No. 90

I have the honor to forward a return of the probable receipts
and positive obligations of this Colony for the half year ending
the 31st December. Your Grace will see that with every
precaution we can use there will probably be a deficiency of two
hundred and twenty three thousand dollars or about forty five thousand
pounds (£45,000). Perhaps Your Grace will inform me if we can look
for any assistance from the Mother Country under these circumstances.
I had no idea when in England last year that the financial
condition of the two Colonies was so bad or else I should have
communicated fully with Your Grace's Department on the subject.
One great cause in the present depression is the admission duty
free on the Mainland of the large supply of commodities which
were imported to this place while it was still a free port.

I fear that I shall have to make some further serious reductions
in the staff of public officers.

It is now for the first time that the Colony has been thrown
on its own resources. Hitherto it subsisted to a considerable extent
on loans contracted in the Mother Country.

*

We have now, at a time of
unusual depression along the whole Pacific Coast, to make provision
for the repayment of borrowed money expended.