Colonial Despatches

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.