Taking the balance as the amount accruing from increase of duties, it may be put at 12,000 pounds on the last year.
****It will be observed that for some time, until better seasons returned and measures bore fruit, I had to a slight extent to rely on the surplus found in the chest to make Revenue and Expenditure meet.

To have starved the Expenditure at that time would have been to have damaged the future progress of the colony, and the Legislative Council opposed several reductions that I thought might have been effected.
On the 30th September, 1874, there was a sum of 36,616 pounds 3 shillings 5 pence in the chest, and something like this sum will be at the disposal of the Legislature at their meeting, beyond current revenue.
40.

I need hardly say that the commercial state of the colony is admittedly sound, and I am informed in a more prosperous condition than at any previous period of its existence.

Landed property, especially about Perth, has lately risen immensely in value, and the rise is, I hope, spreading and will reach the outlying districts.

Perth has lost its dilapidated appearance, and neat cottages and houses are springing up in all directions, and the same progress to some extent is noticeable in Fremantle and elsewhere.
41.