6 the commissioners fully acknowledged that it is desirable in every commercial country, in order to the saving of time, the prevention of mistakes, and the avoidance of litigation, they expressed their opinion that such uniformity cannot consistently with logical accuracy, with natural justice, and with the liberty of the subject, be very precisely defined, or very peremptorily and arbitrarily enjoined on every occasion. Another committee of the House of Commons was afterwards appointed on the same subject, and the result was the passing of an Act, in 1824,7 fixing the standards of weights and measures, and otherwise making regulations for establishing uniformity in the same. By that Act, for the first time a formal definition was given to the unit of measure, by declaring that the straight line or distance between the centre of the two points in the gold studs in the brass rods, now in the custody of the clerk of the House of Commons, whereon the words and figures Standard Yard, 1760,' are engraved, shall be, and the same is hereby declared to be, the original and genuine standard of that measure of length or lineal extension called a yard; and that the straight line, or distance between the centres of the two points in the said gold studs in the said brass rod, the brass being at the temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, shall be, and is hereby denominated, the Imperial Standard Yard, and shall be, and is hereby declared to be, the unit or only standard measure of extension. The Weights and Measures Act of 1878* consolidated the law on the subject. It confirmed the principle that the same weights and measures shall be used throughout the United Kingdom; it defined the standards; it provided for their restoration; it permitted certain secondary standards derived from the imperial; and though it allowed contracts to be valid if expressed in weights and measures of the metric system, and authorised the Board of Trade to verify metric weights and measures to be used for the purpose of science or of manufacture, it excepted those used for the purpose of trade within the meaning of the Act, the Act providing that every contract, bargain, sale, or dealing made in the United Kingdom for any work, goods, wares, or merchandise, to be done, sold, delivered, carried, or agreed for by weight and measure, to be made according to one of the imperial weights or measures, or to some multiple or part thereof. SECT. 4.-USURY LAWS. The abolition of the usury laws was another important reform. At one time strong opinions were entertained respecting the immorality and even illegality of lending money at interest. By a statute of Henry VIII.9 the maximum allowable rate of interest 5 Geo. IV. c. 74. 41 & 42 Vict. c. 49. 37 Hen. VIII. c. 9. was 5 per cent., but any legalisation of the rate was objected to; and under Edward VI.10 a statute was passed prohibiting the taking of any interest, and rendering the money lent and the interest subject to forfeiture, and the offender liable to fine and imprisonment. An Act of Elizabeth" confirmed the statute of Henry VIII., and ordained that all brokers should be guilty of a præmunire that contracted for more than 5 per cent., and that the securities themselves should be void. Under James I.12 the rate of interest was fixed at 8 per cent.; under Charles II.13 at 6 per cent.; and under Queen Anne 14 at 5 per cent., the latter Act providing that all contracts and agreements, whereupon or whereby there shall be received or taken directly or indirectly any higher rate of interest, shall be utterly void, and that the mere act of taking a higher rate of interest than the one mentioned, even though the original contract should be perfectly valid, shall render the offender liable to forfeit treble the value of the money lent by him. But all such Acts proved barren of real results, and they had to be relinquished, though not without considerable misgivings. In 1818 a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the effect of the laws that regulate or restrain the interest of money, which examined, amongst others, Mr. David Ricardo, Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Edward Sugden (afterwards Lord Chancellor St. Leonards), Mr. John Thornton, and Mr. Nathan Rothschild. After much inquiry, the committee reported that the laws regulating or restraining interest had been extensively evaded, and had failed of the effect of imposing a maximum on such rate; that of late years, from a constant excess of the market rate of interest above the limit permitted by law, they have added to the expense incurred by borrowers on real security, and that such borrowers were compelled to resort to the mode of granting annuities on lives, a mode which was made a cover for obtaining higher interest than the legal rate, and further subjected the borrowers to enormous charges, or forced them to make very disadvantageous sales of their estates. In the opinion of the committee, the construction of such laws as are applicable to the transactions of commerce, as then carried on, was attended with much uncertainty as to the legality of many transactions of frequent occurrence, and, consequently, was productive of much embarrassment and litigation. And that that period, when the market rate of interest was below the legal rate, afforded an opportunity peculiarly suitable for the repeal of the said laws. But, notwithstanding such a decided report, no steps were taken either to abolish or to lessen the inconvenience of the usury laws. Public opinion was not yet ripe for the change. During the crisis of 1826, however, it was felt that the prohibition to charge more than 5 per cent., when the value of money was 1 13 Eliz. C. 8. 1412 Anne, c. 16. 10 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 20. 19 12 Car. II. c. 13. 12 21 Jac. I. c. 17. much higher, practically prevented borrowers from obtaining accommodation, and rendered the crisis still more calamitous. When, therefore, the Bank Charter Act had to be renewed, the committee of 1832 decided that it would be expedient to repeal the usury laws, as far as regarded bills of exchange of three months and under. And, accordingly, an Act to that effect was passed in 1833.15 In 1836, upon the occurrence of another panic, the evil of the usury laws was still more felt; and in 1837 an Act passed to extend the law of 1837 to bills of exchange of twelve months and under. 16 In 1839,17 the law was again relaxed, by rendering it lawful to stipulate for any rate of interest upon which the parties might agree as to all personal contracts, but made an exception as to real securities. The question was again raised by Lord Lansdowne in 1841, upon which occasion Lord Ashburton said that the relaxation had conferred great benefit on the lender, but not on the borrower. A committee of the House of Lords was then appointed to inquire into the effect of the alteration made in the laws regulating the interest on money, but that committee made no report, and only published the evidence. And thus the law remained till 1854,18 when a bill was introduced to abolish all the usury laws. Hitherto all the steps taken had been of a tentative character, because, in ignorance of the economic principles which regulate money as a medium of exchange, people could not be brought to believe that money was as much a commodity as any ordinary article of produce, that its value must be regulated like the value of any other commodity, by the ordinary principles of demand and supply, and that it was as impossible to fix the rate of interest at which it should be lent as to fix the price at which corn and butter should be sold. This prejudice, however, gradually disappeared, and it became easy to extend the same principle with respect to interest on money lent on land and other property as on bills of exchange. As a matter of fact, people were not deterred from raising money upon such securities at a higher rate of interest than 5 per cent. by the state of the law, only they had recourse to collusive practices and fraudulent proceedings in order to evade its operation, the result of which was that a much higher rate was paid than if money could have been obtained at the market value. The usury laws produced immense inconvenience; they affected to do what all the powers of the Legislature could not do -to apply a different principle to one description of commodities from that which was applied to every other, and they interfered with the principle of supply and demand-and so they were altogether abolished. 15 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 98. 16 7 Will. IV. & 1 Vict. c. 80. 18 17 & 18 Vict. c. 90. CHAPTER XIV. MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET. The Chancellor of the Exchequer.-Mr. Gladstone.-Previous Reforms in the Excise, Customs, and Inland Revenue.-The Income Tax.-The Soap Duty. The Tea Duty.-The Customs Tariff.-The New 21. 10s. Stock.Duties on Receipts and Bills of Exchange.-The Expenses of War. IN Mr. Gladstone England has had a minister of finance of the highest order. Of business habits and with mercantile sympathies, a scholar and a statesman, a man of wide observation and comprehensive views, grave in speech and earnest in character, Mr. Gladstone is the very personation of a minister dealing with the finances of a state. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British Cabinet has duties scarcely inferior to those of the Prime Minister. Properly to regulate the wants of the nation and to estimate its resources, to anticipate with any exactitude the produce of taxation, and to balance the burdens on different classes of society-these, though only the elementary principles of the science of finance, are matters fraught with enormous difficulties. It seemed wonderful that Mr. Pitt could so well provide for the extraordinary exigencies of a protracted war. It was almost by a coup main that Sir Robert Peel converted a bankrupt exchequer into an exchequer at once provident and affluent. But what seems magic or a coup de main is only the evolution of wisdom, the foresight of the minister, and in these qualities Mr. Gladstone rivalled, and perhaps excelled, his eminent predecessors. de Mr. Gladstone was in the twenty-third year of his age when he entered the House of Commons in the Conservative interest as the nominee of the Duke of Newcastle for the borough of Newark, and in a few years he was called to take part in the government of the country as Lord of the Treasury and Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. In 1841 he was Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, and in 1843 he succeeded the Earl of Ripon as President of the Board, under Sir Robert Peel's administration, in which capacity Mr. Gladstone gave invaluable aid to Sir Robert in the simplification of the tariff. But Sir Robert Peel's ministry fell, and Mr. Gladstone, freed from the burden of state, paid a visit to Italy, a visit memorable for the influence it exercised on the government of the late King of Naples, by the exposition of the abuses of the prison discipline, and their effect on the distinguished patriot Poerio. In 1847 Mr. Gladstone was elected member for the University of Oxford, but, though still in the ranks of the Conservative party, he refused to join the Earl of Derby's ministry in 1852. A year after, however, the Coalition Cabinet was formed, and Mr. Gladstone assumed in it the conspicuous place of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Great reforms had already been made in the finances of the country when Mr. Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the excise the duties had been repealed on plate glass,' hides and skins, salt,3 printed silk, printed cottons, candles, tiles," 2 6 The duty on plate glass was reduced from 47. 18s. to 31. per cwt. in 1819. In 1825 the duty on the manufactured article was repealed, and a duty of 34. per lb. imposed on the fluxed materials. This duty was reduced from 3d. to 21d. per lb., whilst 6d. per lb. was imposed on the manufactured article in 1832. Again this 6d. was reduced to 2d. per lb. in 1835. In 1844 the duty was reduced to 3d. per lb., and in 1845 both duty and license were repealed. 2 In 1822 the various rates on hide and skin were reduced to one-half, and in 1830 they were repealed. A duty of 14d. per lb. on tawed and lamb skins, and of 18. per dozen on kid skins was repealed. The The salt duty in England was reduced from 15s. to 2s. per bushel in 1823, and the remaining duty was repealed in 1825. One of the earliest benefits derived from the cessation of the war and the reduction of the national expenditure was the abolition of the salt duty. It pressed hard upon the people. No article is more indispensable in the household of the rich and the poor than salt. It gives relish to our food; it promotes cleanliness and health; it is used for a hundred purposes; and, being one of the necessaries of life, it was good to render it as speedily as possible free of duty. Yet many nations have taken salt as a fit subject for duty. In ancient Rome salt was heavily taxed. In modern countries it forms the subject of a government monopoly. And in India salt, like opium, has long been monopolised by the state and heavily taxed. clamour for the repeal of such a duty, when it was at the rate of 15s. per bushel, or thirty times the value of the salt, must have been very great, but the Legis lature was not prepared to abandon 1,500,000l. of revenue from this article. Happily salt is as abundant as it is useful and necessary. Every country in the world seems to produce it. Both kingdoms of nature, the organised and the inorganised, supply it. While whole strata of the earth are covered with rock salt, salt springs, salt lakes, salt marshes, the whole ocean may be said to be a rich mine of salt. A wonderful provision this of nature, which is ever bountiful of the most useful articles, and is always giving liberally of those things which are most wholesome. But the great value of salt is not confined to its dietary purposes. The chemist has analysed its constituent elements, and has revealed to us properties and capacities which few had ever imagined it did possess. Not the least evil connected with customs or excise duties is that they prevent our becoming acquainted with the uses and value of many articles. The constituent parts of salt water are-chloride of sodium 74.9, chloride of magnesium 94, sulphate of magnesia 64, sulphate of lime 44, chloride of potassium 1; and some quantities of bromide of magnesium, carbonate of lime, silicic acid, and ammonia. For a considerable time France was obtaining soda from Spain, and Marseilles was the chief entrepôt for it. But at the commencement of the present century Leblanc discovered the method of manufacturing carbonate of sodium from common salt, the process consisting in first converting the chloride of sodium into a sulphate of soda by means of sulphuric acid, and decomposing the latter by means of coal and carbonate of lime upon the floor of the reverberatory furnace. This was a most useful discovery, which endowed the world with cheap glass, soda, and many other advantages, and it is to be For Notes, 5, 6, 7 , see next page. |