CO129-505-12 Estimates of expenditure 1928 1-9-1927 - 12-1-1928 — Page 76

Enclosure No. 5.

87

Your Excellency,

In accordance with your instructions I rise to

move the first reading of a Bill intituled "an Ordinance

to apply a sum not exceeding seventeen million four

hundred and fifty thousand one hundred and three dollars

to the Public Service of the year 1928". I would once

age in remind Honourable Members that the total estimated expenditure as shown in the printed estimates exceeds the total shown in the Bill by the amount of Military Contribution and Public Debt Charges.

The last two years have been difficult years

for the Colony, but as Your Excellency has just pointed

out in the historial retrospect which must have been of

great interest to Honourable Members this is not the first time that it has experienced, not a set back, but a halt in its progress.

I share Your Excellency's

confidence and I am sure Honourable Members do so too,

that it will not be long before we are not only back

where we were prior to the outbreak of the strike and

boycott, but advancing far beyond. But until that time

comes we must be content to hold firmly on to what we

have got, and to restrain ourselves from any undertakings which would jeopardize our financial stability when we wish to take the next big step forward. Consequently the

present budget has been framed on the most conservative

lines possible. Economy has been our watchword in framing

it, and however much we may have wished to proceed with

eminently desirable works, we have decided that for the

present we must cut our coat according to our cloth, and

I am afraid it has resulted in a somewhat tight fit. In

accordance with our policy of maintaining our estate and

a very fine estate it is at the highest possible efficiency

we