No. 102

Referring to my despatch No. 59 of 8th June, I have now the
honor to forward the financial Returns called for in Your
Grace's despatch of the 10th April, No. 22, replying to my
despatch enclosing the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for
1867 and the Appropriation Ordinance No. 13 of 1867, and to that
of the 30th November, enclosing Ordinance No. 27 of 1867,
to confirm an Expenditure of $96,918 11/100 for the Service of 1866
not authorized in the Grant for that year.

2. Your Grace regrets that these Estimates and the Ordinances
founded upon them have been detained so long in the Colony. I
would plead as an excuse for the delay in transmitting the
supplementary Supply Ordinance for 1866, that I did not receive
the Auditor's report upon the Supplementary Estimates with the
details in full, until the 27th of November.

*

My despatch of the same month transmitted it to Your Grace.

3. As regards my despatch of the 27th of September, I would
venture to state that at the date of the Auditor's detailed
report I was engaged on Public business in the neighbourhood of
Queen Charlotte's Island. A few days after my return to
Victoria I received a telegram with intelligence which appeared
to my Council absolutely to require my presence at the mines of
Cariboo, 600 miles from hence.

4. Your Grace directs me to furnish a definite and detailed
report upon the retrenchments which have been made in order to
meet the difficulties of the Colony, showing the periods at
which they were made, whether by way of reducing Salaries and
Offices or by way of stopping Public Works.

5. I enclose a detailed statement of the reductions we have
made drawn up by the Acting Colonial Secretary. Union found the
storehouses in Victoria filled with Cigars, Tobacco, Wines,
Spirits, Silks, and all the Articles we depend most on for our
Revenue, brought in while the Port was still free, and which
passed untaxed to the mainland.

6. I do not see how in the present state of the Colony we could
resort to additional taxation. The people who still remain are
in a wavering state and the slightest Grievance would drive
hundreds away, and add to the already large number of empty
houses in New Westminster and Victoria. The Engineer Camp
Buildings for which we had to pay to the Imperial Government
£10,700 are totally deserted and I have to pay an ex-Sapper
to prevent the Indians occupying them or setting them on fire.

7. In connection with this subject I would call Your Grace's
attention to Mr Young's Minute transmitted in my despatch No.
72 of 28th July.

8. I lay before Your Grace a schedule of all the Offices that I
have abolished since I assumed the Government of the Mainland
and of all those abolished since Union with Vancouver Island.
It shows that I have had no easy or agreeable task in my
administration of the Government.

9. The supply of dutiable articles in Victoria is however
gradually being used up. The mines are prosperous. The almost
cruel reductions I have made will, at great individual suffering,
ultimately relieve the expenditure. Confidence seems to be
returning. The Revenue is increasing and if we could but be
assisted with a loan at a moderate rate of interest by the Home
Government to pay off the Bank of British Columbia I think the
Colony would do well. A quiet but progressive prosperity is
setting in more beneficial in the long run than the tide of
immigration which rushing in turned peoples' heads and on its
ebb left disappointed expectations, embarrassments and misery
behind it.