§ Having passed in review both sides of the account for the last year, I find that the expenditure of 1902–3 having been £184,484,000 and the revenue having been £151,552,000, the deficit amounted to £32,932,000. This deficit has been met mainly by the proceeds of the Consol loan, amounting, with prepayments under discount, to £29,875.000, and the remainder, namely £3,057,000, has been taken out of balances. This represents almost exactly the amount of £3,000,000 repayable to us out of the Guaranteed Loan which we have advanced to the two colonies. A statement of the balances will be found in the hands of the Committee.