You may recollect that last session the Op position twitted the Government with having estimated the revenue far too high. If the revenue had fallen very much below our estimate we should at once have been in formed by our friends on the Opposition benches that their predictions had turned out correct To guard against this we have put forth unusual exertions to raise the wind. I'm sure you will be pleased to learn that we have succeeded in reaping together a large amount of money. But perhaps your joy will be a little marred when I tell you a few of the things we have done in order to ac complish this apparently desirable result. We've sold almost the whole balance of the Hundreds that the farming bodies had to run their cattle on. The sections that did not sell one day we at once advertised for sale on a future day. By dint of strenuous and un wearied exertions we have now succeeded in disposing of almost the whole affair, so that tho fanners are now as they ought to be, confined to their own small freeholds Re serves for various purposes were made by former Governments. These were useful, no doubt, to the people, and might have been more useful by-and-bye. But as we wete anxious to get money these considerations did not weigh with us, so we have sold the most of them. I may here let you in to a little bit of a secret. It will shew you that we are well acquainted' with all the arts of raising the wind. You are aware that a few years ago a very considerable portion of the reclaimed land was leased, so much money being paid down at once as a bonus. These leases brought in a very considerable annual revenue. Who but we would have thought of selling them ? However, we have done so. We have sold our interest in the leases, and we have sold our interest in the properties as freeholds as well. As the needle points to the pole, so we — true to our principle of aii ticipating the future, and believing in the truthfulness of the text above quoted — sold our annual income from the reclaimed land for a slump sum, or in plain terms, we sacri ficed the future for the present. 