26

A.—No. 1,

DESPATCHES EROM THE SECRETARY OE STATE

already received a copy, and which contains his comments on your Despatch to me of the 3rd of November. The letter from the War Office will show how it happened that I was not aware of your having communicated your Despatch to General Chute till after the mail of the Ist February had left England. I am glad to find that no irregularity had been committed on your part in the conduct of this correspondence. Her Majesty's Government do not perceive that the correspondence requires them to give any fresh directions on the subject of your Despatch either to yourself or to General Chute, or to express disapproval of anything which is shown to have been done by him or you. They consider that the public interest will be best consulted by allowing the controversy to close with the withdrawal of the troops. I have, &c, Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.B. CARNARVON.

Enclosure in No. 28. Sir E. Lugaed to Sir F. Eogees. Sib,— War Office, 11th February, 1867. With reference to your letter of the Ist instant, enclosing the copy of the answer which the Earl of Carnarvon had returned to the Despatch of the Governor of New Zealand, dated the 3rd November last, on the subject of the Military Head Quarters remaining at Auckland, I am directed by Secretary Lieutenant-General Peel to acquaint you, for the information of His Lordship, that a copy of this answer was transmitted to Major-General Chute by the mail of the Ist instant; and the MajorGeneral's attention was specially called to that portion of it which had reference to Sir George Grey's complaint, that communications were made by Officers on matters in which he was personally concerned without his having an opportunity of answering or commenting on them. In the hurry of replying by the mail of the Ist instant to the Despatches received from the MajorGeneral Commanding, on the same day, Major-General Chute's explanation, however, upon this point, escaped notice; lam now to forward for Lord Carnarvon's information the enclosed copy of MajorGeneral Chute's Despatch of the 30th November last, containing marginal comments upon this and other statements made by Sir George Grey in the Despatch of the 3rd November referred to. I have, &c, Sir F. Eogers, Bart. Edwaed Lugaed.

Sub-Enclosure to Enclosure in No. 28. Sir G. Geet's Despatch. Major-General Chute's Eeply. New Zealand, Te Whenuku, Mt Loed, — 3rd November, 1866. I have the honor to transmit for your information, the copy of a letter I have received from Major-General Chute, on the subject of his Head Quarters remaining at Auckland. 2. General Chute informs me that he has 2. It will be observed that my letter of the transmitted a copy of this letter to the Secretary 24th October, the groundwork of His Excellency's of State for War, remarking in reference to my Despatch, was (as shown in my letter to you of request that he would under the serious aspect of the Ist instant) addressed to him in reply to his affairs now prevailing in this Country reside near communication of the 15th October, in which His me, —" that he is unable to gather from my letter Excellency adverted solely to the state of the " what useful object to the public service will be Wanganui District, and expressed an opinion in " attained by his absenting himself from the place regard to it that tho Officer Commanding Her " where the regular duties of his command can be Majesty's Forces should be either at the Seat of " best conducted." Government, or in the neighbourhood of the disturbed country. Now as I had returned from Wellington but a few weeks, and as while I was residing there the suppression of the continued disaffection of a portion of the Natives of the Wanganui country had been specially entrusted to an Officer of the Colonial Forces (the circumstances of which are fully explained in my Despatch of the Ist instant, No. 342-66), and as His Excellency's letter of the 15th October conveyed no instructions for the employment of Her Majesty's Troops, I regarded his communication as an official renewal of the opinion he had already expressed, and from which it was unfortunately my duty to differ in regard to the question of tho location of my Head Quarters.