HC Deb 20 April 1858 vol 149 cc1356-64
MR. VANCE

said, he rose to move for a Select Committee on certain duties levied on ships and other imports within the port of Dublin. He knew the difficulty of attracting the attention of the House to a question of local grievance, especially one of a financial and mercantile character and affecting Ireland; but when he said it vitally affected the prosperity of Dublin, he hoped they would give it as much attention as if it concerned the trade of Manchester, Liverpool, or London. The merchants, the Chamber of Commerce, and the whole community of Dublin, complained of certain imposts which were not only extremely vexatious in their character, but utterly destructive of the little foreign trade Dublin possessed. Indeed, there was no parallel to these dues on any port in the Irish Channel. He would remind the House, that last Session he had introduced the question in a different manner. He then proposed to repeal these duties altogether, and he obtained the support not only of the right hon. Gentleman the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, but also of a minority of 173, a very unusual number to support any project of a private member: in this minority were included many Irish Members of all shades of opinion. This, he thought, was a strong testimony to the soundness of the cause he had undertaken. The facts attending the imposition of these duties were as follows. A great many years ago, the merchants of Dublin petitioned the Legislature to assist them in erecting a small pier for the convenience of their ships at the harbour of Kingstown, which was then called Dunleary; and they agreed that certain duties should be levied to liquidate the sum advanced for this pier. In process of time, the pier was extended into a harbour of refuge, and by some extraordinary inadvertence, the duties were continued for the purposes of a work far beyond the means and character of so small an impost, though the merchants of Dublin had no more to do with the harbour than the owners of any other ships that traded in the Channel. He understood, however, that by the Act of Parliament, the sum applied to these works was limited to £60,000. That sum was paid out of the Consolidated Fund, and to that extent these duties were pledged. That sum had been long since paid. He could not find that the payment was continued by any other act; but whether it was or not, formed no part of his case. His case was, that the harbour was intended for all vessels, and therefore the merchants of Dublin ought not exclusively to pay for it; yet, such was the injustice and peculiarity of this impost, that a foreign vessel coming up the river for the port of Dublin, and never entering Kingstown Harbour, paid 4d. per ton on her cargo, while a vessel bound to Liverpool or Glasgow, and driven in there by stress of weather, might stay there as long as she pleased, and was not called on to pay a single farthing; so a cargo of teas coming direct to Dublin from Canton, and never entering Kingstown Harbour, would have to pay 2s. on every chest, while the same vessel, if she had been going to Liverpool, and had run into Kingstown to save herself from certain destruction, would not be called on to pay anything whatever. How was it to be wondered at, that under such a system foreign vessels were driven away from their port? A Commission, which was appointed by Government on the subject, recommended that the duties should be altogether abolished, and acting on that recommendation, the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Lowe) brought in a Bill to abolish them, but unfortunately he mixed up those dues with the abolition of certain trifling corporation dues that had been levied by prescription, and that in no way affected the trade of the port. The corporation of Dublin instructed their representatives to oppose this measure without compensation; but he had no doubt that if the port dues were abolished, the corporation dues might be extinguished too; at all events, he thought he might promise that, if a Committee were appointed to consider this question, all parties would be bound by the decision. With regard to the port dues, they had been condemned by every Committee and every person that had turned his attention to the subject. The harbours of refuge now in course of erection at Holyhead and Dovor could not be more useful to vessels in distress than the harbour at Kingstown was; and it would be just as fair to support the one harbour by a tax levied on the trade of Wales and the other by a tax on the trade of Kent, as to support Kingstown by a tax on the trade of Dublin. But it might be said, that a certain amount had been advanced on the security of those rates, and that it would therefore be a breach of faith to repeal them. He con- tended, however, that if an improvident bargain had been made, if duties were levied which entirely crushed the foreign trade of the port, Parliament might properly take upon itself to put an end to the existing arrangement; in fact, the principle that any mortgage on those dues prevented their repeal had been abandoned already, for originally they were levied upon the cross-channel trade as well as upon the foreign; but of late years the tax on the large and profitable trade was given up, and it was only continued on the small and unprofitable branch of commerce. It was important also to take into consideration the fact, that of late years the river had been deepened and so much improved that, except in cases of great emergency, vessels had no occasion to run to Kingstown harbour. He would not, however, go into all the arguments of the case, as his Motion was one for simple inquiry; he would be content that there should not be a single Irish Member on the Committee but himself, and he would abide by the decision of the English Members. He had been requested by the Chamber of Commerce of Dublin to bring forward this Motion. He had done it very briefly, and he would now leave the matter in the hands of the House.

MR. GROGAN

seconded the Motion.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That a Select Committee be appointed on certain Duties on Ships and other imposts leviable within the Port of Dublin."

MR. HENLEY

said, that although the amount involved was not a large one, the question was not so very simple as it seemed. The hon. Member who brought it forward had not told them a great deal about the effect the dues had upon the foreign trade of Dublin—whether it was increasing or decreasing, or how it was operated upon by the tax. It was not easy for an Englishman thoroughly to understand the whole outs and ins of this question. It was not easy to understand why the merchants of Dublin had agreed to levy dues upon themselves, not for the benefit of their own harbour, but to create the harbour of Dunleary, as the port of Kingstown was then called. The hon. Gentleman said, that ships passing Kingstown, and entering the port of Dublin, were compelled to pay the tax, while ships that entered the harbour of Kingstown, the harbour for whose use this tax was levied, escaped payment altogether. Certainly that arrangement seemed peculiarly Irish, and most assuredly it was not the original arrangement. There was another part of the question which he did not think the hon. Member had made so much of as he might have done. It was, that the question was not only one as to the amount of the tax, but that the mode of levying it was injurious to trade. Of that there could be no doubt. It was levied on a great variety of small articles, and was made up of a number of small payments, and consequently was very troublesome. Conceding all that, there still remained for the consideration of the House an awkward element in the matter—namely, the element of a bargain of money. The hon. Member must not suppose that the sum he referred to was the limit of that bargain. There was a largo sum—about £300,000 of capital and unpaid interest—outstanding on this account on the one hand, and on the other the modest sum of £3,000 a year paid towards the interest of this large sum. The dealings between the corporation of Dublin and the Consolidated Fund had in fact been of a very intricate character, and cognate matters were still going on. At present, the Consolidated Fund paid to the corporation of Dublin a sum nearly equal to the amount for differential duties on foreign ships that went there. In 1852, the amount paid by the Consolidated Fund was £2,200, and it did not appear that it was proposed to give up that payment, so that, in fact, the present demand was wholly one-sided. That, however, was not the whole of the case. There were in Ireland, as well as in England, what were called light dues; and another agreement between the Consolidated Fund and the Irish authorities had been entered into, to the effect that the Ballast Board, by which those lights were originally managed, were to pay a given sum, out of the surplus arising from those lights, to the Consolidated Fund. There was, however, now no such surplus, and he believed the question stood thus:— that while a sum of £20,090 was received in connection with the Irish lights, a sum of £38,000 was expended. Those figures did not, indeed, accurately represent the state of the matter, inasmuch as there were payments for Irish lights received at Liverpool and other places, which did not enter into the calculation. But, upon what ground it could fairly be argued that there was a surplus he could not understand. The question to which the hon. Gentleman had called the notice of the House was one, he might add, which came peculiarly within the province of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Consolidated Fund paid back £2,000 a year on account of foreign differential duties, and received, on the other hand, something like £3,000. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought inquiry was called for, he for his part, would not be unwilling to enter upon it, in order to see whether some arrangement might not be made, by which the Consolidated Fund might not suffer a loss. As far as he was concerned, he did not deny that the duties were levied in a most inconvenient manner; but there was a debt to the Government, and it ought not to be given up, unless the corporation gave a fair equivalent for the dues from which they wished to be released.

MR. GROGAN

said, the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down stated that there was no proof that these dues caused any injury to the foreign trade of the port of Dublin; but his hon. Colleague (Mr. Vance) had told the House what was simply the fact—that any foreign ship going to the port of Dublin, though she made no use of the harbour of Kingstown, was liable to these dues; whereas a ship coming from Glasgow, Bristol, Hull, or any other home port, made use of that harbour without paying any dues whatever. There could be no doubt, therefore, that the mode in which the duties were levied was an injury—almost a prohibition—to the foreign trade of Dublin. In no other port did such duties exist; and he would ask whether the Government would venture to act in the same way towards the port of Liverpool? With respect to the Irish lights, a change had taken place within the last three or four years in their management. Previously, the whole of those lights were under the management of the Dublin Ballast Board; and they managed those lights so well, that they set an example of reducing the dues to a scale which the Trinity Hoard, in London, found it necessary to imitate; and if there had been any deficiency within the last few years in the amount received on Irish lights, it must be borne in mind that those lights had been during that time in the management of the Trinity Board in this country, who had appropriated, moreover, a sum of £30,000, which the Ballast Board had in the bank at the time of the chance of management. With regard to the differential duties, that might be a proper question for the consideration of a Committee; but the House must bear in mind that the corporation of Dublin was a distinct body, and the trading community of Dublin—though there were many of them in the corporation—was another; and his colleague (Mr. Vance) appeared now, on behalf of the commercial and shipping interest of Dublin, to show to the House that those dues rendered it almost impossible to carry on a foreign trade in that port. The traders of Dublin appealed to the House to repeal an impost which the House itself admitted to be unjust. They asked the permission of the House to establish, by an inquiry before a Committee, that the maintenance of this impost was ruinous to the trade of the port of Dublin, and that its maintenance should not be continued, because the corporation of Dublin claimed a right to those dues.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he could not at all agree with the hon. Member who had just spoken, as to the general view he had taken of the question. It appeared to him that if ever there was a contract between the Consolidated Fund and any other body, it was the contract with respect to these dues. In his view, the arrangement made was one of great advantage to the inhabitants of Dublin, and of very little advantage to the Consolidated Fund. The Consolidated Fund obtained a small amount every year in return for a very considerable claim, which it might have urged with success, and therefore he could not hold out any hope that he would consent to any arrangement which would tend to diminish the amount paid to the Consolidated Fund—an amount much below what they were entitled to receive; on the contrary, he must oppose any attempt to relieve the inhabitants of Dublin from the payment of that amount. But if it was a fact that the manner in which these tolls were levied was injurious to the commerce of the port of Dublin, he was willing to go as far as his right hon. Friend in making any alteration in the way in which the amount was levied, on the understanding that the same amount was paid into the Exchequer. He should not, therefore, oppose the appointment of the Committee; but in assenting to the inquiry, he could not hold out any hope of reducing the amount paid into the Exchequer. If, therefore, the hon. Member should hereafter find him a stern opponent of any proposal to reduce that amount, he must not accuse him of inconsistency.

MR. J. D. FITZGERALD

said, that hav- ing looked carefully through the voluminous Acts of Parliament and papers on these dues, he confessed he did not clearly understand the question, and he doubted whether any Member of the House did. The matter was so complicated that he thought the parties aggrieved were entitled to an inquiry. For his part, he could not discover where the compact between the corporation of Dublin and the Consolidated Fund had been. The hon. Member did not now ask for the abolition of the tax, but only for an inquiry; and although that inquiry was to be granted, it was to be curtailed by the understanding that there would be no relief from the impost unless some equivalent could be found for the Consolidated Fund. It was not the corporation of Dublin, nor the Irish Ballast Board, which had an interest in the question, but the merchants of Dublin, whose trade was damnified, not only by the impost itself, but by the manner in which it was levied. To give an instance of it, be might state that a friend of his own, a merchant in Dublin, had paid on a small cargo of tea as much as £140 duty, which he would not have been called upon to pay had the tea been shipped to Liverpool, Glasgow, or any other port. He should advise the hon. Member for Dublin not to trouble himself with the Committee, if the investigation was to be limited in the manner suggested by the Government.

MR. LOWE

said, as the question had become somewhat obscured, he would just mention briefly the facts relating to this matter. He would, however, say nothing about the negotiations previous to the Act of Parliament; but in 1815 an Act was passed, constituting certain Commissioners for Dunleary or Kingstown harbour. In the following year another Act was passed, authorizing sums to be paid out of the Irish Exchequer for the improvement of the harbour, and imposing the dues which were now in question. The dues were appropriated in the following manner:— First, interest was to be paid upon the sum advanced from the Irish Exchequer, and then any surplus should be applied to a sinking fund for the reduction of the principal. Under that Act, £218,000 was advanced out of the Consolidated Fund for the purposes of the harbour, and the payment made upon the corporation of Dublin to the Consolidated Fund in respect of that sum—a payment which it was said pressed so severely on the trade of Dublin —was about £3,000 a year. The result was, that in 1837—tho date of the last account which he had been enabled to get —the arrear of interest due, together with the principal advanced, amounted to £313,000. That arrear had, no doubt, being going on to the present day; and it would be a moderate estimate to put the sum for which the Consolidated Fund had a claim upon these duties at £400,000. He agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government ought not to give up this sum. The money had been spent and no equivalent had been received by the Government. When he (Mr. Lowe) introduced a Bill for the abolition of all town dues on shipping, he proposed to do away with these particular dues; but, as a matter of exception, he did not see on what grounds Dublin could claim to be exempted from them. But if Dublin made this payment to the Consolidated Fund, there were two other payments which the corporation of Dublin received—first, a sum of £2,000 a year for town dues levied on shipping entering the port, in consideration of which the corporation provided scales and weights and other small matters of accommodation; and, in addition to that, they received out of the Consolidated Fund of this country, which had advanced £218,000 to make their harbour, £2,000 a year as an equivalent for differential dues on foreign shipping; so that the accounts stood thus:—The corporation received from shipping £2,000 a year, and from the Consolidated Fund £2,000 a year, besides the £218,000 they had received out of the Consolidated Fund, for which they paid an interest of £1 per cent. He did not think that was an arrangement which could be in any way altered to the advantage of the public in favour of the port of Dublin. He trusted the Chancellor of the Exchequer, before assenting to the Committee, would see the necessity of restricting its range of inquiry within more definite and appropriate limits than were indicated by the notice of Motion on the paper.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

said, he thought the remarks of his right hon. Friend deserving of serious consideration. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had stated very distinctly that nothing would induce him to consent to deprive the Consolidated Fund of the income in question, and that the only question which he would entertain was the mode in which an equal amount might be collected. If that was the opinion of the Government it would be trifling with the Committee if they were to appoint it and to permit it to take the larger range of the question started by the hon. and learned Member for Ennis (Mr. FitzGerald). In fairness to the Committee there ought to be some limitation to its inquiry, otherwise it would lead to no result. The Committee should be directed to confine their investigation to the point whether an equal sum could be levied in any manner which would be less objectionable and oppressive to the city of Dublin than the present dues.

MR. VANCE, in reply said, that though the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think the payment of £3,000 a year by the merchants of Dublin a small matter, he could tell him that it had had the effect of crushing the foreign trade of that port. Even admitting that a bargain had been improvidently made—which he denied—why should it be allowed to crush the foreign trade of Dublin? In looking over the Acts he had great doubts of the legality of the dues in question. He did not like limiting the inquiry in the manner proposed, but as he was powerless against the Government and the opposition united, he should withdraw the Motion, and substitute for it one which the Chancellor of the Exchequer bad just handed to him.

Motion by leave withdrawn.

Select Committee appointed,— On the mode of levying certain Duties on Ships and other Imposts within the Port of Dublin, and whether any equivalent can be supplied by the Port for the sum now paid to the Consolidated Fund.