2.
148
Budget will balance.
On this assumption there would be
available for further expenditure during the year $1,034,259.
The Supplementary Estimates now submitted amount to $631,658,
which allows a fairly wide margin for any eventualities.
3.
There are many urgent works to be carried out in
the Colony, the deferment of which was considered unavoidable
until such time as the financial position was sufficiently
strong to justify their being proceeded with. I am satisfied
that the position to-day is so strong that further deferment
would not be justified and I am anxious to proceed with such
essential services as can be put in hand at once.
4.
Particulars of the various items are given in the
remarks column of the Supplementary Estimates. The item
'Senior Officers Quarters, May Road' is for two adjacent
blocks of flats, consisting in all of 5-five, 10-four, and
5-three roomed flats, making 20 in all, at a total estimated
cost of $520,000, exclusive of $40,000 for furniture. It is
intended to expend this year only $50,000 on site preparation.
It is anticipated that from these twenty flats Government will
receive in rent about $42,000 per annum, which represents a
return on the capital sum of $520,000 of 8%, which after the
third year would be reduced to 6% or 5% as a result of the
cost of maintenance and repairs. But apart from this aspect
of the question there is the fact that Nos.1 and 2 Queen's
Gardens, one of the five blocks of Government Quarters compris-
ing Queen's Gardens, are so dilapidated that the occupants
have been given notice to quit in order that the building may
be demolished. It cannot be long before the rest of queen's
Gardens will have to go the same way, thus accentuating still
further the already existing serious shortage of senior
officers' quarters.
5.