THE EMANCIPATION OF THE DIAMOND.
Before a cargo of coals could be discharged from a collier, it was
necessary to get the permission of the Lord Mayor to land them. And how
was this to be obtained? By what sort of dulcet persuasion, we are left
in no difficulty to conjecture; but as to the amount of the sum, a
modest official veil of darkness enshrouds the record. The perquisites,
however, granted to the aldermen, are fortunately within reach of
knowledge; and accordingly we find it set down that the corporation were
empowered to measure and weigh coals, either in person, and in their
gowns, or by proxy, if they preferred that course, and to charge the sum
of 8_d._ per ton for their labour. This was confirmed by a charter in
1613. By this tax the City made some 50,000_l._ a year, and rejoiced
exceedingly.
This system of protection, under several forms and pleasant variations,
long continued, and was extended all over England, the pressure falling
most unequally, to the injury of the least wealthy and the poor,
according to the immemorial custom of Governments. Some of the people of
London were audacious enough to complain that they did not need to be
protected from the Newcastle coals, but all on the contrary, would give
any fair sum to obtain them; and that, indeed, what they really needed
was to be protected from the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and other taxes
and duties. But these people were reproved as ignorant and froward, and
told that they understood nothing at all:—what they had to do, was
simply—to pay, first for the protection, and then for the coals. So they
paid. But the importance of the article being found to exceed even the
greediness of the impost, the use of coals became general during the
reign of Charles the First; the same, with other taxes, being demanded,
from the reign of William the Third downwards.
In 1830, and not before, the heaviest of the above duties were
abolished; those, however, which were collected from the Londoners being
excepted—for their old impertinence—together with two or three
sea-ports, who had also spoken.
Who shall repress a truth? Coals were excellent good things—there was no
reason in denying it. But any foolish people, and there will always be
more than enough found to do it, _can_ repress a truth for an abominably
long period, denying it without reason, yet very effectually. Or, when
they admit it, then comes the tax and penalty to be paid for the fact.
Thus was the free introduction and use of coals repressed throughout
England until 1830; from which date, its grand rise from the bowels of
the earth into a new and most extensive importance may be dated.
Yet, as extremes meet, and as human nature delights in opposites, if
only by way of reaction or relaxation, so the long-continued obstinate
slowness of past ages bids fair, in our own day, to enter upon an
extreme change to flighty prematurities, and the over-leaping of all
intermediate and necessary knowledge. But the reign of the fast-ones is
now approaching its height; which having once reached, it will then have
a rapid decline into contempt, and so give place to regular and steady
advances upon solid ground.
Still, we are not to infer from the present flourishing state of things,
that the great black-diamond millionaires are very numerous, or that
fortunes are readily accumulated in the trade. Coal mines are hazardous
speculations: costly is the sinking of shafts—precarious the lives of
men and property from constant dangers of explosion or inundation;
whereof it comes that no Insurance Office will guarantee such property
against these or any other accidents. True may it be that the large coal
owners on the Tyne and the Wear rejoice in a sort of monopoly; as do
other owners; but herein shall we not find the cause of coals being sold
in London at nearly three times the price they cost at the pit’s mouth.
The cause is to be sought in the expenses of transit (which, alone, are
often equal to, and not unfrequently exceed, the cost price); in the
loss of screening; the expenses of lighters and lightermen wharfs,
officers, and wharfingers, coal-heavers, carmen, horses, waggons,
sacks—to say nothing of long credit, or bad debts;—and the profits of
the various middle-men, among the most numerous of whom are the
brass-plate coal merchants (whose establishments simply consist of an
order-book, wherein it appeareth that they get a little more than they
give); and the retailers of various gradations.
All these difficulties, and all these reductions and dues,
notwithstanding, and in spite of,—the coal trade has risen during the
last twenty years to a magnitude in quantity and influence which may be
regarded as one of the greatest commercial triumphs of this our England.
The coal-fields of the United States of America are upwards of fourteen
times larger extent than ours; yet, in 1845, while the American coal
mines produced 4,400,000 of tons, the coal mines of England produced
upwards of 32,000,000 of tons. In the same year, our production of iron
was more than four times the American amount. Moreover,—and here may the
gravest historian exalt his pen, and yet be accounted no flourisher,—we
have for some years past been able to supply coals to all the great
powers of the globe. In 1842, England exported 60,000 tons of coals to
the United States of America; 88,000 tons to Russia; 111,000 tons to
Prussia; 515,900 tons to France;—not to speak of the hundreds of
thousands of tons exported in the same year to Germany collectively, to
Holland, to Denmark, Sweden, the East Indies and China, &c., &c.
The use of coals has now extended, not only over the civilised world,
but in its potent form of steam has reached most of the remoter regions.
From Suez to Singapore are steam vessels already in course of passage,
and the line will soon be carried to Australia. When the American
locomotives have made their way to the shores of the Pacific, their
vessels will be ready to carry onward the traffic to China and the
Indian Islands from the east; “and thus,” as writes a learned critic,
discoursing of the virtues of steam-coal, “complete the circuit of the
globe.” Whereby, “a steam voyage round the world will in a few years, be
so practicable, that the merchant and tourist may make the circuit
within a year, and yet have time enough to see and learn much at many of
the principal ‘stations’ on his way.”
All rightful honour, then, to these priceless Diamonds—whether they be
black spirits or furnace-white, flame-red spirits, or ashy-grey—whether
cannel coal and caking coal—cherry coal and stone coal—whether any of
the forty kinds of Newcastle coal, or any of the seventy species of the
great family, from the highest class of the bituminous, down to the one
degree above old coke.