THE AGENT-GENERAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4473, 21 July 1875, Page 3

THE AGENT-GENERAL.

A mass of correspondence in reference to the Agent-General's deportment has been presented to both Houses of Assembly by command of his Excellency the Governor, and has been ordered to be printed. This correspondence discloses the existence of those complaints aouinst Dr. Featherston which have been subject matter for comment for some time past. We give this correspondence under the various headings necessary. IMMIGRANTS LAND ACT. TJnder date Bth September, 1874, the Hon. Julius Vogel writes to the Agent-General : I have the honor, earnestly and urgently, to direct your attention to the manner in which, as it seems to me, you have failed to understand the Immigrants Land Act, 1573. The provision of that Act by which you were to approve of emigrants intending to claim under the Act, was not meant as an idle or formal one. It was meant that you should bear in mind at least two leading principles—(l.) That land was to be given as a real inducement to those who otherwise might not be disposed to emigrate to New Zealand. (2.) That land was to be given only to those whom you considered suitable emigrants, and who were likely to become permanent settlers. I attach a schedule of applications for land that have been received here, from which it seems that any one about to sail for the colony, and whose passage had been paid, has had only to send you a letter asking for a recommendation, in order to induce you to give it; that you have not, generally, thought the granting of a certificate necessary ; but that you have given certificates in cases so anomalous, that I am at a loss to understand how you could have given them. For example, Mr. Passmore was coming out under an engagement to act as an engineer in the Public Works service ; but, according to his statement, he was toldin your office, and it was confirmed by you, that it was right he should receive a certificate under the Act, entitling him to a grant of land. lam glad to say that he voluntarily abandoned the certificate on its being pointed out to him how foreign it was to the intention of the Act that he should receive land. Some -persons, who were very suitable for the receipt of certificates, left England without them, being unaware that they were required, and believing that they would obtain land on their arrival.

I have earnestly to ask that you will consider the Immigrants Land Act as a measure of very great importance, and that it is desirable that you should consult its spirit and intention as well as its letter. As I have pointed out, you have failed to appreciate either; but I do not doubt that further consideration will induce you to give the measure most careful attention in future.

I -wish to impress upon you that the nature of the Act seems to be very niuch misunderstood. I think you should endeavor to remove the misapprehension -which prevails, by letting it be known that your certificate is required, that you will not give it without consideration, that you will not give it unless in very rare cases to persons who have already paid their passages, that the grants are intended only for suitable persons or families, and that conditions are attached to the grant of the land. I think that you, or some responsible person appointed by you, should carefully consider every application, and personally see the applicant.

To this letter the Agent-General replied on the 15th December, 1874, in a lengthy communication, giving his view of interpretation of the Land Act ; and on the 22nd December, writes in explanation of Mr. Passmore's case

as follows: The case of Mr. Passmore is a peculiar and quite exceptional one. That gentleman had come home with letters from the Government recommending him to my good offices, in relation ■to certain inquiries which ne was about to institute, which hn hoped might be beneficial to the railway interests of the colony. He informed me that he had paid his own passage home. I assisted him in his inquiries by introductions to leading engineers and railway managers. When he was about to return, he told me that, as he was again paying his own passage, he thought he might fairly claim to be recouped at least part of his expenses by a free grant of land under the Act, and that, if I should give him my certificate, it was his intention to have whatever land might be assigned him cultivated according to its conditions. I thought under these circumstances I might accede to his application, leaving it to the Government, on it 3 presentation, to decide on his claim to be so entitled. In regard to the only remaining case, which is mentioned in conjunction with that of Mr. Passmore, and in respect of which I have again to complain that I am not furnished with the names of the persons presenting ray certificates, the writer of the prdcis, speaking in his own person, raises an objection to an act done by me in my discretion under the Act as Agent-General— an objection which, I must say, I regard as simply preposterous. He objects that the holder of my certificate was father-in-law of the Master of the College. The relation of father-in-law is nowhere mentioned in the Act, and nowhere indicated in your despatches as a relation disqualifying the person who occupies it, if he be under sixty years of age, and have paid the cost of his passage, and satisfied me of his desire to settle upon and cultivate land in New Zealand, from being entitled to a free grant of a piece of land. I have little doubt that if I were to raise such a frivolous plea in one of the Courts of this city, in the event of my beiDg called upon to show cause for not fulfilling my duty under the Act in the case of an emigrant who happened to be father-in-law of any person whatsoever in the colony, that I could only expect to be treated with either suspicion of my motives or doubt of my capacity.

Major Atkinson acknowledges receipt of this letter on the 15th February, 1875, and says that as no doubt Mr. Vogel has fully discussed the matter with Dr. Featherston, it is unnecessary to prolong the correspondence on the subject. On the 24th April, 1875, Sir J. Vogel writes to the Agent-General, reviewing the spirit and intentions of the Immigrants Land Act, since in the mass of analytical criticism to which the Agent-General subjected them, the purpose to be gained might be lo3t sight of. In reference to the case of Mr. Passmore, Sir Julius Vogel says:—

You have chosen to be very severe and facetious | npon the case in the schedule which was referred to as that of the father-in-law of the new head master of the College. You have assumed that the objection to this gentleman wa3, that he was a father-in-law ; and, following tho not very novel device of raising a supposititious case, you have managed to insinuate that I " father a frivolous plea," and that my letter should be "treated with either suspicion of my motives or doubt of my capacity." If you will have the goodness to read the paper again, you will see that the reference to the gentleman being a father-in-law was meant to help in describing who lie was, the officer probably not remembering, at the' moment, the name. The supposition that the objection was to tho fact of the gentleman being a father-in-law is so preposterous, that I cannot understand how you could reconcile it to yourself to write at such length upon it. All that the officer implies is, that this gentleman was not a "suitable emigrant," within the terms of the Act. Probably, this is one of many cases in which the applicant intended to go to the colony in any event; and, therefore, in which we should be giving away land unnecessarily. NOT EECOKDED. On the 29th June, 1874, the Hon. Julius Vogel wrote a letter (No. 181) to the AgentGeneraL This letter is not amongst those printed, but its nature we gather from subsequent correspondence. It forwarded the recommendations of a Royal Commission regarding an exhaustive medical examination. To this the Agent-General replied on the 10th January, 1875; but what that reply was no one can at present ascertain, for the following reasons. On the 16th April, 1875, Major Atkinson wrote in reply :

" I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter No. 5, 10th January, 1875, and to say, in reply that it appeared to me to bo of so unbecoming a character that I felt it my duty to bring it under the notice of my colleagues. . The question having being carefully considered, the Government decided to have expunged from the public records of the colony the record of your letter No. 5, dated 10th. January, 1575, and it has been expunged accordingly. I have, therefore, to return your letter, and to point out what I should have thought must be very obvious—that it will be quite impossible to carry on the public business of the colony if such suggestions, whether reasonable or unreasonable, as those contained in my predecessor's letter No. 131, dated 20th June, 1574, are to be met and treated by you as they have been in the letter herewith returned.

Sir Julius Vogel received a telegraphic despatch advising him of this letter, and he wrote to the Agent-General informing him of the fact. The Agent-General replied on the 28th April :

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th instant, in which you inform me that you have received a telegraphic communication, stating that in consequence of the intolerably disrespectful nature of my letter of 10th January, No. 5, dealing with the recommendations of the Eoyal Commission appointed to consider the causes of an epidemic of scarlatina which occurred on board the ship Scimitar, the Government have determined that that letter shall not be recorded. 1 confess I feel both surprised and grieved at this decision of the Government. If my views had been considered erroneous, or if it had been alleged that I had given insufficient attention to the proposals of the Commission, or to your letter indorsing them and urgently enforcing them upon my attention, I should not have a word to say. But when it is the " nature," by which I assume is meant the general character and tone of my letter, that is stigmatised as intolerably disrespectful, I take leave to say that the nature of a document so qualified necessarily depends upon the inteution with which it is written; and it is both my right and my duty to disclaim, in the most absolute terms, any feeling whatsoever of disrespect, either towards the Government or towards the Royal Commission, in the remarks which it became my duty to make on the proposals upon which you invited my judgment and action. It is quite impossible that the nature of a long and circumstantia.l public document should exhibit intolerable disrespect towards the Government to which it was addressed without an official, who has had my long and responsible experience in the service of the colony, being in the very slightest degree conscious of such a sentiment. Indeed, the very nature of the subject was such as to forbid the expression of any such animus, if it could possibl/ have existed. Your letter brought before me a number of suggestions, some of which I adopted. There were others in which I differed entirely from the report of the Eoyal Commission which the Government had on those points, as to some absolutely, as to others partially, adopted. I was aware, from the terms of your letter regarding the Scimitar, from your letters in regard to the outbreak of infectious disease on other ships, and from the general sources of opinion in the colony, that I had been subjected to the imputation that all possible precaution had not been taken by me to prevent the outbreak of zymotic diseases, and to ensure that none but emigrants of perfect physical stamina should be sent to the colony. It was proposed by the Koyal Commission that emigrants should be submitted to the same medical examination as recruits, or persons insuring their lives. It was necessary for me to answer this, by showing in detail that a physical examination of such a prolonged and exhaustive nature was incompatible with the instructions I had received to send out a number which, at that time, had risen to 4000 emigrants a month ; that there were, besides, insuperable difficulties and grave objections to the institution of either of such examinations ; and finally, that if it were practicable, such a system would involve an enormous expense, entirely disproportioned to the proposed advantage. It was further suggested that, in consequence of the alleged habitual neglect of infant children by their parents, the children should be messed together by themselves. I saw grave difficulties in establishing and working such a system. I saw grave natural objections to it, if these difficulties could be overcome. I r repeat, it is not possible I could have treated such topics in a tone of intolerable disrespect. I trust that after this complete disclaimer upon my part of the feeling which alone could have communicated a character of disrespect to my letter, the Government will see reason to reconsider their decision, as I should greatly regret, when the correspondence of this department is laid before Parliament, that it should suppose I had neglected to reply to the suggestions of such an important Commission, placed before me, as they had been, in so forcible a light in your letter of 29th June, 1874, No. 181.

To this Sir Julius Vogel replies on May i :

I am sorry you should defend a despatch concerning which, as I informed you, such an expression of opinion had been telegraphed to me. That expression of opinion was made without any previous communication with me.

You allege that your despatch could not have been disrespectful, because it was not intended to be so. You will allow me to suggest to you, that habitually regarding with suspicion, and something allied to contempt, the instructions and recommendations sent to you from the colony, may lead you into disrespectful communications without your specially intending to give them that character. On looking over the original despatch to which yours was a reply, I observed, amongst other notes, the words " absolutely absurd," in your handwriting, opposite a passage which it contained. Putting on one side the fact of your making such a note to a document which remains a record of your department, it is not unnatural that your reply, based on such a note, should take the character of which the Cabinet complains. As you have raised the question, I have no hesitation in saying that your letter was most disrespectful. In explanation of this opinion, I may state that I think the tendency to object to anything proposed by the Government, and the disposition to seize particular points of letters instead of the broad general meaning, and, ignoring the . context, to found upon such points pages of unnecessary writing, are evidences of disrespect, whether intentional or not. In scarcely any of your lengthy letters do you take a fair view of the communications to which you are replying. In the letter in question you would have saved yourself great trouble if you would have observed that, in forwarding you the recommendations of the Eoyal Commissioners concerning an exhaustive medical examination, I used the words, "This points to a complete reform in the present system of medical inspection. Of the necessity of a reform I have no doubt; but whether it should take the exact form recommended by the Commissioners is a question upon which I am not prepared immediately to give an opinion. I desire, however, that you will give the matter your very earnest consideration, and lose no time in taking such steps as may most commend themselves to your judgment, in order to prevent in future the grave consequences of insufficient medical examination and inspection of the immigrants." If, instead of writing pages on the subject, you had said you were of opinion that some of the features of a life assurance or recruit examination were objectionable, and that you would therefore modify the proposal, whilst at the same time endeavoring to make the examination something more than a form, it would have been clear that you desired to meet the wishes of the Government. Instead of that, you threw ridicule on the proposal, and showed no disposition to remedy the entirely unsatisfactory medical examinations of which complaints had so often been made. Similarly, you gave yourself great trouble about the recommendation concerning the children's mess. The practice of having a separate mess for children, so far as first-class passengers are concerned, exists in the best steam lines; and, both in respect of the nature of the food and the mode of cooking it, the plan is at once a boon to the children and a convenience to the parents. Your labored attempt to see in the proposal an insult to the female immigrants, and a violation of the duties and rights of maternity, seems to me utterly wanting in justification. I shall forward a copy of this correspondence to the colony. I cannot say what course my colleagues will adopt concerning it.

This is answered by Dr. Featherston on May 12, as follows :

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 4th inst., in reply to mine of the 28th April. I have carefully re-considered the whole subject, and I adhere to my declaration that it is absolutely impossible I could have been guilty of addressing a communication of an intolerably disrespectful nature to the Government without having the least Intention or consciousness of exhibiting disrespect. I also repeat my positive disclaimer of having entertained any such sentiment towards the Government. In order to justify the terms of a telegram, sent from Wellington last month, which imputes the offence of intolerable disrespect towards the Government to me, you refer to a marginal note on the copy of the original despatch addressed to me, and now in my office, which, at your own request, I unhesitatingly placed in your hands, in order to enable you to consider the terms of your reply to my letter defending myself against that charge. I do not presume to characterise your conduct in referring in an official despatch to my private memoranda on an official document addressed to myself, and placed by me with full and honorable confidence in your hands, except by saying that I believe it would be difficult to find a precedent for such a proceeding in official intercourse. I might have erased the original memorandum you refer to before placing the document in your hands, for it formed no part of its official substance. I might have sent you a copy of the despatch, and such would certainly have been the more strictly correct course in regard to a paper duly recorded in my office. But having placed the paper as it stood in your hands, I could not have conceived that you would look among my first crude impressions, jotted down as I read the despatch, for material to justify the judgment of the Government, communicated in such an unusual manner, on the character of my reply to that despatch. It may bo that the course of making such memoranda on official papers is open to objection. It is, however, for Ministers and heads of departments, through whose hands a multiplicity of papers on very various business, sometimes with great rapidity, passes, far from unusual. When you once casually spoke to me on this point, you may remember I told you I had just received a despatch from Wellington, in which the somewhat scathing epithet "nonsense" was no less than five times written opposite the suggestions of one particular report, in the handwriting, as I believe, of the Minister; and with the intention no doubt of giving me a broad hint that I was not expected by the department to pay any very particular attention to the recommendation in question. On referring to your original despatch, I find that the words "absolutely absurd" are written opposite a sentence quoted by you from the report of Messrs. Bathgate, Strode, and Hocken, on the ship Scimitar. This which you insert in inverted commas, is, "The children should bo messed together by themselves." Therefore the phrase cannot be said even to color the charge of intolerable disrespect to the Government. It was not applied to anything the Government had said or done. In your own remarks upon this suggestion of the Commission, you say that you doubt whether such an arrangement would provo

to be "in all cases practicable." But you leave it to my consideration whether "such an arrangement might not be made at all events in ships conveying a large number of children." My belief was, and is, that the arrangement would prove to be impracticable, or, if practicable at all, most costly: and I set forth my reasons with that degree of detail which it seemed to me your recommendation of the subject to my consideration required. In your letter now under reply you return to the topic, and say that "The practice of having a separate mess for children, so far as first-class passengers are concerned, exists in the best steam lines; and both in respect of the nature of the food and the means of cooking it, the plan is at once a boon to the children and a convenience to the parents." I do not doubt that in a Cunard, or in a Peninsular and Oriental steamer, with first-class passengers, whose children are attended by their own nurses or other servants, and where there is besides a large staff of attendants on board, a children's mess may be all that you describe it. But I think that you will find that it has not been found practicable to make such an arrangement for the steerage passengers, even with the spacious accommodation and ample stewards' staff of the great Atlantic steamers. You must remember, besides, that the reason why yon commended the suggestion to my consideration was, that it had frequently been brought under your notice " that the children suffer from the ignorance of the parents in improperly cooking the food, or in diverting to their own purposes the farinaceous articles of diet." Now amongst the most deserving emigrants to New Zealand are young married couples with two or three small children. I did not believe that women of that class, accustomed to nurse their own children, could with advantage be replaced in their charge ; and I believe that the greater the number of children, the greater would be the difficulty and expense of organising such a system, especially if I am to take into account your illustration of what you had in view from the service of the best steam lines. I regret that you should regard my reply upon tliis point as " a labored attempt to see in the proposal an insult to the female immigrants, and a violation of the duties and rights of maternity." I utterly deny the imputation. I simply dealt with the suggestions of the report in the spirit and on the grounds because of which it was referred for my consideration, in the passage I have quoted above from your own despatch. I regret to perceive that, besides insisting that my letter must have been " most disrespectful, whether I intended to exhibit a feeling which I am aware I never harbored or no, you accuse me of habitually regarding with suspicion and something allied to contempt the instructions or recommendations sent to me from the colony; of a " tendency to object to anything proposed by the Government;" of_a "disposition to seize particular points of letters, instead of the broad and general meaning, and, ignoring the context, to found upon such points pages of unnecessary writing." .In regard to the particular letter, the cause of this correspondence—my letter of 10th January, No. s—l find that of the seven' suggestions of the Koyal Commission, to which you directed my attention, I signified my concurrence witli four; reserved one (the depot question) for further consideration when you should have had the opportunity of examining the institution at Blackwall, and that at Plymouth, after your arrival in England ; and only dissented from two, upon which you yourself had declined to express a positive opinion, but invited me to give them my very earnest consideration. These points were the establishment of a children's mess on all our ships, and the institution of a medical examination as stringent as in a case of life assurance or a recruit for the army. I gave these proposals, as you desired, my very earnest consideration ; and as I differed entirely from the report of the Royal Commission on these points, I thought it the most respectful course I could adopt, both towards the Government and the Koyal Commission, to give my reasons for dissenting from them in a very earnest and detailed way. Ido not think that there is evidence hero of any of the serious faults which you impute as belonging to the character of my corespondence. That it unfortunately has contained, especially during the last year, much writing which I could wish had been unnecessary, I am sadly conscious During that time there are not many charges that could be brought against the character of a public officer, respecting which I I have not had occasion to defend myself in my replies to your despatches. I have been obliged, with great regret and reluctance, to withdraw very much time from the proper duties of my office and the service of the colony in defending my honor, as a public officer, against such imputations. It was my duty to my own character, it was my duty to the colony, in whose service I have spent many happy and not useless or unhonored years, not to leave such charges unanswered, even though I might subject myself to your further strictures on my letters as being " controversial," or as containing " unnecessary writing." I maybe permitted to add that that such as experience was a novelty in my career. I have, as you well know, served the colony for over twenty years in many and responsible offices, to which, generally in moments of emergency and difficulty, I was called by various Ministries, without distinction of party. I am proud to remember that on no occasion did I fail to receive the cordial and complete support, the generous and ungrudging acknowledgment of such service as I was able to render to the colony by those who employed me, as well as the warmly testified goodwill of tho Imperial and Colonial Governments to which I was accredited. And not less now than at any previous time, havo I the satisfaction of knowing that the arduous duties which have devolved upon me in connection with the organisation and conduct of the Agent-General's department, have been discharged with unabated zeal, and with continuous success. Nor do lin the least lose confidence that the services of the department will, notwithstanding temporary misconception, be yet fully and truly appreciated by the people of New Zealand.

THE KENNAWAY DIFFICULTY. The Hon. Julius Vogel telegraphed to the Agent-General on the 10th September, 1574 : —" I am visiting England to confer with you. Make no permanent appointments in office meanwhile. Major Atkinson appointed Minister Immigration." On the 7th August previously, the Agent-General had written stating that he had appointed Mr. Cashel Hoey his private secretary, subject to the confirmation of the Government, at a salary of £4OO a year, which salary Dr. Featherston considered wholly inadequate. Since his appointment, Mr. Hoey had severed his connection with the Victorian Home office. On the 11th of September, Major Atkinson wrote to the Agent-General: — I have the honor to inform you that the Government have appointed Mr. Walter ICennaway, of Christchurch, to be Secretary of your department, at a salary of £BOO a year, and have agreed to allow him half salary from the date of his leaving New Zealand until he reports himself to you upon his arrival in London, when his full salary will commence. The appointment is for three years, and if Mr. Kennaway leaves the department at the completion of that period, or if from any cause other than misconduct lie leaves it before the end of three years, he is to receive £250 for the expenses of his return to New Zealand, but his salary is to terminate with his connection with the department. Should he remain more than three years, he is not to be entitled to receive any amount as expenses. Mr. Kennaway will most probably reach England in January, about the same time as the Hon. Mr. Vogel, who will then arrange with you as to his (Mr. Kennaway's) position in the department, and the specific duties of his office.

Thus, it will be seen that these appointments were made each in apparent ignorance of the other. Mutual explanations commenced as follows. The Agent-General wrote on the 25th November, 1874, to the Minister for Immigration:— I have the honor to acknowledge the recoipt of your letter of 11th September, No. 209, informing me that the Government have appointed Mr. Walter Kennaway, of Christchurch, to bo secretary of my department, for a period of three years, at a salary of £BOO a year, and that he will arrive in England about the same time as the Hon. Mr. Vogel, who will then arrange with me as to his (Mr. Kennaway's) position in the department, and the specific duties of his office. My letter of August 7th, No. 1513, must have informed the Government within a few days after your letter under reply was written, that I had on tho first of that month appointed Mr. Cashel Hoey to tho office of my confidential secretary, and that that gentleman had, before entering on its duties, resigned tho offices of Emigration Commissioner and member of the Board of Advice of the Agent-General of Victoria, which he had for several years held. I could not have conceived, when I appointed Mr. Cashel Hoey to this office, that the principlo which the Government itself had so distinctly and emphatically laid down only a year before, as to the selection of my secretary being left entirely in my hands, should have been, without notice or reference to me, apparently set aside in a manner which placos mo in a peculiarly painful and embarrassing position towards that gentleman. I have said " tho principlo" which tho Government itself laid down as to the appointment of my confidential secretary, an officer whose assistance has long since been admitted to bo necessary to the proper dischargo of my functions. To sustain this statement, I quote tho following words from the letter of tho lion, the Colonial Secretary, of 2nd August, 1873, No. 04:—" Tho Government recognise tfie propriety of the selection of the person to fill an office of this naturo being left entirely in tho hands of the officer to whom he is to bo attached, and the Government, therefore, mako no objection to your choice of Mr. Bailor." Those words aro extremely distinct and explicit; and I must confess [ fool painfully surprised that, in tho many communications which I have had with tho Hon. tho Premier by telegraph on this very subject, previous to Mr. Cashel Hoey's taking office, no intimation whatsoever was conveyed to mo that the Government had any intontion of interfering with the discretion so emphatically recognised as belonging to me with respect to this particular appointment. On the 20th February last I telegraphed to tho Government in tho following terms :—" Will you sanction salary six hundred secretary ?" Tho allowance of £4OO a year which had been made to Mr. Buller while acting as my secretary, in addition to his half-pay, was, I felt, wholly inadequate to retain tho services of a gentleman fitted in all respects to dischargo the duties of an office requiring in its holder qualifications by no means common. I had ample evidence of Mr, Cashel Hoey's fitness from my being brought into frequent official relations with him during tho year that ho held a similar office, when the Right. Hon. Mr. Childers and Sir James MoCulloch were Agents-Goneral for the colony of Victoria, and especially during tho period when, under circumstances peculiarly trying to him, he had for nearly six months virtual charge of the Victoria office after Mr. Childers returned to the Imperial Cabinet. I had reason to know that Mr. Childers reposed implicit confidence in him, and entertained a very high opinion of his official abilities. I was aware that tho Government of Victoria had thrco several times within six months conveyed its thanks to him for his very honorablo conduct undci tho difficult circumstances in which he was placed at tho time to which I havo roforrcd, pending tho appointment of u permanent Agent-Ucncral,

I knew that when Lord Carnarvon was lately reconstituting the Colonial Museum Committee, such was his sense of the services rendered by Mr. Hoey to that project, that ho expressly named him for the office of secretary to it. It was my intention, if any adequate salary was sanctioned, to offer Mr. Cashel Hoey the appointment. I did not, however receive any renly to my telegram on the subject until the 2nd of April, when the Hon. Mr. Vogel telegraphed " Authorise temporary employment secretary, subject one month's notice, at salary you considerreasonable " I felt it impossible to offer the appointment to Mr. Cashel Hoey, or to any gentleman possessing in any sufficient degree the qualifications essential to the office, clogged with a condition which m this country is only attached to the lower grades of official service, I telegraphed again on the 4th of May, and thinking that the mention of Mr. Hoey's name would sufficiently express the difficulty in which the Premier's previous telegram had placed me, I simply said, " Sanction asked Hoey's appointment secretary, six hundred salary." In this telegram, it will be observed, there were two questions—first, with reference to thesanction of Mr. Cashel Hoey as the person to be appointed; second, as to the amount of salary. 1 felt, in addition to the reasons 1 have above given for mentioning his name, that as Mr. Cashel Hoey would probably feel himself bound in honor to tender the resignation of the offices he held under another colony, I ought to remove beforehand any possible doubt as to his appointment not being confirmed by the Government. On the Bth of June I received the following reply to my telegram :—" Government will not sanction more than four hundred pounds for private secretary." That reply was far from satisfactory to mo on the subject of salary ; but I could only understand its silence on the principal question as again conveying the consent of the Government to tho appointment of the person of my choice, if I could engage his services at the salary stipulated. I informed Mr. Cashel Hoey accordingly. Next month Mr. Buller returned to the colony, and Mr. Cashel Hoey agreed to take tho office on the terms upon which the Hon. Mr. "Vogel's last telegram enabled me to offer it to him, without any condition as to a month's notice, but at the very inadequate salary of £4OO. He forthwith resigned his office in connection with the colony of Victoria, and entered upon his duties. as my secretary on the Ist of August. No further communication from the colony reached me on the subject until the 29th of September, when, to my extreme astonishment, nearly five months after I had brought Mr. Hoey's name under the attention of the Government, I received the following telegram : "Advise abstain from employing Hoey ; Government sending you oxcellent officer act under you over department. He will arrive February, when Hoey entirely unnecessary." lam now finally informed in your letter under reply of the course which the Government havo thought fit, for the advantage of the public service, take in the matter. I think it is due to the honor of the office which I hold to place these facts, which speak for themselves, simply and exactly as the circumstances have occurred, before the Government. As I learn that the Hon. Mr. Vogel may not arrive in England directly, I forward a copy of this letter to meet him en route, so that he may be able to communicate with you and me on the subject at the earliest possible moment. The Hon. Sir Julius Vogel replied on the 9th April, 1875: I have delayed acknowledging the copy, which you sent me, of your letter of November 25th, 1874, on the subject of Mr. Cashel Hoey, until the Minister for Immigration, to whom the original was addressed, has requested me to deal with the matter to which it refers. It is desirable to place on record a reply to your letter. I have not the papers before me, but I have no difficulty in explaining from memory the facts which seem to cause you so much anxiety. The principle laid down in the Colonial Secretary's letter of 2nd August had reference to the appointment of a private secretary. You speak of the officer as "confidential secretary." If that was.the term used, it was meant to designate only a private secretary. The Government would still, I believe, be of opinion that you should select the officer. In the subsequent telegrams wliith you quote, the Government understood the reference to be to a private secretary: in one of them, indeed, the words are expressly used. It seems, by your letter, that when you telegraphed on the 20th February, you had Mr. Cashel Hoey's appointment in view, but merely asked permission to give £6OO for salary of secretary. I must express tho ojjinion that it would have been bettor then that you had stated your intention. I presume you are not unaware of the controversy which Mr. Hoey's appointment to the Victorian Agency caused in the colony of Victoria.

The reply sent you on the 2nd April was considered by the Cabinet. The condition that the appointment was to be temporary was imposed because the Government thought it probable that extensive alterations would be found desirable in your department, and did not wish new permanent engagements made. It was even then thought that, if it was decided to provide you with an officer to fill a position analogous to that of under secretary, a privato secretary might be unnecessary. The reply to the subsequent telegram about Mr. Cashel Hoey was considered by the Government. I may observe that I do not agree with you that it released you from the previous instruction concerning a month's notice. You complain that the reply said nothing about Mr. Hoey. The omission was not accidental. The Government did not wish to recall your freedom to choose your own privato secretary, subject to the conditions already laid down. I may, however, observe that Ministers did take into consideration whether they should prohibit Mr. Hoey's appointment, but came to tlie conclusion that it was unnecessary to do so, becauso you stated he required a salary of £6OO a year, and they thought that the refusal to allow anything like that salary was sufficient. The reason why they were inclined to stop Mr. Hoey's appointment was, because they believed that that gentleman sought a much more permanent and Influential appointment than they were prepared to sanction. Mr. Hoey, though nominally private secretary to the Victorian Agency, held an appointment more in the nature of Acting Agont-General. Mr. Childers was not able to give his whole time to the office, and Sir J. McCulloch only accepted the appointment temporarily. Your own letter bears out this view. Private secretaries do not receive special votes of thanks from Governments ; and you point to qualifications beyond those required by a private secretary. Although the Government were willing, under the conditions named, you should select your own private secretary, they were, of course, not inclined to waive the responsibility of appointing an officer who would possess, or be likely to assume, much larger powers than they considered attached to a private secretary's office. In their opinion, Mr. Hoey's want of knowledge of New Zealand disqualified him from exorcising, in the New Zealand Agency, the powers he exercised in the Victorian Agency. My telegram to you from Melbourne was caused by my noticing in the papers of that city a telegraphic report about Mr. Hoey's engagement. As you had not advised it, I thought it might be a rumor, and I telegraphed that which was really my opinion —that witli Mr. Kennaway's aid you would not require Mr. Hoey's. So much by way of explaining the circumstances to which your letter refers. I may add, that though I do not concur in the claims which you seem to consider Mr. Hoey possesses, I am willing that ho should continue to hold the position of private secretary until the Government have considered the matter: on the condition that his position is that of private secretary, and that he exercises no powers beyond those of a private secretary. It may be, if you think a private secretary is necessary, that the Government will sanction his continuing to hold the office. You will excuse mo from committing tho Government on the point. With respect to Mr. Kennaway's appointment to act under you, as the head of the department, I have oily to observe that the Government consider it a necessary appointment.