441
The soldiers spirit in the retail rum can buy this - shops at four - shillings a gallon. The Treasurer believes that the quantity that is actually being distilled at this moment cannot be far short of twenty-five thousand ... gallons a quarter. On this a licence fee of two cents a gallon cannot be considered excessive.
Perhaps the quantity distilled in future quarters will not be so large, but in any case #2,000 will be.
451 the quantity of rum they are distilling or the retail price at which it sells in Hongkong.
I do not think it necessary to take notice of the concluding passages in Messrs Jardine Matheson & Company's letter in which they attribute the resolution of the Governor in Council in this matter to animus against their local Agent Mr Keswick.
8. never, I believe, be more than a charge of three pence or four pence a gallon on this rum.
In their letter to Your Lordship Messrs Jardine Matheson and Company avoid mentioning the proposal to license a distillery for Chinese spirits in the Colony which is now before the Council, and when the Treasurer's recommendation, as to the annual fee that should be charged in that case, has been considered.
Dec: