The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-25 00:00:00

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THE NEW LORD WARDEN OF
THE STANNARIES.

NATURE OF THE OFFICE, AND ADOLISIIMENT OF .ITS
PERQUISITES AND TAXES.
The announcement which some weeks ago The Sun
was the first to make, of the acceptance by his high-
ness Prince Albert of the Lord Wardenship of, the
Cornwall Stannaries, and the Vice-Stewardship of
the county in connection with that of Devon, having
received due affirmation in the Gazette, we now
proceed to notice the nature and dignity of these an-
cient offices, which have become so highly and ho-
nourably filled, in the person of the Prince, as well
as the benefit which he has conferred upon this great
mining county at large, by the handsome relinquish-
ment of the emoluments arising out of the taxes of
the. office.
The King or Prince of Wales, as Duke of Corn-
wall, has from a very remote period, levied a duty of
4s. 6d. per cwt., or 4/. a ton,* upon all the tin raised in
his Duchy ; the tin raised in Devonshire is subject to
a similar • duty of 1/. 13s. 4d. a ton. This duty has
hitherto produced from 16,0001. to 20,0001. a year:t
Now the net revenue it has yielded to the Crown has
been comparatively nothing, the produce being nearly
absorbed in the expenses of collection ; but the re-
strictions on the smelters for the sake of levying the
duty have been all along exceedingly vexatious, and
far more onerous than the amount of the tax. It has
long been acknowledged as an impost, which, not
levied or professed to be levied for the benefit of the
public, ought long ago to have been remitted in toto,
even if it had been necessary to compensate the officers
who hold places under the Duke's patent.
In a clever pamphlet, attributed to the pen of Sir
Charles Lenion4 we Lind the following passage re•••
ferring to the origin of the tax, and his opinion at that
time, that due season had arrived for its abolition
:
"The right from which this duty emanates," says Sir
Charles, " has every claim to respect on the ground
of antiquity,§ and rests on the faith of charters re-
peatedly renewed, from as far back as the reign of
King john ; the earliest .charters still recognising
the Stannaries as an ancient jurisdiction. But form-
erly large indulgences were given to the tinners in
return, for the tax raised on their labour. They were
protected from pleas. of villanage. and could be sued
only in their own Courts; they were exempt from
military service, that they might not be interrupted
in their work ; they were exempt from tolls at mar-
ket, and other taxes. Coneedimus ut Stannatores
shit quieti de muragiis, stallagiis taxationibus, et
con tri bution i bus.' "ll
They were allowed to divert streams, and cut fuel
for the use, of their works ; and subsequently they
were exempt from the duty on the transport of
woollens, to which Devon was subject, for the express
reason that they paid a larger tax on the staple article
oF their produce. These advantages, of course, have
long since ceased, and the burden of taxation has re-
mained unalleviated up to the present minute, till his
Highness, no doubt from proper presentations of the
case, has generously ceded to these hard-working
people gratuitous absolution from further grievance.
To what extent the grievance thus spoken of;
pressed upon the Stannary capitalists and workers,
we shall now proceed to show, evidenced by the vexa-
tious regulations under which, up to the present
moment, the tax has been collected.
Though the orders- sent to the miner were for tin of
a particular description, he was not allowed to smelt it
at once into the required form, but was obliged to
cast it, in the first instance, into blocks. This regula-
tio'n being complied with, it would have been expected
that the tin would be surveyed by officers at the smelt-
ing house, and the duty charged accordingly ; but in-
stead of this the miner was obliged to convey it as far
as sight or ten miles, to one of the coinage towns, where
it was, and where it only could he, coined : that is, a small
piece was struck off one of the corners, and the block
was impressed with the arms of the Duchy, and the
duty paid. .This useless ceremony having been gone:
through, the tin had frequently to be carried back,
before it could be shipped, to the very place where it
was taken to be coined Another grievance was,
that the coinage was only performed quarterly, so
that however pressing the demand might be in the in-
terim, the miner could not supply it. There Were also
certain fees payable on the coinage, particularly if it
took place during the Christmas and Lady-day quar-
ters ; so that the actual tax, if there were added to
the duty of 41. a ton, those charges, and reasonable
allowance made at the same time for the expense of
carriage, and the trouble and inconvenience to whith
the miner was put, the whole might be moderately
estimated at 51. a ton.
These duties, indeed, it is equitably observed by
M'CulloCh,"` were not unbearable, so long as we en-
joyed a sort of monopoly of the tin trade; then the
Duchy duty was comparatively little felt; but when
the time caine' that we had to sustain a competition
with Banca„ the Malay peninsula and other parts of
the East, which sank the price of tin about 50 per
cent., and which every day became more and more
evere, it became quite oppressive. Surely it was
not premature to consider that it was not to be en-
dured, that the existence of an ancient and important
branch of industry; supposed to afford employment to
about 20,000 persons: should be endangered, that the
Crown might gain die inconsiderable revenue which
it was in the habit of receiving into its co%rs.
OFFICE OF AND DIGNITY or LORI) WARDEN.
In the reign of Edward I. the Cornish miners were
seperated from those of Devonshire. Their Laws,
recited in Plowden's Commentaries, were further ex-
plained by 50 Edward 111., confirmed and enlarged
by Parliament, 8 Richard 11., 3 Edward IV., 1 Ed-
ward IV. 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, and 2 Elizabeth,
and the whole' SoCiety divided into four parts or Stan-
naries, under one general Warden, to do justice in law
and equity. The Lord Warden appoints a Vice-
Warden, to determine all Stannary disputes every
month ; he also constitutes four Stewards, one for each
of the precincts before-mentioned, who hold their
Courts every three weeks, and decide by juries of six
persons.

orne STANNARY COURTS : THEIR LAWS, &c.
The Stannary Courts are held at the end of every
three weeks before the Steward of each of the four
" Stannaries," or mining districts : in these Courts all
civil actions, in which either plaintiff or defendant is
a privileged tinner, are tried before the Steward and
a Jury : from these Courts an appeal lies to the Vice-
Warden, and from him as in other cases. The four
Stannary districts are Foy More, Blackmore, Ty-
warnhaile, and Penwith and Kerrier. The Stan-
nary laws are revised, or new ones enacted, by the
Duke and his Council, with the consent of what is
called the Stannary Parliament, consisting of '24
Stannators, gentlemen of property in the mining dis-
tricts, chosen six for each Stannary. The last Stan-
nary Parliament was held at Truro in 1752, and con-
tinued by adjournments to September 1753. The
Stannary laws have been repeatedly published. The
Stannary prison was at Lostwithiel, but by the re-
cent Act is now at Bodmin.ff The ancient records of
the Stannaries were kept at Lostwithiel till they were
burnt in the great civil war of Charles 1., in 1664, by
the Parliamentary army.
ADVANTAGES OF THE STANNARY COURTS.—The
advantages arising from the Stannary Courts are :
That all tinners and labourers in and about the Stan-
naries shall, during the time of their working therein,
bona fide, claim to be free from all jurisdiction but
that of the Stannary Courts, except in cases affecting
land, life, and limb. The Vice-Warden's Court is
held once a month, and is a court of equity for all
matter; relating to the tin-mines and trade : no writ
of error lies to the Courts at Westminster, but there is
an appeal to the Warden, and from him to the Duke
in council, or when the- Duchy is vacant, to the King
in council.

OFFICERS OF TOE ,STANNART COURTS.—The
mediate government of the county is vested in the
Duke, who has his Chancellor, Attorney-General, and
Solicitor-General, and his Court of Exchequer. He
also appoints the Sheriffs. Mr. Pemberton, and other
eminent legal men, at present fill these offices. We
had omitted to mention with regard to the tin-dufr,
that before the war of 1793 it had amounted to 14,0061.
per annum.
Stannary, according to the etymologists, is a de-
rivative from the Latin word for Tin, which is Stai-
n= ; this, in the aboriginal Irish dialect, is stern; in
the Welsh, ystaen; and in French the word assumes
the form of Main.

* Sec an able paper on the " Tin Trade," in the Spectator
of Aegust 25, 1t432.
t Vide APCullock's Dictionary of Commerce, sub articolo.
$ Pamphlet on the Tin Duties. Bvo. Ridgway, 1833.
pp. 5-6.
§ Lansdowne M.SS. vol. 1,215, page 151. " The King's
prerogative arises from the silver mixed with the tin, Which is
a royal metal, and the King might claim all of it."
11 Vide Charter of Liberties, 33 Edward 1., Charter 17
Edward 111., and others.
Pamphlet on the Tin Duties, ut supra.
See Dictionary of Trade and commerce.
ft t 6th and ith Wm. IV. cap. 106,

LLOYD'S SHIPPING
VEsekLs S roKEN WITH.--The Onsgrnalar, Batavia to
Amsterdam, Jan. 2, lat. 27 S., lon. 52 E., by the Atlas,arrived
off Falcombe. John, Henry Yates, Cape of Good Hope to
Singapore. Dee. 12, lat. 2 S. In. 1 E.. ; S;
arah, of London,
from Bombay, Feb, 26, lat. 1So
lon. 21 WS; City of London,
Mauritius to London, 3d ult., lat. 2 N., lon. 23; Auverde,
of Bayonne, 2d inst.,
lat
ar-
rived at Falmouth.Diana, bound west, by the. Columbia,
steamer, arrived at 1..
ier.p04061., loLna.wlso6n,,Liverpool to Buenos
by the Integrity,
Ayres, Feb 15, on the Line, lon. 9; Josephine, Brewer, New
York, April 6, lat. 49, lon. 10 ; Mary Seaton, London to Mon-
treal, saute day ; Pailas, from Cork, 9th, lat. 30, ion. 9, by
the Affiance, arrived at Liverpool. Britannia, steamer, Liver-
pool to Ha'ifax, 9th inst., lat. 49, lon. 22, by the Road's, ar.
rived at Liverpool. Reliance, from the South Seas, 21it ult.
lat. 36 N., lon. 26 W., by the Lotus, arrived at Cork. Qyde,
Liverpool to Bombay (out 40 days), lat. 3 5, lon. '2l W.,
by the Dispatch, armed in the River.

The Lords Commissieners of the Admiralty haye
ordered twelve flat-bottomed boats to be fitted and 'aent'to
China in such transports and ships as can stow thens.• ,The
Lord Lowther is to be furnished with three sr four from Dockyard. The Agincourt- and resistance
wiil
each take a couple.— United Service Gazette.