Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/492

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472
HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL

pecuniary aid from the several states of which it was composed, and, in fact, what it did receive, was solely from the state of Guatemala itself or from Honduras.The duty of seven per cent, on the clear value of all the ecclesiastical revenues was inconsiderable: those of stamps, post-office, and tobacco were newly organized by specific decrees, and a petition having passed from the government of the 2d of March 1824, for an increase of the duties on importation, the assembly decreed an augmentation of four per cent. To increase the difficulties which still wanted to be reformed, the states separated their revenues from those of the federal fund.

In February 1824, the executive power ordered a commission to be formed to settle and propose the best means for effecting a beneficial change in the state of the revenue, composed of a principal officer in each branch, assisted by one of the individuals of the executive. The result was that, out of all the rents, four items