Mint since its establishment in May 1866
! Sixteen months back.
8
The Estimates having been laid before Council and my financial statement I made, to which, as being very explanatory in several particulars, I would respectfully refer Your Grace. I received a few days subsequently (on the 30th instant) Your Grace's despatches No 76, 78, and 79 of the 18th and 126th July. These despatches announced the determination of Her Majesty's Government to insist on payment of the Military Contribution and indicated even the intention to charge interest on all arrears. They also forbid the receipt of any revenue collaterally arising from gambling licenses.
Thus on the one hand there was a rigid enforcement of the Colony's liabilities, and on the other the means of partially meeting them, which circumstances had offered were taken away, unexpectedly.
9. The only point of importance which Your Grace's above mentioned despatches left unsettled was that affecting the Mint. This, however, was one of such magnitude that although it was my intention at first to have substituted fresh Estimates for those laid before Council, I feared they might be upset like their predecessors by further despatches intimating either the abolition of Minting or suspension of operations here. I also confess frankly that, as I could not have invited the Legislative Council to reconsider the Estimates,
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