No. 57, Financial

1. I have the honor to transmit for your information the documents
named in the margin

*

relative to the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for this Colony
for the year 1865.

2. The letters of the Acting Colonial Secretary will afford a minute
explanation of these Estimates and render it unnecessary for me to
do more than draw your attention to some of the more important points.

3. The estimated Revenue for 1865 was less than that of 1864 by
about $146,000, while the estimated Expenditure exceeded the total
amount voted for 1864 by $107,000.

4. The apparent falling off of the Revenue ($146,000) is accounted for
by the exclusion of the Land Revenues, $33,000, and of sums amounting
to $117,000 and consisting of a debt from the Government of British
Columbia, paid off in 1864, and balances (reduced to $11,000) in the
hands of the Crown Agents, and of the Road and Harbour Loan.

5. The increased expenditure compared with 1864 of $107,000 may be
explained partly by the addition of various small amounts proposed
with a view to the greater efficiency of the Public Service, but is
chiefly owing to sums which are either larger than corresponding
votes for 1864 or are altogether new—

Conveyance of Mails (increase) $21,451

Goldstream to Nanaimo Road, pursuant

to wish of Legislative Assembly (new) 23,000

Goldstream to Sooke Gold Mines (new) 10,000

Reimbursements ($15,148 for erection of

Lighthouses and $34,066 due to Crown Revenue) 49,214

Immigration (increase)  7,000

$110,665

6. The Legislature voted a sum of $298,618 in lieu of $390,466
proposed in the Estimates submitted to it.

7. A commentary upon the votes thus come to will be found in the
letter of the Acting Colonial Secretary and in my Message to the
Legislative Assembly in reference to additional Estimates of
Expenditure which I deemed it my duty to submit in order to procure
votes of sums rejected by the Assembly and which were essential to
enable me to carry on the Public Service and to meet the just
liabilities of the Colony.

8. Additional votes were agreed to by the Legislature amounting to
$14,940.

9. It will be seen that the total sum voted was $313,558, and the
estimated Revenue being $239,799 there remained $73,759 to be met by
the provision of additional Ways and Means.

10. I would draw your attention to the fact that the Legislative
Assembly has declined to vote any Salary for the Surveyor General,
and has only voted $1455 (£300) with fees, as salary for the Attorney
General under the head "Provisional and Temporary."

11. The Assembly also refused to vote a sum of $15,148 95/100
submitted both in the original and additional Estimates, to enable me
to pay one half of the moiety of $12,493.19.9 advanced by Her
Majesty's Government to defray the cost of the erection of
Lighthouses as required by the Duke of Newcastle's Despatch No 45
dated 2nd January 1865. In relation to this subject a
correspondence which passed between the Governor of British Columbia
and myself will be found among the papers transmitted herewith.

12. In like manner I submitted a sum of $34,066 to repay the moneys
advanced by me out of Crown Revenue in accordance with the undertaking
of the Assembly contained in Resolutions transmitted in my Despatch
No 45, dated 13th July 1864, and treated of in your Despatch No 38
dated 16th September 1864. The Assembly however declined also to
vote this sum.

13. It is I think matter for much regret that the Assembly should
have failed to recognize the propriety of voting moneys to meet these
liabilities and I will avail myself of an early opportunity of again
laying the subject before them.