Vid. S. S.
salary, which had been approved by his Lordship to lower
Your Lordship
2. I had been left in entire ignorance
a few minutes before entering the Council Chamber
of the fact that the increase referred to had already been suggested to the Council when the Estimates for 1872 were on the table, and that subsequently Council had pertinently refused to vote it after full debate. It is clear that Mr. Austin, who, as Colonial Secretary, had been present at the debate in Council, and had taken part therein, must have had a full knowledge of the Council's refusal to vote the money.
I am, however, wholly unable to explain either why, under such circumstances, that vote was not communicated at once by Telegram to Your Lordship, or to explain why, on receipt of Your Lordship's dispatch approving the expenditure vetoed by Council, attention was not immediately called to the point by Mr. Austin.
3. These are matters of course, and one very unlikely to provoke discussion, indeed with the impression that the Estimates of 1872 had been framed to meet an expense, for which Your Lordship's sanction had been thus asked and obtained, I authorised, on receipt of Your Lordship's despatch
N: 131. 29th Oct 1877.
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