665
It is
7. If the military contribution is to be paid; and especially if, in a few years, it is to be increased, the Colony cannot afford the permanent increase to its expenditure entailed by the increased salaries, and the Unofficial Members of Council deem it not unreasonable that as these increases have not yet been sanctioned and are still under consideration, no possible injustice can be done in suspending their operation for another year to allow of a fresh study of the financial position. They see at the moment no other direction in which the retrenchment they deem so necessary can be put in force.
The undersigned therefore most earnestly entreat your Lordship to disallow for the current year the payment of the enhanced rates of salary to the Government officers in the Colony, and to wire instructions to that effect, to permit them to lay before you the memorial they are preparing on the position of the Colony and its financial prospects, and to order a reconsideration on the spot of the entire subject.
We venture to ask your Lordship to view with some degree of caution the memorandum or Statement on the subject laid on the Legislative Council table on the 30th ultimo, by Governor Sir William Robinson and of course forwarded to you. It was prepared, we submit, in somewhat great haste,