2-304 on the coal duties in Scotland. Dec. 26. 
ded to many parts of the country where it never ought 
to have taken place; where it has long operated as 2 
bar to industry, and as a regulation highly opprefsive to a 
- very numerous people; and that this regulation was ori- 
ginally adopted, and has been since blindly continued, 
to the great diminution of the national revenue, merely be- 
causé its consequences had not been adverted to at first, 
nor hitherto sufficiently attended to. 
Long before the union, a duty had been imposed upon 
coals carried coastwise zn England ; and as the coals thus 
carried coastwise there, had been consumed chiefly in 
London, the wealthy emporium of the empire, where it 
was found to be a productive, and consequently not an 
opprefsive tax, it seems to have been hence rathly con- 
cluded, that if the same tax fhould be extended -to all 
other parts of the empire, neither would it be opprefsive 
there, and that of course it would yield a great reve- 
nue. 
‘According to this mode of reasoning, the Britifh par- 
liament, in the year 1710, when the temporary law im- 
posing a duty on all coals carried coastwise to any part im 
England, from the ports of Newcastle and Sunderland, ex- 
pired, a new act was obtained, imposing a duty of 3s. 8d. 
per ton, upon all coals carried coastwise from these or any 
ether ports in Britain, to any part in the island, though 
the commifsioners for Scotland had warmly opposed this 
clause at the union, and effectually excluded it from being 
then adopted ; because they knew it was not compatible 
with the circumstances of the people of this country, and - 
would prove ruinous to the industry of the nation. 
The same arguments would have applied to several pla- 
ces in E. gland and Wales, had they been adverted to at the 
time ; but the cause of the poor at that time, as at many 
ethers, was not adverted to; because they had nobody to 
