The basis on which the award was made is not published, but the result appears clearly
to recognise that any portion of a Province seeking separation must adopt a share of the
liabilities of the whole proportioned to the estimated value of the respective estates.

You will be asked to consider proposals for an apportionment of revenue to the districts of the Province South of the Rangitata, and correspondence will be placed before you
embodying the principles on which I consider such an apportionment should be made.

In the interests of a large and rapidly increasing district of the Province, I trust that
such measures may be adopted as will lead to the abandonment of views on the part of a
section of the inhabitants which, if they were carried out, could not but be prejudicial to
the interests of the district, and to the good government of the Province.

I am unable to perceive that there is any dissimilarity of interest or any geographical
barrier between the country north and south of the Rangitata which can at all interfere
with the due management by one Government of a uniform system of administration in all
matters relating to Police, Gaols, Harbours, Immigration, Education, and the Waste Lands
of the Province. The management of the local works will no doubt be best carried out, as
elsewhere in the Province, by the local authorities. It will be necessary to establish a
system by which funds appropriated for the Local Hospital and Charitable Aid shall be
expended with the advice and under the supervision of some local authority.

I am glad to be able to inform you that I have entered into a contract for the bridging
of the River Rakaia, the particulars of which will be laid before you. It is satisfactory to
learn that the Timaru and Gladstone Board of Works have taken steps towards the bridging
of the Rangitata, and I am informed that it is intended to ask for tenders for this work on
the same principle that has been adopted in the case of the Rakaia Bridge. It is hoped
that this course will leave a balance available out of the funds appropriated for the purpose
by the "Timaru and Gladstone Board of Works Act, 1867," which balance the Board is
enabled by recent legislation of the General Assembly, to devote towards the erection of a
bridge over the Waitaki. You will be asked to supplement the amount by a sum sufficient
to make a total of £5000, to be met by a similar sum by the Province of Otago.

It is presumed that, on terms similar to those adopted in the case of the Rakaia Bridge,
viz—by pledging the tolls at a certain rate for a fixed period—a sum of £10,000 in cash
will be sufficient to be provided towards the erection of this bridge. This work will no
doubt tend to promote the sale of land, or the prosperity of a growing community in the
district bordering on the Waitaki. It is needless for me to advert to the numerous advantages,
political and commercial, which will ensue from the construction of the bridges to
which I have referred.

Carefully prepared Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure will be laid before you. The
strict course of economy and retrenchment which was instituted under my predecessor, has
been maintained during the past two years, and it is gratifying to be able at the present
time to state that the cost of Executive Administration within this Province, as compared
with the amount of Expenditure, is less than that of any other Province in New Zealand;
the sum spent on Administration being but little more than 2 per cent. on the Expenditure,
while there are Provinces in which the same cost, similarly calculated, amounts to more than
10 per cent. on the Expenditure.

In framing these Estimates care has been taken not to form too sanguine expectations
for the future, the actual receipts for the past year being taken in most cases as the estimate
for the ensuing year.