Superintendent’s Office, Auckland,

July 16, 1855.

Sir,—I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of the reply to my second request that His Excellency the Officer administering the Government would be pleased to grant a Provincial dissolution.

His Excellency again declines compliance, and likewise causes me to be informed, in reference to the reason which you assigned for his non-compliance with my first request, that his intention had been misunderstood by me.

I receive His Excellency’s decision with that deference which it is my duty to observe ; and ask leave to state my regret that the words in which His Excellency’s intention was intimated should have conveyed to my mind an idea different to that which they were meant to express.

His Excellency has intimated an opinion that the present Council should be called together. I have the honour to state that I have signed a proclamation summoning the Council for the 15th day of August next.

His Excellency has expressed his willingness, after the condition of calling the Council together shall have been fulfilled, favourably to entertain any suitable proposition for relieving the Provincial Government, Executive and Legislative, from any difficulty in which they may then find themselves involved.

I have to thank His Excellency for this manifestation of his desire to serve the Province, and to observe that I feel assured of the New Zealand ministry (should ministerial responsibility, as there is reason to expect, be established within the next few weeks) being willing to carry out His Excellency’s present intention.

To you, sir, on account of the censure apparently implied in the observations with which you accompany the announcement of His Excellency’s refusal, I may offer some additional remarks.

You speak of “The Appropriation Act passed in April last having expired;” of Provincial establishments which must “either be broken up or maintained by illegally dealing with the public money;” of a dissolution if granted forcing the continuance of such a state of things “for some months longer;” and of the propriety of affording the Provincial Council “at least an opportunity of rendering lawful the expenditure of the public money.”

By going more closely into particulars, a very different impression would be conveyed.

I am compelled to vindicate the Provincial Government by remarking:—

Firstly,—There you would have been more strictly exact had you stated that only Schedule B of the Appropriation Act passed in April last having expired; by far the greater portion of the Revenue, including the sums voted for the public works in Schedule C, having been appropriated so as to render its expenditure lawful at any timesoever.

Secondly—That the sums contained in Schedule B, appropriated until the 30th of June last, are mainly for the payment of official salaries, which would not again become due in the ordinary course until the 1st of August next.

But should the Provincial Government, following the occasional practice of Governor Grey, order such payments to be made quarterly instead of monthly, they would not become due until the 1st of October next.

It would therefore seem that your observations concerning the breaking up of Provincial establishments might properly have been expressed in less general terms.

Thirdly—That my first application for a dissolution was made on the second day of May.

Allowing six weeks (practically speaking, an ample, even a superfluous time) for the return of the writs, a new Provincial Council might have met any time after the 13th of June following.

Assuming the inexpediency of any election prior to the completion of the revised Electoral Roll, still, by so timing a dissolution that the writs might have been running during May and the earlier part of June, the polling might have taken place shortly after the 25th of June.

Supposing dissolution to have been postponed until the completion, on the 25th of June, of the revised Electoral Roll, a Council might still meet any time after the 6th of August next.

You make especial reference to the expenditure necessary to keep up the Police Force and Gaol. These certainly, together with the Hospital, are not to be classed with mere official salaries, which brook reasonable delay, inasmuch as they involve not only the security of the citizens, but human suffering and even life itself.

By your allusion, in terms conveying the impression of censure, to the management of the Provincial Revenue, you entitle me to remind you that the present expenditure of the General Government is not only without the sanction, but partly in direct opposition to the expressed opinion of the Representatives.

I may also remind you that while only a portion of the Provincial appropriation is at an end, the whole of the appropriation of the General Government has terminated.

Had the Provincial Government been made aware, from the beginning, that no dissolution would be allowed, much difficulty might have been avoided.

But it was firstly intimated—that no dissolution could take place before the completion of the revised Electoral Roll.

Secondly,—In answer to petitions from the country presented with an announcement of others being yet to come—that the question would be considered when the supplementary petitions should be received.

Thirdly,—On my informing the General