Great Engellex
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DULWICH EVENING DISPATCH
THURSDAY • AUGUST 09 • 2012
THURSDAY • AUGUST 09 • 2012
GREAT EXPOSITION
PAYMENT OF ADMISSION & TAXATION
The Marquis of Bath, a Royal Commissioner of the Great Exposition, rose to address to the House of Lords a most serious consideration of the Great Exposition.
His Lordship, Henry Archibald Walpole-Rees the Marquis of Bath, has addressed the following much significant statement to the House of Lords :- My Lords, - Within a few months the designs for those structures that shall receive the contributions of Europe’s industry, arts and sport will be presented to her Majesty the Queen-Empress for Royal Patronage. The question, of great importance, which now arises for my cause of address to-day is of finance and taxation. And it is upon this important subject that I now claim the liberty of addressing your Lordships. Shall the transactions and activities of this Great Exposition be at the mercy of taxation or shall it be free? Each mode has its benefits and difficulties; but, after an anxious consideration of the matter, it is my conviction that this glorious endeavour of imperial prestige should be released from a burden of taxation, in doing so, it remains more in harmony of the enlarged and enlightened purpose of the Exposition. There will be thousands of exhibitors and millions of visitors. Surely no tax should be levied upon them, the exhibitors, or those millions of visitors for the right of visiting an exposition to the staple of which they have themselves contributed as Crown Subjects of her Majesty’s most Victorious Empire. And I am further confirmed in my opinion of the practicability and wisdom of free exhibition – to be modified as I shall hereafter propose – by the unanimous and hearty opinion of very many of the most influential members of the imperial metropolis. The Royal Commissioners, of whom her Majesty has yet to fully appoint, shall incur a particularly large debt indeed – a debt that will need to be liquidated in the future. And it is to be feared that a too anxious sense of that obligation may induce the levying of a rate of entry that shall, to many millions, amount to prohibition; this is without the additional inconvenience of Exchequer designs on the success of the Exposition. I have, therefore, to propose that for the first fortnight of the Exposition admission shall be, in a probable case, by payment; and, further, that two days in the week shall, for the whole term of the Exposition, be reserved for the higher classes of all nations who may prefer to pay for the exclusive privilege of admission, rather than encounter the inconvenience and discomfort of lower class crowds. With these, that the entrance should be entirely free. The sum taken during the first fortnight, and on the two days of each week, would, no doubt, be very considerable; nevertheless, a large deficit would remain onerous upon all the Royal Commissioners, certainly. This deficit I am emboldened to solicit your Lordships to meet by a Parliamentary grant. And this solicitation I make the more readily from the belief that from the very fact of the Exposition a large addition will accrue to the revenue of the country – an addition, it is calculated upon trustworthy authority, of upwards of four billion. Now, of those four billions, how small indeed does the parliamentary grant appear in the requirement to throw open the doors of the Great Exposition to the peoples of Europe! When the subject of the Exposition was brought before this Imperial Parliament, it was very properly dealt with; for, as every thing was then in a state of uncertainty as to the future. The case at present is entirely altered; her Majesty has almost completed appointing a full compliment of Royal Commissioners, and the Imperial College of Architects are due to submit proposals for the Exposition – which, once approved, will see the most rapid construction endeavour in Engellexic, no, European history; the greatest difficulty at this moment is to find the space for the vast warehouses and hospitality estates for those attending, though, I feel inclined to thank those outrageous petticoats for that evening’s worth of civil destruction for we now have several areas of the imperial metropolis in need of reconstruction! We will be inviting all the nations of Europe to a friendly competition of skill, well, most nations! To those invitations many it is hoped many will heartily respond. Her Majesty has expressed her determination to invite the whole family of European royalty to come and participate in the first banquet Europe has ever dedicated to peaceful industry, and cultural and intellectual triumphs. An event so pregnant with high and humanising good to all mankind should be informed with the most liberal, with a purely cosmopolitan spirit. If it be otherwise – if at the very threshold of the estate dedicated to this civilised and industrious banquet, a tax be laid upon those who would partake of its beneficial influence – a banquet, moreover, to which millions of the payers have contributed – the whole purpose of the Exposition will forego a grace which otherwise would endow it with a crowning lustre. It is with no doubt that foreign governments will feel compelled to vote considerable sums to aid their people in the object of their individual exhibitions, and on the participation of foreign peoples, it should be well remembered that foreigners are especially accustomed to gratuitous entry into all institutional buildings of culture, science, and education; and I beg of your Lordships not to abandon this honourable European custom for the sake of pennies! But not alone for the stranger do I ask for free admission. I ask it for the large body of our own working classes – for those men and women, whose skill, whose industry, will, I doubt not, be triumphantly represented at the forthcoming congress of industrious civilisation. Thousands of these men are at this hour depriving themselves of many little household comforts to enable them to visit Dulwich; and one must contemplate that these many working class families delivered a great victorious occasion of unprecedented scale in Engellexic history only months ago. Therefore, I ask for the working men of Engellex a free entry into the estate dedicated to the Exposition. Again, such will be the magnitude of the Exposition, that no one, two, or three visits will suffice to the knowledge of its manifold objects. I might, my Lords, dilate upon this subject; but I hope that I have said sufficient to obtain of your Lordships a patriotic consideration of the question – shall the Great Exposition of our most Imperial Civilisation be free to those whom Engellex invites to meet in generous rivalry? Or, shall we send forth invitations, and then tax our humble guests? FINANCIAL MARKETS The failure of an old-established firm, Dedlock and Jarndyce, colonial brokers, for upwards of two billion, has produced great excitement in Dulwich financial circles, especially as it is known that acceptances for upwards of nine-hundred-million have yet to fall due. The house in question had very extensive transactions in domestic agricultural produce, acting largely for Implaric-Oceanic importers. The continued caution with which Dulwich bank directors are now making advances upon acceptances and produce, and the great need of metals and other industrial commodities in Engellex, have induced several large mining operations. The consequence is that Consols have given way about one quarter per cent. As cotton has ceased increase in price, owing to returned stability on the Great Thaumantic, and as there is a very large balance due to Engellex from Occidentia – estimated at two-billion-seven-hundred-million – a decline in Consols is anticipated by some parties.A general gloom pervaded the Royal Dulwich Stock Exchange (DSE). All securities were alike affected, and whatever speculative business had been transacted, it was decidedly against any improvement. The present unsettled state of affairs is attributed in some quarters to the appearance of Occidentia and Toyou politics – in others to mercantile difficulties which are predicted to be hovering in the distance in the East, and hence, a triple cause for apprehension exists. |