The same remarks apply in effect to all the previous years - it may doubtless be urged against the Colony that the Parliamentary grant of each year would have been sufficient to pay the salaries from which abatements were made if it had been specially set apart and applied to this particular purpose.
On the other hand, it may, with equal fairness, be urged on behalf of the Colony - that the grant never was so appropriated by Parliament, or applied by the Colony; that the Grant was insufficient after 1849/50 to pay all the salaries, Contributors and non-contributors, and that the local revenue from the commencement was far more than sufficient to pay the salaries subject to abatements.
Total abatements £5303.5.8. Abatements on salaries voted by Parliament in 1854 £220.0.0. £5,083.5.8 to Superannuation deductions.
It appears to me therefore that unless an arbitrary and imaginary application is to be made of these Parliamentary votes, there is no more ground for saying that the Salaries, from which abatements were made prior to 1834, were paid from Imperial funds, and not from local revenue, than there is for asserting the reverse. Under these circumstances I am induced to hope that their Lordships may feel disposed to give the Colony the benefit of the doubt, and refund the whole of the superannuation contributions with the exception of the abatements made on the four salaries specially voted by Parliament in 1834.