Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-24 00:00:00

be his fault, and not the fault of his subject. He would
now proceed to give a history of the attack which ushered
in this bill, and in doing s) he would separate the Dock
Trust question from the Town Dues as a matter of argu-
ment, though as a matter of narrative they must be
blended together. It had been the object of the opponents
of the Corporation to confuse them, and then found claims
favourable to the principle which they advocated.
The first stage in which the question of Town Dues
occurred was in the Municipal Corporation Inquiry
of 1834. At that time the Commissioners reported very
fully upon the question, but it was not until 1853, that the
first serious movement took place on the part of the Gov-
ernment in the reports issued by the Board of Trade. He
admitted that that Board had rendered great service to the
country, but if it was to continue to do so, it must in future
act within its proper sphere, and not go beyond it, as un-
fortunately for itself it had in more cases than one—not
the least unfortunate being its collision with the Great
Western Company in 1845. He thought it was greatly to
be regretted that the Board had ever been brought into
direct contact with parliamentary committees on private
bills. Certainly it was the act of a great man—Sir Robt.
Peel—but it was a great mistake : for instead of that
which was generally known as a Board, but which had no
existence here, we had a Board bectur,auocracy, which was
most foreign to the habits and feelings of the English
peoples. The reports of the Board of Trade had been op-
posed by none more strongly than the Great Western
Company, and day by day the iufiuence of the Board went
down, until at length the Ministry refused to support
them, and they had become mere cyphers instead of being
what they had attempted—dictators to Parliament. The
same principle had been tried iu other departments, but
with an equal want of success. The first inquiry
which affected the Town Dues of Liverpool,
was made by virtue of a royal commission,
and was a step which he did not object to,
because it was a step taken by a public authority, in accord-
ance with the wishes of the crown, acting openly with a
view to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to matters of
fact. He could not admit, however, that the terms of the
commission were quite so free from objection as the issue
of the commission itself; as, after declaring that her
Majesty had deemed it expedient that a commission should
forthwith issue for inquiring into the local charges upon
shipping, it went on to direct not only an inquiry into the
local charges upon shipping, but into the goods carried and
shipped ; and further, to authorise an inquiry into the title
and authority under which the dues were levied, and also,
as to how far they had been applied to the benefit of the
persons who paid them. He regretted that the royal com-
missioners had not published in the appendix to their re-
port the written replies which they had received to certain
questions which they had considered it their duty to put
but had contented themselves will simply publishing a
summary of them. The commissioners presented their
report in July, 1854, and he could understand the diffi-
culty which the government must have experienced in
acting upon that report, inasmuch as it expressly
set forth the right and title of Liverpool
to the Town Dues, without any trust or obligation
attaching to them. Accordingly the government, in 1855,
made no movement, but the department was on the look
out, and presented a report in which, leaving the govern-
ment far behind, the first step was taken in this great
aggression upon Liverpool property. In that year there
were before parliament a number of bills relating to
Birkenhead and Liverpool, and the report of the Board of
Trade, after having called attention to the report of the
Royal Commissioners, make an uncalled-for remark, that
town dues ought not to be sanctioned, except they were
applied exclusively for the benefit of the trade of the port.
The bills upon which the Board of Trade reported were six
in number. One of them was for the purpose of carrying
into effect the powers of the shipping commissioners ;
another was promoted by the Liverpool Dock Trustees,
who applied for powers to raise a sum of £3,500,000 on
mortgage of their rates ; and the other four had reference
to Birkenhead. They were all referred to one committee,
and at first it appeared that they would be vigourously
contested, but means were found to settle all differences,
and the committee expressed a strong opinion that there
was little hope of the success of the Birkenhead scheme so
long as it was treated as antagonistic to Liverpool.
Indeed, from the chairman himself came the first• sug-
gestion, that Birkenhead should be acquired by Liverpool.
The Board of Trade made great lamentations about the
state of things at Liverpool, expressing among other things
their great surprise that the Dock Trust of Liverpool, who
were going to raise £3 500,000, for the purpose of imme-
diate expenditure upon a profitable cbject, should be
unable to undertake to raise money for the purchase of an
unprofitable property like that at Birkenhead. The Board
then proceeded to urge that this unprofitable work should
be purchased by and made profitable at the expense of
the Corporation of Liverpool. They proposed that Liver-
pool Corporation binds should be issued, but recommended
that Parliament should declare, specifically, that neither
the act for the purchase of the Birkenhead Docks, nor the
bonds issued under its authority should prevent Parliament
dealing with the Town Dees. Now they knew that in
Railway Bills there was a clause inserted to the effect that
the act should not prevent the companies being
subjected to the provisions of any general act that
might thereafter be passed. But, what the de-
partment of the Government wanted, and almost
carried, was a clause to prejudice the question
of the Town Dues, and to obtain a parliamentary declara-
tion that the Town Dues was a kind of property in a
different sense to that in which they were really held,
and that parliament might deal with that property as a
public question. That clause was not simply a saving
clause, but a declaration of the right of parliament to deal
with the Town Dues and the Borough Fund. It was
pursued with the utmost possible eagerness in the com-
mittee, and it required the utmost possible amount of
vigilance on the part of the Corporation to prevent its
being inserted in the bill. In point of fact, it was at one
time inserted ; for, notwithstanding that the chairman of
the committee declared that the clause could not be, to
prejudice the Local Dues question, it was inserted, on the
pressure of the Beard of ..Trade being brought to bear.
But, subsequently, the_ committee reconsidered, and with-
drew that clause and inserted another, to the effect that
nothing contained in, or to be done under the act, should
be held directly or indirectly to confirm, alter, or prejudice
the right of the Corporation of Liverpool to the Town
Dues, or the position of the Corporation, or any other
person in respect thereto, and that the same should be
Judged of as if this act had not been passed. That was a
plain, honest clause, but it did not suit the Board of Trade,
who proposed a clause to prejudice the whole question,
while, at the same time, they professed to be keeping it
open. A second proposal of the Board of Trade was, the
re-constitution of the Dock Trust, so that all parties
interested in the payment of Dues should be represented
at the Board. In this case, again, the Board of Trade set
up its lamentations in behalf of—it almost cried again
because of the absence of—Manchester. They said when
Birkenhead was disposed of to Liverpool the committee
decided that the Corporation of Manchester had no locus
standi, and that theref we Liverpool was the only interest
represented in that committee. He could scarcely believe
that such a ridiculous assertion could emanate
from the public department. These were positive
extortions of facts made to serve particular
occasions. Mr. Sergeant Wrangham had said that he
quoted the Board of Trade whenever he could, because
they were an unprejudiced board. Why, they had misled
the parties who had framed this bill; they would have
misled the committee of 1855 if they could; and they
would now mislead this committee, if their statements
were not subject to a scrutiny, which, to say the least,
proved their inaccuracy. Then, the Board of Trade found
fault with the Corporation of Liverpool for not already
coming to parliament for a bill to transfer the docks at
Birkenhead, and said that the consequence was, if the
docks failed, the Corporation would threw the burthen on
the Dock Trust; but if, on the contrary—which was most
likely to be the am—the docks were a profitable specula-
tion, then the Corporation would pocket all the profits
and keep the docks in their own hands. Such state-
ments were really preposterous. It was lament-
able that a public department should be so
ignorant of facts Such ignorance was really unpardon-
able, for the bill of 1855 provided that when the Dock
Trustees were in a position to take the Birkenhead Dock
Estate, the Liverpool Corporation should transfer the
property. Again, the Board of Trade in their report set
forth that—" It seas said when docks were first suggested
at Birkenhead, the Liverpool Corporation speculated
largely in land, sold it on lease at a high price, and then
petitioned against the construction of the works." Let
him ask, was it the business of the Board of Trade to
collect all the gossip in the country and bring it valeat
quantum before a committee of the House of Commons
to influence their minds. "It was said " Gossip, in-
accurate in particulars, raked up in order to paint as black
a picture as possible, and to do an injustice to a great com-
mercial community, whose energy, enterprise and experience
had added so materially to the general wealth of this country.
Now, he had said, that the Board of Trade pursued them
with an eagerness amounting almost to personal hostility.
In 1855, he felt bound to say, the Board of Trade acted
more like a solicitor's office than a department of the
government ; and he could say also, that such reports as
that body had been in the habit of making lately, fully
which,supp in
nd
his the charactermind,
they whichwould
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so long as they acted in the anomalous position
which he
had shown they had acted in, and were now acting in. He
now turned to the Board in its proper character, and in
doing so, he had very great pleasure, for after all this
underground work, it was refreshing to come to the sur-
face, and to the light, and to be able to know the whole of
what was peeeing aNtlnd? T. 4 the onion of 1856, we were