276 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



by private members, for which the Bailway Department had pre- 

 pared estimates totalling over 26,000,000. On the 9th of October 

 an Act was passed appointing a Parliamentary Standing Committee 

 on railway works, consisting of eight members of the Assembly and 

 five of the Council, to examine and report upon all lines proposed. 

 To this body, of which Mr. Bent was elected chairman, the House 

 referred the consideration of schemes already submitted to it, cover- 

 ing 4,630 miles of new lines, the estimated cost of which, without 

 stations or rolling stock, exceeded 41,000,000 ! Members had got 

 used to big figures by this time, but here was something to give 

 them pause. Mr. Munro seized the opportunity, and when a few 

 weeks later the budget statement was submitted he again proposed 

 a vote of want of confidence, and again failed to find acceptance 

 for it. The revenue for the year ending 30th June was 8,519,000, 

 but the expenditure reached the record figures of 9,645,000, and 

 led to a general demand for present explanation and future restric- 

 tion. Yet the prodigal generosity of the people's representatives 

 was manifested in the Assembly by hurriedly voting an increase of 

 sixpence per day to the labourers on the Victorian railways, thereby 

 adding 30,000 a year to the railway deficit. And this was done 

 three weeks before Mr. Gillies submitted his annual statement of 

 ways and means. Notwithstanding the outcry Mr. Gillies calmly 

 announced his estimates for the coming year of a revenue of 

 9,718,000 and an expenditure of 9,650,000. So far from these 

 anticipations being realised, the revenue had by the 31st of December 

 fallen short by over 200,000 of that realised in the corresponding 

 six months of 1889. The fact is that a system of book-keeping pre- 

 vailed at the Treasury which would not have been tolerated for an 

 hour in any commercial enterprise. By mixing up the finances of 

 the railways, properly a pure business concern, with the general 

 revenue and expenditure of the colony; by leaving 2,250,000 

 sterling of trust funds floating about, whence the Treasurer could 

 freely borrow to make payments which he desired to carry over to 

 the next financial year ; by the too general use of the recoup system 

 under which public works were authorised to be paid for out of 

 future loans sometimes even out of unrealised profits from prospec- 

 tive sales of Government property ; and by a singularly vague and 



