The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-18 00:00:00

PRICE 4D• STAMPED, SD.

REPEAL OF THE _LONDON COAL
DUTIES.-

DEPUTATION TO THE HOME SECRETARY.
Yesterday 'a deputation of members of Parlia-
ment and manufacturers had an interview with the
Right Hon. Spencer Walpole, Secretary of State
for the Home Departuient, at the Home office,
Whitehall, on the subjeekof .the repeal of tho• Lone
don coal duties. Among - the members of the
deputation, were Mr. W. Martin, M.P., Lord
Goderich, M.P., Mr. J. Locke, M.P., Mr. W.
Roupell, M.P., Mr. Williams, M.P., Sir Dc Lacy
Evans, M.P., Mr. R. Hanbury, M.P., Mr. J. Wyld,
M.P., Mr. H. B. Sheridan, M.P., Mr. T. Duncombe,
M.P., Mr. C. Buxton, M.P., Mr. J. Whatman,
-M.P., Sir W. Codrington, M.P., A. S. Ayrton,
Esq., M.P., Mr. T. H. Saunders (Dartford), Mr.
W. Joynson (St. Mary Cray), Mr. J. Dickinson
(Herts), Mr. P. Rolt (Blackwall), Mr. F. P. Barlow
(Herts), Mr. C. S waisland (Crayford), Mr. H. Squire
(Mayor of Hertford), Mr. T. Donkin (Bermondsey),
Mr. J. Oustler (Bermondsey), Mr. F. Doulton
(Lambeth), Mr. A. Fraser (Messrs. Truman and
Hanbury), Mr. S. Green (Lambeth), Mr. C. C Char-
rington (Mile-end), Mr. A. Manners (Whitechapel),
Mr. J. Godly (Whitechapel),.Mr. F. Hicks (White-
chapel), Mr. J. Cunnington (Brentford), Mr. It.
Charles, jun., (Shadwell), Mi.-Pott (Messrs. Francis
and Scott, Nine Elms), Mr. 'H. Howard (Stratford),
Mr. A. Kintrea (Secretary), &c.
Mr. WYKEIp.X MARTIN, M.P. (Kent), in. intro-
ducing• the deputation, said the coal tax was very
onerous, extending, as it did, not only -over Lon-
don, but over an area 20 miles round it, and affect-
ing consumers- and every labourer within the dis-
trict. Every labourer, it has been calculated, paid
2s. 4d. a year to the coal tax directly ; and when it
was considered that the article went through the
hands of several dealers, each charging, and
some of them highly, an interest, or per centage on
the outlay, it might fairly be said that every
labourer in the district contributed, at the least,
two days of his industry for the purposes of the
City of London. The district, it must be remem-
bered, included Hertford, and extended nearly to
the Reigate station on the Brighton Railway, in-
cluding districts that were peculiarly agricultural,
and having nothing whatever to do with London.
But the coal duties had a heavier effect on the
manufacturing interests of London. A gentleman
present paid £1,500 a year to the coal duty ; others
paid £4OO, £350, and other large sums. Some of
these contributors lived at Dartford and St. Mary
Cray ; and the town of Brentford, being a poor
population, might be fairly said to refrain from an
outlay for their own sanitary improvements owing
to their obligation to pay a tax amounting to
£2,400 for the improvement of the City of London.
It had been said that this was not a time for inter-
fering in this matter. He thought it was; for
although it appeared on the first blush that the
duties would in a few years die out, this was really
not the case. Mr. Lloyd, to whom the whole case
hid been submitted, was of opinion that the Bd.
duty granted by the charter of James I. and the
4d. duty secured by an act of William and Mary to
replace the Orphans' Fund, would revive after 1862.
Mr. Secretary WALPOLE—Does he mean that
both will revive ? One will, I know.
Mr. WYKEHAM MARTIN—Both.
Mr. WALroLE—Have you the opinion ?
The Secretary (Mr. KINTREA)—Not here.
Mr. WALPOLE—If I had that it would enable me
to trace out the acts of Parliament.
The Secretary—l will give you what I have ;
but it was more of an oral opinion.
Mr. WALPOLE—What Mr. Wykeham Martin
said was that the whole of the acts had been sub-
mitted to Mr. Lloyd's opinion, and that Mr.
Lloyd's opinion was that the duty of Bd. and the
4d. duty would revive after 1862.
Mr. MARTIN—It was so. We are advised that
the duty on coals brought in by railways will
cease ; and then we shall have a differential duty
in favour of railway coals and against sea-borne
coals, which would bring up the questiox of the
nursery for our seamen.
Mr. WALPOLE—I have a great respect for the
cipinion of Mr. Lloyd, and I should like to see it.
The deputation then presented their men orial:—
"To THE RIGHT HON. HORATIO SPENCER WALPOLE,
M.P., HER MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR HOME AFFAIRS.
" The Memorial of a Committee of Manufacturers and
others in London and the surrounding Provincial
Districts, subject to the London Coal Tax,
" Sheweth,
" That your memorialists having been given to under-
stand that it is the intention of her Majesty's Government
to introduce in the ensuing session of Parliament a bill
affecting the affairs of the corporation of the City of Lon-
don, desire respectfully to make some representations
respecting the coal dues collected by the said corporation,
in the hope that the Government may be pleased to make
provision In the bill tor the abolition of these dues.
"That your memorialists are of opinion that the proper
time for dealing permanently with this subject is the pre-
sent, when a measure is being framed for regulating the
powers and authority of the said corporation, seeing that
the whole amount of the tax is collected by that body, a
large portion of which they retain for their own purposes
and not for public improvements, towards which they only
contribute £20,000 per annum in paying the interest an
loans raised for constructing Cannon-street, and 12-13ths
of which dues they claim to be entitled to in 1862.
" That your memorialists respectfully submit that it is
almost impossible to disregard the anomalous and incon-
sistent character of this tax, composed of three several
duties of ld., 4d., and Bd. per ton, viz. :
" The Id., originally created to build the Coal Exchange,
is now granted in perpetuity by the Bth and 9th of her pre-
sent Majesty on inland as well as seaborne coal within 20
miles of the General Post Office.
" The 441. was granted for purposes long since satisfied ;
and in 1862 this portion of the tax will, according to the
sth and 6th of William and Mary, cap, 10, and the Bth and
9th Victoria, cap. 101, only be levied on seaborne coal, and
not upon that brought by railway, thus giving rise to a
most unfair preference.
" The Bd. is claimed under a charter of James 1., and
when it shall have satisfied the debt contracted upon its
security, and also a further sum of L 35,000, for the con-
tinuation of Cranbourne-street to Covent Garden, it will in
1862 revert to the corporation by the Ist and 2d Will. IV.,
cap. 76, clause 61, but it will then be leviable only upon sea-
borne coal, as in the case of the 4d. duty.
" That thus the corporation of the City of London will
in 1862 be entitled to tax all seaborne coal from Staines to
the Medway to the extent of Is. per ton, which, estimating
the consumption then to reach 5,000,000 of tons (it being
now about 4,500,000), will give that body for its own pur-
poses an annual gross revenue from this source alone of
£250,000 sterling-, in addition to which there is the singular
fact that by the 6th Geo. IV., cap. 111, and the Ist and 2d
Will. IV., cap. 76, clause 65, the corporation will in 1862 be
entitled to levy a duty of Is. 3d. per ton on all coals brought
on the Grand Junction or Paddington Canals within a dis-
tance of 20 miles of London, and at that period railway coal
will be wholly exempt from any tax excepting the Id. per

tcn.
" That your memorialists cannot believe that her Ma-
jesty's Government will permit such a state of things to
continue ; and as the liabilities upon the Bd. and ld. duties
will, it is admitted, be satisfied before 1862, your memo-
rialists submit that legislation should not be delayed unne-
cessarily until then.
" That with respect to the balance due from the Bd. duty
to the Consolidated Fund it is stated in a parliamentary re-
turn from the office of Public 'Works, &c., signed by Sir
Benjamin Hall, and dated the Ist of January in the present
year, that the amount then was £283,790 ss. sd. ; but it
having been questioned whether this was the actual net
balance due to the Consolidated Fund, including interest,
your memorialists communicated with the Office of Public
Works, but the information requested has been refused.
" That your memorialists had an opportunity of stating
to you during the last session of parliament the =policy of
b this tax, as being raised upon an article of primary neces-
sity to the poor, the unfairness of taxing for the mainte-
nance of the corporaration of the City- of London, or the
metropolitan improvements, the provincial districts beyond
the metropolitan area, and the peculiar hardship and in-
equality with which it bears on those both within and be-
yond the metropolitan area, who use coal in various pro-
cesses of manufacturing production • many of your me mo-
rialists, besides bearing their full share of all imperial and
local taxation, paying towards this tax as much as £4OO or
£5OO per annum, in addition to which your memorialists
feel the injustice of being so unequally burdened, as com-
pared with their manufacturing competitors situate beyond
the taxed area, and beg-to point to'precedents in whiacll d h puroes
vision has been made for specially exempting from
and charges coal used by manufacturers, as the case of the
coal tax of the city of Dublin, &c.
" And, finally, that your memorialists beg to draw espe-
cial attention to the fact that the royal commission of 1851,
appointed to investigate the affairs of theetohesero,dtuioens., re-
ported decidedly against the continuance of
"Your memorialists therefore pr.ay that the proposed Cor-
poration Bill may contain provisions for the extinction of
these several dues.
" Signed on behalf of the Committee,
"THOMAS HARRY SAUNDERS Chairman.
A. KINTREA, Secretary.
"2, Adelaide-place, London Bridge, Dec. 17, 18,58.,,
Mr. &in NDERS, as acting chairman of the corn
mittee, said that owing to their distance from the
coals fields, they, as manufacturers, stood in a dis-
advantageous position. Coals were as much a
necessary of life as moat. There was no substitute
for coals in London ; and the duty on coals used in
manufactures interfered with the employment of
labour. Some of the manufacturers here paid as
much as from £6OO to £l,OOO a year towards the
coal tax ; and while in Liverpool and other places
coals were procured at 6s. a ton, in London they
cost 16s. to 205., and sometimes, manufacturers
having now to consume their own smoke, use con-
siderably more Welch coals, bearing a far higher
Price, owing to their giving out no smoke. To the
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