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expected there would be due $167,633.30 but under the latter the amount will be $297,884.15. The difference $129,701.35 is $297,334.
: therefore the expenditure spread over two years and a quarter which Your Lordship is now calling upon us to make good.
I therefore consider it creditable to the local Government here that even so large a demand suddenly made will not embarrass the Colony internally, though from the commencement of my administration, now more than 3½ years back, it has been struggling to emerge from an insolvent condition and has at last righted itself by honestly increasing its local taxation, and economising its means - whilst for that independent position it is not indebted to the aid of the Special Fund to the extent of a cent from it.
16. Therefore, if any part of the latter Fund is allowed to be touched and if the principle of using it at all be conceded, I do not understand how there can be any necessity for calling on the Colony suddenly to repay a portion of that fund whose expenditure had been spread over so lengthened a period, and incurred under a misapprehension less excusable. I therefore avail myself of Your Lordship's permission to request a reconsideration of the instructions in question, and suggest that they be prospective only and not retrospective.
Such an Act would be more graciously received.
22 Nov. 1869.