The 10-million loan schedule did not exhaust the list of what were deemed necessary works. In 1886 a special Act was passed appropriating L123,000, to be raised by Treasury bills having a term of five years, for the duplication of the Brisbane-Ipswich railway, and the completion of the lines from Mackay to Eton and Hamilton, and from Ravenswood Junction to Ravenswood, respectively. In the year following an Act was passed authorising the issue of further Treasury bills amounting to L349,834 for the construction of eight small lines, and the extension of the Brisbane and Southport line, with a branch to Beaudesert, thus bringing the railways and works loan schedule of the Griffith Ministry up to L10,452,834. By the advent of the financial year 1888-9, most intelligent public men felt gravely disturbed. The bank deposits, which had been trebled in a decade, had to earn interest on the additional 7 millions of money held and advanced. When the Griffith Ministry retired from office in June, 1888, they had recorded four successive annual deficits aggregating L968,313, although between 1884-5 and 1887-8 the revenue had increased by L456,861, and there had been spent over 13/4 millions of loan money per annum in addition. During the year 1888-9, after Sir Thomas McIlwraith assumed office, the expenditure increased by L128,922, but he obtained a revenue increase of about L437,000. This increase chiefly arose from the heavier duties levied under the protectionist Customs tariff of 1888; but in 1889-90 there was an almost equivalent shrinkage in both Customs and total revenue. Bad times partly accounted for the subsequent inelasticity of Customs receipts, for not until 1895-6 were the total revenue figures of 1888-9 again touched.