334 History of Inland Transport 



contention that by removing restrictions placed upon the free- 

 dom of communication the general welfare of nations was 

 promoted. The taxation of the stage-coaches conferred, he 

 said, no advantage on the coaching enterprise, since none of 

 the money raised in this way was expended on road improve- 

 ment, while the amount of the taxation often formed an 

 abnormally large proportion of the receipts. He mentions 

 the case of one coach-owner in the Lake District, thirty per cent 

 of whose receipts in the winter had to go to the Government 

 for the duties imposed, not on the amount of business he did, 

 but on the seating capacity of his coaches. In another instance 

 the duties paid were forty-five per cent of the takings. Brad- 

 field thought a fair average for the country in general would be 

 fifteen per cent. The existing system of mileage duties en- 

 forced, he declared, an average tax of So per annum upon 

 every stud of eight horses employed in stage-coaches, as against 

 30 for the same number used for postchaises, and 11 8s. 

 in the case of those for private carriages. 



Bradfield further quotes a Windermere coach-owner as 

 being of opinion that there was " still great scope for coaches as 

 feeders to the railways if only they were given greater relief 

 in the matter of duties." He expresses his own opinion that 

 " coaches are legitimately the streams by which the traffic 

 should be conducted to the railways," and asks, " Why tax 

 the stream more than the river ? " 



The steady decrease in the yield from the stage-coach duties 

 was in itself sufficiently significant of the changes in travel 

 that were then proceeding. In 1837 the revenue from the 

 duties was ^523, 856 ; but it began to decline steadily as the 

 " palmy days " of coaching came to an end, and in 1841 it had 

 fallen to ^314,000. In 1853, when, after various modifications, 

 the mileage duty was three-halfpence a mile, the yield was 

 only 2 1 2, 659. In 1866, after further modifications, the duty 

 was reduced to a farthing ; and in 1869 it was repealed 

 altogether ; though by that time the locomotive had sup- 

 planted the stage-coach except in a comparatively few localities 

 where it still lingered, mainly, however, as a feeder to the 

 railway. 



The recent revival of coaching comes under the category 

 of sport or recreation rather than under that of internal trans- 

 port and communication. 



