Bahama Islands prosper

PROHIBITION in the United States, which caused enormous quantities of liquor to descend almost like an avalanche upon the city of Nassau, in the Bahama Islands, has transformed the Bahama Government's financial condition from a deficit to comparatively a huge surplus, provided labour for large numbers of unemployed, and put more money in circulation in that little British colony (writes the San Francisco correspondent of the Christchurch Press, under date of February 21). According to a cablegram to San

Francisco, Sir William L. Allardyce, Governor of the colony, announced this in an address opening the 1920 session of the Bahama Legislature. Halfadozen vessels carried full cargoes of wines and liquors to the colony and duties from them have restored the Bahamas' Government's fallen fortunes, due to the war, from a deficit to a surplus three times as large as the expected deficit, or about 555,000 dollars. The year's revenue is figured at 1,085,000 dollars. In addition, a surplus of 500,000 dollars yearly, during the next two years at least, is expected from duties when the liquors are taken out of bond. Aside from all this revenue, the pleasurable resort has been greatly patronised by wealthy Americans who happen to be caught without a private supply of spirituous liquors when ‘‘bonedry’’ prohibition went into force in the United States. The influx of American visitors into the colony has been enormous this season, and the same degree of prosperity is reported from the Bermudas, which lie in the sea

just off the Atlantic seaboard of the United States.