The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-03 00:00:00

THE CITY TOLLS.

The LORD MAYOR said, the Chamberlain had re-
ceived a note from Mr. Patterson, one of the Members
for the City, requesting to be informed of some parti-
culars relative to the City tolls, and that officer wished
to receive instructions from the Court upon the subject.
After
'some conversation upon the means of supplying
the most satis.actory information to Mr. Paterson, whose
object was to furnish some Member of the House of
Commons with answers to questions respecting the va-
rious tolls and their several amounts, it was agreed,
that the Markets, Committee should forthwith prepare
the most accurate information, and communicate it
through the Chamberlain to the lion. Gentleman.
The re-election of all the officers appointed by the
Court then took place, and
The Court in re-electing the Rev. Dr. Mortimer head
master, and Mr. Edkins, second-master of the City of
London school, greeted these gentlemen with rounds of
applause.
Mr. BEDFORD brought up the report of the Naviga-
tion Committee, upon the subject of removing the
whiting shoal, which bad been many, years a serious
obstruction to the navigation of the Thames at Lime•
house. It stated, that in about a month the whole of
the impediment would disappear, and that already
steamers of very large size could pass over the place in
which lay such dangerous impediments. Mr. Bedford
very warmly praised the exertions of Mr. Leach, who
had been employed to superintend the work.
The report, which recommended that the necessary
funds should be granted to accomplish the undertaking,
was unanimously agreed to.
The Town Clerk having announced that a document
relating to Christ's Hospital was awaiting the hospital
seal, _ _

Mr. TAYLOR said, that as the bond to be sealed
might have the effect of excluding the children of
the citizens from the charity, he hoped the Court would
postpone the Act until some explanation should be
given.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir PETER LAURIE hoped the Court were not going,
in the year 1846, to plunge into the foolish crusade of
1845, by which the privileges of the corporation were
endangered. The Court of Common Council was not a
court of control over the royal hospitals. The best legal
advice had been that it had no power to withhold the
seal. He wished that the Corporation would never
move on any thing on which it could chew nothing but
its weakness. It had been an object of ridicule in 1845,
and fervently did he desire that that unlucky incident
might he blotted out of the records for ever.—(Hear.)
Mr. R. TAYLOR said Sir Peter Laurie had very good
reason to congratulate himself that he happened to be
the president of one of the royal hospitals. No doubt
he would not let the privilege be idle.
The seal was affixed, and after some business relating
tl a petition to Parliament for certain city improvements
the Court broke up.

DEATH OF SIR JAMES RIVETT CARNAC, BART.—
We have to announce the decease of the above Baronet,
whose dissolution took place on Wednesday last, at Roock-
cliff!, his residence in Lymington, Hants. The deceased had
for some months past suffered from severe illness. The de-
ceased was some years back chairman of the board of direc-
tors of the East India Company, and was formerley Governor
of Bombay, in which appointment he was succeeded by the
late Sir William Macnaughten. The late Baronet sat in the
II ,use of Commons some years ago, for Sandwich. He was
created a baronet in 1836, and is succeeded by his son Capt.
John R. Carnac, late of the 73d Regiment.
WEST AUSTRALIAN COMPANY.—A general meeting
of the shareholders was held yesterday at two o'clock, at the
offices of the Company, No. 33, Old Broad-street, from which
both the public and the press were excluded ; but it was un-
derstood that the object of the meeting was to render a re-
port of the precise state of affairs, and to decide whether the
business of the Company should still be continued or brought
to a close as speedily as possible.
The tide of the 27th ult. was unusually high at Havre, as
was expected. It inundated all the low parts of the town,
the two quays of Notre-Dame, the Quartier St. Francois,
and the neighbouring streets. As, however, this unusual
tide had been previously calculated on, and even mentioned
in the almanacks of the year, every precaution had been
taken, and the only inconvenience felt was the temporary
suspension of intercourse through the parts of the town
under water, an 4 the flooding of the cellars.
ON DITS.—Lord Jocelyn sent in his resignation on
Saturday.—The Hon. Francis Charter's, approving the re-
peal of the corn-laws, has, with the sense of delicacy that
always marks his conduct, expressed his readiness to resign
his seat, and subthit to the ordeal of a new election. We
trust his constituents will know how to appreciate this manly
proceeding.—Many of the recent resignations in the Royal
Household have not vet been formally announced. Amongst
them, we are assured, we may name Lord Granby.—A ru-
mour, that we believe may be relied on, states that the ap-
pointment in the Admiralty, lately resigned by the Hon.
Henry Corry, will be filled up by that Gallant Officer, Capt.
Rous, of the R.N. An appointment more calculated to give
general satisfaction could not be made.—lt appears, after all
the reports to the contrary, that Lord Arthur Lennox has
not given in his resignation. "His poverty but not his will
consents" to this prudent measure. His brother, the Duke
of Richmond, ought to remedy this evil.-111orning paper.
A COINCIDENCE.—On the 10th of December, the fo -
lowing:appeared in the Quebec shipping list :—" Sir Robert
Peel in the mud, and supposed to be safe." Some, may
probably think it an amusing coincidence, that, at that date,
the worthy baronet, after whom the ship is named, was
that
the much in the same position. It is to be hoped
the vessel has had as good a deliverance as Sir Robert him-
self has accomplished.—Greenock Adrertiser.
FATAL ACCIDENT AT THE LONDON DOCKS.—On
Saturday afternoon Mr. Chapman, one of the dock lock-
masters belonging to the London-docks, accidentally fell into
the dock, a height of twenty feet. Drags were procured,
and every endeavour was used to recover the body, but
without effect. Yesterday the drags were again put into re-
quisition, and, after three hours' incessant dragging, the body
was found, and removed to his residence to await the Coro-
ner's inquest.
POLITICAL GATHERINGS.' TllO Right Hon. the
Speaker of the House of Commons gave
residence
first P
ianrilEarnatoenn:
tary dinner on Saturday last, at his
Eaton-
square. The following constituted the circle :—The Bight
lion. Sir It. Peel, the Right Hon. the Chancellor of the tEx-
chequer, the Right Hon. Sir James Graham, the Earl of
Lincoln, the Right Hon. Sydney Herbert, Lord Granville
Somerset, Earl Jermyn, Lord Ernest Bruce, the L dAd
vo-
este, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, o
neral, ther
Right
Hon. Sir T. Fremantle, Sir G. Cockburn, the Right Hon. H.
S. Corry, the Right Hon. Sir G. Clerk, the Hon. Captain
Gordon, Rear-Admiral Bowles, the Right Hon. Col. Dawson
• Darner, the lion. H. M. Sutton, Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Cripps,
the Hon. H. Fitzroy, the Right Hon. W. B. Baring, -Mr.
Greene, Mr. Young, Mr. H. Baring, and Colonel Peel.
DUTY REPEALED ON CERTAIN MATS.--A general order
states, that pursuant to a letter from the Board of Trade, on
an application praying that the duty on Dunnage mats may
be repealed, their Lordships authorise the delivery duty
free of Dunnage mats, which may net be of greater value than
10s. per hundred, as recommended by the Commissioners of
Customs. Even this partial repeal will be a great facility,
for ships have often been detained solely because of a few
trumpery mats, overlooked at first. But can the Treasury
repeal any duty legally P—Livemooi Mail.
TORY ACCEPTANCE OF CORN-LAW REPEAL.—The
Nottingham Journal, a Conservative paper, has pronounced
its decision in favour of Sir Rooert Peel's measure. " Seeing
(says our contemporary) the success which has attended his
previous movements in the same direction, we draw confi-
dence from these facts; and, although the step is a bold one,
and startles us on that account as well as for its novelty, yet
we are inclined to receive it with favour! It is quite cer-
tain, from the rapid succession of events within the last three
months, that a change in the corn-law had become almost, as
it were, inevitable ; and the only course left for choice was as
to the hands by whom the change should be effected—
whether the alteration should be made by the incapable
Whigs, headed by Lord John Bussell--by the Cobden-Bright
faction, the deadly enemies of the landowners, and all con-
nected with them—or whether it should be brought about
by the skilful workmen who have heretofore made such
excellent work. The country, we think, has been fortu-
-
nate in securing the services of such experienced
dent councillors, whose previous course affords ample security
nd
that the present measure will prove as trulywdisedaarnindghianppitys
in its results, as it is bold in its conception
ezecution."

The land-tax of Great Britain having been originally a
commutation of the feudal rights of the Crown, at the rate of
4s. In the pound of real rent, should at the present moment
have amounted to above 1.1,000,0001., as in France, had the
country been justly governed.
Not only have English landlords thus evaded the. amount
of land-tax equitably due to the State, but they have fur-
ther exempted themselves from any tax on the descent of
real property, such as all other descriptions pay, which tax
on the descent of land amounts in France to about a year's
rental of the estate, and in this country ought to produce
several millions a year to the Exchequer. Further, these
our legislators have exempted farmers from many taxes
which are paid by all other classes, which is, in other words,
to put so much additional rent into the pocket of the land-
owner, and thus further enrich the already richest class of
society.
No such exemptions in favour of a class exist in any coun-
try of Europe except our own. It is only to enrich the land-
owner that farmers' dogs, farmers' fire insurance, and drain-
ing-tiles are exempted from duty, and other exemptions too
tedious to enumerate, while the poorest tradesman in every
town has to pay a tax on all these things. Even the heart
of a toll-bar-keeper melts into liberality at the sight of a
farmer's lime-cart, while the poor tradesman's must pay toll
to the uttermost farthing.
Now, however, that the corn-laws approach their termina-
tion, a more unreasonable outcry than even that of protection has been raised in shape of a demand for compensation, inso-
much that it has been proposed that the expense of making
roads through noblemen's estates, supposing them poor, and
prosecuting poachers on their game-preserves, should be paid
out of the Consolidated Fund, or, in other words, by the public
at large.
It is more than questionable whether the persons who ad-
vocate compensation in their f!vour are prepared, on the
even-handed principle of justice, likewise to throw the paving-
rates, the poor-rates, and police-rates, of every town in the
empire on the Consolidated Fund, without which condition
their favourite proposal would be a public robbery; for the
foregoing facts sufficiently prove that, instead of being even
taxed, the land and landowners pay too little to the Ex-
chequer by about twenty millions a year.
If the word compensation is to be dragged at all into the
approaching settlement of the corn-law question, it ought
certainly to be a compensation of the' public for the wrongs
already inflicted on them for the sole and doubtful benefit of
a class; and it would be worthy of the proposed philan-
thropy of "Young England " to propose that every labour-
ing man in the kingdom, who has attained middle age, and
brought up a family, should be compensated by a grant of
garden-ground, rent free, to be taken from the large estates.
Every farmer knows that his business has been a very
hazardous one under the present corn-law, and the agricul-
tural labourers of Wiltshire, who lately met, sufficiently pro-
claimed to the world that under the law of protection they
have been reduced to the lowest point of human destitution.
Yet these are the parties for whose benefit the corn-law is
professed to have been made.
In a densely peopled country such as England, agricul-
tural produce will always (unfortunately for the people) be
at least twenty per cent. dearer than on the Continent, that
being the average expense attending importation; and as no
corn-law ever has, or ever can, raise the price of labour, our
working classes will always be under that amount of dis-
advantage as compared with those abroad.
Free trade might, however, by raising the general condi-
tion of the British people, create for the landowners some
additional consumers of wheat and animal food—millions at
present existing, mere especially in Ireland, chiefly on
potatoes. _ _ _

The childish and oft-repeated assertions of the monopolists
as respects dependence upon foreigners, and land going out
of cultivation, scarcely require, at the present stage of the
argument, serious contradiction; for the sooner that all
nations are dependent on each other for the comforts and
conveniences of life, the sooner will the reign of peace and
good-will commence among men. In 1815, 80s. was de-
clared to be the lowest price at which wheat could be culti-
vated in this country, yet the best wheat has two or three
times since that period been as low as 40s. per quarter, or
even less, without there having been a single acre less land
under cultivation, but greatly the contrary.—l am, Sir, &c.
A LOVER OF JUSTICE.