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will be increased far beyond that in receiving and reasonable, and will in fact become incapable of any definite limitation.
But I do not forget that the whole subject of expenditure rests at present in the almost palpable obscurity. We must have no intelligence of the Public Works which may be contemplated, - of the extraordinary charges which may be impending even on the regular Establishment administrative, Judicial, Fiscal or Ecclesiastical which may be requisite to maintain. In such an absence of Official information it will be entirely futile for me to make conjectural statements of the particular changes, or of the total amount of change which the Public Service at Hong Kong may render necessary.
For the present, therefore, I can merely inculcate in the most general terms the necessity for a strict observance of frugality in every branch and Department.