, 1876-05-24

hosts of useless officials, or worse. The one
exception is neutrality-suspicious. in every
thing, it would appear. The following extract
from Governor Hennessey's reply to the Barba-
dos Legislative Assembly on a recent occasion
will illustrate what we mean:
"There is one subject to which Lord Oar
narvon, as we'll as bis predecessor Lord Kimber.
ly, adverts but to which you do not refer, and,
as it is a subject of paramount Importance, |
venture to take this opportunity Of again urging
it on your earnest attention it is, the desira-
biity Of reducing the cost of your Public Insti-
tutions and cheapening the general Admins
tration of affairs.
Looking to the critical state Of the Sugar
market in England, and to the evidence now
in my possession that the Barbados Sugar
crop this year will be forty per cent less than
the crop Of last yea, ! must ask you to assist
me in e~ttecting considerable reductions Of Pub
lie Expenditure.
Believe me this is a far more serious and
pressing question than many OF those discussed
in your address.
Already this session m0ney.votes have been
initiated in your House without the sanction of
the Government, to which, with the hard ines
that Planters and labourers a. we'll as the
absentee Proprietors are likely to encounter, |
shall not be able to consent.
l agree with my predecessor Sir Rawson
RaWson that the unconstitutional practice in
Barbados of having Boards or Committees Of
the Legislative Bodies carrying on the public
works of the colony, issuing tenders, making
contracts, and spending the Public money
voted by themselves, is so improvident, that
there il little hope of restricting our expendi.
ture within reasonable limits, until it is
abolished.
| am aware that all my predecessors for
many years past, asked you to change this
wasteful mode of spending the Public money
and that they did SO in vain. But with the
falling prices of our staple commodity, the
short crop of the current year, and the intense
and widespread poverty in this community,
l must not shrink from the duties of my posi-
ton, and therefore l take this opportunity of
informing you that l cannot consent, in its
present shape, to the Glendairy Prison Bill
to which you now refer, a Bill by which your
F0aour lie House, has, within the last few
days, voted no less a sum than Gl0, 900 to
be expended, not by the Government, but
by al ire ponsible Boar, consisting Of seven
members OF our " House, and 4 Members
of the other House Of Parliament.
IL former years you spent 100000 upon
this single work, now admitted to be def'ctive),
which under a proper system should have been
completed for less than half that sum.
If you abolish that Joint Legislative Board
and en- rust the Executive with the respon-
sibility of this important work, the gov
eminent will undertake to accomplish it for
less than $4,000; 50 that on this one item
alone of the expenditure Of the current year,
$4,000 will be saved to the taxpayers of the
Colony.
That is however but trihing sum compared
TO the great saving that will be effected in the
public establishments and the administratio
of affairs generally, if you relinquish the many
costly executive functions you now endeayour
TO discharge, and leave to the Government
the responsibility Of economically expanding
the Public money, that it is your constitutional
right to vote for the service Of the Grown"
The following from the Port-9ESpam ca
ecfte, Trinidad, commenting on the state OF
affairs in Barbados, may be taken as a fair SAM
pie of the way non. retrenching Governors are
dealt with "Our Constitution THAT of Trini-
dad) is the will Of His ExceIIency the Governor.
His will is governed by the wishes OF the
clique who surround him Influenced it may be
occasionally by the tenor of certain dispatches
from DoWning-Street or the energetic probing
of some such body as tie West India Commit
tee. We are all too deeply immersed in
money getting, to reflect on the enormous
taxes we pay taxes far exceeding those OF
any other British Colony. We have to put
up with incompetent and useless Public Off
GERS with arrogance and insolence from our