arranged at home.), looked upon the vote of £30,000 above mentioned as an extraordinary and not to be considered on the same footing with the subsequent more regular grants for the Financial Years ending March between 1846, March 1847, and March 1848.
Another cause of the discrepancy between the statements of Sir John Davis and those of the Audits Board in London, is the circumstance of the Accounts of Mr Baillie, the Agent General, not having been hitherto noticed here in the Returns from the Colonial Treasury. I had the honor to request instructions on this head, and am now informed that Mr. Baillie's accounts are to be shown for the future in our Annual Returns, though they are not to be included in the Accounts Current.
"With reference to the Surplus expenditure during the year ended March 1845, I may remark that it was caused by the Establishment of the Supreme Court, the increase of the Police Force, the necessity for extensive Public Works, and certain compensations granted to Land and House Holders, in addition to the deficiency of the Revenue as compared with that which had been estimated.
As no notice has been given until now that it was intended to charge this Surplus against the Parliamentary Grants for ensuing years, it has never, as it might have been, been considered in the estimates for those years; and as a means of settling the accounts, I would finally suggest that the precedent be adopted which we find in Lord Stanley's Despatch of August 1844 above referred to, where His Lordship states that Parliament had voted the sum of £16,000 for services already rendered, and payments already made in the Colony.