The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-31 00:00:00

FINANCE.

The cash statement of the Finance Committee presented
the following balances in the hands of the treasurer :
Current accounts, £101,454 145.; deposits accounts,
£3lo,Boo.—total, £412,264 14s; and
.Government securi
ties, New Three per Cent. Annuities.
THE EXPENSES OF THE BOARD FOR 1865.

At the assemblage of the Board the discussion on the
estimates prepared by the Finance Committee for the ex-
penses of the Board for the ensuing year was resumed.
Mr DALTON, the chairman of the Finance Committee,
in a short speech moved the adoption of the first vote, vfx,
sewerage and drainage, and which contained the following
items :—Sums required for works, £3.3.550 ; working ex-
penses of pumping stations at Deptford, Crossness, &c.
£9,000 ; rent and taxes for St. George's-wharf, and other
premises occupied by tke Board, £250, making a total of

Mr JOHN S. PHILLIrs seconded the motion.
Mr SILAS 'TAYLOR said there was at the present time in
hand an approximate surplus of £14,000, and there was a
further sum which had been set apart to meet any liabilities
the Board might have to meet with regard to the Metro-
politan Railway, which would make up a total balance in
their favour of £60,000. Now, if there was a sum of £60,000
surplus on the estimates of 1864, he saw no reason why the
ratepayers who had contributed fully all that was required
of them should not have the benefit of it in the coming year.
There was no doubt that they must have a sum in hand for
working expenses, but he thought that £36,000 would meet
all their requirements, and therefore he should move that
this vote be reduced by £30,000, and, therefore, instead of
requiring a rate of 2il in the pound, should his amend-
ment be adopted a rate of lid would be found amply suffi -
dent for all purposes.
Mr LONG seconded the motion.

The CHAIRMAN said it should be borne in mind that the
board would have to incur a half-year's expenditure before
they would receive one shilling under the present estimates,
and therefore £60,000 would not be more than sufficient to
carry on the duties of the board until June next, and meet
all the liabilities they would have to incur.
Mr LEGG supported Mr Taylor's amendment, and he said
if it was lost he should move a further amendment.
Mr PEMETT did not think that £60,000 was too large a
sum to be retained in hand for working expenses.
Mr NEWTON said that this subject had been very fully
gone into and discussed in the Finance Committee, and the
whole £60,000 would be required to meet their six months'
expenses.
Mr DALTON replied, and said as regarded the Metropoli-
tan Railway money, when it should come to hand, the rate-
payers would have the full value of it, but in the meantime
he advised them not to reckon their chickens before they
were hatched. (Laughter.)
The amendment was put, and lost by a large majority.
Mr LEGG moved a further amendment, that the amount
be reduced £14,000.
The amendment was seconded by an hon. member. This
led to a long discussion,but eventually the question was put
the amendment lost, and the original motion carried by a
majority of 19 to 12.
Mr DALTON moved the next vote of £lO,OOO as the contri-
bution by the board to public improvements. He consi-
dered the sum would be ample, as of the £15,000 voted last
year only £7,500 of that sum had been absorbed.
Mr CARPMAEL said he must take exception to this vote,
on account of its inadequate amount to carry out public
improvements. He found that in Paris a population
of 1,700,000 was taxed to the extent annually of £3 per
head for municipal purposes, and was he to be told that in
this metropolis with a population of 3,000,000, they could
'not raise a rate of 10s a head for municipal purposes ? Now,
he could not for one moment imagine that in so wealthy a
place as the metropolis it was at present so overtaxed that it
could not bear another burden for the purpose of effecting
improvements. He believed that it was the duty of the
Board to contribute liberally towards public improvements,
and should move as an amendment that the Board do con-
tribute the sum of £25,000 towards public improvements,
instead of £lO,OOO.
Major LYON seconded the amendment, and adverted to a
remark made by the Hon. W. F. Cowper when a depuation
of the Board waited upon him—that if the Board was un-
able to carry out public improvements the sooner it was
broken up the better.

Mr NEWTON said the estimate proposed by the committee
would not bind the Board to that expenditure, but as £7,500
had last year been found sufficient, the committee consi-
dered they were quite justified in recommending this year
the sum of LlO,OOO for public improvemeets. But he hoped
Mr Carpmael would not be under the impression that
£lO,OOO was all that the Board would be called on to contri-
bute to public improvements. They had bound themselves
for some time to an expenditure of £200,000 for improve-
ments in Whitechapel and Holborn, and they would also
have to pay something towards the improvement and widen-
ing of Hamilton-place. As to the example of Faris, where
Mr Carpmael had said that £3 was raised from each person
for municipal purposes, if they were called upon to imitate
France in this respect he feared that they would soon ae
compelled to imitate it in some of its revolutions.
Mr H. L. TAILOR condemned the niggardly spirit in
which paltry and miserable sums were contributed by this
board towards public improvements, instead of dealing them
out with a free and liberel hand throughout the length
and breadth of the motropslis. He saw no reason why
they should have their hands tied down to the sum of
£lO,OOO, and he felt that the portion of the metropolis he
represented had been most unfairly dealt with, where im-
provements were so urgently required, It was of import-
ance that the Board should be measured by its good deeds
and the services they had rendered to the people. The sum
proposed by the committee was so niggardly that he hoped
the board would not agree to their recommendation.
Mr HEALY hoped the board would adopt the smaller sum.
After some further discussion the amendment was put
and negatived.
Mr H. L. TAYLOR then moved a further amendment,
"That the Board contribute £25,000," urging that there were
a number of claims before the board, and among them one
for between £6,C00 and £7,000 for the improvement of
Newgate-street, which the Board ought to effect entirely at
their own expense.

Mr CARPMAEL seconded the amendment.
Mr T. S. PHILLIPS denied that the Board was niggardly
in its contributions, and said that term would really apply
to the Court of Sewers of the City in coming to them for
small contributions instead of doing the work at their own
expense.

The question was put, when there appeared for the amend-
ment, 19; against it, 18. The Chairman did not vote, so
this was not a majority of the members present, and there-
lore no order.

The original motion was afterwards put and carried ; also
the other items of the report of the committee.

The Hardware Trades and the Factory Act.

(From the Birmingham Post.)
The Children's Employment Commission have come to
the conclusion that the whole of the hardware districts—
Birmingham, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire,
the North of England, and South Wales—ought to be
placed under the Factory Acts, so far as the employ-
ment of women and children is concerned. This recom-
mendation of the Commissioners applies to every branch
of the metal trade, as carried on in the midland
district—from the heaviest iron work of South Staffordshire
down to the lightest and least laborious of the fancy trades
of Birmingham. The following classification, extracted from
the report itself, shows how completely it is proposed to
apply the Factory Act. 1. Cut nail manufaoturers, washers,
and shoe tips. 2. Screw and bolt manufactories. 3. Brass
foundry, including wire, gas fittings, and laokering. 4.
Button, pin, and hook and eye making. 5. Guns. 6. Jewel.
lery. 7. Iron foundries, engine, machine, chain, edge
tool, and tube works, bedstead, hurdle, and safe manufac-
tories, and miscellaneous iron work. 8. Tin plate, papier-
mache, japan, and blank tray works. 9. Steel pens. 10.
Electro-plating. 11. Locksmiths, stampers and piercers,
bit and spur makers, harness furniture makers of all
classes ; awl-blade, steel-toy. hinge, latch, bolt and file
makers; bellows makers, &c. 12. Galvanising works. 13.
Tin toy factories, 14. Blast furnaces. 15. Rolling mills and
iron forges. 16. Miscellaneous metal trades not enumerated
above. Some of the evidence will not a little startle even
those persons who think themselves tolerably well ac-
quainted with the condition of the district. It is shown, for
example, that throughout the midland hardware district
nearly 60,000 women and young persons under 18 find
occupation in the various staple trades ; that of this number
a large proportion are grossly ignorant ; that they are fre-
quently severely over-worked; that their places of work are
so close, limited and ill-ventilated as to be dangerous to
health; and that owing partly to these circumstances and
partly to nature of the trades, consumption and other dis-
eases of the lungs are far more prevalent in Birmingham
and the district than in other parts of England. As to Bir-
mingham, indeed, Dr• Greenhow, a medical inspector em-
ployed by the Privy Council, declares that "it presents ex-
amples of nearly all the evils which have been found to
exist separately in each of the other manufacturing districts
where inquiry relative to the causation of pulmonary
diseases has been made." And the same authority alleges
—no doubt with the most complete accuracy—that out of
35 workshops inspected, in 26 the persons employed had
less breathing places allotted to them than is requisite even
for a sleeping room• 500 cubic feet of air is necessary to
health in a living-room ; yet hundreds of people, chiefly
women and children, were found working in rooms which
contained only from 120 to 200 cubic feet of air for each per-
son. Well may Dr Greenhow say that it is difficult to trace
the career of these poor creatures, because they cease to work,
and so fall out of sight I Mr White supports this testimony
by declaring that even in the best and most important manu-
factories in Birmingham very little attention is paid to suffi-
cient space, cleanliness, and ventilation. And, as to the mental
condition of many of the working children, Mr White cites
instances by the score—we might even say by the hundred
—of boys and girls of 14 or 15 who can neither read nor
write, and to whom " God, the ;Bible, the Saviour, or a
future state, are ideas entirely or all but unknown."