109

A.—3a

a loan to supply it must be made from the Provincial Revenue Fund, to be repaid from the first receipts of the Land Fund. But though an occasional and temporary deficiency may be expected to occur —indeed may be unavoidable until the land claims are finally settled —it may be anticipated with confidence that this fund will after that period be amply sufficient to meet the demands made upon it. The Sub-Treasurer of your district should at once make out an account for the first quarter of the present financial year, showing the amount due from the general revenue to the Civil List, which is to be immediately transmitted to Wellington. He should also show in this account any balance in his hands in favour of the Provincial Eevenue Account for your district, and add to the balance any surplus in his chest from the revenue of the preceding year. At the end of every quarter he should publish this account in such a form as to exhibit all the above particulars. In the foregoing statement of expenses some slight general charges have been omitted, to which the revenues collected in the several provinces will be subjected —such as the interest on debentures for £30,000 due by the colony. His Excellency thinks it preferable, instead of directing that any general deduction on that account should be made, to require, as the law directs, that all Sub-Treasurers pay the interest on such debentures as may be presented to them. They will then from time to time render accounts, showing the amount of interest which they have respectively paid, and the General Government will then call upon them to pay the proportionate amount due by their several provinces. I have to request you will be good enough to cause the necessary instructions with regard to all the foregoing particulars to be given to the Sub-Treasurer of your district. His Excellency trusts that, by the distribution of the Civil List directed above and by the exercise of a judicious economy, he may have the satisfaction of finding that when the Provincial Legislatures are called into existence they will enter upon the discharge of their duties with a considerable surplus at their disposal, and with a revenue which, if its present sound and improving state continue, will afford them ample means of usefulness, of promoting the public welfare, and of accelerating the onward progress of the now prosperous communities whose future destinies will in so great a degree be intrusted to the care of individuals to be selected by themselves. I have, &c, Alfred Domett, His Honour the Superintendent, Nelson. Colonial Secretary.

No. 41. Extract from a Despatch from Governor Grey to the Eight Hon. Earl Grey. (Separate.) Government House, Wellington, 30th August, 1851. In reference to my Despatch No. 121, of this day's date, transmitting for the Queen's approval a copy of the Provincial Councils Ordinance, I beg to state that, as perhaps the opinion of Her Majesty's Government on that measure may in some degree be influenced by the manner in which it was received by the General Legislative Council which passed it, and which was the largest lhat ever assembled in New Zealand, consisting of fourteen members, for the greater part remarkable for intelligence and ability, I ought to inform your Lordship that, with the single exception of LieutenantGovernor Eyre, it was well received by, I think, every member of the Council; those who in the first instance were opposed in some respects to it retracting their opposition when they more fully understood its provisions, even in some instances since informing me that they were satisfied that the difficult question of giving fitting institutions to New Zealand had been fully solved by it. The speech of Lieutenant-Governor Eyre on the second reading of the Bill having been extensively made use of by the few persons here who desire to embarrass my Administration, I think it right to enclose it to your Lordship, that Her Majesty's Government may have before them what is said upon that side of the question. He objects to it that I ought to have introduced it in jB4B, and that I ought not to have introduced it in 1851; both which objections, although they might naturally excite discontent, had clearly nothing whatever to do with the merits or demerits of the Bill The next principal objection of Lieutenant-Governor Eyre to the Provincial Councils Ordinance is that it ought to have been brought forward in 1848. I have so often and so fully explained the reasons why I thought that representative institutions should not at that period or at any time be, without great caution, introduced into New Zealand, that I shall not trouble your Lordship with further remarks on that subject; but I couid not have brought forward the Provincial Councils Ordinance in ]848, because I had not at that time in any manner arranged the details of such a plan. I only framed it after lengthened thought, with great trouble, and without having received one suggestion regarding it or any similar measure, or the slightest assistance, from Lieutenant-Governor Eyre. Before he made this objection he ought to have shown that the outline of such a system of institutions was in existence in 1848, or that he had suggested such an outline to me. I enclose to your Lordship a despatch addressed to me by Lieutenant-Governor Eyre (No. 102, of the 6th August, 1849) which contains the only suggestion he ever made to me regarding the Constitution or working of the system of Provincial Councils previously to the publication of the draft of the above-named Ordinance. I also enclose my reply (No. 60, 23rd September, 1849) to that despatch. This correspondence will, I think, show that Lieutenant-Governor Eyre's proceedings, even at that time were not calculated to aid in framing and working out a great system of polity adapted to these Islands ; and that, whether he himself sat as President of a Provincial Council or as senior member of a general Legislature, he equally contrived to disagree with his superior officer or with the officers serving immediately under him. Lieutenant-Governor Eyre's next objection is, that I ought not to have submitted the Provincial Councils Ordinance to the General Legislature at the time I did. Four days after LieutenantGovernor Eyre made that objection I received your Lordship's instructions to pursue the course I had adopted. I had thus, at this end of the world, without any communication on the subject with your Lordship, arrived at exactly the same conclusion regarding the course which my duty required me to adopt that your Lordship had arrived at at the other end of the world, with much more information on the subject than I possessed; and I by anticipation had adopted and was pursuing in New Zealand the precise terms of instructions which your Lordship at the very time was writing to me in London.