Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/219

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AND COLONIZATION.
205

panied by a complete establishment of subordinate officers, of similar character, ability, and experience, from the mother country; and the salaries of all these officers should be paid directly by Great Britain; the colony paying only for the estimated value of the labour of the convicts,—which, if it greatly exceeded the cost of their maintenance, as it undoubtedly would under efficient management, would reimburse the mother country for such outlay, besides assisting in defraying that portion of the expense of the colonial police, which, under such an arrangement, would fall to be borne by the imperial parliament.

It is at present the office of the surveyor-general of New South Wales to mark out suitable lines of road wherever new roads are required in the territory; and it is the office of the director of public works both to furnish plans and estimates of all other public works or buildings required in the colony, and to superintend their execution; as it is the office of the colonial legislature and executive to determine what works are of most urgent necessity, and to supply the requisite funds for carrying them on. At present the roads of the colony are formed and repaired by convict labour, under the control and management of the surveyor-general's department; while public works,