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

/7_7

PRICE 4D. STAMPED, SP.

REPEAL OF THE LONDON COAL

DUTIES.

DEPUTATION TO THE HOME SECRETARY
Yesterday a deputation of members of Parlie
ment and manufacturers had an interview with the
Right Hon. Spencer Walpole, Secretary of State
for the Home Department, at the Home-office,
Whitehall, on the subject of the repeal of the Lon-
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 De Lacy
Evans, M.P., Mr. R. Hanbury, M.P., Mr. J. Wyld,
,M.P., Mr. H. B. Sheridan; M.P., Mr. T. Buncombe,
`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. Itolt (Blackwell), Mr. F. P. Barlow
(Herts), Mr. C. Swaisland (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. Char-
rington (Mile-end), Mr. A. Manners (Whitechapel),
Mr. J. Godly (Whitechapel), Mr. F. Hicks (White-
chapel), Mr. J. Cunnington (Brentford), Mr. R.
Charles, jun., (Shadwell), Mr. Pott (Messrs. Francis
and Scott, Nine Elms), Mr. R. Howard (Stratford),
Mr. A. Kintrea (Secretary), &e.
Mr. WYKEHAM 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 tentage 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
£2,400T0r 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
hld been submitted, was of opinion that the Bd.
duty granted by the charter of JanieS 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. WYKEHAN MARTIN—Both.
Mr. WALPOLE—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 question of the
nursery for our seamen.
Mr. WALPOLE—I have a great respect for the
opinion of Mr. Lloyd, and I should like to see it.
The deputation then presented their memorial:—
"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 kajesty'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 en
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 Id., 4d., and Bd. per ton, viz. :
" The ld., 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 4d. 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 clairried under a charter of Tames 1., and
when it shall have satisfied the debt contracted upon its
security, and also a further sum of £15,000, 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
£2.50,000 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,6s, 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
ten.
" 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 Id. 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
this tax, as Wile, 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--
ceases of manufacturing production ; many of your memo-
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 which pro-
vision has been made for specially exempting from all dues
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 1854,
appointed to investigate the affairs of the corporation, re-
ported decidedly against the continuance of these dues.
"Your memorialists therefore pray 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. SAUNDERS, as acting chairman of the coma
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 meat. 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

S PA PE

,
general consumer and the manuf*prer, t!__. ~ - f--
\-
~
was a great hardship; but the ve mas,o44her 0. ~
hardship to the shipping interest, owing to,-iltAilko-4.
)
that the shipowner could not lweiik.bullAiti4tie ki:ir.q
produced the civic certificate tKat. all Ilte(1(74:/
duties had been satisfied. The Home -Sotreigif/..../
himself had. expressed an opinion tliit thfleoals )
duties ought to be abolished, if they could be -dis-
pensed with. (A laugh). But the corporation
adhered to the duties on the plea of property.
Mr. WALPOLE—I think the first question is, can ...
the coal duties be dispensed with by the:corporation
consistently with their engagements?
Mr. SAUNDERS—The corporation say they want
it on account of the Cannork-street improvements.
Such, I believe, is not the case. It may be said to
deal with the subject now is prospective legislation.
But I think that the whole of our ditties are in a
very confused state, and the whole thing must be
dealt with, if not now, at a very early period. As
to old vested rights, they have been altered, and
extended, and prolonged ; chaldrons have been
converted into tons, and various acts have been
passed in order to perpetuate those duties. The act
to extend the area of the corporate jurisdiction to 20
miles was brought in under the title of "An Act to
facilitate the Measurement of Coals." Just within
the radius a man pays £4OO a year for coal duty ;
a manufacturer living within a few miles off pays
nothing ;he is exempt from the duties. We ask
that these duties should be removed.

Mr. DOULTON pointed out that Lambeth contri-
buted to the extent of £12,000 a-year to the City
of London without receiving an iota of benefit.
And with regard to many trades they must either
remove from the district or consent to continue
their trade with a reduced profit.
Mr. WILD, M.r., in reference to the objection
that if the coal dues were abolished there would be
no fund applicable for metropolitan improvements,
reminded the Home Secretary that the Board of
Works had power under their act to tax the whole
metropolitan community for such works.
Mr. W. WILLIAMS, M.P., considered it a great
hardship that the manufacturers of London and its
neighbourhood, who had to pay a higher price for
their coals than the manufacturers in the coal dis-
tricts, should be compelled to pay this tax in addi-
tion.

Mr. Secretary A.VALPOLE remarked that the
question was by no means so easy of solution as at
first sight might be supposed. He quite concurred
with the deputation that upon the generally ad-
mitted principles of taxation this tax was not a
sound one so far as it was imposed-upon the manu-
facturers of the metropolis and its neighbourhood
and the poor people to whom coals formed one of
the necessaries of life. At the same time, seeing
that it was a tax that was to continue only until
1862, it might fairly be urged that it would be un-
wise in him to attempt to deal with it in 1859.
That was the first point that struck him. But
supposing that objection got rid of, the question
would arise, how was he to make provision for the
different charges now resting upon the tax ? Must
it not be continued, at all events, to the extent of
those charges unless a proper substitute could be
found. And upon that point, as they were
aware, it was by no means an easy matter to
fix upon any tax which would be accepted
as a proper substitute for another—because
after all, that would be but a mere 'shifting of the
burden. The next point was as to that portion of
the tax which went to augment the revenues of t!te
City of London. What the City said was :—" This
is one of those dues which have belonged to us a
very long time, which. have been given to us by
Acts of Parliament, and you are now proposing to
take away by one Act of Parliament that which
former Acts of Parliament gave to us." That was
the third point. And he would invite the attention
of his hon. friend Mr. Williams to these considera-
tions, because he knew, as well as anybody, what
littlechance there would be of satisfactorily solving
these questions. It would, however, be his (Mr.
Walpole's) duty carefully to go through all the
Acts of Parliament bearing upon the question, and
to examine all the rights that the City of London
or any other parties might be suppw ei to luxe
upon the proceeds of this tax, or any portion of it ;
and having done so, to consider whether he could
properly recommend the Government to legislate
upon it. It was his intention to examine very
carefully the Acts of Parliament under which these
dues were originally granted, and by virtue of
which they continued to be levied, and for this
reason he was anxious to have the opinion which
had been given by Mr. Lloyd, and he should also
be glad if the committee would furnish him with
any other information they might have which
might tend to elucidate the subject. If they would
furnish him with these, he assured them that the
question should have his best attention, and, having
given it that attention, he hcped to be able to
form a sound and just opinion.
After some remarks from Mr. W. WILLI.Ams and
Mr. DICKENSON,

Mr. LOCKE, M.P. (Southwark), expressed a hope
on the part of many of his constituents-who were
deeply interested in this question, that it should be
dealt with in the forthcoming bill for reforming
the corporation of London. (Hear, hear.) The last
time the question was before the right hon. gentle-
man was upon the bill introduced by the late
Government, in which there was no clause which
dealt with it.

Mr. Secretary WALPOLE—Except indirectly. In
that way the clause relating to metagc dealt with it.
Mr. LocKE—Yes, indirectly,. but nothing was
said in that bill directly about the coal dues, and
in consequence those who desired to be heard
against them in the committee were placed in an
unfair position. Ho hoped that that would not bs
the case in the coming
The deputation then retired.

METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS.

The weekly meeting of the Metropolitan Board
of Works was held yesterday, in the Council Cham-
ber, Guildhall ; Mr. J. Tlni-aites in the chair.
The financial statement was presented, which
showed a total general balance of £243,917 4s. 7d.

THE MAIN DRAINAGE OF THE METROPOLIS.
A deputation from the parish of St. Martin•in-
the-Fields, headed by Mr. Churchwarden nose,
attended the board to present a memorial on tho
subject of the main drainage of the metropolis. The
memorial set forth that the vestry had heard that
the Metropolitan Board of Works were about to
expend three millions for main drainage of the
metropolis, which outlay the vestry had a strong
opinion would be a useless expenditure, and would
lead to unnecessary and oppressive taxation. Mr.
Rose spoke in support of the memorial, urging
that the board were about to execute very exten-
sive works without proper information, and to
adopt a plan both defective in principle and details.

The niemorial was received-, but a motion for
entering it on the minutes was negatived by a
majority of 19 to 15.

TENDERS FOR THE NORTHERN HIGH LEVEL
SEWER FOR THE MAIN DRAINAGE.

The next business before the board was to receive
tenders for contracts for the construction of the
northern high level sewer for the main drainage of
the metropolis.
The CHAIRMAN then proceeded to open the
tenders, which were for the undermentioned sums
respectively :—G. P. Hocking £276,200 ; John
Wilson, X 266,725 ; Crook and Son, 11259,855 ;
G. Myers, £238,760; J. Jay, £234,130 ;
Webb, £202,808; F. J. Wood, 11195,650 ; R. Batter-
bury, £191,000; J. and E. Bird, .C 189,399 ; W.
Hill, £186,875; Dethick and Thist, £186,000; J.
Diggell, £185,000 ; Lemon and Bird, £181,370;
W. H. Roe, £180,433 ; Baldock and Webster,
£169,000; Moxon, £152,680.
The tenders having been opened, the board re-
solved itself into a committee, from which the pub -
lic were for some time excluded. On our re-ad-
sion,
Mr. WOOLRYCII, the secretary, read the report
of the committee, recommending that Mr. Moxon's
tender be accepted, subject to inquiries as to his
sureties and Ins ability to carry out the work.

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