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10.
Under these circumstances I have accordingly felt it my duty to instruct the Surveyor General to discontinue all further expenditure, which it is possible to stop in Public works not of extreme necessity.
I am therefore sorry to say that, for the present, the intended drainage in the Chinese Quarter will have to be discontinued, though I hope the works may be resumed under more favourable auspices in a few months.
I enclose a return from Surveyor General shewing the amount of saving likely to be realized in this way, though I admit, it is an alternative which I adopt with the greatest reluctance.
12. That saving reaches to $16,000. A large portion also of the $26,000 voted for the Colony's share of expenses for the Gunboat in 1887 will probably not be required, though a portion of it must be at once used to provide otherwise for discharge of many new duties created by the Harbor and Coasts Ordinance, and which I presume Her Majesty's Government will insist on being efficiently carried out.
13. Therefore with the additional saving which I hope may be accomplished in the maintenance of Gaols, but which is yet only very experimental, it is still possible to make both ends meet, and