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No. 78. The Hon. J. Vogel to the Agent-General. (No. 157.) Sir, — Immigration Office, Wellington, 4th June, 1874. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter No. 1114, of April 4th r enclosing copy of a memorandum of agreement with Mr. Hill, for the establishment of an emigration depot at Blackwall. 2. I very much regret the agreement you have made. 3. It is most desirable that the English depot should be under your own charge and management, so that you could make your own regulations, and could deal with intending emigrants as might be found convenient. 4. I cannot agree with you that the arrangement you have made will be far more economical than having a depot in your own hands. Mr. Hill is not likely to undertake the work from any other motive than that of making profit, so that it seems to me you are merely loading thedepartment with Mr. Hill's profit in addition to the necessary ordinary expenditure. 5. The saving you say you will be able to make in the cost of a permanent staff appears to me to be precisely the kind of saving it is undesirable to make; for I believe that, notwithstanding the arrangement, you will find it desirable to have your own officers at the depot. 6. For example, there has been great reason to complain, with respect to the Plymouth depot, of the inefficient medical inspection there; and it will no doubt be necessary to have a medical officer in the service of the department at the Blackwall depot. 7. You may say that Mr. Hill proposes to accommodate other emigrants than those for New Zealand, and that therefore the expenses of the establishment will be so distributed as to make the cost less to the Colony than if the establishment were maintained solely for the New Zealand emigrants. But if it really be intended that the depot shall be open to other than New Zealand emigrants,—and I do not see anything in the agreement to prevent it, —that, again, would be a most objectionable feature. What we require is a place in which we can keep emigrants for New Zealand and no others, so that our own officers would be able to observe the conduct of the people, to watch their health, and ship them from time to time as might be found most desirable. 8. Similar remarks apply to the first outlay which you congratulate yourself on saving. It is to be presumed Mr. Hill will not spend money without a very fair assurance of being repaid; and the department is as well, if not better, able to make the investment as Mr. Hill. There seem to me to be more objections to farming the depot in England than to adopting a similar course with the depots in the Colony. But were such a course proposed in the Colony it would meet with universal opposition. 9. The agreement seems to me to be very loosely drawn for the protection of the emigrants. Whilst there is no doubt of the liability you incur, there is very grave doubt of what you are to get in return. Mr. Hill does not undertake to give New Zealand emigrants the preference over others, nor does he engage to find provision for any stated number, though you have to pay on all deficiencies on the number you engage to supply over a term of three years. Again, you are to give two days' pay for the emigrants who go into depot over night and leave the next morning. In other words, you are to give for a bed, breakfast, and tea 4s. 6d., a sum which seems to me preposterously high. I have urged you on a previous occasion to keep emigrants in depot in advance of the sailing of the ships. Your agreement will interpose a great difficulty in the way of this being done, since you bind yourself to send the heavy baggage direct to the ship. Apart from the hardship of separating the emigrants as they arrive in town from their baggage, who is to decide what constitutes heavy baggage ? The mere reference to the accommodation provided at Plymouth does not appear to me to be sufficient to secure for the emigrants adequate accommodation. I notice, also, that the agreement provides only for emigrants who are toembark in London, whereas, although the depot is near London, it may be desirable to embark the emigrants at Gravesend or elsewhere. The agreement, in short, has evidently not been prepared by a lawyer, or been subjected to a lawyer's revision, a course which it seems to me should have been considered necessary in regard to a document covering so heavy an engagement. 10. I shall be glad to receive any proposal which Mr. Hill may be ready to make for transferring to the Government his interest in the Blackwall depot; but before finally agreeing to any such proposal, you will permit me to ask you to submit it to me. I have, &c, The Agent-General for New Zealand, London. Julius Vogel.

No. 79. The Hon. J. Vogel to the Agent-General. (No. 159.) Sir, — Immigration Office, Wellington, 12th June, 1874. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter No. 1192, relative to the agencies you have established in Ireland, and remarking upon my letter No. 32, of the 1 lth February.