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trading to the Levant. Another measure which he intended to propose was connected with a measure which he had mentioned on a recent occasion to the house; and since he had last had the honour of addressing them upon it, he had conversed with many gentlemen regarding it, who all admitted its great advantages. That measure was the abolition of fees on all commerce to our colonies. He knew that these fees formed a heavy tax on persons engaged in that commerce, and were considered much more irksome than many taxes which in point of money were much larger. He should therefore get rid of them altogether. The next measure to which he entreated the attention of the committee was the removal of the transfer duty which was payable on the transfer of any share of a ship, or on the sale of a whole ship, from one person to another. This duty was an exception to the general stamp duties, and grew out of this anomaly-we compelled, for reasons thought to be conducive to our navigation, all British ships to be registered by their owners, That measure was no advantage at all to the ship owners; on the contrary, it was inconvenient, oppressive, conducive to litigation, and rendered their property in it liable to be attached. The house had on this suggestion improved the laws relating to the registry of ships, and mitigated their severity on the ship owners. Still it was required that the owners' names should be given in. Now, to take advantage of a law which compelled the names of all the owners to be registered, in order to attach a stamp to every transfer

that might be made in the ownership, was a great injustice in itself, and an unnecessary aggravation of an inconvenience, which, even if it were necessary, was still an inconvenience. He should therefore relieve the shipping interest from this annoyance, and should allow a ship to be transferred or exchanged, either in whole or in part, like any other chattels, without any payment of duty. He should abolish the whole of this transfer duty, and should provide that the registers, when they were renewed, should be freed in future from any such tax. There was another article in which he should also be able to afford considerable relief to the shipping interests. There were certain goods which were only allowed to be exported on certain conditions. Bonds were required from the exporters for the due delivery of the goods at the place to which they were to be exported; and these bonds were subjected to heavy stamps. A great difficulty often arose in the custom-house respecting them, since the stamps were ad valorem. The discussions they created led frequently to fraud and perjury. Several goods were placed under the same entry for no other reason than to save the stamps. These stamps, which were as high as 40s., he should propose to reduce in future to 4s. He would apply the same principle also to debentures. These were documents given by the custom-house as a sort of security to those who were entitled to drawbacks. He proposed to remove the stamps upon them altogether, because they took the shape of indirect taxes, when they were intended to release the sub

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ones. Such were the direct measures which he should submit to the approbation of the committee, for the relief of the shipping interest. There was another point, however, in which they were entitled to the favourable consider ation of parliament, as it inflicted upon them a tax which was partial in its nature and indirect in its operation. He was alluding to the existence of our consular establishments abroad-a subject to which the hon. member for Aberdeen had frequently called the attention of the house. Those establishments were founded upon no fixed principle, were guided by no certain rule. In some places they levied fees on the ships, in others on the goods, and in others, again, on the documents. Then they levied fees on ships with reference to their tonnage; and then on ships without any reference to that consideration, claiming them equally from the smallest and from the largest ships. Not only was there no fixed principle with regard to the payment of our consuls in general, but there was even no fixed principle with regard to their payment in the same country. For instance, at Rotterdam our consul had no salary, but derived the whole of his emoluments from fees; whilst at Antwerp he had no fees, but depended on his salary alone for his emoluments. At Bourdeaux our consul had a salary; at Marseilles he had not; and so on in other places. He contended that to call upon the shipping interest to pay exclusively for consular protection was unfair, and founded upon no just principle. We owed to the shipping trade and to the

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tion in all their transactions in foreign countries, whether they carried them on under the faith of particular treaties, or in the courtesy usually extended by one nation to another in time of peace. It seemed to him quite as hard to make traders pay for consular protection at the sea-ports of a friendly nation, as it would be to make travellers pay for the support of the ministers whom we maintained at the different courts of the continent. Such being his view of the matter, the course which he advised the committee to take was this to grant to all the consuls a reasonable fixed salary, and to pay it them out of the public purse. He felt it the more just to adopt this mode of payment, as the consuls were appointed, not only for the protection of the shipping trade, but also for the enforcement of the quarantine laws, and for the supply of information to government on various subjects in which the merchants had no interest, except that which they derived in common with the rest of their countrymen. In the civil list act, which contained a grant of money to the sovereign for life, for the support of the splendour and dignity of his crown, an annual sum of 40,000l. is set aside for payment of the consuls. He intended, that as far as that sum would go, it should still remain applicable to the same purpose. part of it was paid to agents, who were not merely consular, but who added certain diplomatic functions to their consular capacity; as, for instance, our residents at certain courts on the coast of Africa. He further intended, that the sum

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necessary to make up the deficiency should be voted annually by parliament, and that provision should be made for each consul, proportionate to the extent of his business, and the rate of living in the country in which he resided. He had before said that he should abolish all fees which were strictly consular he should retain, however, certain fees for acts which were extra-consular, and which he did not perform necessarily as consul-for instance, for notarial acts. He would, however, limit their amount: in no instance should they exceed two dollars. He did not mention the amount in English money, because that would be almost impossible; and besides, the dollar was a denomination of coin well known in every corner of the globe. Subject to this general regulation, he would put all the consuls upon one system, and with regard to the other expenses of his establishment, such as the maintenance of the church, the payment of the chaplain, and the support of the other duties of religion, he thought that British merchants would find no difficulty in levying, by a species of voluntary tax, a rate upon themselves, calculated to cover and defray them. If they did find any difficulty, he trusted that the house would subscribe a sum to aid them equal to half the sum which they had subscribed among themselves to pay the chaplain's salary, or defray the erection of a church. These were the means he intended to suggest for the establishment of a regular consular system, in in lieu of the varying and uncertain system which existed at present. He knew that in the Brazils and elsewhere relief would

be derived to the shipping interest from this change, and he therefore trusted that the committee would sanction it with their approbation. Connected with this subject was one other measure, which claimed their serious attention; but, before he could enter into it, he must say a word or two on the situation in which the trade in the Levant was placed under the direction of the Levant company. That company was established by royal charter, so far back as the reign of James I. Considerable privileges were bestowed upon it; and in consequence of those privileges, considerable duties were imposed upon it. They were allowed by their charter to appoint all the consuls in the sea-ports in the Levant: they were subsequently allowed by act of parliament to levy duties on all English ships which came to those ports, for the maintenance of their consuls. They were likewise allowed to exercise a certain jurisdiction within the territories of the Ottoman Porte, which was reserved to them by several treaties made between the government of this country and that of Turkey. On looking back to the conduct of the agents of that company for the last two hundred years, he was ready to confess that they had conducted the important and delicate task which had been confided to them with as much tact, ability, and discretion as was possible. Gentlemen would, however, see, that circumstances had recently undergone great alteration in the places consigned to their jurisdictions. That was one reason why they should inquire whether the Levant company should remain intrusted with the power

which had formerly been intrusted to it; but another equally powerful was this-when a general review of the consular establishments of the nation took place with the intention of placing them all on the same footing, it became the duty of parliament to look at the conduct and management of a company which enjoyed such peculiar privileges. In a political point of view, however, it became still more necessary to consider whether all our consuls ought not to be appointed by the crown. He considered that those public officers, for whose actions the crown was as-responsible, should be selected immediately by its power. When they considered the nature of the subsisting connexion, and all its attendant circumstances, between these consuls and a trading company, it was natural that some should consider these officers as not free from injurious suspicion in their commercial transactions. It was, therefore, most desirable, when an opportunity arose for altering such establishments, that these consuls should be placed under the direct control of the secretary of state, and considered as the servants of the government, and not of a trading company. As to their profits under the system now about to be revised, he was informed they had been considerable, and that the dues of the consulate amounted to a considerable impost upon the Levant trade, indeed to something like a per centage of one and a half or two per cent. on the total value of that commerce.

In a

time of peace, and when competition became general, the old Levant system was calculated to impede rather than advance com1825.

merce, and necessarily to suggest the necessity of its revision. It was due to the noble lord who was at the head of the Levant company to state, that as soon as this subject was brought under his consideration, he readily showed every disposition to assist, with the feeling of a statesman, and the wisdom of a philosopher, those improved commercial principles, and all the relations connected with them, which had of late been so generally admitted by the country at large. This communication with the noble lord led to the voluntary surrender to the crown, of the charter of the Levant company, which had been enjoyed by them for two hundred years. His Majesty would be advised to accept the surrender so offered; but it could not be effected without the introduction of a bill into parliament to regulate the transfer of the consular appointments on the usual scale. It was also intended, among the other requisite arrangements of this transfer, to assign over the company's funds to the public revenue, and to abolish all those taxes and levies now exacted from the trade of the Levant. When they considered the importance of removing restrictions from this part of their commerce, from its connexion with the east, and the vent which it was likely to afford to British manufactures, there was every reason to hope for a new opening for the operations of that skill and capital already so successfully engaged in this kingdom. Independent of this eventual advantage, they had at once, by the proposed arrangement, secured a benefit for their shipping and commerce in the Levant. He had

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now travelled over the wide field of the commercial relations of the country, and he feared he had trespassed too long upon their patient attention, and that he was not as clear and explicit upon some points as many gentlemen might think necessary. In not delaying this statement until after the recess, he felt anxious to lose as little time as possible in laying before the committee and the country, the commercial policy upon which his Majesty's government were disposed to act. And in bringing it at this time before the committee, he trusted that during the recess, the principles of the proposed alterations in their present commercial laws would be duly and generally considered, not only by those whom he had the honour of now address ing, but by the several interests throughout the country who were likely to be affected by the change. He should be happy to find his propositions attract general notice, and all parties would find him equally happy to hear their communications upon every part of the alterations to which he called their attention-to their suggestions he should be always open, and to their amendments if necessary. All he prayed of the committee was, to take his principles under their protection, without asking for their being prematurely committed as to his details. All he required was their aid, in carrying into effect this great step to the establishment of what appeared to him to be a sounder and better policy than that which preceded it; and that they would evince their alacrity, in following up the wise and gracious recommendation in the speech from the

throne, to remove those inconve niences and restrictions which affected the commerce of the country, and to place it upon a surer and better basis of general prosperity. In showing the world that they were not backward in taking this necessary step, he was convinced they would be promoting a great and indispensable public benefit. The right hon. gent. concluded, amid loud cries of "hear," by moving a resolution "That it was the opinion of the committee, that all duties upon the several articles hereafter to be named, should cease and determine, and others be substituted in their room."

Sir Hussey Vivian admitted the value of many of the new commercial principles upon which government were about to act, although he confessed his regret that he could not concur in all the details of their operation; for instance, he must protest against the proposed alterations of the foreign copper duties, which, if carried into effect, would ruin the mining trade of Cornwall. He described the present state and extent of the latter, and the capital sunk in its arrangements. There was a capital in the copper mines of above 2,440,000l., which gave employment to from 70,000 to 100,000 people. It was, he thought, capable of demonstration, that if they let in the foreign copper from South America, for instance, upon this trade, the British mines must be ruined from the greater expense incurred by them in working the material. He was perfectly aware that many of the foreign mining companies would bring ruin on themselves. This rage for joint stock compa

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