French term
titre de salaire
This section looks at the significance of alcohol sales to Africans, including as a source of public revenues. It is said that the colonial authorities "firent de l’alcool un titre de salaire", which I am struggling to interpret.
Here is the full context:
"Les colonisateurs se sont bien sûr empressés d’interdire le commerce, l’importation et l’usage des armes à feu, sauf dans les régions où la chasse était autorisée à certaines périodes de l’année. En revanche, la consommation des boissons alcoolisées ne cessa de croître. Elle était en effet encouragée par les autorités coloniales poussées dans ce sens par les lobbies des fabricants d’alcool en France. Une conférence réunie à Bruxelles en 1892 essaya sans succès d’interdire l’importation d’alcool au Congo. La France, au contraire, mit tout en œuvre pour en augmenter l’importation. Les autorités coloniales firent de l’alcool un titre de salaire. En 1894, la moitié des recettes globales et 95 % des droits de douane du protectorat de la côte du Niger provenaient de l’alcool ; les rentrées publiques fournies par les spiritueux atteignaient près de 2 millions de livres sterling."
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3 +3 | (made alcohol a) wage component; a form of emolument | Adrian MM. |
4 -2 | a salary certificate | Francois Boye |
Apr 16, 2019 22:30: writeaway changed "Field (write-in)" from "colonialism" to "history/colonialism"
Proposed translations
(made alcohol a) wage component; a form of emolument
A 'head of salary' might be too close in pronunciation to a 'head of celery'.
The UK Truck Acts - payment in cash-only and not kind - go back to 1831, so might be applicable to the colonial era in point.
Even so, it might be misguided to assume that no tax revenues had been generated by such payment in alcohol, as substitution of the 'fair market value' of goods received in lieu of wages or taken by a trader for his or her own use (Sharkey v Wernher: House of Lords, 1955) is a well-established revenue principle in the UK and no doubt in France - but the rest of the text might provide more clues.
In modern-days tax terms, 'emolument' might be used in the context, the French version of the word usually denoting a notarial, lawyer's or a huissier de justice's fee.
PAYMENT OF WAGES Section 1. General ... Repeal of Truck Acts 1831 to 1940 etc. PART II WAGES COUNCILS Scope of operation of wages councils
Payments in kind in the place of wages are still taxable. For example, employees will have payments in kind reported on their W-2 form.
http://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/french-word-for-emolument.html
http://investinganswers.com/financial-dictionary/businesses-corporations/payment-kind-632
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Francois Boye
: you never cite French documents.// You assume that documents in French are self-evident, which is not the case. In addition, the UK and France are not copy-cats of one another.
32 mins
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That's because I know the history of British tax rules better than I do the French ones. Otherwise, not much point looking up when the precipitous question is closed precipitately http://www.linternaute.fr/expression/langue-francaise/18780/...
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Nicolas Gambardella
: "a form of emolument" is perfect
2 hrs
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Daryo
: you are right - it does make sense indirectly.
12 hrs
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agree |
AllegroTrans
: Profiteering perhaps
20 hrs
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a salary certificate
Si dans le langage quotidien, le titre tend à se confondre avec le document qui constitue la preuve de son contenu, il reste que le droit inclus dans le titre ne se confond pas avec sa preuve. Ainsi, si un contrat bail est un titre, en revanche, l'absence d'un écrit concrétisant la preuve des droits qu'il confère, ne signifie pas qu'une personne qui ne dispose pas d'un document écrit se trouve dépourvue de titre : un bail verbal est un titre, la possession qui est un fait matériel, est un "titre".
Source: Dictionnaire Juridique
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Helen Shiner
: How can one turn alcohol into a certificate? / How does your proposed answer relate to the sentence? ‘Firent’ from ‘faire’./The word is 'alcoholic'.
12 mins
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Meaning? Only wage earners can afford to drink alcoolic drinks.
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disagree |
Daryo
: "Le cadavre - exquis - boira - le vin - nouveau" does yield interesting results, but is not really the best method for getting the right translation. // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse
11 hrs
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Meaning? Only wage earners can afford to drink alcoolic drinks.
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disagree |
AllegroTrans
: A salary certificate (whatever that is) out of alcohol? Come on....// really? I was always taught that drunkenness used to be the scourge of the unemployed
19 hrs
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Meaning? Only wage earners can afford to drink alcoolic drinks.
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Discussion
You are not by any chance suggesting that a State would act as a common drug pusher when there is money to be made?
That reminds me of the way French authorities awarded practically free cigarettes to very badly paid conscripts in the days when I did my military service: this was often criticized as encouraging smoking, and rightly so in my view.
And also when they imported them.
If not, it does not make much sense to me either.