HC Deb 06 February 1857 vol 144 cc321-8

Order for Committee read; Acts relating to Shipping read; to be considered in Committee.

House in Committee.

MR. LOWE rose to move, That the Chairman be directed to move the House that leave be given to bring in a Bill for the abolition of Passing Tolls. When he introduced the Local Dues Bill last year, though there were a great many strong observations directed against the Bill and against himself, he did not think that any of them were applied to the abolition of the Passing Tolls, which formed a part of that Bill. The Government therefore had thought it desirable to separate this question, which was one of great interest to those connected with shipping, from the more disputable topics with which it was involved last year, and to introduce it in a distinct measure with a view to their abolition. He might explain that the places which had the privilege of levying passing tolls were four—Dovor, Whitby, Ramsgate, and Bridlington. The tolls were imposed under the idea that the harbours of those places were established as harbours of refuge for shipping generally, and were intended to defray their expenses as harbours of refuge. It turned out, however, when examination took place, that but one out of these four harbours was fit for a harbour of refuge. Three were dry at low water and had only a few feet at high water; and even the fourth, Ramsgate, had only eight feet of water at low water. It therefore resulted that they could not be harbours of refuge for shipping of the largest class, and it was therefore felt to be a great grievance that the shipping interest should be called on to pay annually a sum of more than £33,000 for these tolls. On Bridlington and Whitby there was a debt of £60,000. In the case of Dovor there was what was called the inner harbour; but the Admiralty were constructing a large harbour for ships which would now be almost exclusively used. The tolls levied on passing this inner harbour were £12,000 a year, though it was now of very little avail, and when the new harbour was built would be of hardly any use at all. There was upon it a debt of £85,000, which was partly charged on these passing tolls. What the Government proposed was that the passing tolls should be abolished, and that the harbour of Dovor, with all its liabilities and debts, should be taken over by the Admiralty, so that the shipping would be relieved from the existing charges, and the creditors would have the security of the Admiralty, instead of the £12,000 a year which he had mentioned. The passing toll of Bridlington was levied on coals only, although the object for which it was charged was intended for the benefit of all shipping. The harbour was dry at low water, and was ill-situated in all respects as a harbour of refuge. The amount collected was somewhere about £2,800 a year, and there was debt to the amount of £28,000. The Act under which the tolls were levied expired in 1868, and what he proposed was that the Government should pay off the debt of £28,000, and that the tolls should cease at once. Whitby was almost in the same situation as Bridlington. The passing tolls amounted to £4,111 a year, were levied entirely on coals, and were encumbered with a debt of £32,000. It was proposed to pay out of the public funds the debt of £32,000, and to abolish altogether the tax of £4,111 per annum, which was levied on the coal ships coming out of the old port of Newcastle, including Shields and Sunderland. The case of Ramsgate was a little more complicated, and therefore his statement with respect to it must be more minute. The harbour was situated close to the anchorage of the Downs. In 1748 there was a great tempest, and many ships found refuge in the then Ramsgate harbour. In consequence of the relief to shipping then experienced certain merchants of London petitioned Parliament to make a harbour of refuge at Ramsgate. The petition was granted; the village of Ramsgate—for at that time it was no more than a village—gave up to the Government its harbour and some ground adjacent to it, which was then yielding a rental of about £3 per annum; and upon that ground had been expended from that day to this something like £2,000,000. He could not say that that was a very provident expenditure, because the harbour was difficult of entrance, there were only eight feet of water at low tide, and being removed from the track which vessels generally followed it was not useful for ships going on their course, but rather as a place to relieve the anchorage of the Downs of the smaller kind of vessels, and so prevent accidents. It was, however, requisite that it should be kept up; and the Government was now expending a large sum of money in the repair of the harbour, and, as far as he could judge at the present moment, £21,000 would still be required. The passing tolls levied at Ramsgate, principally on shipping which derivered no sort of benefit from the harbour, amount to £14,000 a year. There was no debt. What he proposed was that the £21,000 which would still be required to put the harbour in repair should be paid by the Government, and that the passing tolls should cease from the passing of the Act. It was estimated by the trustees—for the harbour had hitherto been in the hands of certain merchants of London, who acted as trustees—that the expense of management had been about £10,000 a year. It was proposed to put an end to this trust, and to vest the harbour and the property adjacent, on which £2,000,000 had been expended, in Her Majesty, placing them under the care of the Board of Trade. It was estimated that that Board, having facilities for it which the trustees had not, could manage the harbour for £7,500 a year. To make up that sum there were the following items:—the property vested in the present trustees, consisting of houses, docks, and land, and producing £4,400 per annum; a duty of 3d. per ton, which it was proposed to impose on ships using the harbour not for the purpose of refuge, and which it was estimated would amount to something like £500 a year; a proposed tax of 3d. on each passenger landed at the quay, of which the probable yield was estimated at £600; 5 per cent upon salvage brought into the harbour, or £500 a year more; in all £6,000 per annum. A further sum of nearly £2,000 a year was derived from a tax levied by the town commissioners on all coals imported into Ramsgate. It was proposed to transfer that tax to the harbour fund, thus raising the income to a little more than £7,500 a year, or sufficient to cover the expenditure. He was afraid, however, that they could not rely upon the coal-tax as available to the extent stated, because there was a close competition between the railway and sea carriage, and he believed the railway was rather gaining on its antagonist; so that the amount produced by the tax was likely to suffer some diminution. Nor was he altogether sure of the estimates with respect to the other sources of income; in fact, there was reason to fear that some payment from the Consolidated Fund would be required to meet the expenditure. He had mentioned these facts because he was aware that a complaint would be made on behalf of Ramsgate that the Government proposed to inflict a great hardship on that town. It would be said that the harbour of refuge was made for Government purposes, and not for the purposes of the town, and that therefore the Government ought to pay all the expenses. It would also be said that Ramsgate gave its harbour and ground adjacent, and had therefore contributed its share towards the harbour of refuge. He had already stated the value (£3 per annum) of the land given by Ramsgate; and while he admitted that the harbour was made for the benefit, not of Ramsgate, but of the shipping at the Downs, it was also true that the harbour and the enormous expenditure of £2,000,000 had made the town what it was, and, what was more, had made the sands which formed the greatest attraction of the place. It was therefore only reasonable that Ramsgate, having received so much advantage, should share in a mo- derate degree in bearing the burden of the harbour. He did not mean to say that it ought to bear the larger portion, nor would it. The sum of £4,500 in round numbers would be furnished by the harbour estate, and something considerable—he did not know how much—by the Consolidated Fund. Seeing that the passing toll on ships had already contributed £2,000,000 to the harbour, that £21,000 more would be required for repairs, and that a large annual sum would in future be drawn from the same source to meet expenditure, he thought it would not be reasonable that Ramsgate should continue to levy for its own municipal purposes a tax upon coals, especially on those used in the dredging machines which kept the harbour open. Such, then, was the proposal of the Government. It included the abolition of the passing tolls, the payment of the debt out of the Consolidated Fund, and the relief of shipping from the burden of something like £33,000 per annum.

MR. DEEDES

said, he admitted that the idea of abolishing the passing tolls was so agreeable to the country at large that he should find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to convince the Committee that it ought not to be entertained. He would not undertake so hopeless a task, but merely wished to state that the proposal now mabe by the Vice President of the Board of Trade appeared to place Dovor and Ramsgate in a different position from the Bill of last year. The Bill of last Session was to be referred to a Select Committee, and the parties affected were to be heard before an impartial tribunal. Now, however, it was proposed to deal with them in a very summary manner, and no opportunity was to be afforded to them of stating their case fully and fairly. With respect to Dovor he differed from the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that the inner harbour was now of comparatively little importance. He believed it could be shown on the best engineering authority that it was of the greatest possible use, and would continue to be so. As for Ramsgate, he was not prepared to admit that it was right or fair that the people of that town should be taxed in respect of their consumption of coals to keep up a harbour of refuge for the benefit of the shipping at the Downs. But all he asked on their part was that their case might be fairly investigated by the House.

MR. RICE

said, he did not wish or intend to offer any opposition to the intro- duction or the progress of this Bill. The time had arrived when the question of these passing tolls ought to be settled; and, as far Dovor was concerned, he regarded the proposal of the Vice President of the Board of Trade, assuming it to be the same as that of last year, as a fair and equitable arrangement.

MR. VANCE

said, he had an analogous claim to make on behalf of Dublin. There was a sum of 6d. charged on vessels going into the port of Dublin, and 2s. 6d. for the entrance of each vessel passing into Kingstown harbour. That harbour was completed, and the people of Dublin said that these tolls should no longer be charged. The Commissioners appointed by Her Majesty strongly recommended that these tolls should be abolished, and he therefore hoped that a clause would be inserted in the Bill for that purpose.

MR. M'CANN

urged that, if the harbours which had been enumerated by the right hon. Gentleman were to receive any benefit from the Consolidated Fund, the harbours of Ireland should not be forgotten.

MR. LINDSAY

thanked his right hon. Friend for having introduced the Bill thus early in the Session, because it was high time that passing tolls should be abolished. As an instance of the oppressive nature of this tax, he stated that the single port of Sunderland paid £1,300 a year to Whitby harbour, and that ships from the north of England which were bound to the Baltic, and did not pass Whitby at all, were compelled to pay it.

MR. JAMES MACGREGOR

asked what was intended to be done with respect to Sandwich harbour? A great injury had been inflicted upon that harbour by the construction of Ramsgate harbour, and as that was anticipated beforehand, the Act for the construction of Ramsgate harbour which passed in 1747 contained a clause ordering the Commissioners of Ramsgate harbour to pay £200 per annum in addition to a clause authorising them to pay £10,000 to the Commissioners of Sandwich harbour, and the payment of £200 per annum had been made from 1847 to the present time. In 1847 an Act passed authorising the Commissioners of Sandwich harbour to raise £4,000 for the purposes of the harbour, on the security of the annuity for its repayment. He wished to know whether the annuity would be continued.

MR. LOWE

said that Sandwich harbour was not in any respect a harbour of refuge, and that it was therefore not entitled to any portion of the passing tolls. He apprehended that the rate levied at Dublin was not strictly in the nature of a passing toll.

VISCOUNT GALWAY

said, that he had no particular concern in this matter himself, nor had he been able to gather much of the nature of the Bill, owing to the rapid delivery of the right hon. Gentleman who had introduced it. He would recommend hon. Members, however, to take care of their own interests, because the right hon. Gentleman had publicly stated last year that he had no respect for parchment titles.

MR. BRAMLEY-MOORE

was of opinion that the passing tolls which it was proposed to abolish were no hardship upon the shipowner, seeing that they were paid by the consignee, and that they eventually fell upon the consumer.

MR. INGHAM

took a different view, and urged that now, when the competition between the railway and shipping interests was so great, every tax which operated to the prejudice of the latter should be removed.

MR. JAMES MACGREGOR

complained of the gross injustice which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to inflict upon his constituents. No one ever supposed for a moment that Sandwich was a harbour of refuge; but it had been injured by the construction of Ramsgate harbour, and under the authority of an Act of Parliament which sanctioned the mortgage of the annuity of £200 to raise £4,000. Money had been borrowed and was now due to the public—the security for this money the right hon. Gentleman proposed to withdraw. The right hon. Gentleman now told them that passing tolls would cease, and that the £200 a year was to cease also; but he had not told them that he pounced upon a large sum of money now in the hands of the commissioners of Ramsgate, which they held subject to the equitable claim of Sandwich harbour. He was confident that Parliament would not allow such an injustice to be perpetrated.

MR. LOWE

said, that the subject referred to by the hon. Gentleman would be more appropriately discussed at a subsequent stage of the Bill. There was, however, one observation which had been made by a noble Lord opposite (Viscount Gal-way), which appeared to have been intended to be offensive to himself, to which he wished to refer; for if he were to be cen- sured let it be for what he had, and not for what he had not said. He had not, as the noble Lord had represented, spoken slightingly of titles derived from parchments; but, in the speech to which the noble Lord had referred, what he had said was that persons who derived a title by an Act of Parliament, meaning the Act of 1835, had no occasion to go to parchment for a title. He believed the expression "musty parchments" was complained of; but all that he had meant was that persons who had a claim under an Act of Parliament had no occasion for parchment titles.

VISCOUNT GALWAY

had not intended his observation to be offensive to the right hon. Gentleman; but, holding the position which the right hon. Gentleman held, it was especially incumbent on him, in introducing matters of importance to the House, to be very guarded in the expressions he made use of. He could only say that titles on parchment, whether musty or of only fifty years' date, would be viewed with consideration as long as law prevailed in this country.

Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move the House, That leave be given to bring in a Bill for the abolition of Passing Tolls.

The House resumed. Resolution reported, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. FITZROY, Mr. LOWE, and Viscount PALMERSTON.

Bill brought in, and read 1o.

The House adjourned at Twelve o'clock till Monday next.