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after visiting an intermediate port, or ports. And it being equally notorious that great inconvenience is thereby entailed upon the Public, inasmuch as in the first instance, the delivering of the mails is indefinitely delayed, and in the second, the intermediate ports receive no mail at all.

Resolved:

That an address be presented to His Excellency the Governor, and to both Houses of the General Assembly, praying them to pass a law to remedy the evil above detailed, and for a more regular and uniform transmission of the mails.

Resolutions on the Waste Lands. Adopted 8th March, 1854.

This Council having taken into their consideration the “draft terms of purchase and pasturage for the Waste Lands of the Crown within the Province of Canterbury,” submitted to the Council by His Honor the Superintendent. Resolve:

1. That this Council approve generally of the plan now proposed by His Honor for the management of the Waste Lands; and especially of the price proposed for their sale and for letting the same on lease, as being most applicable to the circumstances and condition of the Province; with the exception that the Council are of opinion that the Lands should be sold in Blocks of not less than 20 acres instead of 40 as laid down in Rule 9.

2. That the Speaker be requested to transmit the above resolution to His Honor the Superintendent with a request that His Honor would bring them before the General Assembly in case that body should refuse to place the management of the Waste Lands under the Provincial Government.

Message from His Honor the Superintendent, submitting to the Provincial Council, a Bill for the appropriation of the Revenues of the Province for the ensuing year. Dated, March 15th.

His Honor the Superintendent, in submitting a Bill to the Provincial Council for the appropriation of the Revenues of the Province for the ensuing year, requests the attention of the Council to the following observations.

By the Resolutions of the 9th November, the Council declined to appropriate the revenues until they were satisfied of their right to make such appropriation by law; and the doubts there expressed have been shared by most of the Provincial Legislatures of the Colony...

Since the passing of those Resolutions a revenue properly belonging to the Province has been created by the Provincial Revenues’ Ordinance of last Session, which has been allowed by His Excellency, and there can be no doubt but that such Revenues ought to be appropriated by the Council.

The inconvenience of appropriating such Revenue apart from the other funds at the disposal of the Provincial Government is obvious, and ought, if possible, to be avoided.

The measure now submitted has been framed so as to assert in the more formal manner of an Ordinance, the same principles which the Council has already asserted by resolution. It proposes to get rid of the inconvenience of allowing Revenues now becoming of considerable magnitude to be appropriated without the sanction of law; whilst by declaring that the payment under the present instructions are accepted from the General Government as a temporary loan in aid of the Provincial Revenues, and that the Province undertakes to account for them in such manner as the General Assembly shall direct, it maintains a perfect consistency with the line the Council has previously taken on this subject.

The Bill distinctly proclaims that the Provincial Legislature appropriates that only which it lawfully can appropriate, namely the Public Revenues of the Province, that it does not legalize the apportionment to the Province without law of any part of the General Revenues of the Colony. It proposes to accept such part of the General Revenues as a temporary loan, declaring the right of the General Assembly to sanction the arrangement, and undertaking to account for, and if necessary, to repay such advances; and this Bill will have the further advantage of placing the matter in the most distinct and definite shape in which it can be brought before the General Assembly.

For these reasons the Superintendent hopes that the Bill now submitted will be passed by the Council.

JAMES EDWARD FITZ GERALD,
Superintendent.

Vote in aid of the repair of the Bridle road under the hills and of the road from the bridge at the Market-place to the cemetery, and to rural section No. 33. Adopted March 23rd.

That a sum not exceeding the sum of £100 is approved of as a vote in aid of the repair of the Bridle road under the hills, and of the road from the bridge at the Market-place to the cemetery and to rural section No. 33: in the proportion of £70 to the first, and £30 to the second.

Resolution in reference to the erection of a Beacon. Adopted 21st March.

That His Honor be requested to add to the estimates, the sum of £80 for the erection of a Beacon at the entrance of the harbour.