the arrangement
was made last year in parliament, no oue ever thought
that the town of Liverpool would come forviard with the
plea of the other towns referred to—there was no invita-
tion to come forward, and by a side wind levy an
additional rate on the docks. If there had been,
he was sure that no parliamentary committee
would have given them power to bring such a sum as
that sought for. As an inhabitant and holder of property
in Liverpool, he would rather see an additional rate put
on that property than that the docks should be rated—
the docks on which all the prosperity of the town, all the
property that they saw around them depended. He had
been told that the town had a great number of advantages
in its being the great outlet of the country to the Atlantic, but
they were no longer in that position. - They must recollect,
that wherever there was a railway terminus, every bale
of cotton could be put into the carriages and conveyed to
any part of the country. It was, therefore, necessary
that they should consider the matter, and it would
be seen that it would not be right for them to lay any
further monopoly on the docks. He would not like to
go before parliament without being able to deal
with the question in a satisfactory manner.
A' bill was-before the house for the rating of property
throughout the country, and he had looked to some of
the reasons for so doing, and one stated that as trade and
commerce increase there were the more pauperism
brought with them. 'He would ask what was the ratio of
pauperism in Liverpool ? A reason for rating the docks
put forward was that the docks had the advantages of
the local institutions. What could that mean—perhaps it
was the hospitals ? It went on to say that the docks had
the benefit of all the streets that were paved by the town ;
but all benefits per contra were excluded. The fact was
kept back, the fact that the docks paid their own police,.
and paved and lighted their own streets of the
town. It was further stated that not only
a wall had been built along, but that they
had the audacity to put up cranes on the margin
of the docks. It was just saying, in other words, that
the Dock Board, instead of allowing the vessels to be run
slap into the mud, like the Cheshire cheese vessels re-
ferred to, had made machines and every accommodation
for loading and unloading the cargoes of all vessels that
might visit the port. The board had also been guilty of
Putting a railway along the side of the docks. These
were the arguments brought before the committee as a
reason for taxation on the Liverpool docks. He could not
see in what sense it was urged that the docks of Liver-
pool were to contribute to the rates of the town. It had
been said that the people flocked to other towns where the
docks were rated, and the consequence was that the
amount of rates was infinitely greater than it was in
Liverpool. It was self-evident that such a proceeding
was an injustice to the town, as it lessened its trade and
the work of the people. The very existence of
Liverpool was dated from its docks. There has
been a bill brought forward by government for the
exemption of the Liverpool docks from rating to the
poor, but the Liverpool Corporation had a private bill for
the rating of the property. That bill, he trusted, would
be opposed, and the docks would be exempted from
all such taxation. To him it appeared merely as a matter
of abstract justice, the docks should be exempt from all
such taxation. But why was this case urged ? Why
was the dock estate now called upon to pay these rates
Purely in consequence of the .town (Nei having
been withdrawn from the Corporation. If it
had not been for that measure there would never have
been a word said about taxing the dock estate for the
benefit of another class. He trusted the community at
large would rise up and oppose it. He hoped that the
mercantile community would, after calm consideration,
and knowing that it is the national interest of the whole
community to oppose it, that they will not only use
every effort to oppose the bill, but that they would
instruct the council to use every effort to oppose such bill.
(Applause.) There was one point he had omitted
to mention, but would do so. He would
just draw a comparison between the port of Liverpool
and the port of Bristol. How had the corporation of the
town of Bristol acted with regard to its port ? In 1856
the trade was depressed and leaving the port, in conse-
quence of the large port dues, and the corporation
bought up that property, and actually levied a rate of
4d in the pound, in order to relieve that property. But
what was it with regard to Liverpool ? He would say,
look on this picture and on that. Liverpool, instead of
doing so, was trying to saddle the dock property
with. rate of Bd. Instead of relieving them they were
taxing them. Ile conceived that it would be more judi-
cious for the community to tax themselves with a borough
rate, or any other rate, rather than charge them upon the
docks.

Mr. Johnstone requested to make a few observations
on the subject under discussion, because he begged to
• differ from the last speaker. He did not agree with the
premises he had raised, or the conclusions he had formed
on those premises with regard to Bristol, which
had been mentioned ; he did not see that there
was any analogy between Bristol and Liverpool.
He had taken a boat from the Cumberland
basin and sailed up the Severn, and he was astonished to
find the position the Port of Bristol was in. It was the
custom then to haul the vessels up the Severn, —they had
no steam boats ; and when he asked why they had not
steam boats, he was informed that there was a bye-law
against it. He thought it was the absurdities that
existed at that time was the cause of the trade leaving
Bristol. He thought, if they consulted the- Political.
Economy written by Adam Smith, the Liverpool Dock
Estate had a right to be taxed for the benefit of the poor,
as they were the cause of s great amount of pauperism, for
a sum of no less than £2,000 per week, or £lOO,OOO per
annum, had to be raised for the support of the parish offices.
Formerly a number of families lived around the docks,
and then the burthens were more equally felt; but, as the
docks had extended, they had been driven out of the
town, and the taxes had fallen much more heavily, as
they had only to be paid by a few. What they wanted,
was a quid pro quo for such a state of affairs. As the
dock extension increased, it was calculated that each dock
brought 1,000 extra families to the town who were not
capable of contributing to the poor-rates.' Then, as the
large ratepayers had been driven into the country, the
extra expense of maintaining these families came
upon the smaller number of ratepayers. He
assured the meeting that- during the five years
he had been a member of the select vestry, the pauperism
—particularly during the Irish famine—had been very
great, and there could not be a doubt but that it did fall
very hard upon the trading population to have to pay the
whOle of those rates. He must say, after viewing the
question, that he did think the docks should be rated.
With regard to the argument, that it would drive the
commerce away from the port, he did not agree with it,
nor did he believe that the town of Liverpool was in such
a position as had been described, that " the last hair
would break the camels bask," for he believed that Liver-
pool was in a flourishing condition, and that there

was no cause to fear.- It had also been said,
it was the docks that brought the shipping.
It was not the docks alone. Great Grimsby had docks
equal to Liverpool. The trade did not go there. There
were docks at 13irkenhead, but the trade did riot appear
as if it was very likely to go there. Therefore, it was
not the docks alone, but the commerce and the position
of Liverpool, that brought the trade ; and he felt sure
that, by the small alteration that would be made
in the trifling charges that would be inflicted,
they would have but little to fear from any
alteration, and that not a single vessel would be
driven from the Mersey in consequence. He concluded
by saying that he had much pleasure in seconding the
suggestion made by Mr. B. Hall.

The Chairman Here intimated that-Mr. Hall had not
made any motion, upon which he moved, as an amend-
ment, " That it is the opinion of this meeting that it was
not desirable to oppose the bill for exempting from poor
rates, the Docks and Harbour Board," and in doing so
observed, that he had not, from all the addresses that had
been delivered, heard any reasons for altering his views,
and looking at it as a piece of abstract justice that was
due to the town.

Mr. John Campbell said, the meeting seemed to be
forgetting some of the principles of political economy,
as laid down by Adam Smith, at least as they were under-
stood in the country of Adam Smith's birth. It seemed
to be taken as the duty of the government to cheapen
all exported and imported products for the benefit of the
community. (No, no.) It should be remembered that
the legislature, as well as the science of the kingdom,
was based upon the principle that he who was ultimately
interested in the laying down of the goods at the place of
consumption, should pay as exactly as possible a fair
quota of the charges really incurred in producing the
goods,. and laying them down at the place of consump-
tion. If Liverpool were a mere port through which, as
through a conduit, the goods passed from the
place of prodnction, then it must _be obvious

to all that the great question which seemed to excite s;