17

Colonial Secretary\'s Office,
Auckland, Jan. 6, 1857.

SIR,—In reply to your letters of the 24th November and 16th December last, referring to Memorials forwarded by you from the Wellington Chamber of Commerce and from merchants and residents in that Province, on the subject of the steam postal service proposed to be established for New Zealand, I have herewith the honour to transmit copies of correspondence on this subject, in continuation of that already published, which will inform the memorialists of the views entertained by the Government of New Zealand with respect to it.

I have, &c.,
E. W. STAFFORD,
James Kelham, Esq., J.P.,
&c., &c., Wellington.

Superintendent\'s Office, Christchurch,
December 16, 1856.

SIR,—I have the honour respectfully to lay before your Excellency the enclosed copy of Resolutions which have been passed by the Provincial Council of this Province.

I have, &c.,
JAMES EDWARD FITZ GERALD.
His Excellency
The Governor of New Zealand,
&c., &c., &c.

CANTERBURY.
Extract from the Journal of Proceedings of the Provincial Council.
Tuesday, November 25, 1856.

"Motion made, and question proposed—

"That this Council learns with the greatest concern that the General Government have determined that the New Zealand mail brought by the steamers from England to Melbourne shall be forwarded thence to Auckland, as such an arrangement will entirely deprive the Southern Provinces of the advantages which they ought to derive from the steam service, for which they will have to pay the largest share of the required bonus.

"That in the opinion of this Council any steam service from Australia which is supported out of the General Public Revenues ought to provide for the conveyance of the English mail to the most central port of the colony, so that all the Provinces may share in the benefit of the arrangement.

"That a copy of these Resolutions be transmitted to his Honor the Superintendent, with a respectful request that his Honor will cause them to be laid before his Excellency the Governor and the Government.

"That Mr. Speaker do also transmit a copy of these Resolutions to the Honorable the Speaker of each House of the General Assembly.

"Question put and agreed to,"
GEORGE A. E. ROSS,
Clerk to the Council.

Port Lyttelton, New Zealand,
17th December, 1856.

SIR,—Be pleased to take an early opportunity to bring under his Excellency the Governor\'s consideration, the accompanying Memorial of the Merchants and other residents of this Province, touching the prejudice to the Southern Settlements of the proposed steam postal communication for the entirety of New Zealand, to be passed from Melbourne only, and always thence direct to Auckland.

I am, &c.,
R. LATTER.

E. W. Stafford, Esq.,
Colonial Secretary,
Auckland.

To His Excellency Colonel THOMAS GORE BROWNE, Companion of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Her Majesty\'s Colony of New Zealand, and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c., &c.

The humble memorial of the undersigned Merchants, Traders, and Residents in the Province of Canterbury,

Humbly sheweth,—

That your Memorialists respectfully desire to lay before your Excellency the injustice done to Canterbury by the arrangement made by your Excellency\'s Government as to the delivery of Mails at Auckland for the whole of New Zealand, under the new Steam Postal Service.

Your Memorialists submit in the first place, that by the abovementioned arrangement their mails are made to undergo a most circuitous route to Canterbury, and secondly from the very short stay the steamer is to make in Auckland, that it will be quite impossible for your memorialists or the residents in any other of the Southern ports to reply to their letters by the same steamer on her return trip to Melbourne.

Your Memorialists would most respectfully have been disposed to submit to your Excellency that Wellington, from its more central position, would have afforded Canterbury and all the other Southern Settlements more facility in communication.