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be adopted if the line were built by a private Company, or in any similar commercial undertaking. Though the principle of constructing a remunerative work by a loan, the redemption of which is provided by a Sinking Fund, operates to spread the liability over a series of years, the taxpayers, in whose time the work is undertaken, have to bear by far the heaviest burden, for the charges for the service of the loan are at their maximum, and in the case of a Railway the profits rarely cover the working expenses in the first years. It appears therefore inequitable to saddle them in addition with the entire charge for interest on capital during construction.
3. I propose, therefore, if Your Lordship approves, to transfer the interest on Railway Advances already paid (amounting to $114,044 to the end of 1908) to the Railway Construction Account and to book no further charge on this account to ordinary Expenditure until the "Open Line Account" is begun. In this course the Colonial Secretary and the Treasurer strongly concur.
4. At the time when my predecessor adopted the course hitherto pursued the finances of the Colony on the one hand were in an extremely prosperous state, and the charges for interest on advances on the other