CO885(1-2) — Page 636

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Sir Wm. Denison, &c. &c. &c.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference -

885

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

|BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

No. 115.

Sir,

Douming Street, July 26, 1850.

1. I HAVE the honor to acknowledge your" despatch No. 137, of the 24th of September last, accompanied by copies of the Estimates of the Revenue and Expenditure of Van Diemen's Land for the year 1850, in the shape in which they were presented to and adopted by the Legislative Coun- cil, together with a copy of a protest afterwards handed in by Mr. Leake, as a Member of Council, to be appended to the estimates.

2. The general statements contained in this despatch are satisfactory, and, with the exception of the objection which I have had occasion in other despatches to express to your making any loans from the land fund for public purposes, however useful, until the outstanding debts of the colony shall be liquidated, I see no reason to question the propriety of the details of expenditure reported by you in the present communication. Your despatch, however, brings under notice various points on which it is necessary that I should convey to you the views of Her Majesty's Government.

3. I do not approve of including in the Esti- mates to be voted by the Council the salaries of the missionaries paid from Convict Funds, and that portion of the Lieutenant-Governor's salary which is paid from the same source, because this seems to imply the existence in that body of an authority over these payments which it does not possess. It is very fit that the account should be laid before the Council, but not in this form. With regard to the sum of £24,000 a-year paid towards the police, the case is different. I do not object to adding this sum to the receipts of the colony

on the

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