There were many variations in the mileage duty on stage-coaches. In 1780 it
was one halfpenny for every mile travelled; in 1783 it was raised to a
penny; in 1797 it was twopence, while subsequent increases led up to the
highest rate of all--one of fivepence halfpenny per mile for coaches
licensed to carry more than ten passengers inside. It was, in part, to
moderate the pressure of this tax that Shillibeer introduced the omnibus
into London,[52] his first conveyance being a huge, unwieldy conveyance
which, drawn by three horses, spread the fivepence-halfpenny mileage duty
over twenty-two inside passengers.
The yield from the mileage duty was £194,559 in 1814, £223,608 in 1815
(when there was an increase of one halfpenny per mile for every coach) and
£480,000 in 1835.
So long as the stage-coaches were well patronised, little or nothing was
heard about all this taxation, which was, in effect, passed on to the
traveller, who either paid without grumbling or else grumbled and paid. But
when the railways began to divert more and more traffic from the roads, the
duties in question fell with special severity on the coach proprietors, who
then divided their maledictions pretty equally between the railway
companies and the tax-gatherers.
The mileage duty was especially burdensome under the new conditions. Being
assessed on the number of persons each coach was licensed to carry, and not
on the number of passengers actually carried, it remained at the same
amount whether the coaches ran full, half full or empty. The fact that the
railways, which were depriving the coaches of their patrons, then paid
their halfpenny per mile only on every four passengers actually conveyed
became a grievance with the coach proprietors, who thought that the
railways should be taxed on the same basis as themselves.
{331}That the taxation pressed heavily on a declining business was beyond
all possibility of doubt.
A petition drawn up in 1830 by proprietors of stage-coaches employed on the
turnpike roads between Liverpool and various Lancashire towns showed that
the taxes they paid to the Government worked out for the year as follows:--
£ s. d.
Duty on 33 coaches 8,455 16 8
Assessed taxes for coach servants 261 0 0
Mileage duty 5,779 3 4
------------
Total 14,496 0 0
In addition to this they had to pay £8005 13s. 4d. a year for turnpike
tolls, while their general expenses, including horses (renewed every three
years), harness, hostlers, rent of stables, hay, corn and straw, etc., but
allowing for value of manure, came to £64,602 13s. 4d., their total annual
expenditure thus being as follows:--
£ s. d.
Government duty and taxes 14,496 0 0
Turnpike tolls 8,005 13 4
Expenses 64,602 13 4
------------
Total £87,104 6 8
W. C. Wimberley, a coach proprietor of Doncaster, who gave evidence before
the Select Committee of 1837, said that the Government taxation on a single
coach, the "Wellington," running between London and Newcastle, for a period
of 364 days, was as follows:--
Duty for four passengers inside and £ s. d.
eleven out, sixpence per double mile,
that is up and down 278 miles 2529 16 0
Stamps for receipts on payment of ditto 1 12 6
Four licenses (four coaches being used
successively up and down) 20 0 0
Assessed taxes on coachmen and guards 17 10 0
-----------
£2568 18 6
{332}The coach also paid, in the same period, £2537 7s. 8d. for tolls.
Another coach proprietor, W. B. Thorne, told the same Committee that on
five coaches to Dover he paid for mileage duty alone in the previous year a
total of £2273. On his coaches to Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham he
paid £7017 in the twelve months, and the total amount of duty he paid for
all his coaches in the year was £26,717. He did not think, however, that
relief from taxation would save them from being annihilated by the
railways, except as regarded certain roads where the railways did not
directly operate against them.
Still another coach proprietor, Robert Gray, admitted to the Committee that
he did not think it would be possible for the coaches to compete on the
Bath road with the Great Western Railway even if all the duty were taken
off.
There was no doubt that the coaches could not have held their own
permanently against the railways even if they had been relieved of taxation
as soon as the success of their rivals became assured. On the other hand,
if the coaches could have been afforded such relief that, while not
attempting to compete with the railways on main routes where competition
was hopeless, they would have been encouraged to cater for business on
routes not then served by the railways, an advantage would have been
gained, not only by the coach proprietors themselves, but by the public.
The early days of the railway undoubtedly brought serious inconvenience to
people who found themselves set down at a station ten, fifteen or twenty
miles distant from their home, with no chance of their getting a coach
because rail competition and Government taxation combined had made it no
longer possible to run a coach on that road. If the taxation had not, as
was often the case, made all the difference between profit and loss, many
of the coaches would probably have held on a few years longer, by which
time the railways would have been more generally developed. As it was they
were withdrawn in larger numbers, at an earlier period, than would
otherwise have been the case, and there were many instances of great
hardship to travellers whose means did not allow of their supplementing an
incomplete railway journey by hiring a vehicle specially for themselves.
{333}The report presented by the Select Committee of 1837 admitted the
inequalities of the taxation on land travelling as between the coaches and
the railways; but, instead of recommending, as the coach proprietors had
wanted, that the demands on the railways should be increased, the Committee
expressed strong disapproval of any tax at all being imposed on internal
communication. They said, among other things:--
"Very valuable evidence was submitted to your Committee by Sir Edward Lees,
secretary to the Post Office at Edinburgh, as to the increased speed,
security and cheapness with which the post might be conveyed over the
cross-roads of Scotland by the establishment of mail cars similar to those
now in use in Ireland, thereby increasing the Revenue and opening up
districts now altogether destitute of any mode of public conveyance; the
same remarks would necessarily apply to many cross-roads in England. The
grand obstacle, however, to the establishment of these cars is the heavy
taxation on travelling, which utterly deters individuals from engaging in
such speculations; while in Ireland, where the roads are decidedly
inferior, but where none of these taxes exist, cheap and expeditious public
conveyances are everywhere to be found."
The ultimate findings and recommendations of the Committee were summed up
in the following emphatic declaration:
"Your Committee earnestly recommend the abolition of all taxes on public
conveyances and on carriages generally at the earliest period consistent
with a due regard to the financial arrangements of the country."
Unfortunately, the financial arrangements of the country never have allowed
of this recommendation being carried out, and a further period of
thirty-two years was to elapse before even the moribund stage-coach
business was relieved altogether of the obligation to pay mileage duty.
The burdensome nature of these duties on internal communication led to the
formation of a "Committee for the Abolition of the Present System of
Taxation on Stage Carriages in Great Britain"; and in some "Observations on
the Injustice, Inequalities and Anomalies of the Present System of Taxation
on Stage Carriages," by J. E. Bradfield, issued by this Committee in 1854,
a strong case was made out in favour of such abolition. Bradfield based his
main arguments on the {334}contention that by removing restrictions placed
upon the freedom 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 improvement, 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. Bradfield thought a fair average for the country in general
would be fifteen per cent. The existing system of mileage duties enforced,
he declared, an average tax of £80 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 £212,659.
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 supplanted 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 transport and communication.
{335}CHAPTER XXV