EXTRACTS FROM GOVERNOR GIPPS'S SPEECH.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue I, 16 July 1842, Page 75

EXTRACTS FROM GOVERNOR GIPPS'S SPEECH.

I am extremely happy in being able to announce to you that the ordinary revenue of the colony, by which I mean the whole of the revenue exclnsive of that derived from the sale of land, was, in 1841, the largest ever collected in New South Wales ; and that, contrary to my expectations, it exhibited a considerable increase even upon that of the year 1840. Such a result, notwithstanding the depression under which many interests in the colony have laboured, is both gratifying and important. The land fund has, on the contrary, dwindled away in a remarkable degree. In the year IS4O, it produced £316,000— in the year 1841, only £90,000 ; and during the first quarter of the present year it has yielded no more than £4,000 — a sum insufficient to pay the expenses chargeable on it for the Survey Department and the protection of the aborigines, leaving of course nothing for immigration. For several years prior to 1840, the ordinary revenue of the colony was unequal to the expenditure charged upon it; and consequently it had to seek aid from the land fund. The contrary is now the case, and the land fund stands in need of assistance from the ordinary revenue. The reduced state of the land fund caused me, in December last, to seek the advice of the Council, as to the best way in which the engagements could be met, which the Government had entered into for the importation of emigrants. I have followed the advice then tendered to me ; and accordingly have drawn on the Lords of the Treasury for the amount advanced by their lordships' order out of the Crown revenue of this colony, for the service of New Zealand ; and I have also issued debentures to the amount of about £65,000. The redemption of these debentures is now to be provided for, as well as the interest they bear. The rise in the bounties on immigration, recommended by the committee of this Council in the session of 1839, and carried into effect by a public notice which I caused to be issued on the 3d of March, 1840, gave a great impetus, as it was intended it should do, to the importation of labourers into the colony. Under these increased bounties, 26,546 souls have, in less than eighteen months, been added to the population of the colony, at a total expense, as nearly as can be calculated, of £468,000; the whole of which large amount has been paid out of the revenues of the colony, with the exception of the sum above mentioned as being due on debentures, and a further one of perhaps £10,000, still to be paid in England.