would not be amiss to forward translations of them to His Excellency, especially as the question is entirely the same, and the opinions alledged therein are supported on many reasons and grounds pro and con. I have, etc.

Letter from the Wine License Committee to SIR JOHN CRADOCK.

We the Committee appointed by Your Excellency to investigate into the present system of farming the wine licence, and report upon its relative advantages and disadvantages to the publick, having before us Your Excellency's letter enclosing the Earl of Caledon, the late governor's, suggestions, and the opinion hereupon expressed by the Committee of the Lords of Trade, together with his Majesty's Fiscal and Lieut.-Colonel Forster's memoirs on the subject, and anxious to fulfil your Excellency's expectations, submit to your consideration the following reply to, and observation upon, Your Excellency's queries which appear to us calculated to bring most clearly the whole subject into discussion.

In reply to the 1st query, we observe that the inconveniences and evils the Committee have heard objected to the present system reduce themselves to four heads:

1st. That it enables the wine farmer and the wine merchant to combine together and oppress the wine grower by forcing him to accept such price as they are willing to give.

We must here observe that no proof of such combination was in the knowledge of any member of the Committee, neither was the name of any witness mentioned who could prove such a fact, consequently the Committee each questioned the others as to our belief and experience, and we all from the following reasons believe no such combination (attended with such consequences) does exist.

1st. Because there is a great variety in the price of wines according to their quality, from fifty rixdollars the leaguer to two hundred rixdollars and upwards, and it is evident there must be purchasers as various.

2ndly. A rise of cent per cent has taken place within these four

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years last past, and the price has regularly augmented with the growing demand.

3rdly. We know the mutual competition between the wine merchants and their anxiety to possess the best wines, and indeed the jealousy they have of each other anticipating any previous purchase which they are accustomed to buy.

Your Committee further state, that the second of the alledged reasons appears to be that it is a tax which falls heaviest on the lower class of consumers, upon whom rests the whole weight of the farmer and the farmer's profit thereon.

Your Committee admit the fact that this always will happen as long as for the convenience of the lower class wine is sold by retail in small quantity, but no other statement was made that the lower classes considered it or complained of it as a grievance, and your Committee conceive they never will complain of it unless the idea be suggested by persons anxious to promote their discontent; it further appears to your Committee that under every arrangement for the retail of wine a high price proportionally must necessarily be paid by those classes.

Your committee are of opinion that no advantage would accrue to the public from the reduction of price to that class of consumers, and that the law operates beneficially for the purposes of morality, police and a guard against excess.

At the same time the Committee submit to your Excellency the wisdom of doing away all pretence for dissatisfaction at the alledged inequality by imposing a higher tythe or tax upon wine consumed by the higher classes of people whenever the exigencies of Your Excellency's administration require augmented revenue, with such modifications as to your Excellency may then seem meet and proper.

Your Committee find a third evil or inconvenience attributed to the wine farm is that the wine farmer has a great opportunity of disposing of bad or unwholesome wines to the injury of the health of their consumers.

Your Committee are fully of opinion that the wine farmer has that opportunity, and from the very rapid sale might more easily evade the vigilance of the magistracy than if the sale was divided amongst many, but altho' the power exists it does not appear to your Committee that from the sick list of the army, the reports of such commanding officers as were in the knowledge of the Com

mittee, or the complaints of any of the burghers and inhabitants whose vigilant interest in the health of their slaves would render them most attentive to such a subject, that wine had been mixed so as to be unwholesome or bad.

Your Committee are further of opinion that the superintendence of a vigilant police, even should the retail trade be opened, would be necessary in nearly an equal degree, as merchants possessed of the worst wines will ever find customers as long as human nature continues the same, and will ever use the greatest exertions to evade the caution of the most active and attentive magistracy.

Your Committee feel there might exist a fourth evil or inconvenience, that formerly created much trouble, litigation and unpleasant consequences, between the civil and military authorities, and which much pressed upon his late Excellency Lord Caledon's mind.

Wine might be unpleasant and disagreeable to the soldiers which the civil magistrates could neither condemn as bad or unwholesome.

Your Committee find that formerly at out quarters much dissatisfaction did exist and disputes between the officers commanding and the wine farmers, latterly nothing of that nature has taken place, and the best understanding has existed. The wine offered to the military in Cape Town and in fact the whole domestic police of the cantines is submitted to the town major, in the out posts to the commanding officer, and the wines have been changed if objected to, and therefore practically no evil, dispute or inconvenience, has latterly existed or taken place, but it occurs to your Committee that in the future contracts with the wine farmers such a contingency should be guarded against, and a clause introduced in the contract, that if the wine farmer persisted in offering a wine which could not be condemned as bad or unwholesome by the civil magistrate, and yet was disapproved of by the soldiery and their officers, that your Excellency, or the governor for the time being, should have a power to name proper persons to decide upon such a state of things, and direct what in your discretion appeared proper.

No other inconveniences or evils from the present system having occurred to your Committee, from the best consideration they have been able to give the subject, they do not conceive the evils and inconveniences to be such as to render the alteration of the

system necessary as immediately expedient, whatever it may be in future when other sources of revenue may offer.

In reply to your Excellency's second query, the Committee are of opinion that no equal or nearly equal revenue could be collected from the consumption of wine, that would not prove more oppressive to the inhabitants and less popular.

In reply to the third query, the Committee are of opinion that the introduction of an excise system, which occurs to your Committee as the only substitute capable of extending itself over the consumption of so scattered and dispersed a population spread through such an expanse of territory, would be more unequal than the present system, attended with an expence in the collection not easily calculated, and ultimately not productive of the same net revenue to the treasury produced by regulations and taxes the people have been long accustomed to, submit to, and pay.

In reply to your Excellency's fourth suggestion, we beg leave to recapitulate what we have stated as to amendments and alterations with some additions.

1st. We conceive it wiser to add to the tax upon wine consumed by the wealthier inhabitants, than to diminish that which is paid by the lower class of consumers.

2ndly. We are of opinion to guard against dissatisfaction in the soldiery the clause or reference to your Excellency's appointees in case of continuing disagreement between the military and the wine farmer should take place.

3rdly. Your Committee are of opinion that as the foreign wine farm is not of vital importance to the revenue of the colony, the - experiment might be advantageously made of discontinuing that farm and opening the retail trade of foreign wines and beer to each and every person willing to pay for the licence two hundred rix-dollars.

4thly. Your Committee are of opinion that at each drostdy the retail sale of wine and home brandies should be farmed out, with a permission also to retail European wines and beer.

Your Committee are further of opinion that the retail sales of wines, spirits, and beer should be farmed out at all military establishments, but to be placed under the superintendance and controul of the officer commanding the troops where no landdrost or deputy landdrost resided.

In case of their residence, to be subject as usual to their inspection and the existing regulations.

There occurs nothing further to your Committee, and we humbly beg to request if anything suggest itself your Excellency will have the goodness to point it out to your Committee, and enable us to execute according to the best of our abilities the services your Excellency expects from the Committee.

SIR, I am to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 19, from which His Majesty's Government have learnt with great Concern that the small Pox has made its appearance at Cape Town. Intelligence to the same effect had been previously received from Admiral Stopford.

As it is of the greatest importance that the health of His Majesty's Subjects should not be endangered by the Practice of Portuguese Slave Vessels stopping at the Cape, and that no facilities whatever should be granted to those concerned in carrying on the Traffic in Slaves, I am to signify to you the Commands of His Royal Highness The Prince Regent that you do issue a Proclamation interdicting the intercourse of Slave Ships of whatever Country they may belong to with any part of the Settlement under your Government.

Lord Strangford, His Majesty's Minister at the Court of Brazil, has been instructed to notify to that Court that it was His Royal Highness's intention to give Instructions to the above effect.