The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-01 00:00:00

thority cf the House of Commons contained the names
of a considerable number of fraudulent manufacturers,
of whom some had been heavily fined, some impri-
soned, in other cases compromises bad been made, while
in others the offenders had absconded. Opposed to com-
petition such as this, the fair and honest trader has no
alternative but absolute ruin; and such are the facili-
ties for fraud arising out of this tax, and the mode in
which it is levied, that the temptation to act dishonestly
becomes almost irresistible. The excise duty on the
lower descriptions of paper amounts i❑ some cases to
as much as 120 rer cent. on the cost of production,
and, as is well known to every practical manufacturer,
the evasion of this duty is so easy, that, pro-
vided the officer of excise is in collision with
the manufacturer, it amounts almost to impossibility of
detection. Nor is the improbability of this collusion so
great as may be imagined, even without unnecessarily
impugning the general character of the excise officers.
Look at the position of one of these men, who, with a
uet salary of certainly not more than thirty shillings
a week, has to be the guardian of the revenue, which,
in some individual cases, amounts to 20,0001. a
year ; and when a present of 501 may secure
the object, and add so much to the resources.
of each party, it is not difficult to see that such a temp-
tation to a fraud, both upon the revenue and the honest
trader, may break down the moral probity of the poor
trader and the excise officer. It is a temptation to
which no man ought to be exposed, and which is the
greater in this case from the largeness of the gain to be
derived and the facilities for successfully carrying it out.
Innumerable articles are brought into the market to
supersede the use of paper, so completely the same to
all appearance, that even a manufacturer himself would
not discover the dill-rence. These articles, in many
cases, are made precisely from the same materials, and
pass through very similar proces.ves, the distinction be-
ing no more than that paper is made in a wit, while the
competing substances are manufactured in a dry state
The latter the excise authorities have deemed it right to
exempt from the payment of any new duty whatever,
whilst the former is subject to a duty of 14s. 9d. per
cwt., or one hundred per cent. on cost price.
The raw material from which paper is manufactured
is now being purchased by foreigners fir exportation, to
be manufactured in countries where no tax exists, and
the paper produced therefrom superseding, in our own
colonies and other countries, British paper. The conse-
quence is that large quantities of the raw materials are
shipped to the United States; and this not only advances
the price here, but takes away the labour upon the same,
which would otherwise be performed in Ecgland.
It has been the especial policy of the country, in im-
posing fiscal burdens, totally to remove all those which
bore directly or even indirectly upon home manufac-
tures; so as to stimulate to the highest degree that in-
dustrial activity upon which so materially depended the
wealth and prosperity of the nation. With this view
the duties upon foreign woods for furniture, and carious
other articles which entered into our manufactures,
were repealed; and so far was this system carried out,
that even the small duty of five-sixteenths of a penny
per pound upon raw cotton was also abolished, because
it was supposed to affect injuriously the cotton manufac-
tures. And yet, while raw cotton is exempt from the
small duty which only amounted to five per cent. of its
actual value, the refuse of the same article, swept from the
floors of the cotton mills, and which heretofore was
burnt or thrown away, is, because it is devoted to a use-
ful purpose—the manufacture of paper, not less indis-
pensable than calico—burdened with a tax in the shape
of paper duty, which actually amounts to three hundred
per cent. on its value.