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Treasurer,
but as regards rates, as specific provision is made every year in the Estimates to cover refunds, such refunds have continued to be charged in the accounts above the line.
8. If the system proposed by you were adopted the Colony would be relieved of paying 17 1/0 on the rates refunded, both on account of tenements occupied by Military Officers and on account of unoccupied tenements, on which a refund is authorized by law for three quarters of the year. For the fourth quarter it generally happens that the rates paid are not refunded till the first quarter of the following year, and such refunds would still have to appear above the line.
9. In my opinion the Colony should be entirely relieved of the 17 4/0 military contribution on all refunds of rates, as sums collected in the way rates are collected and then refunded are not properly a portion of the Colonial Revenue and I have the honour to ask for your views on the subject.
I have &c.
(Signed.) H. C. Nicolle.