money required for this work is only a
small fraction of that necessary for the
construction of a railroad.

I have had an accurate and detailed
survey and estimate made of the Sumner
Road. If that estimate had much ex-
ceeded the sum I proposed to you to
spend on the work, I should have
again referred the subject to your consi-
deration, before engaging in the task ; but,
I am happy to be able to state to you that,
after the most complete and careful survey
of the whole line, it appears that a good
practicable road for carts, of full breadth
throughout, may be opened within twelve
months for the sum of about £12,000 ;
whilst a further expenditure of ten or
twelve thousand pounds would effect
such improvements, chiefly in metal-
ling the road, as to render it a first
rate road throughout. Such further
improvements, however, are not ne-
cessary in order to open the road for
traffic; they need only be effected in
a series of years, and will probably be,
in a great measure, unnecessary. The
road now surveyed is considerably shorter
than that originally laid out. It will pre-
sent no dangers. Instead of the preci-
pitous rocks and lofty retaining walls of
the old road, the retaining walls are very
trilling in extent, and will nowhere exceed
four feet in height, and on the Sumner side
instead of a long descent of two and a
quarter miles in very steep hill side, the
proposed line will descend by a hill of less
than a mile in ground of the easiest possible
character The complete survey moreover
shews that the tunnel will pass 270 feet below
the summit of the hill. This road will there-
fore save a perpendicular rise of no less than
700 feet as compared with any road which
can be made over any other part of the
hills. After the most mature consideration
of the whole subject, aided by the elabo-
rate and careful survey which has now been
made, I am satisfied that as a means of sur-
mounting the great natural obstacles which
those lofty and precipitous hills present to
the communication between the port and
the plains, the road now determined on is
not only the best which can be made, but
also that it will be a work reflecting the
highest possible credit on the sagacity and
skill of the engineers by whom it was
originally proposed, and upon the gentle-
man by whom the details have been
completed. I am compelled to the
conclusion that it will prove not only to be
the cheapest road in point of actual cost
which can be made, but immeasurably the
cheapest as regards the advantages it will
present when done. The unavoidable
delay which has occured from the neces-
sity of completing a careful survey of the
whole line being at an end, I propose to
prosecute the work in the course of the
ensuing year with the utmost expedition.

With regard to the financial condition of
the Province I have caused a statement to
be prepared, shewing the amount of expen-
diture which has taken place in the past
year. Whilst that expenditure has fallen
within the estimates on the whole, there
has been a slight excess in some depart-
ments. The reasons for this excess will
be explained to you in proposing a bill for
the appropriation of the sums comprised
in it. I am happy to be able to direct your
attention to the fact that the ordinary Re-
venue of the Province has hitherto been
sufficient to provide for all the ordinary
and current expenses of the Government
without drawing upon the Land fund.
This is a state of things which I hope will
ever be scrupulously observed. It appears
to me to be not only unsound in a financial
point of view, but very unfair towards one
class of the community that the funds de-
rived from the sale of the Waste Lands
should be applied to liquidate the current
and ordinary expenses of Government. If
the ordinary annual expenses of Govern-
ment are allowed to encroach on the casual
and incidental receipts, one great check on
the expenditure will be removed, and a spi-
rit of extravagance will not improbably be
fostered. The Lands should rather be
regarded as the capital stock of the coun-
try, and their proceeds should, according to
all sound economy, be expended in giving
permanent value to the land itself :—for ex-
ample, in the introduction of labor without
which the land is valueless, and in the con-
struction of Public works which facilitate
its occupation; and, amongst those public
works, not the least in importance, is the
building and endowment of Schools for
the benefit of the occupiers of the Land.
In proposing the estimates which will be
laid before you for the ensuing year the
same principle has been observed.

You are already in possession of the
instructions from his Excellency by
which it appears that one-half instead
of one-third of the General and Land
Revenues of the Colony is to be paid
to the General Government. I am un-
able to understand why so large a portion
of the Revenue is necessary to meet the
expenditure of the General Government,
and I entertain no doubt whatever, but that
the proportion will shortly again be altered,
and that the Province will be entitled to
receive at least two-thirds of the net Re-
venue during the ensuing year. In that
event the revenues of the Province will
probably exceed the sums set down in the
estimates.

Amongst the subjects which will come