8

tody and careful medical treatment of
lunatics.

It is my intention to lay before you
estimates of financial requirements for
the half-year ending 30th September
next, and while regarding your present
meeting as a session of emergency, I
propose to defer the consideration of
certain defective Ordinances; among
others the Cattle Trespass Ordinance,
until your next session, when it will
be my duty to send down for your de-
liberate discussion various amendments
of the law, which the progress of the
Province has rendered advisable.

But as it is possible that the General
Assembly may entertain a very impor-
tant and extensive exercise of their
powers, and in a manner calculated to
excite a very material influence on the
scope of your legislative action, you
will agree with me that it would be
wise, so far as is practicable, to post-
pone to a future session the enactment
of new laws, in the hope that the rela-
tive positions and respective functions
of the General and Provincial Legisla-
tures will in the meanwhile have been
accurately and unmistakeably defined.

There are, however, several matters
with which it is the business of your
body alone to deal, and to these I shall
call your immediate notice.

It has been found necessary that cer-
tain doubts as to the interpretation of
particular clauses in the Waste Lands'
Regulations should be at once re-
moved; to which end I shall submit to
you a short bill, having for its object a
more effective declaration of the prin-
ciples that are intended by the spirit of
the Regulations to govern the admi-
nistration of the Waste Lands, a vague-
ness in that clause which relates to the
exercise of the pre-emptive rights hav-
ing led to inconveniences almost amount-
ing to injustice in individual cases that
have come within my observation.

I would also suggest to you the ad-
dition to the regulations of a provision
enabling Government to reserve a right
to lay out public roads through all sec-
tions of land in unsurveyed districts
which may hereafter be bought of the
Crown—the consideration for such re-
served right being au additional acreage
allowed to the purchaser at the time of
purchase. It will be for you to deter-
mine what per centage of land shall be
given in respect of such reserved right,
which I would suggest should be exer-
cised by Government, or abandoned
within a period of five years from the
date of the purchase.

I shall also lay before you a bill to
provide suitable reserves of lands, being
part of the late Canterbury Associa-
tion's estate, for the use of certain or-
ganized religious bodies within the
Province.

The extension of secular education
and religious instruction being a mat-
ter seriously important to the social
well-being of the Province, I shall ask
you to sanction small reserves of land
in the different settled districts which
have been suggested as convenient sites
for churches and schools.

The rapidly increasing imports of the
Province having rendered the provision
of extended accommodation in the
offices of Her Majesty's Customs a
matter of urgent necessity, I shall
therefore, in pursuance of arrange-
ments entered into with the Represen-
tative of the General Government, ask
your assent to a bill enabling me, under
the provisions of the Public Reserves
Act, to convey to the General Govern-
ment the site of the Custom-house as
reserved by the late Canterbury Asso-
ciation, upon which site it is proposed
by the General Government to erect a
Custom-house and other buildings ne-
cessary to the public service.

In perusing the several statistical re-
turns which will be laid before you, you
will be gratified to observe the great in-
crease of our exports and imports during
the past year. On reference to the returns
of previous years you will perceive
that the extension of our commerce
grows in a greatly increasing ratio each
succeeding year—a fact affording the
strongest presumptive evidence that
the balance of trade must very shortly
be materially in favor of the Province.

At an early period of the session
you will be put in possession of your
estimated Provincial Revenue for the
ensuing year, from which you will
gather that an increase in the sales and
rentals of the Waste Lands of the Pro-
vince quite in proportion to the in-
crease in the Customs' Revenue is
reckoned upon. This estimate is jus-
tified by the experience of the last fi-
nancial year, at the commencement of
which the late Government anticipated
receiving an amount which was at that
time generally considered large; yet,
in fact Government realised a sum