NEW YORK. 



601 



Although the gross income from all the 

 canals of the State for the hist fiscal year is 

 less than that of the preceding year, the ex- 

 hibit of the income and expenses shows a 

 gratifying result. The gross receipts of the 

 last year were $2,921,721.74 for the year 

 1873 they were $3,021,528.78 being a decrease 

 or a deficiency for 1874, as compared with 

 1873, of $99,806.04; but the income in excess 

 of all disbursements for the past year is $225,- 

 864.44, while for the year 1873 the disburse- 

 ments exceeded the income by $176,023.99, 

 showing an actual increase in the revenue 

 from this source for the past fiscal year over 

 that of 1873 of $404,388.53. 



In Onondaga County are the most extensive 

 salt-works in the United States. They are 

 owned and managed by the State, which de- 

 rived from this source in 1874 a net revenue 

 of $10,341. The works in operation have an 

 annual productive capacity of about 10,700,000 

 bushels. The amount of salt inspected in 1874 

 was 6,594,191 bushels, being 1,364,981 bushels 

 less than the amount inspected during the 

 previous year. 



The political campaign this year was of 

 more than usual importance. It was opened 

 with the assembling of the Prohibition Con- 

 vention in Auburn on the 23d of June. The 

 call which had been issued by the Executive 

 Committee in May invited " all persons in the 

 State of New York who oppose the licensing 

 of the liquor-traffic the manufacture, sale, 

 and use of alcoholic liquors as a beverage 

 who are willing to unite upon one common 

 platform for the prohibition of the same, 

 through national, State, and municipal legis- 

 lation, to meet in convention to nominate 

 State officers, and to transact such other busi- 

 ness as may properly come before the conven- 

 tion." 



* Included in Erie. t Including Champlain. 



VOL. nv. 39 A 



The convention organized with C. C. Leigh 

 as president, when it appeared that twenty- 

 five counties were represented, some of which 

 had delegations numbering from ten to twenty. 

 The platform adopted was as follows : 



Resolved, first, That we more than ever are per- 

 suaded that the legal prohibition of the manufacture 

 and sale of ardent spirits for beverage purposes is 

 the only effectual remedy for the unparalleled evils 

 resulting from their use. 



Resolved, That we are as firmly persuaded that 

 such a remedy can only be secured through a sepa- 

 rate political party; that while equally competent to 

 deal with all other public questions, we shall mako 

 prohibition the paramount aim of its organization, 

 and to that conclusion we are impelled, among oth- 

 ers, by the following reasons : 



1. Of two great parties we have the Democracy, 

 which neither pretends nor could with justice pre- 

 tend to favor repressive interference with rum in- 

 terests. 



2. That while the Republican party has claimed to 

 be a party of great moral ideas and a true friend of 

 temperance, it has forfeited all right to be recognized 

 as such. 



3. It has had possession through its Governor and 

 two successive Legislatures of the State administra- 

 tion for nearly the whole of the past two years, with 

 the full power to grant anti-liquor legislation if it 

 had been disposed to do so. 



4. It came into power fully committed to one 

 measure of prohibition, by pledge, which it first 

 violated and nas since failed to redeem. 



6. It has refused to submit to be voted upon by 

 the people an amendment to the constitution as to 

 the prohibition of the rum-traffic as asked for by the 

 leading temperance organizations. 



6. It has, at the instigation of the liquor-sellers, 

 so interfered with and modified the law of the ex- 

 cise in existence when it came into power, so far as 

 the civil penalties go, as to give a practical free trade 

 in rum in our larger cities, and remove the principal 

 restriction upon traffic upon the Sabbath-day. 



7. It has put upon the statute-book a law unpre- 

 cedented in its support of the rum interest ; an act 

 incorporating a wine and spirit traders' societv, of 

 the United States, as thereby it has given the high- 

 est legal sanction and protection to the rum-tnifflo, 

 and conferred upon those openly and actively en- 

 gaged therein the most extraordinary privileges and 



