The minister next proceeded to refer to a list of articles, four hundred and thirty in number, which yielded but trilling amounts of revenue, and many of which are raw materials used in the various manufactures of the country —including silk, hemp, flax, and yam or thread (except worsted yarn)—all woods used in cabinet making, animal and vegetable oils, iron and zinc in the first stages, ores and minerals, (except copper ore, to which the last act will still apply,) dye stuffs of all kinds, and all drugs, with very few exceptions; on the whole of these articles he proposed to repeal the duties altogether, not even leaving a nominal rate for registration, but retaining the power of examination. The timber duties generally he proposed to remain as they were, with the one exception of staves, which, as the raw material of the extensive manufacture of casks, he proposed to include with the 430 articles, and to take off the duty altogether. On these articles the loss amounted to £320,000.
The next, and the most important, relief in the whole proposition was the article of cotton wool, on which the minister proposed also to reduce the duty altogether; and on which he estimated the loss at £680,000; and these constituted the whole of the proposed reductions of the import duties—that is, sugar, cotton wool, and the numerous small articles in the tariff.
The next items of reduction proposed were the few remaining duties on our exports, such as china stone, and other trifling things, but including the most important article of coals, on which the duty was placed by the present government, and of the result of which Sir Robert Peel candidly avowed his disappointment. The duties he estimated at £118,000.
Sir Robert Peel then passed on to the excise duties, among which he had selected two items of great importance for entire repeal—the auction duty and the glass duties. By a repeal—of the auction duty he estimated a
