otal number of trees liable to the tax
proposed, details with which we are at not present prepared, it is
impossible to come at any very accurate results. All that can be done
is to endeavor to demonstrate, in general terms, the great increase
the revenue would experience by the adoption of the new plan, and
the real advantage resulting from it to the contributors themselves,
all which may be easily deduced from the following calculation.

Let us, in the first instance, suppose that the consumers of buyo,
in the whole of the Islands, do not exceed one million of persons,
and that each one makes use of three bongas per day, this consumption,
at the end of the year, would then amount to 1,095,000,000 nuts. We
will next divide this sum by two hundred, at which the product of each
tree, one with another, is rated, and the result will be 5,475,000
trees. [Greater, however, than at present.] This number being taxed
at the rate of one-fourth real, would leave the sum of $171,093.75
and deducting therefrom the $25,000 yielded by this branch under its
present establishment, together with $5,132 equal to three per cent
paid to the district magistrates for the charges of collection, we
should still have an annual increase in favor of the, treasury equal
to $140,961.75.

It might perhaps be objected that, in this case, the proprietor,
instead of receiving, as before two and one-half reals for every
thousand bongas, would have to disburse one and one-fourth reals in
the mere act of paying one-fourth real for each tree; a circumstance
which, at first sight, seems to produce a difference not of one and
one-fourth, but of three and one-fourth reals per thousand against
him; though in reality far from this being the case, if we take into
consideration the deficiencies the sworn receiver usually lays to
his charge, the fruit he rejects, owing to its being green or rotten,
and the many and expensive grievances he is exposed to in his capacity
of grower; it will be seen that his disbursements under these heads
frequently exceed the amount he in fact has to receive. [Tax only a
surcharge ultimately paid by consumer.] If, in addition to this, we
bear in mind that, on condition of seeing himself free from guards
and a variety of insupportable restrictions, constituting the very
essence of a monopoly, he would in all probability gladly pay much
more than the tax in question, all the doubts arising on this point
will entirely disappear. Final