with expenditure. It is time that your
5. These calculations (as I understand your Despatch) are really or quite independent of the deficiency of revenue. Your subsequent despatch of 29 Janry gives reason to suppose that this deficiency may be reduced by about £2400, but there would remain a deficiency of really £15,000 on the current year, while the surplus remaining from former years will probably not exceed half that amount.
6. Nevertheless, you state in your Despatch of the 29th (in which you appear to anticipate some discussion of the Estimate for public works) that "But for the unexpected demands now made on the Colony, the expenditure would not have exceeded the resources."
I am unable to understand your grounds for this assurance. The financial resources of Hong Kong mainly depend on the land revenue. If the causes which produced so great a falling off in this branch in 1856 are to continue to produce an equal or anticipated falling off in 1857, then ...
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