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Police purposes, amounting to $7000.
As this expenditure has been unanimously concurred in by the Members of the Executive Council, and its importance for facilitating the detection of criminals becomes every day more apparent, I have to request Your Lordship will be good enough to instruct the Crown Agents to purchase the articles referred to in the accompanying requisition.
Provision will be made for the amount in the Supplementary Estimates. At the same time, I have to remind Your Lordship that it is impossible for me to ascertain here what machinery may be considered the simplest and least likely to get out of order in a damp tropical climate.
Your Lordship will therefore be pleased to regard the enclosed requisition as giving merely an approximate estimate of cost and as leaving all details, except the length of wire required, open to alteration on competent advice in England.
I would also venture to suggest that in this matter the Crown Agents be instructed to put themselves in communication with Mr. Joseph Oppenheimer of 52 Brown Street, Manchester, as that gentleman was largely concerned in the completion of telegraphic communication in the Australian colonies, and possesses considerable experience in such matters.