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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 14TH SEPTEMBER, 1867.
17. On the other hand I am prepared to find that the Revenue from Licenses may greatly exceed $100,000, whilst it is also possible that you may gain the difference between your Expenditure $63,000 and the amount $40,000 put down as expected profits from the Mint, if the latter be no longer continued at the expense of this Colony. It is likewise a possible contingency, though I have no authority direct or indirect for expecting it, that the whole debt accruing unavoidably from the Colony on account of the Military Contribution may not be exacted.
18. The Council will thus more fully understand the allusion I have made to the "unusual and perplexing circumstances" under which I have called on you to vote the supplies detailed in the Draught Appropriation Bill on the table. In fact your Revenue may vary almost 4 Million of Dollars on one side or the other, and if the variation be in your favor it may even be desirable to consider, whether the circumstances of the Colony would in that case call for the imposition of the Stamp duties.
19. I hold that whilst it would be most unstatesmanlike to shrink from a proved necessity for new taxation, it would be equally so to impose it in the absence of such necessity. You cannot moreover conceal from yourselves that since the discussions of last Year the commercial depression then existing has become greatly aggravated, and that the tradal interests of the Colony are now passing through a crisis such as never before occurred in the history of Hongkong. I trust that I am as far from underrating as from exaggerating the influence which the considerations thence arising should exercise on the policy of the Government, but you will perceive that all such considerations must have an important disturbing influence on all our present financial calculations, which must no doubt ensure indulgence for those on whom has devolved the difficult task of compiling the Estimates under circumstances so peculiar.
20. I have on the whole estimated as the result most likely, though probably it will not be realised in the mode set down in the detailed Estimates, that your total Revenue for 1868 will amount to nearly $1,100,000, out of which you are invited to appropriate more than $894,000 which added to the Civil List, Pensions, &c, will make the total Expenditure of the Colony for 1868 amount to more than $1,070,000.
21. Now if you look back a few Years, say only as far as 1865, you might suppose that the Colonial Revenue exhibited signs of unmistakable progress, for you would find that the estimated Revenue of that Year but little exceeded $700,000, whilst without including surplus Assets at the end of this Year your Revenue for 1868 is estimated at about $1,075,000, and nevertheless your financial position is more precarious now than then.
22. In 1865, there was a surplus of nearly $200,000 to fall back on, whilst much of your present Revenue consists of items entered as matters of account to your Credit, but appearing equally to your debit. For example, owing to the altered mode of keeping the Postal Accounts your Revenue shews the whole amount expected to be received, viz., $165,000, but from this must now be deducted the charge of $123,000 conveyance of Mails, instead of $3,840, as in 1865. In a similar way there is an item of nearly $12,000 Revenue, derived from Admiralty payments on account of the Dock Yard, balanced by an exactly equal amount to your debit.
23. There are also many new items amounting to nearly $40,000, including the Revenue under the Junk and Registration Ordinances, counterbalanced however by the Expenditure created by those Ordinances, on whose remarkable and Appendix c. successful operation, you may justly congratulate yourselves, as appears from the Appendix D. accompanying Returns which I lay on the table.
24. There are several minor items, such as receipts under the Ordinance for storage of Gunpowder, Emigration, Medical fees, together with the far larger items now brought to your credit under Licenses and Stamps, making a total of nearly $380,000, which could not have appeared in the estimated Revenue of 1865 and which, if deducted from the estimated Revenue of 1868 would leave your ordinary Revenue much the same as in 1865 with the essential difference of there being no longer a large surplus on which to fall back, and no sum in hand for any unusual emergencies such as every Government, if wise, ought to anticipate and prepare for.