On each ton of sandal wood L2 10 0 On each ton of pearl shells 2 10 0 On each ton of beche la mer 5 0 0 On each ton of sperm oil 2 10 0 On each ton of black whale or other oil 2 0 0 On each fur seal skin 0 0 11/2 On each hair ditto 0 0 01/2 On each kangaroo ditto 0 0 01/2 On cedar or other timber from Shoal-haven, or any other part of the coast or harbours of New South Wales (Newcastle excepted, as the duties are already prescribed there) when not supplied by government labourers, for each solid foot -010 For every twenty spars from New Zealand or elsewhere100On timber in log or plank from New Zealand, or elsewhere, for each solid foot 0 1 0 For each ton of coals from Newcastle for home consumption 0 2 6 Ditto if exported 0 5 0 For each thousand square feet of timber for home consumption 3 0 0 Ditto if exported 6 0 0

That all these duties should be levied on these different articles, in as far as they may be consumed in the colony, may be highly expedient; but that they should be equally levied on exportation, and in two of the most material instances doubled, is so manifestly absurd, that it must be quite superfluous to dilate on the subject.  It is a system of policy which it may be safely asserted is unknown in any other part of the world; and nothing but the indubitable certainly of its existence would convince any rational person that it could ever have entered into the contemplation of any one intrusted with the government of a colony.  These duties have had the effect which might have been expected from them; they have in most instances amounted to actual prohibitions.  Their operation, indeed, has been found so burdensome and oppressive, that the colonial merchants have frequently petitioned the local government for relief; but no attention whatever has been paid to their repeated representations and remonstrances.  Had it not been for the duties on coals and timber, some hundred tons of these valuable natural productions would have been exported annually to the Cape of Good Hope and India; since the vessels which have been in the practice of trading between those countries and the colony have always returned in ballast; and the owners or consignees would, therefore, have gladly shipped cargoes of timber or coals, if they could have derived the most minute profit from the freight of them.  This observation holds good in a great measure with respect to the various other articles which have been enumerated:  the exportation of the whole has been greatly circumscribed by the same ridiculous and vexatious system of impost.  It can hardly be credited that the veriest sciolist in political economy could have been guilty of such a palpable deviation from its fundamental principles; but it is still more unaccountable, that a succession of governors should have pertinaciously adhered to a system of finance so absurd and monstrous.