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39
The total amount raised with the local rates for these two
Boards alone, during the ten years, is £340,334, being an
average of £34,033 per annum. These precepts, which, in
the year 1877-8, represented a rate of less than 9d. in the
pound, had increased to a rate of more than 1s. 4d. in
the pound in 1880-7, and in actual amount hare about
doubled in ten years. The precepts for the year 1887-8 show
an increase of £1,881 in the demand of the Metropolitan
Board of Works, and a decrease of £l,245 in that of the
School Board for London.
COAL AND WINE DUES.
The reply of Lord Randolph Churchill, as Chancellor of
the Exchequer, to the deputation from the Corporation of the
City of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works which
waited on his lordship to solicit the aid of the Government in
a proposed application to Parliament for the renewal of these
Dues for a further period on their expiration in July, 1889,
naturally attracted the attention of the Hating authorities of
the Metropolis, In effect, his lordship condemned the dues as
a tax on an article of first necessity, and as tending to
encourage lavish expenditure, and stated that Her Majesty's
Government could not he party to their renewal, although
they might reconsider this decision it the people of London
pronounced strongly in favour of a continuance of the dues.
Any objections which might be taken to levying a duty on
coal in aid of local rates, if such a proposal were made for the
first time, are clearly subject to modification in view of the
fact that a duty has been levied for upwards of two centuries,
and therefore must have been taken into account by manufacturers
and others in making existing arrangements. The