Vuelven los monopolios

Abstract

The image presents a news item called Monopolies are back: With no little regret we have noticed that journalism, as it should, has not raised its powerful and energetic voice against the law of the Assembly of Cundinamarca, of last January 28, which creates income for public education and charitable establishments. Deeply convinced that this is a law that is as hateful as it is ineffective in its means, we are pleased to point out some observations about it. Blushing at his work, the legislators took the precaution of accommodating him by the nice title he bears, instead of the one they appropriately gave him. It comes, namely: "I read that establishes a tax on stores and stores selling intoxicating liquors & i allocates their product." Article 3 classifies establishments, stores & where liquor is sold, the first being those whose product is or exceeds $200 per month. Here we already find an iniquitous disproportion: the store that makes 200 $ a month pays the same as the establishment or the macen in which 1,000, 2,000 are sold at the same time. The establishments, warehouses and liquor stores are taxed and pay a direct contribution as movable wealth, at 2 percent. A liquor store that is worth approximately $1,000 sells 300 per month; and being included in the first class, must he pay the exorbitant contribution? 48 in a year (48 per 1,000!) In which country in the world, no matter how poor or oppressed it may be, such a plundering contribution is charged? We know that against the project of this monstrous law there were deputies who energetically declared themselves in the Assembly. The project was denied in the third debate, in ordinary voting; but for one of those acts of human weakness, which it is better not to qualify, nor to make a severe analysis, but to let them deliver them to the execration of worthy men, I of clear and sound judgment, was reconsidered in the third debate, with audacious violation of the regulation , and approved by nominal vote. Rightly outraged by this incident, the deputy Gaitan (Calisto) fixed, as a solemn protest, if we remember correctly, the following proposition: "The record states that the deputy Gaitan considers as an inconsistency, that having refused in ordinary vote the bill that establishes a tax on the sale of intoxicating liquors, has been reconsidered and approved in the third debate, by nominal vote". It is intended to alleviate the extravagance of the questioned law, saying that it is a means, if not to eradicate, at least to kill the vice of drunkenness: Error. The only thing that is achieved is the quicker ruin of the drinkers, and that the obstacles that oppose them make the satisfaction of their appetite more delicious. Compounding the ravages of vice is how thick it gets! Who would believe it! Why, if we want to feed the plants of moralists, do we not tie by all imaginable means the vice of luxury, which without a doubt is much more pernicious than that of drink? A man overwhelmed by it, when the depletion of his resources does not allow him to bring to his lips the glass of succulent wine and brandy, turns to aniseed, brandy, chicha, and if you like, vice leads him to tomb. He ceases to exist, ceases to be the joke of his family and of other men. As a general thesis we dare to ensure that no one steals to get drunk. The man who has the misfortune to drink from vice, can correct himself, recover his honor, vindicate his position in society. He who has exhausted his resources in the voluptuousness of luxury first backfires, steals stealthily, and then steals and steals with violence and brazenness, because at all costs he wants to be in good shape to maintain a false position that will open the doors of the restaurant of the elegant ones, of the dances and the suarés. He never gets his honor back; he lives, and he lives like a moth that corrodes and infects everything. The woman who, through her son's vice, has destroyed the fortune of her parents, her own, or that of a guardian whose solicitude is less demanding, or has ceased altogether, makes use of the last and extreme resource, the great treasure of all her existence: sell to the most prodigal bidder your youth and your graces, and your past, and your present, and your future! Until the past of him! because she doesn't even have the right to think about honest memories to present them as a title to social consideration; because impure actions are to honor, what the mud turbion is to clear water from the fountain. Behold the vice of luxury in all its horrifying nakedness! Let's go back to the law. The last day of the sessions of the Assembly (January 23) took place the funny (shameful) comedy of the denial and approval of the project in the third debate. Wounded by the self-respect of a deputy citizen due to his misfortune, he uttered a terrible rebuke against the negatives, saying, among other things, that "the chicha prevailed over public instruction and charity." It was then that several of these, believing they had committed an enormous nonsense, with a certain kind of resignation-100, worthy of a better cause, voted for the monstrosity of the law. We applaud his sound intentions, but we cannot help but censure the extravagance of his error. In many towns, surely, the qualifying Board established by law will not dare to start its work; and in others, the ratings you do will not go from one to two. The tax will not reach in the State, in the whole year, nor to $2,000 1 This I do not admit doubt; because there are laws, like the one we are dealing with, that carry with them the idea of repulsion, of universal resistance. It is said with a certain enfalda that he faces. Reading the liquors I correct my drunkenness. what a hallucination Drunkenness is not caused by this siege; Just as despotism does not consolidate peace and order; Just as the severity do, the penalties do not diminish the crimes; Just as a father of a family does not cover the honor of his daughter, through rigor and oppression but let's take care of a back! let us take care of walking towards the monopolies that we have destroyed, let us take care of that abominable anachronism! Congratulations that we promote even with the frenzy of enthusiasm for public education and charity; but [let us be cautious in the means, because these do not always justify the ends A father will prefer to leave his son under the thousand locks of ignorance, than bring light to his mind at the cost of the ruin of two men. If we want to bear the name of liberals, let us be true, do not dishonor our cause. Because, it is painful: but it must be said, the law enunciated is the stigma of the liberal party. From her, to the monopoly of brandy, there is only one step. It comes to destroy to a great extent the precious liberties of industry, won in many years of perennial struggle, by the glorious efforts of the athletes of the press and the tribune. We harbor the intimate hope that one of the first acts of the Assembly at its next meeting in December will be the repeal of the aforementioned law, because it mortally wounded the universal industry of the poor, of the poor who so much need our protection; because at the sight of a pot OCSIX can laugh with caliches other less abominable resources; and because, finally, it is not' an honest means to promote objects as sacred as public instruction and charity. For if we were deceived in our hope, we would have to say with pain, but with a great deal of truth: The monopolies are back! Gracchus Posted in The Illustration. N. 629. May 10, 1873 pg 222. B-D. 223 A-B.