124.
requisition, but that the Members of Council have expressed a strong wish to have much of the furniture Government House renewed and now at more purchased partly because the base requires such refit, but principally because it has now been officially communicated that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh may be expected to arrive here about the 2nd of next August.
3. I had signified my intention of making the Council a Committee of reception for this Royal Highness, so that they who have to vote the funds required might have the power to control the expense, and they are anxious that steps should be taken in the first place to make the House, where this Royal Highness may lodge during his stay, fit for his reception.
Fortunately the general repairs which the House underwent last year have greatly improved it, but rather by making it weather proof and by solid repairs to floor and walls than by decorations or furniture. The Council, or rather the Unofficial members of Council who recently held a meeting at Government House to consider the subject, have therefore thought the occasion suitable for doing at once things which many would have had to be done little later in the natural