Surplus does expose the Colony to the charge of applying the funds in aid of objects that would probably be hereafter a charge upon Revenue, while it pretends to distinguish them from Revenue.
b) In argument: because the more the fees are reduced, the larger will be their profits, and the holders will have more interest in endeavouring to retain their monopoly. Of course, the discovery of illegal gambling during the tenure of the monopoly (under the new system of drawing lots, etc.) might warrant their being disfranchised from ever holding the monopoly again; their ignorance of the existence of such illegal gambling should be treated as culpable.
"That Sir R. M. does in fact chiefly consider profit" is shown by a new despatch, No. 760, which has just come in, where he says that in reducing the fees by $20,000 a year on account of the exclusion of a certain item, "they did not make out a case for the remission of the larger sum". The fees might be reduced by $120,000 a year, or $10,000 a month (for it would seem they have always held by the month), to begin at the introduction of the new system.
There is one remark I have to make with regard to the reduction of fees. Mr. Round says that the larger the fees, the larger will be the profits of the Licensees, and that therefore they will have an interest in endeavouring to retain their monopoly. By fixing a high fee, the Licensees' cooperation in ferreting out and stopping unlicensed gambling is secured, whereas if they made much larger profits, it is quite natural they would be inimical to assisting in the suppression of unlicensed gaming.
Again, it must not be forgotten that the ultimate object inculcated in this despatch is the suppression of all...
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