Colonial Tariffs. [From the Sydney Herald.]

Daily Southern Cross, Volume X, Issue 637, 5 August 1853, Page 3

Colonial Tariffs. [From the Sydney Herald.]

We have before us a return to an address of the House of Commons, showing the duties payable, under colonial enactments, on goods imported into the British colonies, dated the 20 th December, 1852. In this paper the colonies are divided into seven groups, as follows :—l.: — 1. North America, including Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Bermuda 2. The West Indies and Mauritius. 3. Mediterranean possessions, Malta, and Gibraltar. 4. African colonies, including Sierra Leone, Gambia, the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, and St. Helena. 5. Australian colonies and New Zealand. 6. Other colonies, including Ceylon, Hongkong, Labuan, the Falkland Islands, and Heligoland 7. The United States of the . lonian Islands. An examination of the various tariffs at present in operation in these widely separate portions of the British Empire, is calculated to bewilder the most experienced financier ; and it is a marvel to us how the intricate calculations which the conflicting enactments on the subject of customs' duties render necessary in every branch of British trade are ever gone through at all. To take, first, the North American group : we find that in Canada, the duties and drawbacks and exemptions vary very materially from those levied in the contiguous provinces. In one colony tobacco is charged a penny per pound, in another three halfpence; farther on 4d. Tea, in Canada, pays a duty of Id. per lb., and further for every £100 value £2 10s. In New Brunswick, the duty on tea is, simply, 2cl. per lb j in Newfoundland it is 3d. In Canada,

anchors are subject to 2-i per cent, duty ad valorem) in Prince Edward Island, those interesting articles figure among the exemptions, but upon what ground the p iper before us does not specify. Clocks, in Mew Brunswick, pay 15s. duty. In Prince Ed- . ward Island they only pay ss. if under 20s. value, but 10s. if above that sum ; but then, " all wheel machinery and materials for manufacturing clocks and watches" are subjected to an ad valorem duty of 25 per cent. Sugar in Newfoundland pays 7s. 6d per cwt. (refined) ; in New Brunswick 9|J., in Canada 145., and further for every £100 value, £12 10s. The table of exemptions of New Brunswick is as follows. We give it as a specimen : " Baggage, apparel, household effects, working tools and implements used and in use of persons or families arriving in this province, if used abroad by them, and not intended for any other person or persons, or for sale; books printed, carriages of travellers, and not intended for sale ; coins and bullion ; corn, brown brash, Indian corn, rice ground and unground, eggs, manures of all kinds, oil, blubber, fins, and skins, the produce of creatures living in the sea; the return of vessels fitted out in this province for fishing voyages; oil, seal, cod, hake, porpoise, palm, and rape ; plants and shrubs and trees ; printing paper, types, printing presses, and printer's ink ; rags, old rope and junk ; rock salt ; sails and rigging saved from vessels wrecked ; salt, soap, grease ; wood and lumber of all kinds (except cedar, spruce, pine, and hemlock shingles); block tin, zinc, lead, tin plate, bar and sheet steel, lines and tronies for the fisheries." In Bermuda diamonds are specially exempted; but whether on account of the greatness or the total absence of demand for these shining bits of stone, we are left to conjecture, without the slightest clue to guide us to a conclusion on the important subject. But let us go down into more genial latitudes, and see what legislative wisdom does in the Tropics. The tariffs of the West India Islands are still more complicated and more contradictory, but we find our dazzling friends the diamonds are admitted free in Jamaica ; we suppose, because in the present depressed state of that once brilliant colony, they would scarcely bear a duty of any magnitude. We have again the widest variation in the rates pa} r able on the same articles in the different islands ; tea in Dominica pays Is. 6d a lb., in the Virgin Islands it pays Is. 0-|d., in Nevis, 3d. per lb. ; in Antigua, 4d ; in St. Lucia, 6d. ; in British Guiana, 10d. ; and so forth. Then there are in the same colony, great variations in the duties on particular kinds of wine. In Trinidad there are six different rates ; and, of course, we are to assume that the distinction between Yin de C&te, Teneriffe, Sicilian wines, sweet and dry Malaga, Fayal, and Muscat are thoroughly known to and appreciated by those great connoisseurs in all kinds of articles of commerce, the clerks at the thousand and one Custom houses of the empire. Turning Eastward, we find ourselves within the land locked Mediteranean ; and passing by Gibraltar and Malta, we put in at the lonian Islands. Here the tariff is not only longer and more minute, but on every article there are two rates of duty ; the one payable on importations in British, lonian, Austrian, Greek, Neapolitan, Russian and Tuscan bottoms : the other levied on luckless cargoes under " all other flags," those, namely, of nations not on the footing of "the most favoured/ as the commercial diplomatical phrase goes. Moreover, there are duties payable between island and island of the States ; and these again are dependent upon whether the " flag" has or has not been the subject of the deliberations of " Prince or Plenipo ," and is or is not mentioned in some musty and obscure " treaty of commerce and amity," between "high contracting parties." Further on, we come to our African possessions ; and here again we find diamonds figuring among the exemptions, in company with casks, horses, seeds, bottles, coopers' rivets, and donkeys. Such a jumble, such a galimatia, it has not been our lot for a length of time to wade through. It is perfectly refreshing to turn over the leaf, and behold the simplicity, correctness, and common sense, which characterizes the Tariff of New South Wales, the first of the British colonies that has declared for free trade, and has gotten rid of antiquated absurdities. Our list of articles on which duty is to be paid occupies ah exceedingly small place. All is uniform : there are no ad valorem duties, and no tables of exemption except these : — All goods imported for the supply of Her Majesty's service shall be exempt from all j duties and imports of every description whatever ; and all wine imported into the colony of New South Wales, or taken out of bond for the use of military or naval officers serving on full pay in the said colony or the adjoining seas, is exempt from duty. The tariffs of Victoria, Van Diemen's Land, and Western Australia are equally simple. In South Australia the old complications recur again, and wejbave ad valorem and specific duties check by jowl, creating utter confusion and embarrassment in the mind. But New Zealand beats South Australia hollow. The list of dutiable goods is perfectly frightful 5 and it would puzzle the most clear-headed financier to give any thing like a sound reason for the singularities and eccentricities in which commercial legislation had delighted to indulge in that anomalous and" oddly constituted dependency of the Crown " ; We really do trust that the day is not far distant when some more rational and more simple method of raising revenues will be

adopted. The mischief that these tariffs do to trade must be incalculable ; and the necessity of maintaining large establishments, with the hope of preventing any infraction of the interminable regulations of customs, is one of those which have grown in such enormous proportions, as to call for searching enquiry and immediate reform. Her-e is an Augean stable which some Parliamentary Hercules would gain immortal honour for clearing out. But where shall we find the hero in such a cause ?

Dublin, April 6. — 'Saunders/ of this morning, has a flattering statement with respect to the operations of the company at Mountmellick. The season is drawing to close, and the result is thus announced : — "At the approaching annual meeting of the shareholders we have good authority for stating that it is the intention of the directors to declare a dividend of 8 per cent , which will afford a practical illustration of the success of the manufacture. The drawbacks attendant upon the introduction of the beet root industry have been very great, but these have not been surmounted; and when at this early stage, and notwithstanding the numerous obstacles that have been encountered, a dividend is available for the shareholders, they may reasonably look forward to a much larger return next season, during which there will be an enlarged field of operations. We have all along been of opinion that this manufacture was eminently adapted for this country, where the quality of the roots appears to be so superior, and where labour is so cheap. It is, therefore, with great satisfaction we find that our anticipations have been realised ; and we may now reasonably look forward to the erection of beet sugar factories throughout the country at no distant day, and Irish plantation sugar will be one of our staple products."

Russia. — Some very interesting particulars of the position and efficiency of the Russian army are contained in the latest of a series of letters on the subject published in the Army Gazette of Berlin. The following passage has a present interest : " The construction of the great railway line 3 connecting Moscow, Petersburg, Odessa, and Warsaw, in changing the conditions under which a military force may be transported, changes the principles upon which Russia has" hitherto conducted her preparations for war. If we cast a glance at the present distribution of the Russian army according to its great groups, we shall find these to be the Deistwujutschaja Arraia, or active army ; consisting of four infantry corps, united in a compact camp in Poland, Lithuania, Volhynia, and Podolia. Between this and Petersburg stands the Grenadier Corps, at Novgorod, and at Petersburg itself the Guard. In the South-west stands the fifth army corps, with Us most advanced garrison on the Pruth. [This is the army corps commanded by the chief General now at Constantinople.] The sixth army corps i.s in Moscow and its neighborhood. Supposing a war to threaten from the West, we may assume that the active army would not move until Poland had been occupied either by the fifth or sixth infantry corps or the guards from Novgorod and Petersburg. Hitherto this operation must have consumed months ; but let the railroad from Petersburg to Warsaw be finished, and a week will suffice for the puopose. Before the first rail of the line is laid down, the future military use has been a matter of study, and with especial reference to the transport of large masses of troops. Thousands of military transport-waggons are already made or making, and their construction is truly artistic. The packing or suspending of arms, knapsacks, cavalry-saddles, and all the appurtenances of a battalion, is abundantly cared for. In three days the half, or in a week the whole, guard and grenadier corps may stand in Poland while the reserves are coming up to St. Petersburg, by the Moscow and Petersburg Railway, followed, if necessary, by the sixth infantry corps. Whether the fifth corps would move Westward would depend mainly upon the state of relations with Turkey. In any case, the compact mass of the active army would be emancipated from the immobility it has hitherto suffered, and could be brought immediately into play. The political significance of the new railway lies in the fact that the guard and grenadier corps may in future be brought to Poland in a week instead of in months. Let that great artery be connected with Odessa, and with a railroad from Moscow to Warsaw, as well as with another from Warsaw to Odessa, and it cannot then be denied that Russia will have effected a revolution in her military relations to Europe." It was reported in Paris on Wednesday, that a divibion of the Russian army had entered Bucharest, the capital of Turkish Wallachia.

An enormous avalanche of snow fell, at the beginning of March, from one of the high mountains at Rehoul, department of the Ariege, It swept away crops, trees, and detached houses, and completely buried the hamlet, with all its population. Four hundred men from the adjacent villages immediately assembled, and after a great deal of labour, succeeded in rescuing twelve peasons ; they were sadly bruised and partly frozen ; but it is hoped they will recover. Nine dead bodies, three of thefti- children, wore dug out of the ruins, as -were also a number of horses and oxen. TBe amount of loss was very great. "'A servant girl at Bath, has bequeathed to th^Ship-wrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Eoyal Benevolent Society, a legacy of 501 out of her bard-earned savings, in remembrance of her engagement to a young sailor at Sunderland, who was drowned at sea.