I have had 19 cases of crime reported, totalling 550, with 18 convictions, which is more than in previous years, whether by my mistake or not. I think it may be not unacceptable to your lordship to consider the difference between forbidding expenditure for the future and actually ordering a refund of expenditure already incurred, and which, but for a natural misapprehension, would probably not have been incurred at all. In the former case, there need be no apprehension, with ordinary prudence, of the Colony's position being worse than before the existence of the Special Fund.
It will even be largely a gainer, as I have admitted, by the abolition of Police corruption and the diminution of crime. In the latter case, however severe it may be, the Colony finds itself bound to pay up money gone beyond its control, but the fact of the general administration of the Colony's affairs having been conducted economically and on a basis mainly independent of the Special Fund prevents the amount of money so expended in two quarters being so great as to entail serious loss.
15. As it is, it would cause very great inconvenience, as appears from the corrected Circular No. 2 returns which I enclose, of the amount expected to have been due to the Special Fund on the 31st Instant under previous arrangements and that which will be due under Your Lordship's recent instructions. Under the former, it was £7...