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during the September quarter of this year being 1,879 in excess of those in attendance during the same quarter of last year. You will be asked to give effect to the recommendations of the Board, by making further provision for more effective schools in the large centres of population, and also for a training establishment for teachers. It will be through this means that a more completely organized system of education will be established, the benefits of which will be felt throughout the Province, graduating from the rudimentary teaching of the infant school to the higher branches of teaching in the high schools and colleges. The success which has attended the Collegiate Union indicates that the time has arrived when more full and permanent provision should be made for rendering the benefits of the highest education accessible to all classes of the community.

I shall ask you to make appropriations and endowments for the promotion of superior education in a college or colleges in the Province, by the establishment of Professorships and Scholarships. I cannot leave this subject without expressing my sense of great obligation under which the Province rests to the Board of Education for the time and labour which it has so successfully bestowed in the performance of the duties assigned to it under the Education Ordinance.

On several previous occasions I have called your attention to the necessity for increasing Wharfage Accommodation in Lyttelton, if we are to expect to derive the full advantage of the extension of our Railway system. Two berths for large vessels will shortly be completed on the breakwater, but a more ample provision is necessary to meet the growing requirements of the Port. An Act was passed in the General Assembly in its last Session giving power to borrow £100,000 for the purpose of completing an effective system of wharfage as soon as possible. I hope that you will see the advantage of the Province availing itself of the provisions of this Act, and a resolution affirming the desirableness of its adoption will be submitted for your consideration.

The Rakaia Bridge will shortly be open for traffic, simultaneously with the opening of the Railway to that point.

The successful completion of the Rangitata Bridge is also a subject for congratulation.

I am informed that it is the intention of the Colonial Government to press on the construction of the main lines north and south to the Kowai and across the Ashburton rivers.

I am further informed that all the branch lines authorised by the General Assembly will be proceeded with simultaneously, as recommended by you, and as rapidly as may be warranted by advices of shipment of permanent way and material from England. The opening of telegraphic communication between the United Kingdom and the Australian colonies, the importance of which on other grounds can scarcely be overrated, will no doubt greatly facilitate the operations of the Colonial Government, both in this respect and in regard to their arrangements for immigration.

The plans for the Timaru and Temuka Railway are, I am advised, in a forward state and the line will shortly be advertised for contract.

A letter from the Minister for Public Works, showing the progress of the lines of railways and the surveys will be laid before you.

A very clear and able report on the returns and condition of the lines of railway now in working order in the province will be laid before you. The result shown is a nett return of receipts over expenditure for the year ending September 30th, 1872, of about £20,000; the receipts being, in round numbers, £60,000, and the expenditure on maintenance and working expenses being, £40,000.