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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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C.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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man well known to everybody; and the other was Sir Edward Grey, a rising politician.

Mr. NEWTON: Very distinguished.

Mr. LECLÉZIO: Very distinguished, but he did not know anything of cane culti- vation. Those were the three persons who were sent out to the West Indies.

Here we have been for a long time clamouring for assistance from the British Government, which, as I repeat, has put us in the scrape, the British Government is the cause of our misfortunes, there is no doubt as to that. If they had put us on an even market with the Continent we would have fought the battle. But for years and years we have been handicapped by the bounties which have been tolerated by the British Government. Even now, and it is a fact that is known to everybody, Austria is giving indirect bounties to her beet sugar growers. Austria has sub- sidised a line of steamers with a condition that they will carry sugar from Trieste to Bombay at a reduced freight. Well, that makes a large difference. On land railways carry sugar and everything in fact that is employed in the manufacture of sugar at reduced rates. I know that the Government of England has been approached, that the Secretary of State has been approached on the question. I know that the Viceroy of India has been approached on the question. I know that the Viceroy of India has taken power from his Council to put countervailing duties on beet sugar enjoying indirect bounties. But nothing has been done up to the present moment. I do not know whether anything will be done or when it will be done. But, in the meanwhile, what is going to happen? Meanwhile, have we got the money with which to pay all the expenses of Government? Have we got the money to meet the additional expenditure that Government has put on? Have we got money to meet all our wants? No. It is not prudent to go on taxing and taxing.

Fortunate enough we are that our public finances, that our debt, in one word, is not too high. Our debt is a debt which any Colony could be proud to have. Our debt does not amount, I mean the dead weight, to one year's revenue of the Colony. I will give you a short statement of the debt of the Colony. The dead weight, as. everyone of you knows, is the charge upon the Colony for which there is no equiva- lent. We pay the personal emoluments, we pay the military contribution, there is no equivalent, except in the way of having nice people sometimes to meet with. The other weight is the weight which has an equivalent; it is the weight for which value is received and is received daily; it is the weight put upon the Colony, for instance, by the loans made in different shapes to planters; those are loans which are secured by first charges on properties which are certain to be paid. Well, as I said, the public debt of the Colony does not amount to more than one year's revenue, not to one year's revenue of the Colony. This is our present debt, at least the debt such as it was on the 30th June, 1903, which I gather from the papers which have been put before us by Government. Apart from the Hurricane Loan, the Planters Loan, and the Tramway Loan, to which I shall come afterwards, the public debt was this:-

(a) Balance unconverted 34 per cent, debentures under Ordinance 10 of 1876,

£40,693 10s.

(b) Balance unconverted 4 per cent. debentures under Ordinance 10 of 1879,

£56,100.00.

(c) Balance unconverted 4 per cent. debentures under Ordinance 2 of 1887,

£600.00.

I am happy to say that the £600 is for the Moka Railway.

(d) Converted 4 per cent. inscribed stock under Ordinance 1 of 1887,

£482,390 16s.

Less the sinking fund, which has been accumulating, and which is £95,777,

the balance is, £386,613.

All these loans are for railway purposes. Then we come to the Hurricane Loan.

The Hurricane Loan was £800,000.

The sinking fund of the Hurricane Loan amounted on the 30th June last to £70,705, leaving a balance of £529,294. Of that sum practically five-sixths are paid by the Loan Fund. Originally £400,000 had been set apart for the purpose of making loans and £200,000 had been taken by the Government for the their wants at the time. But subsequently it was decided that the Loan Fund should of meeting purpose bear the five-sixths of the charges of the loan, that is practically it should bear five-

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sixths of the loan. You will notice in the estimates that there is a sum of Rs. 360,000 provided on the expenditure side to pay interest and sinking fund on the loan of £600,000, and on the revenue side Rs. 300,000 only to be received from 'the Loan Fund as its contribution towards the payment of the sinking fund and interest of the £600,000. Well, the one-sixth of the balance of the Hurricane Loan amounts to £105,858 16s. The total debt--that is the total dead weight on the Colony thus is £589,865 19s.-that is less than one year's revenue of the Colony. And even that sum might not be considered as a dead weight because it is more than represented by the value of our railways.

Apart from Singapore I do not think that there is any other Colony the debt of which is so low as ours. You will notice that generally the debt of a Colony- like the municipal debt of Port Louis, is about four times its yearly revenue--but in very few instances could you see a Colony having so small a debt as this one. I do not take into account the other debt, because that other debt is an investment

a first rate investment-it is an investment secured by a first charge on the pro- perties of the island, and those investments amount to £710,000 and more.

Mr. L. E. ANTELME: Pourquoi ne tenez-vous pas compte de cela?

Mr. LECLEZIO: Parce que c'est représenté par un actif. Le Gouvernement a emprunté d'une main et prêté de l'autre sur les meilleures garanties. The Hurricane Loan is being repaid yearly and very well repaid. Now, we must also examine what is the annual charge on the Colony resulting from the debt. The total charge on the Colony is Rs. 1,389,856. Of these interest and sinking fund on Hurricane Loan amounts Rs. 360,000, interest on Planters Loan to Rs. 180,000-interest and sinking fund on Tramway Loan to Rs. 359,910-that is, in all, Rs. 899,910 for interest and sinking fund on loans which have their equivalent in investments made by the Government. If we deduct that sum from the total sum provided in the estimates, because Government must make provision for the whole of the interest and sinking fund, the real sum to be met by the general revenue of the Colony is Rs. 549,946, and, strange to say, it is exactly the same sum as in 1898-the same charge on the revenue of the Colony as in 1898. In 1898 the charge was Rs. 549,735, in 1904 Rs. 549,946; a difference of only about Rs. 200.

I give those figures to show that our credit is intact, that our credit is a credit

of a first rate order, that we have a debt which is so light that it is not possible that if we had recourse to loans we should not meet with full success. A Colony like Mauritius, that owes less than one year's revenue, and whose annual charge upon its debt is only Rs. 550,000, is a Colony that deserves the best of credits.

Well, then, we are in presence of this alternative: either we shall have to borrow money in order to delete from our estimates sums which have been provided for extra- ordinary and remunerative works, or we must submit to taxation, because we have no longer the resource of our balance in the Treasury. The balances in the Treasury are gone the balance stood on the 30th June, 1902, at a sum of Rs. 1,834,919. On the 30th June, 1903, that balance had already been reduced to Rs. 1,283,429:- In one year the reduction has been Rs. 571,489. But this year it is worse. On the 30th June, 1903, we had Rs. 1,263,429, but on the 30th June, 1904, we shall have only Rs. 216,285. This is what His Honour the Officer Administering the Govern- ment said in his speech: "This reduces the estimated Treasury Balance on the 30th June, 1904, to Rs. 256,807.23. This balance may be further reduced by sundry

items not at present foreseen, but not exceeding Rs. 41,000 in all." That was the fore- cast on the 17th May. Well, we have now approximate figures, and the figures which have been given to me, and which I think are about correct, show that the balance in favour of the Colony will be, on the 30th June this month, Rs. 216,000-what was anticipated in fact by His Honour the Officer Administering the Government when he wrote his speech on the 17th May, 1904.

We have no reserve, then, to fall back upon.

We must either borrow or tax; we cannot get out of it. A deficit of about Rs. 400,000 is anticipated. I do not know what the deficit will be. It was anticipated that the deficit of this year would be Rs. 500,000; it will be more than Rs. 800,000. Well, next year what will it be? The deficit next year is likely to be a very big one, and it may still be increased by the fact that provision had been made in the budget of the present year for the payment of the first instalment of the cost of the dredger. That provision was Rs. 255.000, but of that only Rs. 125,000 have been paid. So that of two things

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