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grave mis-statements and implications against the Government of New Zealand which this letter contains.

Your Honour observes that although the Canterbury Empowering Ordinance purports to confer upon the Superintendent the power of appointing Resident Magistrates, within the Province, the knowledge that doubts are entertained in influential quarters, as to whether the Provincial Legislature could confer such a power, will, you believe, deter any gentleman from incurring the risks attendant upon acting under the Commission of the Superintendent.

I am aware of these doubts, and of the serious risks which might be incurred by persons acting in cases where their authority for so acting is so liable to question, and cannot therefore understand why your Honour should persist in placing gentlemen in so doubtful, if not dangerous, a position, for it must not be overlooked that each commission was subsequently issued by the Governor to any person previously appointed a Resident Magistrate by your Honour, and retrospective validity to any acts of such person between the date of its issue, and that of the appointment by your Honour; and if it should be asserted that a knowledge of this fact will prevent the person appointed by your Honour from acting until the Governor's Commission is received, the only possible reason for the appointment, (where so much doubt exists with respect to it), viz., the urgent necessity for immediate action following upon it, is entirely removed.

Your Honour would appear to be in error in stating that the late Government of the Colony voluntarily undertook to quiet these doubts, by advising the issue of a Commission in cases where you had appointed Resident Magistrates. No such undertaking is on record; nor did the issue of a Commission by the Governor follow the appointment of a Resident Magistrate by your Honour in any case, except that of Mr. Tancred, who received a Commission on the special ground stated in Colonial Secretary's letter transmitting it, and as the General Government desired not to be implicated in any doubts as to the validity of acts done under the authority of the previous appointment by your Honour, it ignored that appointment altogether, and notified de novo in the Government Gazette Mr. Tancred's appointment to the office by his Excellency.

Your Honour next states that since writing your despatch of the 8th of October last, (intimating your appointment of Mr. Brittan), you had acquainted the Government that Mr. Tancred had resigned, and that you had appointed Mr. Hall in his place, who, as also Mr. Brittan, you, however, think it probable will refuse to act when made aware of the correspondence between your Honour and the Government on this subject; and you state that there will therefore, so far as you can perceive, be "no court of law of any description within the Province of Canterbury for the next two months," and assert that, "the responsibility of this must rest entirely with his Excellency's Government."

To these statements I have to reply that, at the date of my letter of the 27th November, I could have no knowledge of Mr. Tancred's intention, inasmuch as it was only announced in your letter of the 24th of the same month, received by the last Zingari, along with that of the 10th December. A grave doubt moreover exists whether Mr. Tancred can resign a Commission from the Governor of New Zealand to issue and the authority by whom it was issued. Should such a resignation be valid, it is still further confusing the responsibility for the administration of justice, adds to the many conclusive reasons why your Honour's appointments should not be supplemented by the Governor.

I am unable to conceive how the refusal, (should it occur), of Mr. Hall or Mr. Brittan to act under the appointment of your Honour, although it may be a very sufficient reason for your not making such appointments, is a matter for which the General Government is responsible, as the latter Government has no knowledge of any determination with respect to the acceptance, resignation, or refusal to act upon Provincial appointments, and which may from time to time be come to by the persons holding such appointments.

I am equally at a loss how to construe your Honour's statement that there would be no court of law of any description in the Province at a time when, (in addition to Mr. Tancred), Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Moorhouse, and Mr. Watson hold the commission of a Resident Magistrate, and 27 gentlemen