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376
223
aggravated by a fall in the exchange value of silver, a heavy
loss on redundant subsidiary coins (on the endeavour to re-
-habilitate which the Colony has spent some 7 lakhs in the
last 3 years) and in the matter of the Opium Trade .
These considerations may perhaps
add some point and force to my observations but it is not
primarily on such grounds that I venture to point out what
appears to me to have been an error in the drafting of the
Estimates for the current year.I prefer to rely upon the
merits of the case as it stands.
3.
In order to construct the Railway
the Colonial Government has borrowed a sum of approximately
£1,200,000, the annual interest on which at a little over
34 per centum with sinking fund at 1 per centum amounts to
£55,000, or say 8600,000. The sun which is raised annually
to pay this interest is not a part of the normal revenue of
the Colony. It decreases annually as the sinking fund operates
to extinguish the loan, and I submit that it should not have
been shown in the Estimates as subject to the 20 per centum
deduction on account of Military Contribution.
The ordinary expenditure on working
expenses, and maintenance of open line is on the other hand
a normal charge, to be met from Revenue, and the receipts