No. 24, Financial

The accounts which I transmit in my despatch of this date
No 22, reveal the fact that the expenditure of The Royal
Engineers within the Colony during the year 1862 amounts to
the sum of £22,325. This is irrespective of the sum of £1200
Civil Salary of Colonel Moody Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, which is paid in England direct to his Agents. The
sums actually drawn and capable of being drawn from the Imperial
Treasury in aid of these expenses during 1862 amounts in round
numbers to about £10,500, which being deducted from the first
named sum, leaves a balance provided by the Colony of nearly £12,000.

2. From a Return which I have just received from Colonel Moody, I find that the value of the works performed by the
Royal Engineers during 1862 may be estimated at about £3500.

To this I would add

Estimated cost of a Civil Surveyor General

and Assistants, whose duties are now performed

by The Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works £3,500

and Staff of Engineer Officers, say, 1,500

Making a total of 5,000

be deducted from 12,000

leaving a sum of £7,000

actually paid out of the Revenue of the Colony, for which no
appreciable return is received, and which, added to the sums
before mentioned of £10,500 and £1200 makes a total cost
over and above the value of the works performed of £18,700.
This item must be viewed as the Military cost of a body of
men sent to the Colony to perform Civil duties and only required
for Military duties upon emergency; for the heavy expenses of
Transport of men and provisions when on detached service, and
other incidental extra expense connected with the employment
of the men on works, do not enter into these figures, such
charges being placed to the particular work performed and
included in the general Civil Expenditure of the Colony.

3. I have before upon various occasions expressed my
belief that the system of combining Civil with Military duties
has not in this Colony been attended with the success anticipated
but the results now given are so startling, and the drain upon
the Funds of the Colony so great while I am struggling to raise
means to devote to the work of opening the communications—a
work in which the very vitality of the Colony is concerned—that
I feel bound to bring the matter to the immediate notice of your Grace.

4. I have long intended to represent to your Grace the
heavy expenses incurred by this Detachment—expenses that I
cannot but think are not proportionate to its strength, and
are certainly not proportionate to the circumstances of the
Colony—and I desired to accompany my representation with
certain statistical information which I could only obtain from
Returns to be furnished by Colonel Moody. I have called upon Colonel Moody for those Returns but from the delay that has taken place in procuring them in the shape I wished, and from
a positive refusal being made in one case, I regret that I
cannot testify to Colonel Moody's cheerful co-operation in
the matter. With respect to the case of refusal, as a very
serious point is involved I beg herewith to enclose Colonel
Moody's letter upon the subject: for I feel that it is
scarcely just that the Colony should be compelled to bear so
heavy a burden, without having the least control in the matter
of expenditure. Colonel Moody declines to comply with my
request upon the ground that it would be an infringement of
Military Rule. It is remote from my desire to trespass in
any way upon Colonel Moody's province so far as his Military
duties are concerned, and I have always made it a point most
carefully to abstain from doing so; but as it seems to me
that the request I made, which was simply to be furnished
with a nominal List of all persons rationed at the public
expense, has more of a financial than a Military bearing,
I cannot accept as satisfactory Colonel Moody's explanation
for declining to render the required Return. My reason for
asking for it was this: I was anxious to place before your
Grace, the numbers and qualities of the different persons
rationed, more especially the women and children, the wives
and families of officers and men; but as several attempts to
obtain the numbers properly classified, failed, I, to avoid
further correspondence and delay sought to obtain a nominal
list of the persons rationed, from which, the information I
required, could have readily and satisfactorily been gathered.

5. The expenditure of the Detachment during 1862 has
exceeded the expenditure in 1861 by £2271. The increase is
mainly to be found under the head of Rations—the Provisions
in 1861 costing £6020 in 1862 £7805 a difference of £1784. At present I do not exactly know how to account for this large
increase, but a portion of it is no doubt attributable to the
greater number of persons rationed—the number of children in
the Detachment having been more than trebled since it left
England, and the number is increasing every day.

I believe the number of the women and children rationed at the
present moment exceeds 150 and as this is beyond the strength
of the whole detachment I believe it is out of all proportion
to what is authorized by the regulations of the Army.

6. Under these circumstances I do not hesitate to beg that
your Grace will authorize me to reduce the establishment by
granting a discharge to those who may have large families and to
those who may wish to settle in the Colony; I believe many so
circumstanced would readily avail themselves of the offer, and
in the cases of invariable good conduct the grants of land
referred to in Sir Edward Lytton's Despatch No 14 of 2nd
September 1858, might be made, by which means the cost of the
Detachment could be considerably reduced.