as it seems to me to prevent the possibility of an extraordinary or special expenditure being treated in an extraordinary or special manner and not according to ordinary routine, there is a clause to the effect that from the date of those instructions no such words as "extraordinary expenditure" or "special expenditure" shall be used, and any expenditure whatever that is incurred from month to month must come before the Governor in proper requisitions and being sanctioned by him can then be incurred. The result of it all is that I shall reprint this return in the Gazette, appending to it a note in which I shall state for the information of the Council and public generally the exact amount of expenditure in 1879 upon the Praya works and the amount of money borrowed from our balances, the special fund, and when that is done hon. members will have before them, as it seems to me, the real expenditure of the Colony, the real work done in the Colony, in the year 1879. Now, gentlemen, in moving the estimates in the month of August I am in a position to congratulate you on the fact that the returns furnished to me by my hon. friend the Acting Colonial Treasurer show that our estimates of revenue for 1880 were sound estimates, and I may say, speaking generally, that our estimates of revenue have been exceeded. My hon. friend has just handed to me a still more recent return than that to which I was about to refer. Here, now, is our comparative statement of revenue and expenditure for 1879 and 1880 up to the end of last month. Without troubling you with all the details I may briefly inform you that the total receipts from 1st January to the 31st July, 1879, amounted to $571,000. Comparing that period with the seven months of this year, I find $627,600, showing a considerable increase in the revenue of this year as compared with that of last year. Taking the total estimate of revenue for the year 1880 and comparing that total estimate with what we have now obtained there is very little doubt also that in all the great items of revenue, those especially which show the prosperity of Hongkong, there will be a considerable increase. In our police, lighting, water, and fire brigade rates there is a large increase. If an item which is of great interest to commercial men, that is the stamp revenue, I find an increase. The estimate for stamps for 1880 was $115,000. Well, I have here the sum we have obtained. If it continues for the rest of the year, as I have every expectation it will, it will bring up that revenue to $125,000, being $10,000 more than estimated. And I may mention, in touching upon this, that as compared with 1879, and especially the earlier part of 1879 and latter part of 1878, there is one item in which the stamp revenue shows a decline, and that is in the stamps on share transfers, but I don't regret the fact. We find an increase on the stamps for marine policies of insurance, bills of lading, bank notes, and those healthy signs of real commercial business. I don't regret the fact that there is a difference, I think amounting to $4,000, upon the stamps on the transfer of shares. On the whole there is a considerable increase. Therefore, gentlemen, I have now to move the first reading of the estimates, and we will discuss them at our next meeting. I may tell you that the estimate of revenue which my hon. friend the Colonial Treasurer has prepared and which I entirely accept, amounts to over $1,070,000. The expenditure I hope, with your assistance, to keep at something like $980,000, which will give us something like $90,000 of a surplus. The details will come before you in the usual form of printed estimates, and after the proper time elapses which is laid down in our rules, I will move the second reading of the Appropriation Ordinance and the estimates, and on that occasion I need hardly say I will be most happy to receive from my hon. friends on the Council any suggestions they may choose to make. I can only say, gentlemen, that if it be my happiness for two or three years more, with the Queen's permission, to submit estimates to this Council, I hope I will be able to submit estimates as prosperous as those I now lay upon the table.
The bill was read a first time and the Council adjourned sine die.
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