The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

been made to the Government for that pur-- pose. If they cannot be done away with we can make it costly to take out a saloon license, Then they will stand :-- Saloons. tory Fee. Cities..............SIOD YTowns.............. g0 Wholesale. Cities over 20,000. ..$150 Cities under 20,000, and towns........ 150 Vessels. Great Lakes.......$100 " _ wine and beer only ..... .+i« "00 Inland waters..... 60 * beerand wine ouly........£.." B0 Now these amounts, I may say, are not so high as have been asked by those who have made representations to the Government in the interests of temperance, but they are as high as the Government felt that they were in a position to go at the present time. It must be borne in mind that out of the old statutor}y fee the municipality was entitled to two--thirds and the Government to one:-- third only, and the increases above the old figure will now all go to the Govern-- men. _ Now, Sir, 1 know that the complaint will be made _ that we are interfering with -- mwuticipal -- rights, and that the effect will be to reduce the number of licenses, and consequently the revenue of the municipalities trom that source. Now I think that if we refer to the same report to w.'hichLI have alrendy referred, we shall find that this assertion is MUNICIPALITIES HAVE STILL THE POWER of increasing the licenses, Now I may say that although it may be said that we have placed the city licenses at a preity high figure, they are not now as high as they are in cities of the neighbouring Province of , Quebec. In Montreal the liconses for shops and hotels raunge from $200 to $400, and every cent is taken by the Government, not a cent woing to the municipality. There the licenses are in accordance with the assessed value of the properties, the minimum being $200, and the maximum $400, and as I sai before, the whole is appropriated by the Pro-- vincial Government. Now it may be said that the fees are being placed so high that the municipalities will not have any oppor-- tunity of getting any additional revenue by making any increase in the fee beyond the minimuim that we have fixed._ But I think that from a statement which I have from the license branch, showing what licenses have been imposed b{ some of the municipalities already, we shall see that this INDUSTRY WILL BEAR A MUCH HIGHER TAX than the one we have imposed. We have fixed the cost of a license in cities under 20,-- 000 inhabitants at a minimum of $200. The city of Brantford has })laced the cost of a license at $260. _The city of Belleville placed its licenses at Ithe same figure. Then I may instance Chatham, which has made the hotel license 2{560, and its shop licenses $400. I merely give these to show that there is still i a margin left, even in the opinion of the | municipalities themselves, upon which in-- creases can be made for the purposes of their revenue. _I think, Sir, that (-?nsidering t'hat 1 L8 TON LE 4e aee Buatcn*" t hacable We shall see that the operation of the rise, although it made anincrease of revenue to the Government, made no reduction in the revenue of the municipalities. _ I _ will give the figures from the report :--In the year 1882--3, that is the year ending 30th April, 1883, the total revenue derived by municipalities from licenses was $284 379 ; in 18834 it was $2987,246. In 1884--5, which is the year in which our increases took effect, the Municipal Revenue was still $283,589, or only about $1,000 less than it was in 1882--3, and that small reduction was not really due to the fact that we had raised the licenses, but that there was a reduced number issued; that notwithstanding that there were 236 less liceonses issued under the operation of the Act of 1884, the municipalities still re-- ceived within a few hundred doliars the amount of revenue they had before, so that shows that our Act of 1884 did not interfere to any extent with the Municipal Revenue, while, as I mentioned before, the reoveriuee A Ceebo ty TTE T D 4B ee deatie s'" db m ie now the Government have taken into their own hands the awdminiatration of the license law, tht'{ may fairly expect to receive one-- half of the revenue derive d from licenses, and by the operation of this change the in-- crease will just about give us that, hardi usA t q Cld C1 L t HG0L: "thare fnrn¥ Een nsA "ap t c ceucc ts T i that ; but as I showed that in 1884 the total revenue derived by municipalities was 8283.589, we only expected to receive as the rovernment ?200.000, so that we are not taking one--half of the revenue, but are leay-- ing a good margin for the municipalities to saenre a larger revenue than is collected by NOT BORNXE OUT BY THE FIGURES. Old Statu-- 1834 Fee. $160 110 $225 $125 42 50 Fee. $175 250 100 the Government. Now, taking up again the' statement of estimated receipts, which I have given in full. The $49,841 under the head of Municipal Loan Fund is made up of two amounts that are due, one by the town of Cobourg and the other by the city of St. | Catharines. I anticipate that duringthis year | both of these amounts will be paid. The town of Cobourg have agreed to issue new debentures for the amount of $40,000. These | : debentures if received in accordance with the | | understanding will be disposed of. . And this, | together with the amount due and which we 1 expect to receive from St. Catharines, will | wipe out altogether the item in connection with the Municigla.l Loan Fund. The item of $2,000due from the Agricultural and Arts As-- sociation will also be received this year. Our total estimated revenue is therefore $2,720,-- 975 22. Now from the statements in the hands of hon. gentlemen, it _ will hbe seen that our estimated _ expen-- diture this year is $2,962,514. Apparently, therefore, taking the estimated receipts on the one hand, and the estimated expenditure on the other, there will be a deficiency of $241,539. Imay say that the estimates of: expenditure are framed with the intention | that they shall not be exceeded. We have | taken liberal estimates, and I think that we shall find that the amount will not all be ex-- pended. At the same time it is our duty to make provisions for theestimates that we are asking the House to vote. Then, in addition to the expenditure under the Supply Bill, we have other expenditures which have to be rovided for. We have the 40--year annuities })alling due, _ amounting _ to _ $27,400 ; we have the amount payable _ on account of the Land Improvement. Fund to municipalities, about $93,000, which we have announced we are going to pay this vyear. -- Adding these two sums to the Supply Bill, we have an approximate deficiency of $361, 139. Then I suppose there will be some-- thing in the supplementary estimates,. so that for the information of the House we place our antici;l);tted deficit this year at about §l400,000. ut it must be borne in mind that the estimates this year contain some very In the first place, under the head sf mpublic buildings, we areasking $125,000 for new asylum buildings at -- Orillia, -- and _ I think I may safely -- say that -- for many _ years to come _ we shall -- not be called upon to make any further expenditure of this kind. An examination of the report of the Inspector of asylums, etc., will show that the expenditwre we now ask will provide accommodation for many years to come. Then we have also an ex-- traordinary expenditure of $40,000 for con-- solidation of the statutes, an expenditure that will not occur for another ten years to come. We have also an expenditure in con-- nection with the coming Colonial Exhibition in London, Englana, which will not occur again. We have also a large increase of expenditure in connection with administra-- tion of justice. I have referred to that before, anad I may say -- now _ that the anticipation would be natural that the period of depression that we are now under-- going will soon pass away, and I think we may expect that in a few years we shall get back to the normal amount of the cost in connection with criminal justice, and that we shall effect a saving of perhaps $40,000, so we will put that amount in as an exceptional expenditure this year. Then we have this $9$.000 to the Municipal Loan Fund, which will not occur again. _ Then there will be the cost of the new buildings at the Agricultural College, destroyed by fire:; so thit I think these figures that Lhave givenw ill bring up the amount of the exceptional expenditure to g401,000, or just about the amount of the de-- ficiency that we anticipate. . Now on a for-- mer occasion I pointed out to the House that it is impossible for the Government to meet the growing wants of the Province upon & sraionary revenue. There are several tmieuns { by which, when a deticieney occurs, THAT DEFIOIENCY MAY BE MET. ' One may be to seek new sources of income open to us under the Confederation Act, Another might be to reduce the annual charge on revenue by withhloding the firantq which we now make to many deserving _ undertakings, or_ by -- trans-- ferring to the municipalitiess a por-- tion of our expenditure _ in _ connection with public institutions. The hon. member for London, the leader of the Opposition, suggested that as one plan which he thought ought to be adopted. In a former debate he thought the Government should shift a part of the responsibility for the maintenance of lunatics, etc., upon the municipalities There is no doubt that Ontario deals much more liberally in regard to this than any other country we know of, I have formerly re-- ferred to the practice both in Great Britain and the United States. They charge the municipalities with a large portion of the expense of the maintenance of these un-- EXCEPTIONAL EXPENDITUR!S.