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they conclude by urging on the Admiralty, as supreme conservators on behalf of the national interests at stake,' the propriety of procuring a 'royal commission to inquire into the facts of the case, into the extent which the interests of the corporation of Newcastle and other landowners are at variance with the interests of the navigation, into the constitution and operation of the commission for the improvement of the Tyne, and the necessity of a better representation within the commission, or of a control by a central authority over the acts of the commission, on behalf of the national interests which are imperilled in the management of so important a navigation.'

The injury inflicted is indeed great, and unless checked now, will be irremediable. The nation at large will have reason to thank these gentlemen, should their appeal result in its deserved success. So far they have been successful; their suggestion for a royal commission was adopted by the House of Commons, on the motion of Mr. Lindsay, the member for Tynemouth, and her Majesty has appointed the royal commission now about to open their inquiry on the Tyne.

The veteran patriot Mr. Joseph Hume, who has long laboured both as one of the tidal commissioners and in parliament to bring about a better management of our tidal rivers and harbours, and who has always been in favour of a central board to aid the local conservators, presented a very able memorial to the Admiralty on the case of the Tyne. We trust he may have the satisfaction of seeing this great national question satisfactorily solved. It is quite clear that local men alone are not fit to be entrusted with these national interests. It is really humiliating to see how self-interest can blind even honourable men.

The tendency of the present system in the Tyne is to force the commerce up a dangerous river, ten miles from the harbour, to the town of Newcastle, where the river is a mere creek, only fitted for the craft of the old feudal times, when Newcastle, by charter law, gained possession of the port, and to sacrifice, for the temporary advantage of those who live so far inland, the permanent interests of the whole port of Tyne. These are irrevocably bound up with the conservation of the deep water harbour, since that alone can accommodate the immense fleet of large vessels which now carry on the commerce of the port. Mr. Calver, in his admirable treatise on The Conservation and Improvement of Tidal Rivers'* grapples expressly with the case of the Tyne, and points out in a conclusive manner the deep injury inflicted on the national commerce by the selfish and reckless policy of the Newcastle authorities.

* London: John Weale, 59, High Holborn. 8vo. pp. 101. N.S.-VOL. IX.

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The battle of the tidal harbours of Great Britain will now, we believe, be fought out on the Tyne. May God speed the right! We have reason to know that the royal commission will be composed of men of high eminence, and that they will be aided by the most distinguished engineers, as well as by Mr. Calver and the hydrographer to the Admiralty, both of whom are so thoroughly versed in the subject; so that we may hope at length our great tidal harbours and rivers will be protected like valuable national property, and be no longer left to the harpy hands of selfish monopolists.

The Newcastle Trinity House is a monopolist corporation, which, by eating heavy dinners and charging ships high prices for their lights, inflict an unnecessary tax on coal. The coal-laden vessels also pay 'passing tolls' for harbours of refuge they never use, and which, indeed, all the 'passing tolls' in the world would not convert into harbours of refuge. The knell of all these passing tolls is now, however, about to be rung; and if the public, through Parliament, will second the royal commissioners, who have reported against all these unjust imposts on coal, they will be abolished during present session.

Our heavily taxed cargo of coals has now been conveyed to the mouth of London river, where, however, as we proceed to show, fresh burdens await it. The Thames, like the Tyne, is obstructed by shoals which impede the navigation and continually cause damage to the shipping, and so constitute a tax on the general commerce of these rivers. We have shown that the river revenues of theNewcastle corporation, going no further back than the commencement of the present century, and taking only the surplus sums remaining after all river officials and 'conservancy' expenses were paid, were amply sufficient to have made great improvements in the river channel, to have kept clear the noble harbour of Shields, and to have converted the deadly estuary of the Tyne, by means of engineering works, into a harbour of refuge. A similar story remains to be told of the Thames. The 'income proper of the London corporation,' says Mr. Stuart Wortley, the Recorder, 'averages about £200,000 per annum. Of this sum the city taxes on coal amount to £70,000 per annum'-meaning that this is the absolute profit or surplus corporation income from coal, after all conservancy and other expenses are paid. The rental of foreshore property, that is, property embanked from the river, 'not for the sake of revenue, says the Recorder, (and which we say is, as on the Tyne, very much for the sake of the monopolists of the corporation and their friends,) but for the improvement of the river and the convenience of commerce; the rental of this river property, to which the river has surely the first claim, is eleven hundred pounds

a-year. Here, then, according to the evidence of the Recorder himself, we have, independent of other sources of river revenue, £71,000 of surplus income levied on the river Thames every year, while the engineer, Mr. Stephen Leach, complains that there are many shoals in the river between Erith and the bridges which impede the navigation; that the funds of the corporation, as at present distributed, are not sufficient for the purpose of removing these shoals; but that the corporation funds would be sufficient for the purpose if the impediments which restrain the application of these funds were removed. To all which the engineer adds the statement, that the river is becoming worse.

What, then, are the impediments to the application of the river funds to river purposes? Lawyers' bills, 'prescriptive' fees, and sinecures; new streets, lord mayors' feasts, and payment of the City cabinet of Cockayne at a higher price than the cabinet ministers of Great Britain !*

Lawyers' bills.-The average legal expenses of the City are upwards of £39,000 a-year. The bills of three lawyers -the City Solicitor, the Controller, and the Remembrancer -amounted in ten years to £162,000. Surely these sums are shameful. Not that the law charges were not all right, carefully gone over by the taxing-master, and classified in the most orthodox style. But here is one-fifth of the whole City 'income proper'-above half of the coal dues 'proper,' as Mr. Recorder calls them-that is, dues levied by the corporation on the public for no purpose that the said public derives any benefit from-here is £39,000 going to fee domestic lawyers 'on an average of years.' What would any private gentleman or merchant think, one-fifth of whose income, on an average of years, went in law? We suspect he would speedily become his own controller and remembrancer, and his office would be to check and not to inflame his solicitor's accounts. If this improper surplus, or 'income proper,' did not exist, does any one think this enormous waste would be permitted? But having a surplus income proper to dissipate, and a sinking monopoly to support, the luxury of law becomes, to the old corporations, a necessary of life.

Prescriptive Fees.-Mr. Williams affirmed that the amount of fees, in addition to salaries, was £70,000, and Mr. B. Scott,

* According to the evidence given before the commissioners appointed to inquire into the matters connected with the Corporation of London, the annual receipts of the City from all sources are estimated to amount to no less a sum than £1,107,154. The salaries paid to the officers of the corporation amounted in 1835 to £110,980, and it is presumed that that sum is now exceeded by at least £10,000. Twelve officers of the corporation receive nett salaries amounting to £48,435, while twelve cabinet ministers receive only £45,480.

late chief clerk in the Chamberlain's office, declared 'that there are a great many fees which do not pass through the Chamberlain's accounts. These fees are received by persons as being officers of the corporation. These fees are regarded as the property of the officer, and not of the corporation. And we have these officers, most of whom have been overpaid for any services they or their ancestors have performed, claiming compensation for the loss of their income, now that it is at length discovered that their office, long overpaid by the public, is really of no use to the public whatever.

New Streets. The City paid £796,536 for New Cannonstreet; the claims sent in were £1,777,153. The actual (present) loss was £200,000-(one year's corporation income proper,' according to Mr. Wortley)—the difference being made up by the sale of frontages. So that Cannon-street cost a million of pounds sterling. Now the Coal Trade of the North paid for Cannonstreet, and unless the friends of cheap fuel exert themselves, they will have to pay for many new streets, and other City improvements besides; just as the coal trade of the Tyne has also paid for the new markets and quays of Newcastle; besides largely relieving the landlord's rates there.

What says the Right Honourable Stuart Wortley on this subject-repeating the words of a statement prepared by a consolidated committee, who had the management of the case of the corporation, and who were appointed by the members at large to inquire into the alleged injustice of the corporation monopoly -a committee, by the way, appointed very much on the same principles as that of the convivial club whose innocent members were dissatisfied with their wine both as to quantity and quality, and who consolidated the landlord and waiters into a committee of inquiry on the question. The Consolidated Committee' of London City, of course, consolidates the choice supporters of the monopoly, and all the chicanery by which that monopoly can be defended. Their verdict, as might be expected, is very much like that of the landlord and waiters on the bad wine and smallbottle question of their club-viz., that the wine was excellent, and the measure ample. What other verdict is to be expected from the landlords and waiters of monopolist corporations?

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'With respect to the coal dues,' says Mr. Wortley, quoting the Consolidated Committee, the annual amount of which was £70,000 a-year, they (the committee) say, that if public improvements are to be effected, it appears difficult to devise means by which the amount required can be raised in a manner so little injurious to the public, and falling so equally upon the persons for whose use the improvements are required.... The avenues of the City of London are sufficient for the inhabitants of the City of London, and the necessity for their

improvement and enlargement arises from the immense concourse of people who daily frequent the City from miles around it. What then can be more equitable than that the persons residing within twenty miles round the metropolis should contribute to the improvements required for their comfort and convenience ?'

Now, we believe it would be difficult to find a more compact bundle of illogical impertinence than this of the chief officer of the London corporation. It must be remembered, that Mr. Wortley prefaced his deliverance of the consolidated committee by saying that 'he did not shrink from any part of the responsibility of it,' and therefore, whether he advocated the above ideas for his fee, or of his own free will and natural love of monopoly, he deserves to be made, as no doubt he will glory in being made, responsible for the doctrine.

Supposing a City alderman and fishmonger had used this argument, of his own narrow doorway being enough for him,— how the Recorder of London would have smiled at his absurdity. The fishmonger enlarges his doorway, puts down his marble slab, makes his entrances and his exits as convenient as possible, and sends his boys with obsequious alacrity in every direction required. The 'immense concourse of people' is the very thing he desires; his chief ambition is to attract them; and for that purpose, to make all their paths to his stall as pleasant as possible. But for this immense concourse of people, what would be the value of the shops in Cheapside or Ludgate-hill? But the Recorder will say, 'Ah! those people who enter the City, and use the City thoroughfares, do not all come to purchase goods there; most are only passing through,-some to purchase goods elsewhere, many to the West-end, or to distant parts of the empire.' Well, since, then, London cannot afford, what every provincial town (except the chartered thorough toll-towns) affords,-a gratuitous passage through its streets, surely some fairer way of levying the turnpike-toll might be fallen on than that which makes dearer the sea-coal fire of the Spitalfields' weaver, the Vauxhall factory girl, the working population, in short, of the metropolis, and forty miles round it, who seldom see your new streets, and make nothing by, and care nothing for, them. Surely some more just way of building new streets, and paying these prescriptive fees and vast lawyers' bills might be adopted, than this of enhancing the price of a prime necessary of life to the poor of the metropolis. That this large body of the inhabitants of London do suffer terrible privations from the high price of fuel is an undoubted fact. Last winter the amount of suffering from this cause was frightful in the extreme; and it really is small consolation to the working man of the metropolis, when he finds, on returning from his work on a bitter winter night, his shivering

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