The Curiosities of Dudley and the Black Country, From 1800 to 1860 / Also an Account of the Trials and Sufferings of Dud Dudley, with His Mettallum Martis: Etc.

by C. F. G. Clark

Dudley, September 18th, 1857.

Died, September 29th, 1857, Mr. Edward Terry, Grocer, Market Place, a very upright and honourable gentleman, who twice served the office of Mayor, and had a handsome service of Silver Plate presented to him. Aged 70 years.

An important and influential Public Meeting was held at the Old Town Hall, under the presidency of John Renaud, Esq., the Mayor, to remonstrate with the Local Railway Companies, at the very unsatisfactory accommodation afforded to the public at our Dudley Railway Station.

INCOME-TAX COLLECTORS.

To the Editor of the Dudley and Midland Express.

Sir,—Your lengthened remarks in your last publication of the “Express” on the anomalous position existing betwixt the local commissioners of income and property-tax, the tax-payers, and the unhappy delinquent in Worcester Gaol, must necessarily have awakened much reflection upon this important subject; and if I should not be considered trespassing too much upon your valuable space, I would offer a few observations with a view to elicit some well-digested opinions upon the most salient parts of your important address. Ere your strictures appeared in public, the local commissioners had, it was found, exercised that power in appointing a successor to Mr. John Leadbetter which the Act of Parliament gives them, and it would appear somewhat irregular in a local press, cognisant of that fact, to recommend a vestry meeting to consider a question that ought to have been urged upon the rate-payers at an earlier date, backed by such legal information as is well known to exist in the editorial staff of your acceptable journal. You are, doubtless, aware, Mr. Editor, that income-tax collectors can be appointed either by the rate-payers in public vestry, or the local commissioners in private; but an appointment made by the rate-payers must have the confirmation of the local commissioners before it can be received at the Treasury; hence the very little importance, in my opinion, of agitating a parish on the merits of a question which, after all, must be the result either of favouritism, or true appreciation of the local commissioners. In the event of a local board of commissioners making a selection decidedly obnoxious to a parish, then it is competent for any five rate-payers to object to the appointment, by showing to the Treasury why such nomination should not take place; but in the event of no such objection being made by the rate-payers, as illustrated in both Mr. Worley’s and Mr. John Leadbetter’s appointment, the nomination stands good in law, and the collectors (by the tacit consent of the parish) are the bonâ fide collectors of the rate-payers, as well as the commissioners. In this view of the case it becomes apparent that the parish of Dudley cannot legally object to pay the defalcation rate that most assuredly will be exacted from us; nay, the local commissioners can legally claim it at our hands, on the acknowledged principle that Mr. Worley was as much the appointment of the parish as by them, inasmuch as that parish very graciously acquiesced in their selection!

Such being the fact, the general question is often asked, “What is to be done with that miserable man now incarcerated in Worcester Gaol?” As he has been placed there under a warrant issued by the local Commissioners, he most assuredly is their prisoner; and the ratepayers of Dudley can have no legal process against a defaulter abstracting money which is the property of the Crown. If the Commissioners are at all doubtful about their right or power to prosecute the delinquent, why place him in durance vile, and institute most vigilant legal proceedings against his supposed sureties, bringing the terrible powers of the law to annihilate the innocent and unoffending; whilst the main delinquent is kept as a sort of savage appendage to every man’s vision, who occasionally refers to his cash book to ascertain the status of its taxable page?

If, again, the object of incarcerating the collector was intended to secure his detention until the embezzled money was re-levied, pray Mr. Editor, by what reasoning powers have those highly-respectable gentlemen come to the determination to delay that unpleasant duty to the latest possible period of propriety, or, perhaps, public safety? Now it must be apparent to all that changes are daily being made in trade incomes and value of property in such an important town as Dudley; and it would be manifestly unjust to charge the moiety upon an income of £400 a year now, when at the time the robbery was committed such income was assessed at only £300 a year. Such cases as these, Mr. Editor, would awaken no small degree of alarm and anxiety as to the course the commissioners and collectors intend to pursue; for I would opine that your editorial skill and staff of management would feel themselves somewhat startled to find that 2-1/4d. in the pound had been levied upon them, for the recovery of a moiety of income-tax abstracted by a previous defaulting collector at a lapsed time, when your editorial vision had not looked into the fame of your future greatness, or dreamt of the honours that awaited your advent into this region of physical smoke and mental darkness.

Such, however inadvertently, may be the case, and against such errors and mal-practice it behoves both the rate-payers and the press to exercise a vigilant eye; for it is well known that our gracious Queen cannot afford at this particular juncture to lose any portion of her allotted supplies, and the living most assuredly will have to pay for the dead in this vexatious case. It is much to be regretted that the minor officers of the public service do not appear to receive that reward for their services commensurate with the labour and responsibility entailed upon them; nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the fact, that the present order of the day is retrenchment in all branches of the paid civil service; and that the salary accorded in these cases is fixed in London, not by the local commissioners. In the particular case referring to Dudley, whilst the stipend is only about 100l. a year for the collection of the property and income-tax, the collector is also the recipient of the poundage derived from the collection of the assessed taxes and house duty; making his income amount to about 150l. a year; and really, Mr. Editor, we are not to have so little faith in the integrity of poor human nature, as to believe that no respectable townsman can be found to faithfully fulfil that office, without entrenching upon the region of venality on the one hand, or pandering to the inordinate vices of cupidity or meanness on the other.