The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-12-28 00:00:00

THE TEA DUTIES.

The following circular has been issued :
" The national importance of an immediate reduction
of the duty on tea, on which depends greatly-increased
employment and comfort to our operatives, and the well-
being of the community at large, has suggested the neces-
sity of a Conference of all parties interested in the welfare
of the manufacturing districts ; and arrangements have
been made to hold a Meeting in the Town-hall, Manches-
ter, on Tuesday, tne 28th December, at Three o'clock, at
which the Mayor of Manchester has kindly signified his
intention of presiding.
" The Members of Parliament, the Mayors, the Mem-
bers of Council, and Justices of the Peace of all the Ma-
nufacturing Districts, will be invited, and we very respect-
fully solicit your attendance also at the meeting."
The circular is signed by the Chairman of the Liverpool
Association for the Reduction- of the Duty on Tea, the
Chairman of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the
Chairman of the Manchester Commercial Association, the
Chairman of the Liverpool East India and China Associa-
tion' the President of the Hull Chamber of Commerce
and Shipping, and the President of the Blackburn Com-
mercial Association.

If the maintenance of the trade with China, and
the employment of the masses of operatives conse-
quent thereon, be an object of national importance ;—if
the promotion of habits of temperance, of the discharge
of social duties, of the cultivation of domestic virtues, of
the acknowledgement of moral restraints and responsibi-
lities on the part of the labouring classes, be an object of
national solicitude—if the maintenance of the revenue at
its present amount, independent of any consideration for
its future increase, be an object of national anxiety—we
have the authority of this Parliamentary Committee, for
asserting, that the present tea duties interfere with, and
frustrate all these national considerations ; and, that
which was but the result of accident, becomes, if con-
tinued after this time, a. known, acknowledged, and wil-
fully maintained impediment to our national progress in
industry, in wealth, in social virtue, and moral goodness.
In vain has the Legislature decreed that commerce shall
be free from the trammels which have hitherto, some of
SY, and without cause, fettered it, if the
Exchequer be allowed to maintain a fis-
calhich as effectually debars us from an ex-
tendedta
chnhe
aEmrneacus
etnltirietr sdooei gnfawn"ihe
wtdehl
monopoly.
the Chinese, as did the iron fetters of
of the country been exerted, its peace endangered, in vain
In vain have the best energies
have statesmen recanted the cherished political creed of a
life time, in favour of more enlightened commercial views,
if the loaf of the poor man appears at his frugal board
untaxed, while tea, its universal accompaniment where
there is the means to obtain it, appears by its side as
if in mockery, taxed from 200 to 400 per cent.
The Duty on Tea is exorbitant, in comparison with the
cost of that article as imported ; disproportionate, in re-
ference to the impost on any other commodity of general
and necessary consumption ; unjust, in depriving a large
portion of the community of the use of a wholesome and
exhilarating beverage; impolitic, in limiting the revenue
by excluding a tax-paying article from the daily consump-
tion of myriads of poor families,—in restricting our com-
mercial intercourse with China,—and in debarring our
manufacturing population from ample employment, in the
production of those exports which would be required in
exchange for an enlarged importation of Tea. It is inju-
rious to personal health and character as it is to social or-
der, by encouraging the use of intoxicating stimulants, in
place of "a wholesome and domestic beverage. Experience
has proved that low duties produce larger revenues."