Oldalképek
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

deration, to any one who shall sue them. I may not be exceeded by the Clerk of the (Id. § 8.) To give effect to this pro- Peace, under a penalty of 5l. If he take vision, before the Clerk of the Peace more than is authorised by such table enters upon the execution of his duties he of fees, he will also be liable to be protakes an oath that he has not paid any-ceeded against at common law for extorthing for his nomination.

tion, and to be removed from his office by the court of quarter-sessions. The sessions cannot, however, compel the payment of these fees by summary process, nor detain the parties until they be paid, but the Clerk of the Peace is left to his remedy by action. A bill, however, is now before parliament, by which Clerks of the Peace are in future to be remune

collected. (Dickinson's Quarter-Sessions ; Burn's Justice of the Peace)

The Clerk of the Peace may execute the duties of his office either personally, or by a sufficient deputy approved by the Custos Rotulorum. He or his deputy must be constantly in attendance upon the court of quarter-sessions. He gives notice of its being holden or adjourned; issues its various processes; records its proceedings; and performs all the minis-rated by salaries, payable out of the fees terial acts required to give effect to its decisions. During the sitting of the court, he reads all acts directed to be read in sessions; calls the jurors, and parties under recognizance; presents the bills to the grand jury and receives them again; arraigns prisoners, administers oaths, and receives and records verdicts. Whenever prosecutors decline any other professional assistance, he is required to draw bills of indictment, for which, in cases of felony, he can charge 2s. only, but in cases of misdemeanor he may charge any reasonable amount for his service.

In addition to these general duties he has other special duties imposed upon him by different statutes, in regard to the summoning of juries, the appointment of sheriffs and under-sheriffs, the enrolment of rules of savings' banks and friendly societies, the custody of documents required to be deposited with him under standing orders of the Houses of Parliament, and other matters.

By act 22 Geo. II. c. 46, § 14, he is restrained, as being an officer of the Court, from acting as a solicitor, attorney or agent, or suing out any process, at any general or quarter sessions, to be held in the county, &c. in which he shall execute his office.

The Clerk of the Peace is paid by fees. Those chargeable upon prisoners acquitted were abolished by the 55 Geo. III. c. 50, for which he is indemnified by the county. By the 57 Geo. III. c. 91, the justices of the peace for the county are authorised to settle a table of fees, to be approved by the Judges of Assize, which

CLERKS IN ORDINARY OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL. [PRIVY COUNCIL.]

CLERKS AND SERVANTS. [SERVANTS.]

CLIENT (Cliens), supposed by some writers to be derived from the verb clueo; but the derivation is somewhat doubtful. From the origin of ancient Rome, there appears to have existed the relation of patronage (patronatus) and clientship (clientela). Romulus, the founder of Rome, was, according to tradition, the founder of this system; but it was probably an old Italian institution and existed before the foundation of the city. The cliens may perhaps be compared with the vassal of the middle ages. Being a man generally without possessions of his own, the client in such case received from some patrician a part of his domains as a precarious and revocable possession. The client was under the protection of the patrician of whom he held his lands, who in respect of such a relation was named patron (patronus), i. e. father of the family, as matrona was the mother, "in relation to their children and domestics, and to their dependents, their clients." (Niebuhr.) It was formerly the opinion that every plebeian was also a client to some patrician; but Niebuhr, in speaking with reference to the proposition that "the patrons and clients made up the whole Roman people," affirms that the proposition is only true "if applied to the period before the commonalty (plebs) was formed, when all the Romans were

Bonis Libertorum, Dig. 38, tit. 2) who died intestate and left no heir (suus heres). Patron and client were not permitted to sue at law, or give evidence against one another; of which an intance is mentioned by Plutarch in his Life of Marius (c. 5), though the relation of patron and client was not at that time exactly what it once had been.

The relation between patron and client was hereditary; and the client had the gentile name of his patron, by which he was united to his patron's family and to the Gens to which his patron belonged.

comprised in the original tribes by means of the houses they belonged to." It is most consistent with all the testimony that we have, to view the Roman state as originally consisting of a number of free citizens who shared the sovereign power, and of a class of dependents, or persons in a state of partial freedom (clientes), who were attached to the several heads of houses and had no share in the sovereign power. The commonalty, or Plebs, as the writers call that class who from an early period stood in political opposition to the citizens who had the sovereign power (Patres), was of later growth, and was distinct from the Clients. The Plebeians, whatever may have been their origin, were Roman citizens, from the time that they were recognised as an order by the legislation of Servius Tullus; but they had not all the rights of the Patricians: they only attained them after a long struggle. The legislation of Ser-perors, cannot be considered as expressing vius appears also to have placed the Clients on something like the same footing as the Plebs with respect to civic rights.

There existed mutual rights and obligations between the patron and his client, of which Dionysius (Roman Antiq. ii. 10) has given a summary. The patron was bound to take his client under his paternal protection; to help him in case of want and difficulty, and even to assist him with his property; to plead for him and defend him in suits. The client on his part was bound in obedience to his patron, as a child to his parent; to promote his honour, assist him in all affairs; to give his vote for him when he sought any office, for it appears that the Clients had votes in the Comitia Centuriata; to ransom him when he or any of his sons was made prisoner; and to contribute to the marriage portion of the patron's daughters, if the patron was too poor to do it himself. The obligation to contribute to a daughter's portion and to ransom the patron or his sons bears some resemblance to the aids due under the feudal system. [AIDS.] The patron succeeded to his property when the client died without heirs; which was also the law of the twelve tables in the case of a freedman (De

Originally patricians only could be patrons; but when, in the later times of the republic, the plebeians had access to all the honours of the state, clients also were attached to them.

The terms patronus and libertus, or even patronus and cliens, as used in the later years of the republic, and under the em

the same relation as the terms patronus and cliens in the early ages of Rome, though this later relation was probably derived from the earlier one. When a foreigner who came to reside at Rome selected a patron, which, if not the universal, was the common practice, he did no more than what every foreigner who settled in a strange country often found it his interest to do. The relationship existing at Rome between patron and client facilitated the formation of similar relations between foreigners and Roman citizens; the foreigner thus obtained a protector and perhaps a friend, and the Roman increased his influence by becoming the patron of men of letters and of genius. (See Cicero Pro Archia, c. 3, and De Oratore, i. 39, on the Jus Applicationis,' the precise meaning of which, however, is doubtful. See also Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 316, &c., and the references in the notes; and Becker, Handbuch des Röm. Alterthums, vol. ii.)

[ocr errors]

As a Roman client was defended in law-suits by his patron, the word client is used in modern times for a party who is represented by a hired counsellor or solicitor. The term Patron is also now in use: the present meaning of the word requires no explanation.

COAL TRADE. The quantity of

coals shipped coastwise from ports of Great Britain to other ports of Great Britain and to Ireland amounted, in the year 1843, to 7,447,084 tons; and the quantity exported to the British colonies and to foreign countries in the same year was 1,866,211 tons; making an aggregate of 9,313,295 tons of coals sea-borne from the maritime districts. The market of London alone required a supply of 2,663,204 tons, for the conveyance of which 9593 ships (which make repeated voyages) were employed. The great towns of Lancashire, of the three Ridings of Yorkshire, of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Staffordshire, are supplied by canals or by land-carriage from collieries in the respective counties here enumerated. In 1816 it was ascertained that the quantity of coals then sent by inland navigation and by land-carriage to different parts of the kingdom was 10,808,046 tons; and the quantity must now be very much greater, not only from the increase of population, but the growth of manufactures. The quantity used in the immediate neighbourhood of the collieries is also very great. The town of Sheffield, for example, alone requires for manufacturing and domestic purposes more than half a million of tons annually drawn from collieries on the spot; and it has been estimated that the iron-works of Great Britain, most of which are situated in spots where coal is found, require every year, for smelting the ore and converting the raw material into bars, plates, &c., nearly seven million of tons. There is good reason for believing that the annual consumption of coals within the United Kingdom is not far short of 35,000,000 tons. In 1841 the number of persons in Great Britain employed in coal-mines was 118,233. In Durham there were more persons employed under ground in coalmines than in cultivating the surface. On the 10th of August, 1842, an act was passed "to prohibit the employment of women and girls in mines and collieries, to regulate the employment of boys, and to make other provisions relating to persons working therein." No boys can be employed under ground in any colliery who are under the age of ten. This in

terference of the legislature was founded on an extensive inquiry by the Children's Employment Commission, which prepared three Reports that were presented parliament in 1842.

It was long considered politic to check the exportation of coals to other countries, both through fear of exhausting the mines, and because it was imagined that our superiority as manufacturers might be endangered. A heavy export duty was accordingly levied, amounting to 17s. the chaldron, Newcastle measure, or 6s. 5d. per ton upon large, and 4s. 6d. the chaldron, or is. 8d. per ton, upon small coals. In 1831 these duties were modified to 3s. 4d. per ton upon large, and 2s. per ton upon small coals; and in 1835 they were repealed, with the exception of an ad valorem duty of 10s. per cent.; but if exported in foreign ships not entitled to the privileges conferred by treaties of reciprocity, the duty was 4s. per ton, whether the coal was exported to foreign countries or to British possessions. In 1842 Sir R. Peel altered the duties to 28. per ton on all large coal exported to foreign countries, and 1s. per ton on small coals and culm; but if exported in foreign ships not entitled to the privileges conferred by treaties of reciprocity, the duty was 4s. per ton on large coal, and the same on small coals, culm, and cinders. In the session of 1845 Sir R. Peel, in bringing forward the budget, announced his intention of abandoning the coal-duty; and on the 12th of March it was abolished. This duty had the effect of checking the foreign coal-trade, which had been rapidly increasing for several years, and had, in fact, trebled in amount since 1835. The duty was comparatively insignificant as a source of revenue; it led. to greater activity in foreign mines, and reduced the profits of the shipper of English coal, who had to meet foreign competitors.

A considerable revenue was for many years raised from all coal carried coastwise by sea from one part of the kingdom to another. When first imposed, in the reign of William III., this tax was 5s. per chaldron, but was raised during the war of the French revolution to 9s. 4d., at which rate it was continued until 1824;,

it was then reduced to 6s., and in 1831 was wholly repealed.

Although the government has remedied the evil so far as the public revenue is concerned, the consumer is still burthened in some places with local or municipal duties, &c. Thus in the city of London the corporation was empowered, by the acts 10 Geo. IV. c. 136, and 11 Geo. IV. c. 64, to levy eight pence per ton "for providing for the payment of the interest and ultimate liquidation of monies borrowed for making the approaches to London Bridge." The produce of this tax, which in 1842 was 89,642l., is mortgaged for the cost of rebuilding London Bridge and approaches. One penny per ton is levied under the act 47 Geo. III. for establishing a market for the sale of coals. This tax realized 11,5217. in 1842. It has been said that the means of establishing the Coal Market might have been provided without difficulty by a more economical management of some of the City departments; but it was an easier task to apply for an act of parliament to levy an additional tax. Under the act 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 76, four pence per ton is levied "for metage by prescription and charters," making together 1s. 1d. per ton upon all coals brought coastwise to the port of London.

By letters patent granted by Charles II., the Duke of Richmond was entitled to receive ls. per chaldron, Newcastle measure, on all coals shipped in the river Tyne to be consumed in England; and on the average of ten years ending 1799, the amount of that duty had been 21,000l. a year. On the 19th of August, 1799, the Treasury agreed with the duke for the purchase of this duty by an annuity of 19,000l., which sum was charged upon the consolidated fund, to be paid quarterly. The sum issued by the Exchequer at three several periods for the purchase of a perpetual annuity of 19,000l. for the duke was 490,8331.; but the sums received by the Custom House, as the representative of the Duke of Richmond, from August, 1799, up to March, 1831, when all coasting duties ceased, exceeded the payments made from the Exchequer by 315,000l. The total revenue derived from the coasting duties on coals in

1830, the year preceding its repeal, was 1,021,8621.

A very peculiar regulation has been established by the coal-owners of the northern coal-field, called the "limitation of the vend." It is important that the consumers of coal should understand the nature and effects of this restriction; and the following account of it, by G. R. Porter, Esq., is therefore given at some length. Mr. Porter says:- -"The limitation of the vend has existed, with some partia interruptions, since the year 1771. This arrangement is no less than a systematic combination among the owners of collieries having their outlets by the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees, to raise the price to consumers by a self-imposed restriction as to the quantity supplied. A committee appointed from among the owners holds its meetings regularly in the town of Newcastle, where a very costly establishment of clerks and agents is maintained. By this committee not only is the price fixed at which coals of various qualities may be sold, when sea-borne, for consumption within the kingdom, but the quantity is assigned which, during the space of the fortnight following each order or "issue," the individual collieries may ship. Upon the opening of a new colliery, the first thing to be determined is the rank or "basis to be assigned to it. For this purpose, one referee is appointed by the owners of the colliery, and another by the coal-trade committee, who, taking into view the extent of royalty or coal-field secured, the size of the pits, the number and power of steam-engines erected, the number of cottages built for workmen, and the general scale of the establishment, fix therefrom the proportionate quantity the colliery shall be permitted to furnish towards the general supply, which the directing committee shall from time to time authorise to be issued. The point to be attained by the owners of the colliery is to secure for their establishment the largest basis possible; and with this view it is common to secure a royalty extending over from five to ten times the surface which it is intended to work, thus burthening themselves with the payment of possibly 5000l. per annum, or more, of "dead rent," to the

owner of the soil, who, of course, exacts such payment in return for his concession, although his tenants may have no intention of using it. Instead of sinking one or two pits, which would afford ample facility for working the quantity which the mine is destined to yield, a third and possibly a fourth pit are sunk, at an enormous expense, and without the smallest intention of their being used. A like wasteful expenditure is made for the erection of useless steam-power; and to complete and give an appearance of consistency to the arrangements, instead of building 200 cottages for the workmen, double that number are provided. In this manner a capital of 160,000l. to 200,000l. may be invested for setting in motion a colliery, which will be allowed to raise and sell only such a quantity of coals as might be produced by means of an outlay of one-fourth or one-fifth of that amount. By this wasteful course the end of the colliery owners is attained: they get their basis fixed, if it is a large concern, as is here supposed, say at 50,000, and this basis will probably secure for them a sale of 25,000 chaldrons during the year, instead of 100,000 chaldrons, which their extended arrangements would allow them to raise. The Newcastle committee meet once a fortnight, or twenty-six times in the year, and, according to the price in the London market, determine the quantity that may be issued during the following fortnight. If the London price is what is considered high, the issue is increased; and if low, it is diminished. If the "issue" is twenty on the 1000, the colliery here described would be allowed to sell (20 × 50) 1000 chaldrons during the ensuing fortnight. The pit and the establishment may be equal to the supply of 3000 or 4000 chaldrons; orders may be on the books to that extent, or more; ships may be waiting to receive the largest quantity; but, under the regulation of the "vend," not one bushel beyond the 1000 chaldrons may be shipped until a new issue shall be made. By this system the price is kept up; and, as regards the colliery owners, they think it more for their advantage to sell 25,000 chaldrons at 30s. per chaldron than to sell 100,000 chaldrons at the

|

price which a free competition would bring about. They may be right in this calculation; but if, under the system of restriction, any undue profit is obtained, nothing can be more certain than that competition for a portion of this undue profit will cause the opening of new collieries until the advantage shall be neutralized, and this result of the system is already fast approaching. Every new colliery admitted into the "vend" takes its share in the "issues," and, to some extent, limits the sales of all the rest. The disadvantage during all this time to the public at large is incontestable. . . The owners of collieries, being restricted in their fortnightly issues to quantities which their establishment enables them to raise in three or four days, are naturally desirous of finding for their men during the remainder of the time some employment which shall lessen the expense of maintaining them in idleness, and spread over a larger quantity of product the fixed expenses of their establishments and their dead rents. To this end coals are raised which must find a sale in foreign countries; and it practically results that the same quality of coals which, if shipped to London, are charged at 30s. 6d. per Newcastle chaldron, are sold to foreigners at 18s. for that quantity, giving a preference to the foreign buyer of 40 per cent. in the cost of English coal. By this means the finest kinds of coal, which in London cost the consumer about 30s. per ton, may be had in the distant markets of St. Petersburg and New York for 15s. to 16s., or little more than half the London price. Nor is this the worst effect of the system. In working â colliery a great proportion of small coal is raised. The cost to the home consumer being exaggerated, and the freight and charges being equally great upon this article as upon round coal, very little small coal finds a market within the kingdom, except on the spot where it is raised; and as the expense of raising it must be incurred, the coal-owners must of course seek elsewhere for a market at any price that will exceed the mere cost of putting it on board ship. By this means "nut-coal," which consists of small pieces, free from dust, which have passed

« ElőzőTovább »