No. 73, Financial

1. In continuation of the subject of my Despatch No 62 dated 17th
 August 1866, I have now the honor to enclose for your information a
copy of the Supply Bill passed by the Legislative Assembly, newspaper
reports of and comments upon the proceedings in the Legislative
Council and Legislative Assembly in relation thereto, and extracts
from the Minutes of the Legislative Council.

2. These documents will inform you that the anticipation expressed
in my Despatch above referred to that the Supply Bill would not be
passed has been realized, and will at the same time enable you to
judge of the causes which led to the failure on the part of the
Legislature to pass this important Bill.

3. A comparison of the Supply Bill passed by the Assembly with the
copy of the Estimates amended by the Assembly (transmitted in my
Despatch No 9 dated 8th February 1866)

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will show the results of the reconsideration of the Estimates
referred to in my Despatch named in the margin.

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4. It will also be seen that in the Schedule to the Supply Bill as
passed by the Assembly are interpolated among the various items of
supply, no less than twenty five distinct Resolutions—indicating in
all but name the officers who are to perform certain
duties, amalgamating and abolishing offices, increasing
salaries, initiating votes, and involving a pledge to repeal the Real
Estate Tax, a Bill for which purpose had been previously and in the
same Session passed by the Assembly and rejected by the Council.

5. I can entertain no doubt that in making these extraordinary
additions to the Supply Bill the Assembly desired either to compel
the enactment of these Resolutions by including them in a Bill which
they supposed the Council would not venture to reject in toto, or,
believing that the Council would neither accept such "tacks" nor
amend the Bill, to leave the Executive Government without the usual
legislative authority for the expenditure of public moneys conferred
by a Supply Bill. This latter assumption is confirmed by the
Resolution of the Assembly dated 28th August and received by me on
1st September when the House had virtually ceased to exist.

6. I cannot but regard the Assembly as being solely responsible for
the state of discredit and difficulty into which the Colony is thus
thrown for want of a law on which public credit should be based—and
I can only lament that a representative Body should have thus further
exemplified its unfitness for the performance of its important functions.

7. It will of course be necessary at a future time to legalize the
expenditure of the current year.

8. I propose in a separate Despatch to address you on the subject of
the finances of the Colony generally and of the course I propose to
adopt to meet the unusual want of a Supply Bill.