The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-11-17
CITY FINANCES.

Now that the end of the year is approach
ing we may expect very important ordinances
to be brought up for the consideration OF the
City Council, among which are ordinances for
the sale of the revenues of the public markets
for the year 1869, and, perhaps, OF licenses
for the same year.
We are advocates of liberal taxes on all
market stands, and q very considerable reduc-
ton on the charges heretofore collected from
butchers and sellers of vegetables and coun-
try produce, believing that reduction OF the
tax will materially increase the number of sell
lers, especially of country produce, and that
healthy competition, while it will enable the
masses of the people to live more cheaply,
and, therefore, work more cheaply, will bene-
fit all classes of the communicates property
holder as well as the rent-payer.
We think the present council is imbued
with liberal ideas and that under ordinary
circumstances it would enact laws reducing
the present prices paid for market stalls and
for all licenses for trades, professions, etc.,
but we fear that the present impoverished
condition of the treasury, together with the
pressure from many other sources to raise
revenue from every available point will pre-
vent the council from reducing the revenues
from the sources mentioned to as considerable
an extent as we had hoped and expected.
We are of the opinion that the interests Of
the city and the citizens the property hold
ers tax payers, sojourners and carpet-bag-
gers all, requires that the market revenues,
Tin order to increase competition and ulti-
mately to bring in larger rental of markets)
licenses on professions, callings, etc., levee
dues on ships and steamboats,, should be re-
duced from time to time, and we hope and
trust that the present council will set an ex-
ample by enactments to that end, that will be
considered and followed by every succeeding
council, until we shall have no city laws that
are burden and tax upon commerce and upon
the working classes of the people.
We have heard nothing lately of the ordi-
nance authorizing the sale of the revenues
from the wharves, and it may be that the
council has concluded to let the matter rest
for while in order to test the experiment of
| repairing the wharves under the direction of
the city surveyor and not by contract as here
tofore. We feel assured that the present SUI
veyor, from his vast experience in such mat
tiers, could keep the wharves in repair for
much less than the work could be done under
contract; but we question the policy of con-
tinuing the wharves under charge of the city
when we reflect that by the contract system
the wharves realize handsome revenue to
the city; whereas they have cost the city since
the close of the war, about million of dollars
over and above the receipts. If the council
determine to sell the wharves for a term OF
years, we trust that they will first reduce the
rates of levee dues, SO as to invite instead Of
checking commerce, and that no such absurd
provision as was incorporated in the ordi-
nance recently introduced forbidding the
building of sheds on the levee will meet the
countenance of the council.
The section forbidding the erection OF
sheds for the protection and security of mer-
chandise can have no bearing upon the ques-
ton at issue, and it may be that the council
will determine TO sreet havo erected some
kind of a cover for produce on the levee, and
it should leave itself untramelled in the pre-.
misses.