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aerodrome is essential and it will be necessary for this Government to make a substantial contribution towards the cost. The Committee which has been considering a development plan for the Colony spread over a term of
years will shortly present its report.
32.
Whatever may be
the recommendations put forward, and whatever assistance may be forthcoming in the nature of grants under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act, it is certain that considerable expenditure from the Colony's own resources will be necessary if the plans are to be proceeded with.
The position therefore is that by achieving a balance between revenue and recurrent expenditure the first stage on the road to recovery has been successfully completed, but the price of progress even to that point has been a debt of one hundred million which it will be
necessary to incur in order to provide for the first two annual instalments of the repair and reconstruction programme designed to make good the ravages of war. This programme has to be completed and for this purpose it will be necessary to resort to further borrowing though not, I hope, on a particularly large scale, as by March, 1948 most repair work should have been completed. The rehabilitation work then outstanding would consist chiefly of new buildings to replace those destroyed and new equipment, including rolling stock for the railway, which has been subject to long delays in delivery.
33.
In view of the many uncertainties of the Far Eastern situation it seemed only prudent to frame this year's revenue estimate on a conservative basis and should our forebodings not be realised there may be a surplus. This might provide for part of the 1948/49 rehabilitation expenditure, thus limiting to a more reasonable figure the
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