318 INHABITANTS CONSULTED IN POLITICAL MATTERS. 



is provided by the said tenth section ; and that so much of 

 said tenth section of the seventh article of the constitution of 

 this state, as is inconsistent with this amendment, be destroyed. 



44 At a meeting, called for the purpose of considering and 

 deciding upon such measures as might be deemed most pro 

 per for the occasion, the undersigned were appointed as a 

 committee to correspond with their fellow-citizens in the dif 

 ferent parts of the States and to take such steps to secure a 

 favourable result in regard to the proposed amendment, as in 

 their opinion circumstances should require. They, accord 

 ingly, ask permission to state some of the many important 

 considerations which have a bearing on the question, and 

 which, they trust, will satisfy every person, as they have the 

 Legislature, of the propriety and obvious necessity of the 

 intended alteration. 



&quot; The present duty, or more properly excise, is excessively 

 disproportioned to the value of the salt at the works, varying 

 from 100 to 200 per cent, and obliging the purchaser, when 

 he sells at retail to the consumer, to charge an advance of 

 profit on this as well as on the net cost. And the consequence 

 is, that a bushel of salt, at the present time worth about twelve 

 and a half cents at the works, must have the duty of twelve 

 and a half cents and the profit of the dealer added, and alto 

 gether make the cost to the distant consumer, (independent of 

 bills and transportation,) from twelve to fifteen shillings per 

 barrel, one-half of which, and sometimes three-fourths, arising 

 from the duty exclusively, will be in a ratio corresponding 

 with any reduction that may be made in the duty. Now, the 

 reduction anticipated by the amendment will make a saving to 

 the consumer of six to ten cents on the bushel, or 30 to 50 

 cents on the barrel, and to the state at large, exclusive of the 

 extra price for foreign salt, an aggregate of $200,000 per 

 annum ; and farther, both the manufacturer and the dealer 

 will be relieved in part, from an onerous and troublesome 

 exaction. 



&quot; As a source of revenue, the following brief expose will 

 exhibit the glaring impolicy and sinister effect of the duty. 

 Suppose that the quantity manufactured this year is 2,000,000 

 bushels. 



