The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-21 00:00:00

CITY OF LONDON COMMISSION.

The Commissioners met on Thursday, in the Privy
Council Chamber, and renewed their investigation.
Commissioners present :—Right Hon. Mr. Labouchere
(the chairman), Sir John Patteson, and Mr. Cornwall
Lewis.
Mr. Acland presented a memorial to the commis-
sioners from the resident magistrates, churchwardens,
and 200 inhabitant householders of Croydon, praying
for relief from the heavy and unjust dues now levied
within and around the metropolis upon coals, by the
corporation of London.
The first witness examined was Mr. Keeling, of the
firm of Keeling and Hunt, fruit merchants of the city of
London, who deposed—l wish to direct attention to
tax levied by the City meters on fruit imported from
abroad. If we have a cargo of nuts, consisting of
2,000 bags, all of one measurement and weight, the
Custom-house authorities are satisfied to take two bags
as a sample, and take for granted that all the remaining
bags contain the same quantity ; but the meters of the
City corporation, on the contrary, insist upon measur-
ing every separate, bag for the sake of the dues. They
claim a metage of 2d. for each bag, making altogether
161. 13s. 4d. as the sum which is exacted by the City
meters, whose services are required neither by the
Customs authorities, nor by the importers themselves,
nor the buyer or seller. The duty charged by the Crown
on oranges and lemons is levied in a different manner
than that levied on nuts, viz., by the bushel, and when
the tariff was introduced the City claim for metage on
oranges and lemons was removed. The City claims
metage on all kinds of nuts, except Paranas, a species
of nut imported from Brazil ; and their claim also extends
to onions, apples, and plums. The Customs department,
therefore, are contented to measure only a small quan-
tity of goods as a sample, but the City meters claim the
right to measure the whole cargo. At the outports
the Custom-house officers do, free of charge, the duty
which the City meters claim the right to do in London,
and to charge the importer for doing it. On the article
of chestnuts the Government some time ago repealed the
duty, but the City meters, still continue their charge of
2d. per barrel for metage. Our house paid 215/. Bs. I.ld.
in 1851 in the shape of these dues for which we received
no value whatever. The Lord Mayor used to claim a
sample of every cargo entering the port of London, and
as this gave rise to great annoyance, we compromised
the matter by paying 2s. 6d. on every cargo, and that
fine is now regularly demanded and paid. The conse-
quence of the various dues charged by the city authori-
ties is to cause a great discrepancy between the cost
upon cargoes of fruit delivered in London and cargoes
delivered in Liverpool and other ports. Metage is also
charged upon potatoes, but potatoes are not a part of
our trade. In the case of perishable fruit, the goods
are often landed after the ordinary hours, and then the
City meters come down and claim their fees without
service whatever. The fees paid to four City meters, I
am told, exceed 5,000/. a year. We are compelled in
most cases to have fruit measured whether we want it
done or not. My own opinion is, that the City dues do
not legally apply to foreign fruit imported, but to articles
brought by the coasting trade. We have paid as much
as 1,9391. 4s. Bd. in nine months to the City Fellowship
of Porters. Ido not mean that we were losers to that
amount, but only that we ought not to be compelled to
employ one set of porters and no others. Ido not think
our pecuniary loss is very considerable by being obliged
to have our porterage performed by the fellowship ; but
the business of the porters ought to be thrown open to
competition, as well as every other branch of labour.
The witness then withdrew.
Mr. Edward Hales, corn merchant, of Bush-lane,
City, examined—l have been in business in the City for
twenty-five years. I was a member of a committee re-
cently appointed by the corn trade of the City to sup-
port a memorial presented by them to the corporation
on the subject of the heavy charges for porterage and
metage on corn exacted in the port of London.
The Chairman—Are there any points in that memo-
rial to which you wish to call the attention of the com-
missioners ?

Mr. Hales—Yes ; that document and others I hold
in my hand contain all our grievances. The committee
of which I spoke was appointed eighteen months ago,
and I conceive that it fairly represented the corn trade
of the city of London.

Mr. C. Lewis—What was the prayer of your memo.
rial ?

Mr. Hales—We asked the corporation to reduce their
charges, and to collect them in a more uniform manner.
There were twenty-five different modes of levying the
dues, and we recommended them to establish only one
mode for light corn and another for heavy corn, and
that the duty should be levied on the seller, it having
been the practice in some instances to levy it on the
buyer, and in other instances on the seller. At the
request of the corporation itself, the committee drew up
a report embodying the changes which the trade wished
to see effected in the rates and in the mode of levying
them. The memorial addressed to the corporation was
as follows :

" To the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Aldermen,
and Common Council of the City of London.
" We, the undersigned, merchants and factors inte-
rested in the corn trade of the city of London, think it
due to ourselves and to the public to draw your serious
attention at this time to the very heavy charges on all
corn delivered within the City, arising from old muni-
cipal privileges, and comprised under the heads of me-
tage, tillage, porterage, holdage, and lastage. These
charges are not only out of all proportion to the
amount of actual labour performed, and of actual benefit
derived from such labour, but are in all cases much hea-
vier, and in many nearly double, the rates charged for
the same description of labour at most of the other ports
in the United Kingdom.
" The increase of railway communication, the advance-
ment of commerce, and the competition in trade all over
the kingdom, fostered by the facilities of intercourse, and
the swelling population of this country, have all tended to
equalise business throughout the realm, and conse-
quently to interfere more or less with metropolitan
dealers. Of this interference we do not complain, but
we desire that in the new, and we trust improved, state
of things brought about by these means, aided by
modern intelligence and enlightened views, these old
fashioned burthens and restraints shall be revised and
adapted to the existing position of our commercial rela-
tions. _

" it is wished that the supervision of the measuring
and delivering of grain should remain with your honour-
able court, and there is not any desire on the part of
your memorialists to escape payment of a fair price for
labour performed.
" What we suggest is, that in lieu of the present com-
plicated system of charges, comprising no less than 25
distinct rates, or heads of which causes great expense
and confusion in the collection, an uniform and more
direct and simple mode of charge should be substituted,
and that such charge should be paid by the sellers or
importers.

Z‘ Your memorialists have no doubt that if a proper
charge were made a large proportion of the grain deli-
vered from granaries in the port of London, and from
railway termini, and which now pays nothing, would, in
that event, be metered by sworn meters, and paid for
at a fair labour price, as the trade would obviously in
all cases prefer the certificate of a sworn meter,
el,a secu-
rity which they are now obliged to forego to the
heavy expense ; and many cargoes of grain now di-
verted altogether from this port would be brought here,
to the benefit of the trade, and metered in like manner.
" Your memorialists, therefore, respectfully n bml
to the consideration of your court, whether the time is
not passed when such charges can be fairly enforced
(they have become obsolete). They fall oppressively on
the merchant, and unjustly on the consumer, and owing
to the increased competition in business, and the dimi-
nished profits under the operation of causes we have
already partially referred to, they now form an item of
impost in the corn trade within this City which cannot
longer be borne without a firm and determined attempt
at its removal.
" Your memorialists therefore trust that you will be
pleased to take this matter into your earnest and imme-
diate consideration, and they are prepared to form a
committee from their body to meet and communicate
with a like number of gentlemen appointed by your
honourable court to discuss the subject, and to arrange
and carry out a plan for alleviating the grievances in
question, against which they feel they have so just and
unanswerable grounds of complaint.
"And your memorialists will ever pray, &c."
After the presentation of this memorial the committee
received a letter from Mr. Sergeant Merewether, dated
15th October, 1852, and written by the direction of the
corporation, and which letter made a request that the
memorialists would prepare a statement of their grie-
vances, and the mode in which they wished them to be
redressed, and lay it before the Court of Common
Council. In accordance with this suggestion the
Committee of the Corn Trade drew up a report to be
submitted to the corporation, which document was as
follows :
" REPORT of the Committee appointed at a general
meeting of Corn Factors of the City of London,
held at Jack's Coffee-house, Mark-lane, on the 21st
day of October, 1852, for the purpose of supporting the
memorial presented to the Right Hon. the Lord
21110 r, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City
o...f_Lo_nd.on on the subject of the charges for metage,
M.heleuttecromplying with the invitation contained
15th of Octobeofr Mr. Sergeant Merewether, dated the
therein : , 1852, relative to the objects specified
"The committee have taken the subject into their
serious consideration,iwrationd as follows :
" That the co
the city of London have for
a long period of time,:onarpdooty virtue of several charters
granted to the said
particularly a charter
of James 1., dated 20th of corporation, particularly
3d James 1., 1604,
claimed the exclusive rightl measuring all corn de-
livered within the city and port
charging for such admeasurernent. London, and of
"That an order or by-law emanatingfrom the Com-
mon Council of the City, and dated sth OCtObheF, 1620,
created a body called the fellowship porters, W
claim to perform all the porterage work connectedie'body
with
the loading and unloading of cargoes of corn,
6'
within the port of London, and of charging for
the
same.
"That the total amount of the said two classes of
charges for such measurement and porterage since the
reduction was made on the 3d day of May, 1852,
average 4d. per quarter ex ship, and 2id. per quarter

ex granary.
"That on the arrival of a cargo of corn in the port of
London, the consignee of the said cargo gives to his
lighterman, granary-keeper, or purchaser, as t.he case
may require, an order on the captain for the delivery of
the corn ; and the holder of such order then proceeds to
the meter's office to procure a sworn meter, upon receipt
of which intimation the meter summons to his aid and
proceeds with six, seven, and sometimes eight fellowship
porters, on board the vessel, to perform the work of un-
loading the cargo, which is done by three of the porters