Audit Office,
September 1, 1868.

To H. J. TANCRED, ESQ.,
SPEAKER OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

SIR,

I have the honour to transmit to you the complete Accounts of the Province, revised from 1st October, 1853, to 31st March, 1868.

It will be in your recollection that Resolutions were passed in the Provincial Council in the year 1864 directing three-fifths of the Land Fund to be applied to the prosecution of the Public Works of the Province, and the remaining two-fifths to be carried to the account of the Railway and Harbour Works, in order to prevent its possible application to the maintenance of what is called the Ordinary or Departmental Expenditure of the Province.

In the return which I have the honour to make I have adopted this division of the Land Fund, and assumed that this resolution has prevailed, not from 1864, but from the commencement of Provincial Institutions, and I have accordingly revised the whole of our published Accounts of Provincial Revenue and Expenditure from 1st October, 1853, down to March 31, 1868. In so doing I have charged the Department of Land and Works, as in 1864-65, with those items of expenditure only which belong to the development of the land, and which are directly or indirectly of a permanent character, or affecting the interests of succeeding generations.

Under this revision the following results are shown, as in the Table attached to the Balance Sheet, viz.:-

SCHEDULE A.
Ordinary Revenue in excess of Expenditure ... £53,770 18s. 10d.

SCHEDULE B.
Land and Works: Expenditure in excess of Revenue ... £330,348 7s. 11d.

SCHEDULE C.
Railway and Harbour Works: Revenue in excess of Expenditure ... £391,405 16s. 10d.

SCHEDULE D.
West Canterbury Gold-Fields: Expenditure in excess of Revenue ... £126,739 5s. 6d.

The returns published in the Provincial Government Gazettes are in a measure imperfect, because large sums have been expended by the English Agent in London, which, by the process of our accounting here, were never imported into the local accounts, and so the Members of the Provincial Council and the Public have been frequently misled in their search for information upon particular parts of our Provincial Expenditure, and this is particularly observable in the Immigration Department. The sums paid in England for the Charter of Ships were for a considerable time only to be found in the English Agent’s accounts, and the amount paid by Emigrants in London on account of Passage Money has never been imported into our accounts at all. Our Expenditure upon Immigration has amounted to £263,292 4s. 11d., of which £159,776 19s. 2d. only appears in the annual statements.

The Immigration Department, it will be seen, is charged against Land and Works, and an examination of this account will show that the Land Fund has been drawn upon for the purposes of Immigration to the extent of £148,885 1s. 11d.

In order that the gradual progress of our departmental expenditure may be accounted for, I have appended to this Financial Paper an Abstract of the Population Returns from 1858 to 1867 inclusive. The first reliable Census was taken in 1858, and the Census of 1867 is the return made to the Government in December last.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,

J. OLLIVIER, PROVINCIAL AUDITOR.