open; but no decided recommendation was offered, as it had been pretty clearly demonstrated in evidence that the compulsory system of pilotage still exercised at London, Liverpool, and Bristol, had worked in a manner satisfactory to those persons who were most directly interested in this matter.
Charges made by local authorities,
now generally abolished;
The charges levied by local authorities on ships
and goods entering or clearing from their ports, had
so frequently been under the consideration of Parliament,
that the Committee could do little more than
refer to the various reports on this subject, and especially
to that of the Royal Commissions of 1854,
with the expression of their regret that not one of
the recommendations of that commission had been
carried into effect.[1]
The Committee, after inquiring into the management of the Trinity Houses of Newcastle and Hull, and the nature of the charges levied by the Russian
- ↑ Since 1860 all passing tolls have been abolished, while most of the local charges have either been modified or swept away, but not, however, without a hard struggle, or without the payment of a large grant of public money to compensate the persons, corporations, or companies who held "vested interests"—a grant much greater, I think, than they were entitled to receive. I remember when Mr. Lowe, in his capacity as Vice-President of the Board of Trade first brought in this measure, in the Session of 1856, he exclaimed, in reply to demands of an exorbitant character which were made on the ground of certain clauses in some very ancient deeds, What care I for your musty charters! or words to that effect. You could almost see the hair raising the hats from the heads of a number of old members who held all their property under musty charters. But though Mr. Lowe was not very far wrong so far as regards some of the monstrous claims made under ancient charters, and would I daresay, if he had had his own way, not have paid the claimants one-half the amounts they received, the expression was so appalling as coming from a member of Government, that Lord Palmerston at once saw that, after what Mr. Lowe had said, it would be impossible then to pass the Bill, and with his usual tact referred it to a Select Committee, to which I shall presently refer.
