Supt
would, I think, scarcely justify the Imperial Government in transferring certain prospective obligations, voluntarily assumed by itself, to the Colony, and at the same time retaining the sum paid in consideration of obligations,
as a repayment of a portion of the amount freely and unconditionally given by Parliament to nurture an undertaking of national importance.
I may fairly assume a Colony has to be which in a few years became the directing centre and financial capital of a Foreign Trade estimated at between Thirty and Forty Millions Sterling per annum.
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9. It should also be borne in mind that if this obligation as regards pensions had been incurred in the Colony in the first instance, the abatements would, as in the case of Ceylon, have been paid into the local Treasury to the credit of a Superannuation Fund, and Parliament would have had to vote the same amount as it did each year to supply the Deficiency in the Revenue of the Colony.
10. And further, that if the Imperial Government had not made it optional before 1847, and imperative since that date, to contribute to the Superannuation Fund,