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FORLIC

PECORD OFFICE

Reference -

C.O.882/12

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO ŘE - REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

| PÚBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON:

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cannot be transferred, but on a vacancy the keeper should not be replaced, and the local board should be required to maintain the local cemetery. No Public Health issue should ordinarily arise. and there is no real need for maintaining this as a branch of the medical department. Local management should be equally effective and possibly cheaper.

35. The relief to general revenues involved by the transfer of local services will eventually be :-

Port Louis services

Curepipe service

Port Louis sewerage

Cemeteries

Grants to townships

Total

Rs.

239,650

68,000

77,000

33,886

183,000

Rs.601,536

On the other hand revenue will be lost, apart from the remission of night-soil fees :-

Sewerage rates

Cemetery fees

Municipal receipts

Total

Rs. *61,800 16,000 7.000

Rs.87,800

leaving a net saving of Rs.513,736. This saving cannot, however, for the reasons stated above, be realized fully in the present or next financial year.

CHAPTER XV.-FINANCIAL SUMMARY,

On 25th October, 1931, before leaving Mauritius, we gave the Governor a financial summary showing the general effect of our recommendations. We had already submitted to His Excellency advance copies of chapters II to VIII, X and XII, dealing with the reorganization of the departments, and of our general proposals for reducing the cost of the Civil Service and for increasing revenue by additional taxation, and we informed him that, apart from verbal and arithmetical corrections, we did not contemplate any substantial alterations in our general scheme. We can now con- veniently follow the general terms of our letter of 25th October, 1931, in summarizing the financial effect of our proposals.

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2. The Budget deficit for 1931-32 is :-

Excess expenditure over revenue Supplementary expenditure

Total ...

revenue new

(Customs

Deduct estimated

surcharge and increase of tobacco excise)

Net deficit

Rs. 934,040

51,000

Rs.985,040

750,000

Rs. 235,040

It is impossible for us, in the fourth month of the financial year, to calculate whether the estimated revenue will or will not be collected: the tobacco figures, following the new rates of duty, are favourable; but the Customs surcharge may do little more than keep import duties at last year's total; and there can be little hope that the loss on the rum excise will be entirely checked by new measures against illicit distillation. There may be windfalls from the succession duties; but some decline in postal revenue must be feared; and it is certain that the Budget figure of Rs.250,000. which is the estimate for a full year's working of the new quays and granary, will be reduced by at least Rs.60,000. We can only anticipate that the year will close with a deficit of Rs.300,000 and perhaps more.

3. The special sugar duty of Rs.720,000 on account of the sugar loans was remitted last year, and it is generally agreed that as the position of the industry has not materially changed the case for We concur, but remission is equally strong in the present year.

10 recommending the refund of the duty which has been collected this year we add the following condition.

Many sugar estates ure in debt to the Government for large sums on account of ordinary services rendered; in particular there are debts amounting to nearly Rs.600,000 to the Railway for carriage of goods and for siding charges. When the Railway is in a most embarrassed position for ways and means it cannot afford to grant indefinite credit for services rendered, and we see no reason why the Government which is called upon to meet the Railway deficit should refund money to its own debtors, more particularly when that money is not due to the debtors on any claim of right but has come into the Government's hands in repayment of another debt. We recommend that in refunding the sugar export duty the Government should deduct any amounts due from the sugar estates for railway or other similar debts. There has been no difficulty in the past in distributing loans through the factories to the Bugar estates; the same procedure should be followed now in the case of debts, a net refund of duty. less debts, being made by

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