ON THE MEASUREMENT OF SHIPS FOR TONNAGE. 83 
long since ceased to be used as a basis of taxation, inasmuch as all fiscal 
dues or duties are levied by the Custom-house on the cargoes imported and 
exported. 
The only dues or rates levied on tonnage are for harbour and dock accom- 
modation and light dues, for maintenance of lights on the coast ; the former 
being mostly paid to local trusts or dock companies, while the light dues, 
although levied by the Custom-house, are paid to the Trinity-house for the 
maintenance of the lights; so that these dues cannot, in point of fact, be any 
longer considered as fiscal or government. 
Many of the light-houses, previous to 1835, were private property, till 
purchased by the Trinity-house Corporation, who thereby incurred a debt 
of £1,200,000. The shipowners have paid off both principal and interest. 
The light dues now charged on tonnage amounts to £313,208, and the cost 
of maintenance amounts to £214,700, the surplus revenue from light dues, 
£98,508, being received by the Board of. Trade for the Mercantile Marine 
Fund. 
The coasts of France and America are lighted by their respective govern- 
_ments without charge on shipping. Both equity and policy dictate the 
expediency of relieving the shipowners of this country from all tonnage dues 
for lights, and transferring the charge to the cargoes and passengers carried 
by ships, or to the Consolidated Fund. 
A bill in parliament proposes to abolish all passing tolls and town dues 
levied on shipping, the latter at Liverpool amounting to £125,000 a-year, 
being raised by a small rate levied on all cargoes imported or exported on 
the Mersey. A similar rate on cargo levied at all other ports would provide 
the£250,000 annually required for maintaining the lights, buoys and beacons, 
and for the conservancy of the ports and rivers on our coasts. The substi- 
tution of light dues levied on cargo and passengers for the present tonnage 
dues levied on shipping, would entail no additional labour on the Custom- 
house officers, as they must necessarily keep a record of all goods imported 
and exported at each port. This is a more legitimate occupation than the 
measurement of ships, which is stated to be “an extraneous duty thrown 
_ upon their officers,” in a report from the Commissioners of Customs recently 
_ published. 
Both economy and efficiency would be effected by the transfer of the duty 
of measuring ships from the Custom-house officers and department, to the 
shipwright and engine surveyors, now employed by the Board of Trade for 
all ships carrying passengers, whose certificate of survey would furnish the 
Custom-house with the dimensions, register, and gross tonnage, and other 
particulars required for the various forms of register and transfer of vessels ; 
these also forming the record for compiling the statistics of the shipping of 
the country, which comprises the only remaining usefulness of tonnage 
registration for statistical purposes at the Custom-house, there being no 
longer any fiscal dues or Government duties levied on the tonnage of shipping, 
notwithstanding which, up to the present time, the Board of Trade and Go- 
vernment have only considered the measurement of tonnage and registration 
in a purely fiscal point of view. 
The reasons for these conclusions will be found in the facts of the work- 
ing of the present system, detailed in the foregoing paper, in which it was 
_ found necessary to refer to the proceedings of former committees, and the 
_ different principles of measurement in use. 
In 1835 an Act was passed adopting the principle of internal measurement 
for register tonnage. 
_ In 1849 the subject was again investigated by a committee, consisting of 
a G2 
