Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/441

 management, and in the transfer of the Liverpool town dues to the Dock estate.

In 1861, Mr. Milner Gibson, then President of the Board of Trade, introduced a Bill by which most of the other grievances were removed. All taxes on shipping, raised for the purpose of granting pensions and other, so-called, charitable objects, were abolished; local differential charges on foreign shipping were, to a large extent, prohibited; the passing tolls levied for the support of such harbours as Ramsgate, Dover, and Bridlington were swept away, and power (on the recommendation originally of the Harbours of Refuge Commission of 1854) was given to the Public Works Loan Commissioners to lend money for the improvement of trading harbours at a low rate of interest. France, to whose shipping laws I shall hereafter refer, abolished her local charges and differential dues; Italy, in 1863, admitted British ships to national treatment; and Austria also, by treaty, in 1868, has followed her example.

Unfortunately, Shipowners are still taxed for the maintenance of the National lights; but, although the recommendations of various Committees have not in this respect been adopted, reductions in the charges levied have been made to no less an extent than 75 per cent, since 1853. Great improvements have*