8.—6

XIII

economy, rather than by large public expenditure, that the permanent prosperity of the colony will be secured. That, Sir, is all I have to say. I have, I believe, laid before the Committee Conclusion, all the information needed to enable honourable members clearly to understand the financial position of the colony, and to judge of its substantial and most satisfactory progress, especially in the occupation of the land, and the steady, I might say the rapid, development of its industrial enterprise. In 1887, in disclosing to the Committee the difficulties which then lay before it and the Government, I ventured to say that, with the necessary effort and sacrifice, those difficulties were well within our power to overcome. Parliament and the people took entirely the same view, and the facts and figures which I have just laid before you show, I trust beyond question, that they were right: right, I say, not only in the belief that we could overcome our financial difficulties, but in the deeper underlying belief on which the other rested—the assured belief in the vitality and resources of the colony.

iii—B. 6.