88
7. The position of the Colony at the commencement of next year, as far as can be foreseen, will
therefore be as follows:-
Balance of assets 1st January, 1884,
$1,067,200
Probable Revenue of 1884,
1,151,000
$2,218,200
Probable ordinary Expenditure,
$1,183,600
Extraordinary Tytam Water Works,
150,000
Sanitary and others,..........
177,180
Fortifications, ..
30,000
$1,560,780
$ 657,420
The year 1885 will therefore probably be commenced with a balance of assets of $657,420.
8. The Revenue of 1885 has been estimated at $1,212,188, but as the Estimates were framed early in the present year before the expiration of the first six months, the collections of that period could not be taken, as is usually done, as a basis for the calculations. It will now in my opinion be necessary to reduce these Estimates to $1,135,000, and a corresponding reduction must necessarily be made in the Estimates of Expenditure.
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9. It becomes necessary therefore to review carefully the undertakings to which the Colony is already pledged before any further extraordinary expenditure is sanctioned, as the Revenue of the Colony cannot be said to be elastic, and in my opinion is more likely to decrease than to increase. Money can, it is true, be brought into the Treasury by the occasional sale of land, but this source cannot be looked upon as inexhaustible and is, properly speaking, not Revenue. The extent of land that is of any value is limited, and it is inexpedient to put too much in the market at one time. I see no item of Taxation that can be increased so as to produce results of any importance, although the amount of taxation in this Colony is far from high. Taking the whole of the Revenue of 1884 it would be at the rate of $7.00 per head of the population, but this includes duty on Opium boiled for exportation, as well as interest, reimbursements, &c., which can hardly be properly looked on as local taxation. A scheme was proposed by Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY of establishing a Spirit Farm, and an Ordinance was laid before the Council in 1879 for this purpose. The Revenue anticipated from this source was $70,000, but the scheme was abandoned by the Governor.
10. The works on which the Colony is actually engaged and which therefore must be completed, and the amounts which will have to be expended on their completion, are as follows:—
Tytam Water Works, .....
New Central School or Victoria College,
Military Defences,
.$ 500,000
90,000
255,000
150,000
New Central Market, the land for which has been partly resumed, Drainage and Sanitary works in the Chinese part of the City and Villages, 550,000
$1,545,000