Hall marks on gold & silver plate

112 HALL MARKS ON PLATE.
your Committee do not adopt the suggestion that this is entirely or
even chiefly due to the duty. In England and Scotland duties were
reimposed (in place of licences) in 1784, at the rate of 8s. per oz. on
gold, and 6d. per oz. on silver. They continued at that rate till
1798, when the duty on gold was raised to i6s. per oz., and on silver
to IS. per oz. In 1805 the duty on silver was again raised to is. 3d. per
oz. The late duty (17s. per oz. on gold and is. 6d. per oz. on silver)
was imposed in 1 8 1 7. In Ireland, from 1730 down to 1 806, the duty was
6d. per oz. on gold and silver alike, from 1807 till 1842 it was is.
per oz. on gold and silver aUke. Since 1842 it has been levied at
the same rate as in England and Scotland. The returns of the
amount of duty paid during these periods do not suggest that the
successive increases of duty had any depressing effect on the manufacture.
On the contrary, the maximum return (^^"123,128) was in
1825, nine years after the imposition of the existing duty. For the
year ending 1878 the total amount of duty was ^^78,610 only. This
decline is to some extent due to change in fashion to some ; extent,
also, to the durability of plate, which results in a large trade in
second-hand silver; but in all probability is chiefly due to the development
of the electro-plate manufacture, which seems to have
become fully established in or about 1846, from which date a marked
diminution in the yield of the plate duties is to be observed.
That the trade in gold and silver articles (as distingushed from
the manufacture of plate) is not diminishing is suggested by the
returns of the licences granted to plate dealers, the proceeds of which
have steadily increased from ;^i 6,898 8s. 6d. in the year ending
1846, to ;"44,2i6 15s. 9d. in the year ending 1878.
One evident objection to the duties on plate is to be found in
the inequality of their incidence. The list of articles exempted
from duty is long and apparently capricious. It seems to be based
on no principle, except that of the necessity of collecting the duty
by means of the Assay Offices, and consequently of exempting from
duty all articles which cannot be "
assayed without damaging, prejudicing,
or defacing the same," or which are " too small to be safely
marked." In consequence, a large number of articles in common use,
such as chains and bracelets, escape payment of the duty, not because
their material is different from similar articles which are liable to
duty, but simply because as the goods cannot be <strong>Hall</strong>-marked, the
duty cannot be collected. Again, electro-plate pays no duty, though
it is evident that a large amount of silver bullion is used every year
in this manufacture. The imposition of a duty bearing so great a
proportion to the intrinsic value of the raw material has a tendency
to diminish the use of silver as an article of manufacture. Considering
all the circumstances connected with this trade, and the
importance of promoting the use of silver as an article of manufacture,
the Committee recommend the abolition of this duty, both customs
and inland, whenever the condition of the revenue will permit.
To the principle of compulsorily assaying and marking articles
of gold and silver manufacture there are no doubt some objections.
It is possible that if the matter were new, and it were for the first