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The prospect of a continuance of the purchase of Waste Lands, the amount of funds which has accrued from the sales which have already taken place, in excess of what was estimated, the increase of the amount to accrue from Pasturage Rents in May next, and the general accession to the Revenue from other sources, will justify your making appropriations on a much larger scale than has been the case for some years past.

Carefully prepared Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure will be submitted to you.

The prompt expenditure of the funds in hands, and the execution of works facilitating the occupation of the land in the new outlying districts cannot but re-act favourably on the land sales. You will, therefore, be asked to make considerable appropriations to the Road Boards, especially in those districts where the largest amounts of land have been sold. The Colony having undertaken the construction of the arterial lines of communication, you will, I think, agree with me that no more profitable expenditure can be made, with a view to the developing of the resources of the country, than the construction of Roads and Bridges leading to the main lines of railway.

In making appropriations under this head, you will no doubt be further influenced by a consideration of the responsibilities and liabilities to the purchaser which are involved in the price per acre paid for our Waste Lands.

The requirements in respect of surveys have been considerably increased, but satisfactory progress has been made in the work of the department. Reports on this and other branches of the public service will be laid before you.

The result of the negotiations which were entered upon with the Cathedral Commission, for the purchase of the Cathedral site, as desired by you, will be communicated to you, and the question of whether this, or one of the other available sites, should be taken for the purpose of public buildings will be submitted to your decision. It is desirable, on every account, that there should be as little delay as possible in determining this matter, especially as an appropriation for the erection of the buildings has been made by the General Assembly.

You will be asked to vote a sum for the completion of the Supreme Court buildings. Its present unfinished state is a source of inconvenience to the Court, and its appearance not such as befits the purpose to which the building is devoted.

Additions have been made during the past few years, from time to time, to the Hospitals, Gaols, Orphanage, and Lunatic Asylum of the Province. The limited amount of funds hitherto at your disposal has rendered it necessary to proceed more gradually with these buildings than was desirable in the interests of these institutions. I hope you will agree with me that the present is a fitting occasion on which to devote larger sums, to render more complete the buildings and appliances in these departments.

In view of the large natural increase of the population of the Province, and of the numbers who will be attracted to it by its resources, and considering the probable effect of the Colonial Scheme of Immigration, I would urge upon you to make full provision to maintain the efficiency of those social and educational institutions which have hitherto been a credit to the Province, and on which, no less than on its commercial and material progress, its welfare is dependent.

The subject of Education will be prominently brought under your attention by the very valuable and interesting Report of the Board of Education. From this it appears that the number of public schools, which in September 1868 was 51, has now increased to 77. That the number of attendants in the September quarter, 1868, was 2,663, while that in the same quarter of the present year was 5,975, and the increase during the past year under the operation of the new Ordinance has been still more striking; the number of attendants