570
of expenditure,and with regard to the second I am convinced
that were you to lay down any standing instruction for the
allocation for a period of years of a large sum for resumptions,
you would frequently be asked to suspend it. For instance in
the Draft Estimates for 1905 it has been necessary on account
of contracts already entered into to set aside $750,000 for
Water Supply Schemes and $535,500 for continuing the erection
of important public buildings that have been commenced. These
sums together with $359,800 for some smaller continuation
services and a few minor works of sanitary or other urgent
necessity bring up the total Public Works Extraordinary Esti-
mates to $1,645,300 and it has been considered that $170,000
is the maximum sum that can be added to this estimate for
compensation and resumptions of Insanitary Property under the
Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903.
Had such a standing instruction as that
which has been suggested been in force it would have been
necessary either to have asked for its suspension, or to have
raised additional taxation to meet the wants of the particular
year, or to have broken contracts and stopped the execution
of the important works in hand, or to have undertaken no other
works however important or urgent. I think that for the pre-
sent it must be left to the Governor to suggest each year as
large a sum as he thinks can conveniently be appropriated and
profitably spent on resumptions and compensations.
In the circumstances that no sum can be
4.
set aside for resumptions on a very extended scale, at any
rate until the extensive Water Supply Schemes are completed
in