22 TlMEHRI. 
One of the privileges granted to the Colonial States is 
to vote and to fix the annual estimates, the expenditure 
of the colony, and the ways and means of raising the 
revenue. The Budget is annually submitted for the 
approbation of the States by the Governor, when he 
opens that body. It is debated, amended or approved 
of by the States, and promulgated by the Governor as 
voted by the States. But the vote of the States operates 
only as a provisional Budget. It has to be forwarded 
by the Governor to the King, by whose order it must be 
laid, for definitive sanation before the Chambers of the 
States-General, as long as the Mother Country is called 
yearly to grant a subsidy to the colony, enabling her to 
meet her expenditure. It is indeed to be regretted that, 
up to this day, the colony has not been able to raise her 
revenue up to her expenditure. Consequently, there is 
a yearly deficit and a balance on the wrong side, which 
has to be met by the Mother Country. The strings of 
the colonial purse are in the hands of the Government 
at home. This state of affairs re-a£ls most detriment- 
ally on the colony and its prosperity. It makes her 
actually entirely dependent as to her finances on the 
Home Government and its Legislature : it retards pro- 
gress and condemns the colony to inactivity : it prevents 
her attainment of such a state of financial independence 
of the Mother Country and her enjoyment in full 
of her right of autonomy, which alone can insure 
her the advantages and benefits of the liberal political 
organisation and constitution granted and intended in 
1865. As long as the colony needs a subsidy from the 
general national revenue, the yearly accounts of the 
colony must be rendered, as the Budget, to the Home 
