PUBLIC
RECORD
OFFICE
6
Reference
C.O. 882
1
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
Papers, 1849, page
Page 37.
Page 38.
Page 39.
Evidence, 1850.
4543.
4544.
34.
1
19
Guided by those high principles of liberal commercial policy which have distinguished Her Majesty's present Advisers, I have endeavoured to introduce such modifica- tions into the tariff as will be calculated to give full encouragement to an increased production of the staple articles of export of the colony, and generally to improve the tone of mercantile transactions.
To have retained the export duties upon many articles of produce, merely for the sake of keeping hold of so small an amount of objectionable revenue, would have been to violate that general principle of commercial policy upon which I have ventured to take my stand, without any pos- sible prospect of compensating benefit in future years.
I have not felt myself in a position to make any modi- fication in the import duty on rice and paddy.
Thus far, my Lord, I have used my strenuous efforts to follow out those prudent recommendations, and to be guided by those enlightened views of policy which are embodied in the report of your Lordship's Committee, and which have received your Lordship's sanction.
It is proper to add, that the minutes of Mr. Wodehouse were recorded in extenso upon the minutes of the Executive Council of the dates at which they were read; that is, on the three days already given of September and October 1847. These minutes of Council were received at the Colonial Office on the 29th May, 1848, and Mr. Wodehouse was not examined until June 1849. He had, therefore, good reason to suppose, and did suppose, that his minutes were then before the Com- mittee, and that they were taken as forming part of the context of his evidence as he delivered it. But, unfortunately, the Committee were not aware of the existence of these minutes; they had been over- looked; and it was not until May 1850 that Sir E. Tennent, on his thirteenth examination, pro- duced them before the Committee. In the last minute occurs the passage-
Both at the commencement, and throughout these dis- cussions, we have never doubted the expediency of the entire abolition of the export duties, including that upon cinnamon; and all our efforts have had for their object the provision of an equivalent amount of revenue from other
sources.
In 1850 he is naked by Mr. Wilson (4531)— Practically speaking, was not the difference between you and the Government confined to these two points, that instead of the export duties expiring on the 1st September, your impression was, that they ought not to have expired till the 31st December?- Practically speaking, that was the result.
4532. And instead of giving up the whole of the export›. duties, and reducing the cinnamon duty to 44. a lb., you G
18
It may be convenient to draw attention at once to the other matters in which Mr. Wodehouse's minutes indicate dissent from the new commercial policy.
He remonstrates against the contemplated reduc- tion of the import duty on rice and paddy; and the importance of this duty, in point of amount, has been already noticed; he is opposed to the reduction of the Commissariat; the restoration of tanks; the employment of Indian officers in the surveys preparatory to the land-tax; to a bit by bit land-tax; and (in his second minute) to a bit by bit road ordinance. This dissent was considered by Mr. Wodehouse an important element in his expla- nation. When he is asked, in 1849, whether the other tax ordinances, besides the shop ordinance and the dog ordinance, had his approval, he answers, "I must be allowed to say, that in the discussion of a series of measures brought forward simultaneously, one member of a Government inclined generally to dissent from their introduction must confine his opposition to those most objectionable. I did not offer opposition to the ordinance as to fire-arms; but there were other propositions objectionable, and It has been I confined myself chiefly as to these." seen (page 13) that he did not include a fire-arms ordinance in his dissent. Again, in 1850, enume- rating the various suggestions which he opposed, he says: “Looking, therefore, to the position in which I was placed as a member of the civil service and of the Executive Council, my honest view now of the course which I acted is, that it is a matter of surprise how much I resisted, and not how much I in gave in to. The only thing in fact which I gave
I admit to was the ordinance respecting fire-arms.
that I did not consider at the time that that was as objectionable as the others, and I acquiesced in it."
(See also 4500 and 4501, post, page 23.)
On the 23rd November, 1847, the Customs ordinance (No. 9 of 1847) passed.
By this ordinance, the export duty on cinnamon was reduced to 4d. alb., and coffee and all other
articles were made free from and after the 1st Sep- tember, 1848; and the import duties on British and foreign goods were equalized, by the imposi- tion of one uniform duty of 5 per
cent.
Lord Torrington, in his despatch of 18th Decern- ber, 1847, announces this enactment,
Evidence, 1849. 454
1850, -4519.
Papers, 1849, page er.
►
20