Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 BURGH ROYAL.

Magistrates of Edinburgh
v.
Myreton

1752, Dec. 26.
Case No. No. 38.

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The Magistrates having made an act of Council against gratis warrants to be granted to any person for importing wine free of impost on their grant in 1671 ratified in Parliament,—some wine of Sir Robert Myreton's was thereupon seized at the ports and condemned; which Sir Robert suspended, alleging that by the grant no wine was subject to impost but what was both imported and sold in Edinburgh, Leith, or other places mentioned in the grant, whereof the words were vini importand. et vendend. intra dictam civitatem, &c. whereas he had imported from Dalkeith which is not within the grant,—and in fact no wine imported for private use has ever paid impost. Answered, That all wine consumed within the Town or liberties was liable to impost though not sold there; that the other parts of the grant explains it so, where the duty is payable per venditores et quosvis alios invectores; that a contrary sense would not only altogether elude the grant, but have the effect of destroying the port of Leith, because wines would thenceforth be imported to Prestonpans, and other places outwith the grant; that the Magistrates were willing to indulge the inhabitants when it did not much hurt the Town, and therefore gave them gratis warrants, which were unnecessary if they could import without them; but now by the great consumpt in private houses, and the small consumpt in taverns, the tack-duty is fallen one half, which obliged them to put a stop to gratis warrants; that the grant was always so understood, and that was the occasion of the decreet of declarator of the privileges and immunity from that impost of the College of Justice in 1687, which was quite superfluous if all the lieges had the same immunity; that the Magistrates admitted that wine imported to Leith and again exported out of the liberties did not pay, but that all that was consumed in Leith or Edinburgh was liable. Replied, By the genius of our law at the time of the grant, what was consumed in private families did not pay even public taxes, and quoted 14th act 1661 where the duty is laid only on retailers, and if the grant gave an impost on all wine consumed in private houses, there appeared no foundation for the declarator or act of sederunt 1687, since that grant was ratified in Parliament. The case was this day reported by Lord Minto, and we unanimously repelled the reasons of suspension; and I observed that the 14th act 1661 proved quite the reverse, and that even importers and sale-makers paid for what was consumed in their own families; and the whole Shires and Burghs were assessed in lieu of malt brewed in their own families, though the tax was laid only on retailers, which showed the inaccuracy of our language. And as to the privileges of the College of Justice, that a private grant ratified in Parliament, which is always salvo jure, could never be understood to repeal privileges granted to any particular society, and established by public law, as ours appeared to be with respect to all, burdens and duties in the Burgh, 275th (or 279th) act, 15th Parl. James VI.