AGENT-GENERAL, LONDON.

D.—No. 1

47

4. The lessee will be required to give a promissory note for the amount advanced towards the passage of himself and family, which note will be enforced in the Colony, and the bond fide deposit forfeited should he decline to take up the land or neglect to occupy it during the first twelve months after arrival. 5. If occupied during the first year, the bond fide deposit will be credited as the second year's payment towards the purchase ; but if not occupied during the first year, the privilege of occupation ceases. 6. Labourers or domestics under engagement to the lessee, if within the regulations for ordinary emigration for the time being, will be brought out thereunder. 7. The lessee shall reasonably satisfy the Agent-General that he is in a position to settle on the land on arrival. These conditions having been drawn up specially to encourage the emigration of a class of settlers much wanted, you will be good enough to take whatever steps may be necessary to give them a wide circulation in the proper quarters. W. Reeves.

No. 39. Memorandum for the A gent-General, London. (No. 77, 1872.) Public Works Office, Wellington, Bth June, f 872. Herewith are forwarded the duplicates of the following memoranda, transmitted in original from the Office of the Resident Minister at Christchurch :—■ March 16. —Relative to samples of defective iron shipped to your address. April 13. —Covering letters of Messrs. Toomer and Sons, as to opening for boot and shoe hands. April 16.—Amended regulations for nominated emigrants, and information on immigration matters generally. W. Reeves.

Enclosure in No. 39. Memorandum for the Agent-General, London. Office of the Resident Minister for the Middle Island, (No. 349, 1872.) Christchurch, i6th April, 1872. The Immigration Officer's report, dated the 12th instant, sent herewith, will show that preparations for the reception and distribution of immigrants are in course of completion at the principal ports and centres of population in the Middle Island. The site of the new barracks at Dunedin has been definitely fixed, and the plans are nearly completed. The Christchurch barracks are being put into a complete state of repair, and the quarantine barracks at Port Chalmers and Lyttelton, are also being thoroughly overhauled. By the time the stream of immigration promised in your letter of February last, begins to set into this Colony, I hope to have everything completely prepared for its reception. Amended regulations for nominated immigration have been prepared, published, and distributed among the officers of the Post Office and others specially appointed to take charge of the work, and I have good reason to think that their active publication will result in a large influx of that —the best class of immigration, and so materially assist your efforts to increase the population of the Colony. It is my intention to prepare a scheme of labour exchange throughout this Island, with the view of distributing the incoming stream of population with as little delay as possible, so as to meet the wants of employers and prevent any possible accumulation of surplus labour. There is no particular cha,nge to record in the state of tho labour market, but the fact that employment is general and work of all kinds plentiful at a time of year when it is often somewhat scarce hitherto, to the general well-being of the labouring classes, and tends to show that unless we have a steady increase of population, the turn of the year would probably bring with it an increase of the price of wages. The only exception to this quiescent state is the West Coast, where, owing to the signs of rapid development in quartz mines in the South-west Nelson District, the rate of wages on the Government roads has risen to twelve shillings a day, at which rate labour of a suitable kind is scarce. W. Reeves.

No. 40. Memorandum for the Agent-General, London. (No. 85, 1872.) Public Works Office, 6th June, 1872. Referring to the arrangement proposed by the Government to Mr. James Brogden, in Wellington, as fully advised in the memorandum of 25th November, No. 56-71, and to your letter of the 2nd May, No. 256-72, reporting the arrangement you had effected with Messrs. Brogden and Sons, in London, I am informed that in consequence of neither of them being satisfactory to Mr. James Brogden, that gentleman has resolved to telegraph to his firm by this opportunity, that the existing agreement is so unfavourable, as compared with the arrangement which each emigrant might make for himself, under the Home regulations, that it cannot be continued, and that he has not now time for a fresh arrangement with the Government before the departure of the present mail. J. D. Osmond.