The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-07 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

The War Department having decided on employ-
ing in the public establishments those wounded and
disabled soldiers who have recently been formed
into a body called commissionaires in the metropolis,
the Commander-in-Chief, who highly approves the
proposed plan, has issued an order directing that
those commanding officers who may be in want of
messengers or office-keepers are to apply to the
Adjutant-General of the Forces, when a selection
will be made from the commissionaires, one of
whom will be appointed to the office required.
A detachment of 55 gunners, belonging to the
depot brigade of Royal Artillery, left Woolwich on
Monday for Gibraltar, and other detachments are
under orders for Malta and Corfu.
Capt. Comes, Royal Engineers, is a passenger
from Tasmania by the incoming mail. Mr. Bovell,
of the Commissariat, has proceeded to Swan River,
and is succeeded at Hobart Town by Mr. Strick-
land. The Nourmahal, with a detachment of the
65th Regiment, and emigrants, from England,
arrived at Auckland, New Zealand, on the 6th of
December. The Shooting Star, from Liverpool,
arrived at Auckland on the lst of December; the
Shalimar, also from Liverpool, arrived on the 23d
of December.

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" Inland Revenue, Somerset House, W.C.,
March 1.

" May it please your Lordships,—titre have ob-
sex ved in the course' of the recent debates on the
budget several references to observations made by
us in our annual reports on the subject of the paper
duties.

"It has been inferred from the passages alluded
to that our experience of the effeot of the paper duty
does not bear out the statement of the Chancellor
of the Excheqer in his statement on the 10th of
February, namely, ' that the Board of Inland Re-
venue are completely agreed that there ought to
be a repeal of the duty.
" This inference, however, is not correct. We
beg leave to state that it is our deliberate opinion
that the paper duty (to use the words of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer) is rapidly becoming un-
tenable,' and we hope to satisfy your lordships that
this opinion is not inconsistent with those which we
have previously expressed on the subject.
" It is no doubt true that in our first and second
reports we noticed, as a circumstance which distin-
guishes the paper duty from other duties or Excise,
that the regulations under which the revenue from
this source is collected are such as to impose very
slight restrictions during the process of manufac-
ture.

" Your lordships are aware that tot. intervention
of the Excise officer takes place at a paper-mill, for
the first time, when the paper is ready LAe sent
out. It is then his business to weigh ikelo charge
the duty ams.ording to the weight„and to place
round the reams labels and wrappers denoting that
the charge has been made, and distinguishing them
from such as have not been brought under his in-
spection.
"These simple regulations leave the paper-maker
comparatively free to adopt the best and most eco-
nomical modes of working, and he can scarcely
assert, as the malsters and distillers do, that the
cost of production is increased, or the quality of the
manufactured article impaired, by the fetters im-
posed upon upon him for fiscal purposes.
" We considered it was right to point out thi
distinguishing characteristic of the paper duty, as
an important consideration in any discussion re-
specting the maintenance of it as a source of reve-
nue, and as being a matter of which few persons
besides those practically conversant with the ope-
ration of the revenue laws could be expected to hive
any knowledge. But our observations were limited
to this one point, namely, the freedom of theprocess
of manufacture from Excisa regulations, and were
not intended to convey any opinion upon the wider
question whether the general effects of the duty
were or were not as pernicious as has been repre-
sented by the advocates for its repeal.
" In our third report (that of last year), we were
compelled to draw your lordships' attention to the
great and increasing embarrassments in which we
were involved in collectin4 this tax. We pointed
out that this state of things was attributable in a
great measure to the condemnation of the duty by
a resolution of the House of Commons ; and we
might, perhaps, have added, that the evils of which
we complained had- been accumulating for many
years previously, under the prevalence of a general
impression that the duty on paper would be given
up on the very first available opportunity. We
endeavoured to show how impossible it was under
these circumstances to apply to Parliament for
power to subject new branches of the trade to Ex-
cise regulations, and at the same time how unjust
it was to allow to one an exemption from that duty
and survey which alone prevented a rival branch
from successful competition in the market.
"As an example, we selected the case of the card
makers and the pasteboard-makers; we might have
specified several others, which have lately been
brought to your Lordships' notice.
" Without going into the details (which are to be
found in pages 13 and 14 of our Third Annual Re-
port), it may be sufficient to state that card-makers
are exempt from Excise survey, while pasteboard-
makers are subject to it ; that the distinction be-
tween the articles produced by the two traders is
merely nominal, and that it is scarcely an exag-
geration to say that we are levying a duty on A,
while we allow B to send out goods, precisely simi-
lar in nature, without any interference from the
revenue officer.

" It may be said that the remedy is either to.
place the card-makers under survey er to exempt
the pasteboard-makers ; but, besides the reasons
above referred to, which prevent us from adopting
the farmer alternative in a case of paper duty, we
must frankly own that we believe it to be impos-
sible at the present day to subject to the supervi-
sion of the exciseman any class of traders who have
hitherto been free from it; and, on the other hand,
if the pasteboard makers were to be declared
exempt, we should have to encounter the loud and
well-found( d complaints of their rivals, those paper
makers, namely, who make pasteboard at their
mills, and who are necessarily under Excise survey,
so long as a duty on paper exists.
"'The pasteboard-makers, again, come before us
in the character of injured parties, when they com-
pare the treatment which they receive with that
of the scaleboard-maker. Pasteboard it seems is
the natural rival of scaleboard. Left free from
extraneous influences, these two articles might per-
haps maintain the struggle for supremacy without
any decided advantage on either side; but the weight
of Excise duty and survey, which is brought to
bear upon pasteboard alone, gives to scaleboard an
easy triumph in the very same field in which paste-
board formerly obtained the preference. Boxes,
for instance, of various kinds, and especially hat-
boxes, were originally made of pasteboard, a more
suitable material for the purpose than scaleboard.
Since the duty has been levied on the former, and
not on the lat ter, a trade which entirely supported
a large manufactory near Oxford has ceased to
exist; and it is asked, not without reason, whether
it is just to select arbitrarily for taxation one of
two articles so similar in their nature and in the
purposes to which they are applicable.
" The grievances of the pasteboard-makers do not
end here. They appear again with the mare im-
portant complaint that the duty on pasteboard is
seriously detrimental to the exporters of certain
light manufactures which are packed in ornamented
boxes for the foreign market, and that it actually
has the effect of compelling the British merchant
to import for this purpose boxes made in Germany,
instead of those made at home.
" Your lordships are aware that no drawback can
be given in such a case, because, in the first place,
the amount of duty originally paid on the paper
composing the pasteboard cannot be ascertained,
and, in the second place, supposing that an approxi-
mate rate could be fixed upon so as to obviate this
difficulty, it would still be impracticable to obtain
the tare of such boxes when filled with goods ready
for shipment. That a close examination would be
necessary is proved by the remarkable fact that an
applicant on this subject recently forwarded to us
a box as a specimen of those which he used, and
which turned out to be made of scaleboard, an article
on which, as before observed, no duty is levied.
The duty, therefore, on pasteboard boxes, and on
slips of pasteboard on which certain goods are
wound, or to which they are attached, is a burden
from which our manufacturers cannot be relieved
so long as the paper duty is maintained, and is
no doubt, as alleged by them, an impediment in the
close competition which they encounter in the
foreign and colonial markets. Their endeavour to
escape from this difficulty by importing foreign
boxes (subject at the Custom-house to an ad valorem
duty, which is not an equivalent to that of the
Excise), while it affords but an imperfect remedy
to the exporters, is an additional cause of complaint
against the unequal operation of the revenue laws
from the makers of paper and pasteboard in our
own country.
" The above instances are some of those which
have been most recently pressed upon our notice, as
illustrating the unequal incidence of the paper
duty, and we bare found it impossible either to deny
the existence of the evils complained of or to sug-
gest any remedy short of the entire repeal of the
duty.
" Numerous other examples might be adduced of
the same unhappy effect from this tax ; but the ex-
planations necessary to make them intelligible
would lead us into too much detail for our present
purpose. We content ourselves with reminding
your lordships of the incessant demands of the sta-
tioners to have the same drawback on the waste
cuttings of writing-paper as is allowed on the cut-
tings of envelopes, of the impossibility of granting
this without opening the door to the payment of
drawback upon every small piece of paper produced
for that purpose, and of the absurdity to which the
concession would thus reduce us. Your lordships
may remember that all our difficulties in this re-
spect have arisen from an attempt to restore the
balance between the envelopes made at a paper-mill
and those made by stationers, disturbed as it was
to the disadvantage of the latter by their waste
cuttings being stNect to the duty, while those

occurring at the mill are reconverted into pulp be-
fore the charge of duty is made. It is impossible
to deny that the principle on which we thus acted
is of more extended application; but we have else-
where explained to your lordships how impracti-
cable it would be to attempt to carry it into effect.
"Equally difficult is it to defend upon prin-
ciple the subjection of artificial parchment to
the paper duty, while the true parchment is
free ; yet it is absolutely necessary to maintain
(as we did in the Court of Exchequer) that a
process of manufacture admitting of no other de-
scription than that which would be given of paper-
making must be treated precisely as paper-making,
and it is clear that the abandonmentof our claim for
duty in the one case would necessarily lead to the
same result in the other. We should otherwise
gladly have abstained from interfering with this
new and ingenious production, which we fear has
been ettirely suppressed by the judgment which
placed it under the revenue laws.
" It would be a very long tesk to enumerate all
the cases falling within the class to which we have
hitherto confined our remarks; cases, namely, in
which the excise survey and duty attaches to one
description of manufactured article, while another,
its competitor in the market, is left entirely free.
In many of them the evil is apparently trifling,
though not so in reality ; and even in those which
we have noticed the importance of the inequalities
in the incidence of the duty will not be duly esti-
mated, except by those who are conversant withthe
effect of very small differences in profit in the
course of trade. But we have probably said enough
to prove our concurrence in the Chancellor of the
Ekelequer's allegations, for we cannot perceive a
mot., untenable position for the heads of a revenue
department than that in we are placed when,
in answer to to-initial persons wilt)se trade
is annihilated by our exaction of a duty from which
their competitors are exempt, we can only say that
such is the necessary consequence of the existence
of the tax. It is this unfortunate effect of the paper
duty which so distinguishes it for evil ; and it is to
this that we limit our observations on the present
occasion. Indeed, such inequality of pressure as
we have mentioned appears to afford a more valid
ground of objection than the mere amount of pres-
sure which is insisted upon with so much earnest-
ness and ability by publishers, newspaper proprie-
tors, and other advocates of the repeal of the paper
duty.
" With the statments:and:aremments of these
gentlemen your lordships are Lubtless familiar,
and at all events can require no assistance from us
in order to appreciate their importance and their
bearing upon the question under consideration.
We have, &c.,

" C. PRESSLY.
" C. J. HERRIES.
"A. D. GORDON.
" The Lords Commissioners of her
Majesty's Treasury."

THE COLLIERY EXPLOSION AT

BUI?,RADON:

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, Monday Night.
Since yesterday evening not more than six bodies
have been got out of the Burradon pit. Last night
the " styth, ' a sort of chokedamp, beat the explor-
ing parties:back about 85 yards, and they have not
been making any great advances towards the face
of the whole coal to-day. The Government Inspec-
tor of Mines, Mr. Dunn, informed me this afternoon
at the pit that it has been pretty conclusively
established that 80 men and boys have been lost ;
and, as the bodies of 60 have been found and sent
Co bank, 20 more have yet to be recovered. It is
supposed that several bodies arc lying under falls
of coal and stone that came from the roof of the
mine at the Moment of the explosion. The carcasses
of 20 dead horses have to be brought to bank yet,
which will have to be done as speedily as possible,
as they are causing a horrible stench in the Mine,
so much so that Mr. Davison, Mr. M'Allister, and
Mr. Thompson, surgeons, have had to go down into
the pit and employ disinfectants to improve its
sanitary condition.
The bodies of the two wastemen, Friar and Jeffer-
son, who went down the pit after the explosion,
but who entered the " waste " and perlihed by the
after damp, were found between 1 and 2o'clock this
morning. They had not got three yards before
they were overpowered and killed. It is supposed
that they had rushed in to do something with an
instrument that regulates the air, as they were
found only a few yards from it. One of the bodies
picked up this morning was blown into four pieces ;
and the head of a horse killed by the explosion was
found 50 yards from the carcass.
Mr. Reed, the coroner for South Northumberland,
as reported in The Alun, opened an inquest on Sa-
turday night on some of the bodies, and adjourned
it until Friday. He held an inquest upon the
body •f a boy named Golightly this afternoon,
which, with others, has been brought out of the
pit since Satuiday. The inquest was held in the
colliery-office ; and to appearance—and, in fact, I
was informed such was the case—several of the jury-
men were persons employed about the pit. A more
lame and inconclusive investigation was never at-
tempted to be made into such a fearful occurrence
as the one recorded, which has destroyed 80 lives.

It is to be hoped that the inquest on Fri lay will
go more fully into evidence reported below. Only
two overmen belonging to the pit were examined
today. Mr. Dunn, the Government Inspector, Mr.
Foster, Mr. Carr, and other gentlemen connected,
with mines were in the room during the ialrestiga
tion. The first witness examined was -

morning.that
H e came he w
Wm. Kerkley, overman at Burradon Colliery,
who
said aesu
tdaotw n 8 the
epki t. airs te Friday
all the workings in the first cast bank before he
came out, which was the place where he believed
the first explosion took place. He was down from
1 o'clock until 8, and while down he found., the air
good and free. There could not bo less, in his be-
lief, than 35,000 cubic feet of air per minute pass-
ing through the workings. When he visited the
pit., according to his estimation, there was sufficient
air for the safety of the mine. At the particular
place where the first explosion occurred he saw
Wm. Williams working in the whole coal. 'There
was no indication of gas at that place. Gas escapes
from the whole coal at times very unexpectedly.
When ho left the pit at 8 o'clock everything ap-
peared to be satisfactory and safe.
After some further evidence, the jury returned a
verdict that Golightly had died from the effects of
an explosion in Burradon pit, but that there was
no evidence to show how it originated.