and the market is still falling.
It will readily be perceived that this charge is already, and apart from the possibility of exchange falling still lower, considerably in excess of the amount of the proportion of the Colonial revenue which it was intended to alienate when the Contribution was £40,000; and it is fixed at my duty not to conceal from Your Lordship that, unless the amount be reduced, the result will probably be a deficit on the transactions of the current year, and the creation of serious financial embarrassment.
The current revenue for the year has been estimated at $2,007,210, showing an estimated surplus of some $8,000 over the estimate of ordinary expenditure. But at the present rate of exchange the equivalent of the Military Contribution is some $80,000.
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