24 
COLONIAL REPORTS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
brought to a further stage of completion, the question of the 
organisation of the tax on the large cities and of the great 
and small traders resident in them can be dealt with, and, 
as I have said, this would possibly enable the Administration 
to abolish the caravan tolls and to substitute an individual 
tax upon the traders in proportion to their wealth, and 
equivalent to the incidence upon the rural population. The 
reason that this part of the scheme of direct taxation lags 
behind the taxation of the rural districts, consists in the 
fact that under the pre-existing native administration there 
was no such organisation in the cities as obtained in the 
agricultural districts. Nor is the cause far to seek. The 
basis of the taxation, as I have explained, was a tithe on 
grain, and an arbitrary cess upon pagan vassals. Neither 
was applicable to a city, and, moreover, the rulers desired 
to remain popular with the people of their capital city, 
who were regarded as their immediate ¡protégés. As the 
principal merchants grew in wealth, however, they became 
a mark for taxation, and the more lucrative trades—butchers, 
market brokers, and corn sellers. &c.—were accordingly taxed, 
while owners of dye pits, cloth weavers, smiths, and other 
trades were, as I have said, liable universally to a special tax. 
I do not here purpose to deal with the details of pre-existing 
taxation, which is a very large subject, and has been briefly 
outlined in my Annual Report for 1904, and examined in full 
detail in a Memorandum issued to Residents (No. 5). I am 
at present only concerned to show that the tax upon native 
traders resident in a city is part of the question of urban 
taxation under the General Tax, and I have elsewhere out 
lined a scheme of dividing the city into wards, each under a 
“ Maiungwa ” or Ward Chief, who will keep a list of all the 
residents in his quarter and collect their tax. 
24. (b.) Native Breweries.—This tax was imposed partly 
for revenue purposes upon a lucrative trade, partly in order 
to check the manufacture and sale of native liquor. It was 
withdrawn for the following reasons. In Mohammedan dis 
tricts, the issue of a licence to manufacture intoxicants gave 
a legal sanction to that trade which is opposed to the Koranic 
Law. I considered it, therefore, more politic to withdraw 
this legal sanction, and to induce Mohammedan rulers to use 
their influence in checking the manufacture altogether, as an 
act in opposition to the fundamental native law and custom. 
So far as the manufacture remained, the brewers would be 
taxed under the General Tax, like any other member of the 
community, in proportion to their wealth. In Pagan districts, 
the manufacture of “ peto ” and other forms of liquor obtains 
In every household. Its commonest form is a thick partly- 
fermented kind of gruel which is, in fact, a form of food. 
In such circumstances taxation was obviously impossible, and 
would cause great discontent, and endless petty punishments 
for infringement of the law. The tax was, however, retained