Assuming that the imperial parliament guaranteed a loan, there remained to be considered the nature of the security which would be offered. Although it was not improbable that doubts might have arisen as to the ability of the colony to repay so large an amount, a glance at its financial position would show that the required relief might be given without the risk of any loss to the mother country. The commissioners showed that the revenue of the island had increased from seventeen thousand pounds in 1839, to forty-one thousand in 1859,—more than doubling itself in twenty years. It seemed apparent, therefore, that without disturbing the tariff or reducing the ordinary appropriations, in five years the natural increase of population, trade, and consumption would give six thousand pounds a year, or a sum sufficient to pay the interest on a hundred thousand pounds, at six per cent. As it was not improbable that five years would be required to purchase the estates, and expend the loan to advantage, it might happen that the revenue would increase as fast as the interest was required, without any increase in the tariff, or diminution of the appropriations. But it might be reasonably assumed, when a new spirit was breathed into the island, and its population turned to the business of life, with new hopes and entire confidence in the future, that trade would be more active, and the condition of the people improve. The very operation of the loan act might therefore supply all the revenue required to meet the difference; but if it should not, an addition of two and a half per cent, upon the imports of the island, or a reduction of the road vote for two or three years, would yield the balance that might be required. In making their calculations, no reference was made to the fund which would be at once available from the payment of their instalments by the tenants who purchased. Two thousand five hundred pounds had been paid by the tenants on the Selkirk estate in the first year after it was purchased. Guided by the experience thus gained of the disposition and of the resources of the tenantry, it was deemed by the commissioners fair to conclude that if such a sum could be promptly realized from sales of land, admitted to be among the poorest in the island, the local government might fairly count upon the command of such an increase, from the re-sale of the estates they might purchase, as would enable them to keep faith with the public creditor, without any risk of embarrassment.