The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-11-10 00:00:00

" conservative," in every borough town, and kept them
thus embodied and opposed in constantly recurring
warfare. Now, this is a state of things which must
prove, in the long run, the ruin of the " liberal " party,
simply because it wants the main elements of patient,
and persevering, and continuous exertion.
Consider for a moment the two parties in any great
town. The conservatives, where are they to be found ?
Do they not embrace the far larger proportion of the
higher ranks of the middle classes, including nearly all
the active virtue and benevolence of the community ?
Of the most self-denying and resolute of all classes—the
sincerely religious—must we not seek more than nine-
tenths among the conservative party ? And can it be
that these things should fail to exert an influence,
growing, as we now see it, year by year, over the judg-
ment and choice of the respective constituencies ?
But turn to the opposing ranks ; and what a motley
assemblage do we behold ! We should not be pre-
pared to deny the existence of some men of piety among
the " liberal " party; but the few of this class who are
found in that array are generally dissenters, whose re-
ligion is sadly beclouded by factious hatred to the
church. Nor shall, we say that no men of education
or respectability are seen ; but these are generally the
" moderate Whigs "of the party, suspected by their
confederates, and ill at ease in their own consciences.
Allowing for these two classes, which can scarcely ever
reach, alone, a muster roll of a score of votes, of what
sort of people is the " liberal party " in a borough-
town generally composed ? Is it not in most cases
a counterpart of the band which met in the cave of
Adullum, to which " every one that was in distress,
and every one that was in debt, and every one that was
discontented, gathered themselves together ? " And is
not this aggregation of all manner of unclean things a
circumstance of itself tending powerfully to the con-
firming and strengthening of the conservative party ?
On the whole, then, we have every reason to be both
amused and satisfied with this singular blunder of " the
clap-trap administration." As to the graver question,
of whether the new corporations, in themselves, are
likely to prove beneficial to the inhabitants of these
towns, or otherwise—is a matter the decision of which
must necessarily be postponed until honest and respect-
able men shall have had a sufficient trial of the work-
ing of the whole system.

DUTIES ON MAHOGANY AND FIR PLANKS.

(From the London Journal
sof Commerce.)

• -
A Liverpool correspondent reminds us that the anticipa-
tions we expressed in the early part of the year, that the then
current session of the parliament would not elapse without
the duties on timber imported from Sierra Leone and the
British settlements at Honduras being equalised, has not
been fulfilled. While we regret we cannot contradict our
correspondent, we must express an opinion that some pro-
gress towards an assimilation has been made. The facts
stated in the memorials from the shipwrights and timber
merchants of Liverpool, Bristol, and the Clyde, presented
in July last to the Board of Trade, urging the necessity of
such a measure, have rendered it imperative on Mr. Labop-
chere to take up the subject early in the ensuing session.
For ourselves, we are utterly at a loss to discover on what
principle a continuance of the differential duties on Sierra
Leone Teakwood and Honduras Mahogany can be justified—.
why the good and essentially useful timber of our American
should be longer subjected to nearly 300 per cent. duty over
that of the inferior wood of our African settlement. It is
surely both just and expedient that the woods of two pro-
vinces standing in the like relation to Great Britain, should
be admitted to consumption through the assimilated scale of
duty. If, indeed, any differential duty ought to be tolerated,
Honduras has better claims to the advantage than Sierra
Leone. By far the greater proportion of the Teak exported
from the latter is not procured in the colony, though cleared
at its Custouthouse ; and every ten logs, it has been calcu-
lated, imported into this country from that charnel-home
costs one seaman's life. The Mahogany exported from
Belize is, if not actually grown in a British settlement, (for
of late years the exportation of mahogany has been extended
to that cut on the whole extent of the Mosquito shore ; and,
we believe, the liberty of clearing at the various ports, as far
as Touxills, has also been granted) is cut by the British en-
terprise, and paid for with British capital and merchandize.
Besides, Honduras is comparatively a salubrious climate,
stands in such an admirable position that, as regards British
commerce, it may be termed the toll-gate of Central Ame-
rica, and presents an inexhaustible supply of wood. The
one province, after being bblstered up for thirty years, at the
expense of £1,670,000, is for all useful purposes a complete
failure ; on the other province, neglected and despised by
government, we are dependent for the supply of an indispen-
sable article.
The introduction of Teak into certain parts of ships,
which were to be classified as entitled to remain on the first
letter for twelve years, was, until lately, indispensable. The
uncertainty of the supply of Teak—(in July last there was
not a single log in the hands of the Liverpool importers)—
frequently rendered the shipwrights unable to complete the
vessels in progress of construction. Experiments, however,
having proved that the heaviness of Teak and the lightness
of Cedar were objections to which Mahogany is not liable ;
that it expanded less from saturation, and shrank less from
heat than any other wood, and that it was naturally com-
pletely exempt from dry rot, by a late regulation of Lloyd's
Mahogany has been admitted to the classification as the best
description of Teak, and in consequence has been extensively
used by many shipwrights. The high rate of duty has,
however, operated to its prejudice, and limited its consump-
tion for naval purposes. A reduction of £1 per ton on Hon-
duras Mahogany is therefore sought as an object of vital
importance to our commercial navy. This reduction would
nearly assimilate the duty to that on African Teak, and bring
it to the same scale as that on Cuba and Mobile Cedar, both
of which foreign woods are subject to only 10s. per ton duty.
In our opinion, the reduction sought is too moderate ; why
should not colonial and foreign timber used in ship-building
be admitted on the same terms as that for church-building—
free of all duty ; or, at all events, why should not ships be
built of materials in bond ? France not only admits foreign
timber duty free, for ship-building purposes, but has, by a
late enactment—objectionable and absurd, doubtless, but
indicative of the encouragement given to its marine—has
imposed an export duty of tenpence per foot on native tim-
ber, which is equivalent to a prohibition.
The manufacturing as well as the shipping interest ate in-
terested in the reduction of the duty on Honduras Mahogany,
as that wood is indispensable for making those large and
valuable machines to which we owe so much of our manu•
factoring pre-eminence'
But, in fact, the whole scale of duties on Mahogany re-
quires immediate revision and reduction. There are three
duties on Mahogany; upon Mahogany from Honduras, 30s ;
from other British possessions, £4 ; and from foreign coun-
tries, £5 per ton. The effect of these duties has been totally
to destroy a large portion of the business of the cabinet-
maker of this country—the export of furniture. Formerly,
Great Britain had a most extensive import of furniture to its
colonies, South America and India ; now it has a considera-
ble import, and many of our modern houses are adorned
with Hamburgh furniture, for the sale of which there are
large establishments in Birmingham. Now, for this revul-
sion we have not the poor and ordinary excuses of protection
to our colonies, or increase to our revenue, because the qua-
lities of Honduras, Jamaica, Cuba, and St. Domingo Maho-
gany are so different and distinct, that they can scarcely be
said to interfere with each other ; the Mahogany of the
British possessions cannot for an instant be compared with
that of Cuba or St. Domingo. The high duties on foreign
does not increase the consumption of our colonial Mahogany,
for from it the better description of furniture cannot be
made, and the duty defeats its purpose, as regards revenue,
by limiting the consumption of the article on which it is
levied. The total loss of our export furniture trade, and the
injury inflicted on our home trade, are solely caused by the
duties on foreign Mahogany. Cuba and St. Domingo Maho-
gany is imported into Hamburgh comparatively untaxed,
is there manufactured, and is actually admitted into this
country in the shape of foreign furniture, on payment of
duty less in proportion than the English cabinet-maker has
to pay for the log or curl in its uncut state! Formerly it
was the practice to carry Mahogany from Cuba and St.
Domingo to one of our colonies, and land it there and bring
it to England in the same way as Coffee is brought through
the Cape of Good Hope from foreign countries, and Spice
from the Moluccas through Penang ; this the late President
of the Board of Trade, Lord Sydenham, effectually pre-
vented. It is, we trust, the intention of the present Presi-
dent to remedy all the evils of this subject. This he may
the more readily do, as the revenue to be affected by any
change is altogether unworthy of consideration in comparison
to the manifest advantages.
Without entering into the general question of the
Timber duties, we may here call public attention to the
injurious effect of the working of the present Customs
scale of duty in another particular. The duty for the
fir log is 55s per load ; now the duty on planks admits a
load of fir timber in that form at two-thirds the rate required
on the log. " Thus," writes the intelligent correspondent
who has drawn our attention to the absurdity, " the Prussian
merchant, by merely running three cuts up his long logs.
has actually remitted to him in duty a bonus of 50 per cent.
for shipping his manufactured, instead of what may be
termed his raw material, facilitating thereby its transport
(and that, too, always in his own ship), making it, without
further labour, at once suitable for the British joiner to use.
While the principle for the regulation of the duties on tim-
ber—when not cut into plank, bet imported in the form of
log—is decidedly protective as regards colonial, and prohi-
bitory in regard of Baltic, still we have been good customers
to the Prussian for his manufactured wood ; and now on the
Liverpool quay the anomaly may he witnessed of the house-
builder having to pay for the load of Dantsic middling square
timber £5 12s 6d, against £4 15s 3d per load for the first
quality of well manufactured plank, adapted through the
foreign mill, free from all defect and refuse. Three or four
mills in Manchester and Liverpool suffice for what remains
to be manufactured on all the foreign woods imported and
consumed in this quarter, because of the premium, granted
to the importer of the already made planks abroad.'