No. 140

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatches
Nos. 25 and 26 of the 13th of May adverting to several of the most
important questions of finance and Account in British Columbia.

I enclose for your information and guidance a copy of a
correspondence on those despatches between this Department and the Board
of Treasury.

I must however more directly call your attention to the comparison
at the close of your despatch No. 26 between the sums voted by
Parliament and the actual expenditure of Imperial Money.

According to that review there existed on the 31st of March 1862 no
greater balance against the Colony than £6128; but you appear to have
neglected the information which was conveyed to you at the time, that of
the amount voted in 1859-60 upwards of £27,000 was intended to meet
expenses which occurred in this Country. After deducting therefore the
sum of £12,000 which only you have set down as so expended, the
correction of this wrong statement alone would increase the balance
against the Colony by £15000.

I must also caution you against the error into which you have
fallen, in the 5th paragraph of the same despatch, in representing as an
actual balance in favour of the Colony a sum which was in fact merely
the undrawn for portion of the Votes, and was at any moment liable to
demands for past services.

The details in your despatch No. 25 of the appropriation of £7500
for works and buildings are sufficient; but you ought to have afforded,
and I must request that you will in future afford, corresponding details
of the appropriation for Roads, specifying the proposed Roads and the
amounts severally allotted for their construction.

The state of account between British Columbia and this Country has
been so fully exhibited in my dispatch No. 123 of the 13th of May and in
other despatches that I need add no more on that subject.