, 1909-03-24

day coming ought to he an interesting one.
There nre Mt least two items on the Order
of the Day that may be expected to arouse
n good deal Of attention.
There is first, the proposed Ordinance
concerning the supervision 81 cotton grow
ing. The equal voting apart from the
Chairman's yote) on the question of the
Committee reports shows apparently that,
if the Draft passes at all, it Will be bv IA
very narrow minority.
We Of the -AcIs have alroa ~ given our
opinion on this question plainly enough and
need not return to it here.
The other matter we have in mind is{
The Que ttion of altering the Excise Duty
on Rum for 1909-1910."
The coming discussion arises out Of letter
from the Government calling the Councils
attention to the fact that the consumption Of
run had largely fallen off during the
year 1908, namely from about 10000
gallons to $4,000, or in other words there
was a decrease Of 10000 gallons, which
was apparently due to an increase of the
rum duty on tile LIST April 1908 from Frcs.
20 to Frcs. 100 a gallon.
According to the decision Of the Council
in June 1907 the duty is to be still further in
creased on the LIST Of April 1909 in eight
days time) to Frcs.2 per gallon,
After remarking that if this is maintained "a
large quantity Of rum is likely to be taken
out this month, under the lower duty at
present existing, the Governments letter
continues as follows:
But this question cannot be ignored,
namely: what will be the result for the
financial year 1909-1O, if an increase Of
FIR. has led to a decrease Of the consump-
ton by 10000 gallons, must it then not be
supposed that a further increase Of excise
duty of FIR. will entail such further de-
crease of Consumption of Rum that it will
be felt heavily by the Colonial Treasury,
j.. however desirable the increase of sobriety
must be acknowledged to beP
The Government has deemed it inadyis-
able to withhold from the Councils atten-
tion the above stated, III order to give the
Council the opportunity, if it SO desires, to
take up the question of the Rum Excise
for 19O9-1O for renewed discussion"
1t is doubtless of great Importance for the
Government, the Council and the whole
community, that the condition of the tinan-
ces should be strictly watched, No one wants
to see an addition made to our import duties,
or an income and property tax proposed,
The Council, therefore, has been right in
agreeing to consider the question raised in
the Governments letter but we sincerely
uOpS Cuhb VIC AIbI SSulL oA IL COu0INASAN ti'tA
and discussion will be to leave the case as it
is, that is to say, to allow the 2 francs duty
TO come into force.
That would decidedly be our vote in the
matter, if we had a vote to give. If the
consumption OF rum has decreased by over n
fifth part, it is a matter for congratulation,
for there seems to be no way Of explaining that
reduction in the official figures but by
assuming that the people have actu-
ally used ess,and, if SO, that is n gain for their
health even if not for their pockets,
We can hardly look for a further reduc-
ton of 10, 900 gallons in the annual cOnsump-
ton on account of the further increase of
the duty; but even if it came, we doubt if it
would hurt anybody. On the contrary we
should expect q further improvement in So
cial conditions from that reduction; and in the
hope of such improvement we would be willing
to run some risk as to the financial side of
the question.
Suppose that the consumption did fall off by
another 10000 gallons, it would then be
reduced from about $4,000 gallons to 26, 600.
On the other hand the duty would have
been raised from II francs to 2. In that