THE ABKARI MEHAL. thing of that sort is required, we never heard of any instance of coercion greater than personal restraint, and its concomitant galee, and that only among the worst set of them; but then we never knew of any party, Government or private Zemindar, who could realize his dues, from the apathetic and procrastinating Bengali of the lower order, without a recourse to the argumentum ad hominem. We could point out other causes of mismanagement, but they are so influenced by the spirit of the superintendent, that it is not worth while entering on them. A great deal might be said about Darogahs, and the petty spirit of legislation they bring to their the protection of the interests they are put to guard; great aim seems to be to pick up little illegalities, and try to make much of them. We have had occasion to remark before, in regard to officers of a similar grade in the salt department, they will not discriminate between wilful and unintentional errors, nor need we expect them to do so, while anything is to be got by not doing so; but these are comparatively minor evils arising from a bad system. Can it then be wondered at, that under such a system and such management, the Abkari department gets a bad name, or that all should unite in running it down? Substitute a district for a shop in what we have written above, or rather imagine all the shops settled and carried on in that way, and you have the reason at once, why Abkari settlements are so uncertain and fluctuating, as we have heard that Government complain they are; or why the officers of the department and the venders are in the eyes of most people nothing short of oppressors and swindlers. To expect a settlement to remain fixed all through the year, is however, all but out of the question; it is liable to be influenced, as we have already said, by the seasons and harvests, though not to the extent it has been from vicious settlements. To hope to raise it above reproach, is, we fear, equally futile, but that it can be made more certain and less disliked, we believe; and how so we will now see. The trade in all excisable articles included in the Abkari revenue, should be entirely thrown open, and instead of limiting the sale of any one of them in any place by one maan on the objectionable daily tax, let as many men as choose sell the drug or liquor by paying a retail license fee of four rupees per month each. This license should permit the retailer to sell as much of one drug as he could; if he wished to become a general retailer," that is, if he wished to sell ganjah and bhang, he should have to pay a fee of (say) six rupees, and one in addition for each further excisable drug he might desire to sell, provided it was a derivative of the original drug, he THE ABKARI MEHAL. (the vender) sold; for instance, if a vender had the license for the sale of ganjah, he might, if he wished to sell bhang, or siddee, be allowed to do so at a slightly enhanced rate. Opium would of course remain on its present footing, no facilities are required in the licensed sale of that. Any man paying down the price of a seer of it, is entitled to sell it at any market he may name; by giving an increased fee of two rupees, the opium vender may become a muddut and chundoo vender too. As for the license in country spirits, a distiller should have to pay eight annas a gallon on all he distilled, and this should entitle him to sell to licensed retail venders, and wholesale. If he wished to sell retail, he should have to take out a license, for which he should pay (say) four rupees a month. If a man not a distiller, wishes to become a wholesale vender, he should have to pay a fee of sixteen rupees per annum, with heavy penalty, which should always be enforced, if he is detected selling retail; if he wished to become a retailer as well as wholesale vender, a fee of five rupees per month should be taken from him for both. The license for the sale of rum should contain the same provisions, and that for the sale of Europe wines and spirits, may remain exactly as it is. No man should be allowed to take out a license for less than three months of any sort, (except for fairs, melahs, &c.) and he should have to give one month's notice of his intention to resign it. Every licensed vender should have up a board, intimating that he is a licensed vender, which board or the writing on it should be erased on his allowing his license to lapse, and this should be done in the presence of an inspector in the license department (now Darogahs), and any person purchasing any article exciseable under the Abkari laws, from any house, where such sign-board was not up, and which was not a licensed vender's shop, should be liable to punishment as "particeps criminis." We might enter into minuter details of the system here proposed, but it is scarcely necessary; what we have written gives a very good outline of it, and such a system, we think no one will deny, would be found to be a considerable improvement on that existing. Conceive for a moment the impossibility of any man fixing at the commencement of the year, the quantity of any drug he will sell all through it, and that drug, as we before said, one that is not absolutely necessary to existence, but which is indulged in according to the consumer's means and inclination. It is perfectly true that a vender, if he finds that his is not a paying settlement, has the option of giving up his shop, under certain not very severe penalties; but, alas, experience has proved, and is every day proving, the utter inability of most minds to cope with reality or to resign hope. Well has a great moralist and philosopher said, "hope springs triumphant in the human breast." The gambler shall reason on chances, and try yet another cast of the dice, though every previous one has entailed a loss, until he is fairly cleared out. The princely merchant shall speculate once more, though all his former speculations shall have brought him face to face with ruin; so shall the Abkari pattadar be led on by the same delusive hope, which acts upon all men in the same manner, though one dwelleth in a palace and the other in a hut. We would not be understood to mean that the native vender is generally a hot and rashly speculative character; far from it. Usually, the regular Bengali or Hindoo tradesman and shop-keeper, such as the Burneek and the Shaha, are cold and temperate as a class, the temperature of the mind being, we can imagine, influenced by their physical training. It appears to be the unlucky gambling spirit that pervades the department, which somehow or other inoculates the minds of these generally calculating speculators, and changes their natures. It may too be caused partially by the penalty attending a resignation of their licenses. There is one other reason too, and it is this: so many poor and disreputable men get into the department, often by ingratiating themselves with the Darogah, that bad as their prospect and museeb may be in the department, an ejection from it would be considerably worse. With everything to win and nothing to lose, who would not speculate? And an Abkari settlement is nothing but speculation in the worst signification of the word. But would this proposed system be beneficial in all respects, as certainly it would be much more fair in its structure to all concerned? The question must be argued pro and con on four heads, which are; First: would it tend to the end proposed to be gained by the infliction of an excise revenue, viz: such lawfully stringent supervision and impediments, as would check common intemperance? Next, whether, subordinate to that, it would return as good a revenue; which leads to the third question-would it entail an expensive alteration in its management and superintendence, such as would render its introduction a serious matter for consideration and hesitation? And lastly, (what should have been by right, firstly) would it be more fair and equitable to the consumer, whose interest ought perhaps to be the principal consideration? For it is putting a chain on indulgence on his part, which nothing could justify in others, except the knowledge that this indulgence will, or at any rate, might, injure his neighbour, which his duty towards that neighbour prohibits, or himself, which certainly his duty toward God forbids. Allowing then that a man stands in his relation to his country, in DEC., 1857. PP the same light that a child does to the father and ruler of a family, so that all good members yield readily that obedience which they know is justly demandable, and which if not enforced, would lead others of it or himself into excesses,-still it is from the consumer that the revenue is derived, for if there was no consumer, there would be no vender, and consequently no tax; and therefore it is but fair, after having put such checks on indulgence as will materially interfere with an abuse of it, to let him have a fair benefit of what is permitted. Arguing thus then, we may say that the consumer's interests are of importance enough to be first considered, and we will therefore take up that question first. It is a pretty generally admitted fact that the true value of any article of produce or manufacture cannot be correctly ascertained when it is hedged round with a monopoly; and we may quite safely aver that the value of intoxicating drugs is no exception to that general rule. We may estimate that ganjah for instance is sold in the growing districts at from three to six rupees per maund, according to whether the ganjah harvest has been plentiful or otherwise. Say that a vender pays at the rate of eight annas a day of tax, his monthly balance sheet will show something like what follows: This is if he is an importer of the drug; if not, he has to purchase from the wholesale vender, and the price then will be about ten rupees a maund, but without expenses of carriage, wastage, &c. Such a vender is generally his own servant, or if he keeps one at all, it would be equally necessary if he had not the ganjah license. We call this a tax, not on the vender, but on the consumer. It is true that the aim and object of the tax is so to enhance the value of the drug, that the sale shall be greatly influenced by it. But is it? We from much experience believe not. Ganjah is used by a certain set of men, not exactly as a necessary, but as a sort of one, much in the way in fact that tobacco is. A man who has been used to smoke his chillum of ganjah will do so, whether the price be high or low, and it will be under extraordinary pressure only that he will give it up. It is not generally seen that ganjah-sınoking, like dram-drinking, increases on one from use, and it is said that the only people benefitted by the monopoly are the venders, who except under very urgent circumstances, keep up the price. We say that, without advocating intoxication, we may be allowed to call this unfair; and when we further consider the other evils to which a monopoly (that is the present system) leads, we cannot help adding that it ought to be abolished. Say that one man sells thirty seers of ganjah and makes a profit of forty rupees; four men if they sold the same quantity would perhaps be content to get a profit of ten rupees between them, and consequently the difference is saved to the consumer, and this they have a right to demand. In ganjah, as in all other articles of trade, every one will admit that they have the right, provided the concession does not produce immorality or physical mischief; and here we glide into the first head of the question under discussion. Whether throwing open the trade would be injurious or not. Are we justified in assuming that it would be? If we go the whole length with the anti-spirit party, and admit that the very use of intoxicating articles is, de facto, a sin, of course the question allows of no discussion; but if, more moderately, we are inclined to argue that the impropriety lies, not in the use, but in the abuse, a great deal may be said in extenuation. That throwing open the trade would produce increased consumption, cannot we think be denied. Experience has shown us in the matter of opium, that in those districts where the price of that drug was thirty rupees per seer, and where it has been since reduced to say fifteen rupees, the consumption has been increased by nearly one-half; but it has been found, that it is only in those thoroughly depraved that the increased consumption has effected harm, and that class can never be prevented from using it to excess. The people constituting it are to be found mostly in large native towns, about the haunts of the " Peshaghur." At Dacca for instance, the consumption of opium and its derivatives is very large. Whereas in Tipperah it is a mere trifle, because there are no large towns or cities of any sort, in which the depraved and dissolute can congregate. By the way it would be a problem for the learned in that lore, to find out an account for the different tastes, in the different zillahs, and what genius loci presides over them. In the eastern districts, as in Dacca, opium seems to be the favorite vanity (native.) Muddut in Sylhet and Mymensing. Country spirits and ganjah in Mymensing also. In Backergunge opium and ganjah but country spirits are eschewed. Nearly forty maunds of opium are consumed there annually. Bad enough, Heaven : |