The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-24 00:00:00

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THE DUCHY OF -LANCASTER.
We have received "(says the 'Dublin Mail) from a Lon-
don correspondent the following. verilinn of the rpp_ent nn-

k/A ••••••• aIVIII V . 151U1.1 Ul LUV ICU... 141,
pointmentsin the administration of the affairs of this de-
partment. It comes from a hand likely to be well in-
formed, and carries an air of vraisemblance well calculated
to obtain credit :

u"e
eTnh. e DHuecrhir
aj sLt}a,nhcalss
beenter is
m the
u cprivatep
pproperty
to
fif
nt hde.
ing, that, although she had a nominal rental of £28,000
per annum, she received but £lO,OOO , and as she was
aware that the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall, the pro-
perty of the Prince of Wales, has been augmented from
£16,000 to £60,000 per annum, under the management
of certain commissioners, who did not change with minis-
ters, and of whom Sir James Graham ani Lord Lincoln
were the leadim; men, her Majesty thought it would be
advisable to try the same experiment with the revenue of
the Duchy of Lancaster, and therefore made a per-onal
request to those persons and Lord Hardwicke, and the
Dub -0 lertake

e of Bedford, to unn,. —le management of the
The three Conservative gentlemen, of course,
consented, on condition that they were to have nothing to
do with the patronage, leaving that to the Chancellor of
the Duchy, thus keeping themselves clear of any obliga-
tion to Lord John Russell or the Government."

estates

THE TEA DUTIES.
The popularity of tea as a wholesome and refreshing be-

counts of its import and consumption, were as superfluous
as to produce voluminous evidence of a truism. Tea
forms, in fact, in almost all families, the sole liquid portion
of two important daily meals ; and it has from habit be-

come indispensible, not only on the well plenished tables
of the rich, and on the plainer boards of the middle
classes ;. but, descending in the scale, we find tea to be (if
we may so express it) the grand mollifier and assistant in
the pleasurable mastication of the otherwise dry crust of
the poor, to whom, in the absence of dainties, it becomes
more of a necessary than a luxury of life.

With respect to the wealthy, the price of the article is
of less moment, their means being adequate to meet a high
expenditure ; but as regards the other two classes, it is es-
pecially important (more particularly with reference to the
last) that the consumption of tea should be encouraged,
by its being afforded to them at moderate prices, which
might he accomplished. were the secondary qualities not
smothered up and repelled from the market by exorbitant
duties, which positively defeat their own purpose, and at
the same time impolitically deprive the greater numerical
portion of the community of a comfort and a means of
sustenance, not only perfectly innocuous in itself, but con-
ducive to social doinestic habits and to sobriety.
Were there something poisonous in the tea-plant—
something destructive to the public health (as, for instance,
the use of opium in China), we should have appreciated
the levying of large duties as a means of arresting an evil
which, from the easy process of smuggling in so portable
an article, they could not altogether put down. But, in
t:e absence of all such plea, our legislators have through-
out taken advantage of the very virtue of the lieges—for
it is a virtue to prefer lea to beer, or other potent drinks
of former times—to fill the coffers of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer for the time being, without reference or con-
descension to the comforts of the masses.

If tea were obtainable at half its present price, the con-
sumption would be more than doubled, and the enhanced
price to the consumer is solely attributable to the " mon-
ster" duty. The people would prefer a strong cup of the
beverage to one so diluted and watery that it may tend to
produce nervous affections. Successive administrations
have, however, stinted us of the tea, though they have
somehow contrived to keep us in hot water.
As we now stand with relation to China, and having,
moreover, possession of several valuable ports in that im-
mense and rich territory, it behoves us for our own sakes
as well as for the interests of humanity to pursue a dif-
ferent line of policy. The present system acts as a deadly
check upon our commerce; and upon commerce, more
than ever, depends our national strength and supremacy
in the present day, in the partial failure of some of our
agricultural pursuits. A variety of articles, particularly
cloth, can be manufactured in this country at a smaller
cost, than other places ; and why not promote a profitable
traffic with China, which is willing to meet us, by a re-
duction of the tea duties? Such a consummation would
afford employment to many thousands of our operatives,
and the means of transit to and fro would form an impor-
tant extension of our mercantile marine, and our school
for navigators.

The reduction of the duties on teas would, we feel as-
sured, be acknowledged as a " boon" by all classes of the
community, and would not, in our view of the question,
involve a loss to the government, but rather tend to in-
crease the finances and resources of the country.
The facts of the case are simple, and may be hri, fly
stated from a work now before us—A Letter to Sir R.
Peel, dated December last, by Mr. Edward Brodribb, a
member of the Liverpool East India and China Associa-
tion, and published by " The Liverpool Association for
the Reduction of the Duty on Tea." This small but in-
telligent work exposes, beyond the reach of contradiction,
the impolicy of the system hitherto pursued in regard to
the tea trade, giving valuable statistics of the rising duties
on its import, from time to time, over nearly a century.
We antieipate that the meeting in this town, on Wed-
nesday, (to-morrow,) convened by the Mayor, will be nu-
merously attended, and will help powerfully to forward
the present agitation.