PUBLIC RECORD
OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
8 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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emoluments. Well, the personal emoluments in 1898 were Rs. 3,170,865.86—and the personal emoluments in the estimates for 1904-05 amount to Rs. 3,510,841.16 making a difference-a consequent additional burden on the Colony of Rs. 340,000. The personal emoluments have been increased by Rs. 340,000 within the space which has elapsed between 1898 and 1904. Well, I think that this is a state of matters which is most disquieting. If the expenditure goes on increasing year after year and you may read the budgets-to what figure shall we come! His Honour the Officer Administering the Government in his speech at the opening of the session has given us the figures. In 1898 the Expenditure has been Rs. 8,131,485; 1899, Rs. 8,407,227; 1900, Rs. 8,560,000; 1901-02, Rs. 9,043,000; 1902-03, Rs. 9,575,000; and we now see that the expenditure asked for this year is Rs. 9,848,000. You see the expenditure goes on increasing in an enormous proportion.
It has been said by His Honour in his speech that the revenue also increased. Yes, the revenue has increased, but it has increased by putting on additional taxa- tion. It has increased not because the taxation which existed in 1898 has produced more in 1902 and in 1903, but it has increased because some more taxation has been put on; and we have come to this, that our revenue has increased because additional taxation has been put on, yet, however, the additional taxation has not produced sufficient to meet the expenditure. Although His Honour says that it is thus proved, by the increase of the revenue yearly, that the revenue of Mauritius is elastic, I do not believe that it is elastic to such a point that it can be stretched indefinitely. You cannot stretch the revenue of Mauritius to an extent at which it will break; at a given moment it must break; the Colony must break down. It is not possible for a Colony like Mauritius to pay yearly such an enormous sum of money as Rs. 9,575,000 last year, and Rs. 9,848,000 this year. You will crush the Colony to death.
Some years ago it was generally admitted that the Government took its share of the produce of the island, to the extent of about one-third of the revenue of the island. It was a thing which was accepted that the Government should take one- third of the revenue of the Colony. When the Colony had produced a sum of twenty-seven millions of rupees, it was accepted that nine millions of that money went to Government. But, now, to what are we coming? We are coming to this; that Government will levy on the produce of the Colony the half of its value. If the Colony next year makes a crop of 150,000 tons, as some people say, and 160,000 as other people say, and if that produce is sold, say, at an average of Rs. 7, I do not see very well that we can hope to have more than that: if the produce is sold at Rs. 7, what will that make? That will make about twenty-two millions, of which the Government propose to levy ten millions. That is not possible. It is not possible that the revenue of the Colony should be taxed to that
extent.
What will be the result of that new taxation? The more you will put on taxes the less they will produce. What more taxation can you put on? I do not see. I look at the budget and I do not see how you can add anything to the present taxa- tion, unless you increase again the Customs duties. But if you increase the customs duties you will kill commerce.
Mr. L. E. ANTELME: The importation will diminish.
Mr. LECLÉZIO: Of course it will diminish. The more you tax the less you import. Well, we have come to the extreme now. We have, in my opinion, gone beyond the limits of safe taxation-much beyond--and you cannot think of im- posing an additional taxation of Rs. 500,000. Your Honour says in your speech: I fear that it is difficult to make further economies, and the Colony will have to provide about half a million in extra taxation in order to produce equilibrium." But what kind of equilibrium will that be? Do you imagine that we can stand on that tight rope any longer? No, that is impossible, we shall fall on one side or on the other side. That is equilibrium on paper. But will you realise that equilibrium? I defy you to realise it. You know very well that we are not re- sponsible for the present state of matters. No, we are not responsible. The Government has thought proper to reform, to modify, and each reform, each modi- fication of the administration has been the cause of an extra expenditure. It will he said: But the Council has voted that. Well, there may be some members of the ' Council who have voted it, but some others have not. On that question we have not been agreed. I do not mean the official members of the Council, because the
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official members of the Council' are bound to vote in the sense that is indicated by the Chairman of the Council. But, be that as it may, here we are in presence of this position that we had to meet a deficit last year, we shall have to meet a deficit this year, and I make bold to say that we shall again have a deficit next year what- ever you do. Then will you impose extra taxation under those circumstances? Will you tell us that inasmuch as the taxes that exist at present do not produce sufficient you
will increase those same taxes in order that they shall produce more?
I do not believe that. When a commodity has been taxed to the utmost if you add to the taxation you may be sure that with the addition you will not receive even the same amount which you would have received without the extra taxation.
are.
I said, are we responsible for this state of matters? No, I do not think we We have done our best in this Colony, we have tried to pass through our difficulties by ourselves. We have not succeeded. We have been compelled to apply to the Government for assistance. Government has acknowledged that the Colony could not produce a sufficient amount of revenue in order to meet the diffi- culties with which it had to contend. Government has acknowledged that by lending money to those who were in want of money. How can Government now come forward and say: we shall levy additional taxes and you will have to pay them? Government themselves have acknowledged that we were not in a position to pay additional taxes by lending us money. But those difficulties with which we have had to contend, how have they arisen? First of all they have arisen from the fact that, I do not know for many years the English people were selfish enough to think of themselves and turn a deaf ear to their colonies. For years and years they have consumed cheap sugar to the ruin of their colonies. They have thought it very good to have a cheap breakfast table, it is very agreeable indeed to be able to buy sugar cheap, but while they were buying sugar cheap their colonies were starving, their colonies had no money to provide for their wants. Has not the British Government itself acknowledged that? Has not the British Government sent out a Commission to the West Indies in order to see whether they were in such a state of depression as the one which had been depicted? Well, those Commis- sioners who were appointed went to the West Indies, they spent a long time there, they heard many witnesses, and ultimately their report comes to this, that if boun- ties were abolished, everything would be put on a proper footing, their produce would be on an even market, and then it would be for the inhabitants of the West Indies to compete with the industry of the inhabitants of the Continent. The majority of the Commissioners has recommended that as a trial one or two central factories should be erected, one specially at Barbadoes. Our friend, the Director of Public Instruction, is a Barbadian, and I think he will bear me out when I say that at Barbadoes they had four hundred mills to make about fifty thousand or sixty thousand tons of sugar. Their mills were, most of them, at least half of them, put in motion by the wind, they had windmills. Their other mills were most defi- cient, in fact I can tell you that the extraction in Barbadoes is about fifty per cent., or at least when the Commissioners went there, it was about fifty per cent. of the sugar contained in the cane. Well, Barbadoes grows splendid canes. The soil of Barbadoes is most fitted for cane cultivation. It is an island not of volcanic formation, but it is a coral island; the soil is mostly lime, so much so, I believe, that the people are obliged to wear glasses there in order to protect their eyes from the glare of the sun, at least, so I was told by our late Governor, Sir Charles Lees. can very well conceive that that struck the Commissioners, that in an island that grew splendid canes, and grew them cheaply, because labour is not dear at Barba- does, where there is a large population of labourers, and where the extraction was so bad, I can easily conceive that the Commissioners were struck by that fact and they recommended, as a measure of relief that funds should be advanced by the British Government in order to erect a central factory at Barbadoes. But I think that the Barbadians have not accepted that. They stick to their old mills and they do what they can without the central factory. In another little island I know that a central factory has been erected with private capital guaranteed by Govern ment that is all. The Commissioners reported, after hearing a number of wit- nesses, that generally, especially in British Guiana, the machinery was up to date- although their extraction there is about 65 per cent.-in some very few cases about 70 or 72 per cent. of the sugar contained in the cane. But what did those Commis- sioners know of cane cultivation? Those Commissioners were Sir Henry Norman, a former Governor of Trinidad, I think; then a financier, Sir David Barbour, a
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