from any contribution beyond that to a once-a-week service, the whole cost of the second mail ought not to fall on Westland but should be apportioned among the Provinces (chiefly if not altogether Otago) which yield the correspondence and mails sent across from Lyttelton with the letters which originate strictly in Canterbury. I don't know whether this can legally be done, but it seems fair. At any rate Canterbury should not be called on to pay for more than a weekly service. It is a pity Cobb & Co. at Xchurch did not send in their second offer at first, as both sides of the Island would have had the 2ce a week for the same cost as the once-a-week tender now accepted. However, that being now beyond recal, perhaps the contractor might be made to put on the second service for a trifling addition, and if so the Westland people would be very grateful, I told them the matter must be looked at solely in a postal light and not from the point of giving commercial or travellers' convenience. I mentioned in my telegram that the more I thought of it the less I liked the idea of sending Fitz home. Apart from other considerations the expence alone ought to be avoided as really unnecessary: but when I think how nearly he had us out by voting in that Brown Division. I am not at all inclined to be lenient with him. We gave him his 3000£ and that's quite enough. We need not fear him next Session: and as to Vogel's idea of his coming into the Ministry, though I did not when you mentioned it