Copy of a Despatch from Lord Grey to Sir G. Grey, K.C.B. [From the Government Gazette, August 5.] (Copy.) Downing-street, 22nd December, 1849.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 523, 7 August 1850, Page 2

Copy of a Despatch from Lord Grey to Sir G. Grey, K.C.B. [From the Government Gazette, August 5.] (Copy.) Downing-street, 22nd December, 1849.

No. 89. Sir, — I have to acknowledge the series of Despatches enumerated by dates and numbers in the margin, ail of them relating to the subject of the establishment of Provincial Legislative Councils, and to that of the proposed introduction at a future time of Representative Government in one or both of the Provinces into which New Zealand is now divided, and in such others as may hereafter be comprised within its limits. 2. My answer to these Despatches has been hitherto postponed, because, be ; ng made aware by your despatch of November 29th, 1848, that the Ordinance of November 18th, 1848, for the establishment of Provincial Legislative Councils was already in operation for the Province of New Munster, 1 considered it most advisable to wait for further accounts of the manner in which it had been received, and of the general state of the colony, before submitting it to the Queen for confirmation. I have now to inform you that her Majesty has been pleased to confirm and allow this Ordinance. You will communicate her Majesty's decision to the inhabitants of the colony under your government by a Proclamation, to be published in the usual aud most authentic manner. 3. I likewise concur entirely in your views 1 and proposals respecting the future introduction of Representative Institutions, by the creation of Legislative Bodies, such as you have described, exercising the same functions respectively as the General and Provincial Councils now constituted by you. 4. But, at the same time, I do not think it at all advisable that Parliament should interfere, (in the manner proposed in the resolution of the Council of New Munster and in your Despatch of February 2nd, 1 849,) by passing at present any new act, for the purpose of giving effect to these views. For I do not perceive that you propose that any change in the existing form of Government (beyond such changes as you are empowered to make with the advice of your Legislative Council, by the Act of 11th and 12th Victoria, chapter 5) should actually come into operation before the expiration of the five years for which the constitution of the island is suspended. This being the case, I consider it to he manifestly inexpedient that Parliament should

now pass an act in order to make provision for a time as yet so far distant, when it is quite possible that, in the interval, experience may point out some advisable changes in the details if not in the general features of such a measure. Nor can it be necessary to introduce such a bill into Parliament for the mere purpose of affording to the colonists a guarantee that their enjoyment of Repesentative Institutions shall not be unnecessarily delayed ; since, by the acts now in force, the suspension of ibese iustitutions can last only for the five years above mentioned, at the end of which time they will of themselves come into operation, and it is certain that nothing but a sense of obvious necessity would induce Parliament to continue their suspension. 5. With respect to the postponement for the present of the introduction of those institutions, I entirely concur in the reasons which you have assigned for it in your recent Despatches, particularly that of March 22nd, 1 849, confirmed as its representations are by the fuller description ol the state of society and progress of the colony contained in your Despatch of July 9th, 1849; transmitting the Blue Book. You have advanced reasons apparently conclusive agair st immediately discontinuing the whole of the pecuniary assistance afforded by this country towards the civil expenditure of the colony, or reducing at once the military assistance now afforded jt, to an amount more nearly proportioned to the force maintained in other colonies of similar European population. But the same reasons apply with equal force against the immediate grant of a Representative Government; since, whenever this is given, it must be considered as its indispensable accompaniment that the mother country should soon be relieved frcm all charge on account of the civil administration of the colony, as was pointed out in my despatch of the Ist February, 1847 ; and should also be relieved Inm a very large portion of the burthen of its military protection. 6. Wi'h respect to the Civil List, I have to call your attention to the legal authority under which it is reserved, in order that the provisions made by Parliament respecting it, may be duly complied with*. The Act of 1846, (9th and 10th Victoria, eh. 103, sec. 12), empowers the Queen to appropriate by Letters Patent a Civil List not exceeding £6000 per annum for each Piovince. The Letters Patent issued under the Act accordingly reserve £7600, per .annum -for each Province. The Instructions provide that the Civil List so appropriated shall be applied "as the Lords of the Treasury shall direct." 7. It is obvious that this provision will only become of real importance when a popular Legislature shall be created to which the power of controlling the whole public expenditure, except that portion reserved as a Civil List, will be entrusted. In the meantime, while the whole Colonial Revenue is appropriated by yourself with the aid of a Legislature nominated by the Crown and acting under the directions of Her Majesty's Government, with respect to the salaries to be assigned to the various public servants in the Colony, it is practically immaterial which of these salaries are non inally charges upon the Civil List under the sanction of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. But while this matter is of little or no practical consequence, it is not the less necessary to avoid even any technical departure from the rules laid down by Pailiament. Now the Act 11th Viet. c. 5, which suspends many other provisions of the Act and Letters Patent of 1846 does not suspend those relating to the Civil List. It appears, therefore, that they are still in force ; ami that they are not alterable except in the manner provided by that Act, viz. — by the enactment of an Assembly framed under the Act of 1846. But as no such Assembly has been constituted, nor can be constituted, while the powers given by the Act remain suspended, it would seem that the present temporary Legislatures possess no power to alter them. 8. On the other hand the Ordinance of the 18th November, 1848, appears to assume that the existing temporary Legislature has power to provide a Civil List (sections 23 and 24.) As however it has in point of fact only repeated the provisions already in force, and as these sections of the Ordinance may have been framed under a different view of the law from that which I have above suggested, I have not thought it necessary to delay the confirmation of the Ordinance on account of them. It is sufficient for me to have directed your attention to the circumstance. If the above view be correct, auy alteration in the amount of the Civil Lists, during the suspension of the Constitution can only be effected by Parliament, or through an amendment of the Letters Patent by the Queen. 8. But you will observe that in any view the "directions and appointment" of the Lords of the Treasury are necessary in order to legalize the appropriation of the Civil List,

As no estimates of this part of the expenditure, distinct from the remainder of it, have hitherto reached me, I wish you to transmit them at you earliest convenience, with a view to procuring the sanction of their Lordships to the appropriation thus authorized by yourself, which under the circumstances will satisfy substantially the words of chapter xi of the Instructions. 10. On the general question of the Civil List, my opinion is that a Representative Legislature, when it comes into operation, ought to be as little fettered as possible by Parliamentary enactments in making such changes as may from time to time be required in the appropriation of the Revenue. 11. At the same time I consider it to be indispensable that permanent provision should be made for the maintenance of the various establishments which have been created for the benefit of the natives. The fact that while the natives are large contributors to the •JRevenne, they must for some time have comparatively little influence in a Representative Legislature affords, as you have observed, a ', conclusive reason for requiring that the discontinuance of an expenditure in which they are vitally interested without the consent of the Crown, should be effectually guarded against. With this view I am of opinion that the existing Local Legislature should carefully consider what amount of permanent expenditure is required for the establishments in question, and for other objects connected with the interests of the natives, and should then pass Ordinances by which the amount of this expenditure should be charged upon the .Revenue of the colony in the same manner in which in this country various expences on account of the civil government which it is considered inconvenient to submit to annual discussion, have been charged by Parliament on the consolidated fund. 12. Under the provisions of the Act of Parliament now in force, the existing Legislature of New Zealand, although maintained only for a period, has full power to pass any Ordinances that may appear necessary for the general interests of the community. 13. These Ordinances will continue in force when the authority of the body by which ibey have been passed shall cease to be available for further legislation, and though they will I of course be subject to alteration by the new Legislature which will hereafter be created, no such alteration can take effect without the consent of the Governor as the Representative joi .the Crown, and would be liable-r-like all other measures of the Local Legislature — to be disallowed by her Majesty. An enactment therefore creating & permanent charge on the Revenue for expenditure regarding the natives would afford them all the security that could be desired. 14. The provisions of Sec. 12 of the Ordinance appear to effect all that is necessary in the way of reserving subjects of general importance to the jurisdiction of the Central Legislative Council. There are however many other heads on which it should seem very expedient that uniformity of legislation should be maintained in the Islands. Such are for instance, Criminal Laws inflicting either the punishment of death, or secondary punishment of serious magnitude — Laws regulating the course of inheritance of real or personal property, or the mode of disposing of property by will, and the extent of power exeicisable by a Testator — Laws prescribing rules for the naturalization of aliens — and, perhaps, Laws regulating the form and effect of deed.- and other evidence of contracts. - 15. And it is to be observed that in points of this kind, convenience reqnires that the Law of the different Provinces should not only be framed with a view to substantial similarity, but that it should be absolutely identical in language ; both because a mere difference in wording will often result in important though unintentional differences of *übstauce ; and also in order that decisions in Courte of Law given in one Province may apply, beyond possibility of doubt, to the Law as it stands in others. 16. These considerations, however, I leave to your judgment, without wishing to prescribe to you any particular manner of carrying them into execution. It may be that the power possessed by the Lieutenant-Go-vernors of refusing their consent to any law infringing this desirable uniformity which might be passed by the Legislatures of the Provinces would be sufficient to preserve them from material dissidence on these subjects, without the necessity of strictly reserving them for central legislation. • 17. I concur, further, in the suggestions of your despatch No. 76, of 22nd June, 1849, that as legislation respecting the native races is not one of the subjects exclusively reserved for- the general legislature by the Ordinance of Nov. 18tb, the LieutenantGovernors of the Provinces and yourself should, for the present, reserve for her Majesty's assent or disallowance any Ordinance which may be passed amending or repealing any law affecting the interests of the native.

race to which the Royal Assent has once been given by the Governor. You will therefore take care that a suspending clause be inserted in all such Ordinances without which you will understand that it is her Majesty's pleasure that they should not be assented to on her behalf by the Governor or LieutenantGovernors of New Zealand. This instruction will of course apply to any Ordinance which may be passed relating to expenditure in which the native race are interested. 18. With respect to the boundaries between the Provinces, I understand you to be of opinion (from your despatch of 6th Feb., 1 849,) that there is no substantial objection (representative institutions being for the present postponed) to that proposed in my despatch of 28th Feb., 1848, between New Ulster and New Munster. You are therefore authorised to proclaim it at one •. 19. The separation from New Munster of the two other projected Provinces, of which Otago and New Canterbury are to be the nuclei respectively, must, for the present, be postponed until the settlement of the latter is somewhat more advanced and the general convenience can be consulted with mdre certainty as to its limits. 20. It will also be necessary, before these New Provinces are proclaimed, that they should be able to defray the expenses of the establishments which will thus be required, without assistance either from the Parliamentary Grant or from the revenue of the older Provinces. It is impossible while there is ample room in the old settlements for all the emigrants who can desire to go to New Zealand, that her Majpsty's Government should consent to the indefinite multiplication of new settlements at a distance from those originally formed, except on the condition that those who think proper to form such new settlements will be ready to bear the whole of the charges which are thus rendered necessary for additional Government establishments. I have, &c, (Signed) Grey. True Copy. C. L. Nugent, Private Secretary.