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tralia, by means of steam vessels, may be established.

13. Reports from the Commissioner of Public Works will be laid before you, detailing the nature of the works executed during the past year. When the difficulty of procuring the necessary labour in many of the districts and the high price of materials are considered, it will be satisfactory to you, to learn to what extent the means of communication throughout the Province have been improved.

14. I have received from Captain Drury, of H.M.S. Pandora, suggestions with reference to the placing of buoys and beacons in the Waimea river and French Pass. Tracings of those places, and of the Pelorus, have also been furnished to me by that officer, to whom the Province is thus much indebted for valuable information, which it might otherwise have been difficult to obtain.

15. The question of Public Education is one than which none deserves your more attentive consideration, as affecting the future well-being, or the reverse, of the various communities now fast growing up throughout the Province. The universally-admitted necessity of educating those whom it is desired to elevate—the circumstance that the nature of the education supplied to the young will influence alike their character and conduct as members of society, and their capacity to exercise the political privileges conferred upon their fathers, and which, through them, will descend to their children—places upon all who have the power of so materially shaping the future of this colony, for good or for evil, an amount of responsibility which cannot be evaded. With reference to this subject, the copy of a resolution of the Legislative Council has been forwarded to me, with a request that I would obtain and transmit, for the consideration of the General Assembly, such information as might enable it to determine, whether the education of the youth of New Zealand could be extended or improved by the intervention of the State. It will be my duty to request an expression of your opinion on this question, the decision with respect to which chiefly rests with you. And I would suggest that in considering the subject, it should not be forgotten that a large amount of primary instruction is now being supplied by schools, established by various religious denominations and by private societies, the founders of which appear to be solely actuated by a generous zeal for the public good, well deserving the approbation of the Legislature of the Province.

16. By recent despatches I am informed that one-half of the net receipts from the Customs and Crown lands, for the year commencing on the first of July last, is to be retained by the General Government. As the amount which will be thus abstracted from the Revenue of the Provinces is nearly double that of the Expenditure authorized by the General Assembly, it cannot but be regarded as an unwise detention, and might have been usefully employed on Public Works, and in promoting Immigration; and the loss of which, for the present, will retard the progress of the respective Provinces whence they are derived. With respect to this subject, it is also to be regretted that no accounts of the sums received and spent by the General Government, whereby the amount due to the Province for the future might have been estimated with certainty, have been furnished for the last twelve months.

17. Notwithstanding this large deduction from the revenue, I am happy to be able to inform you that a very considerable sum will be at your disposal for the current financial year. The actual Revenue during the past year having exceeded that estimated by the sum of £16,023 18s. 10d., while the Expenditure was less than that authorized by £1,928 17s. 9d.; the sum of £18,522 19s. 9d. is consequently available towards the Expenditure of the current year, which, when added to the estimated receipts for the same period, will, besides defraying the expenses of the various departments of the Government, furnish a sum of about £25,000 to be appropriated to Public Works and Immigration. A detailed financial statement will be forwarded to you with the Estimates.

18. Amongst the various measures which will be submitted for your consideration will be Bills

For providing for the Health of Towns,
For diverting Lines of Road,
For establishing the Salary of the Superintendent,
For preventing injury to Highways and Fences,
For collecting authentic Statistical Information, &c.

19. The amount of duties consequent upon the progress of the Province which devolve upon the Superintendent, entails so constant an attendance upon the routine duties of the office, as materially to interfere with that most important function of a Government, the consideration of the measures essential to the future development of the Province, and renders it desirable that a Provincial Secretary should be appointed. A Bill with that object will accordingly be laid before you.

20. The necessity of establishing a Public Hospital will require your attention. On this subject I have received many valuable suggestions, which will be transmitted to you, from medical gentlemen resident in the Province, to whom I am under a great obligation for the trouble they have taken in recording their opinions on a question of such public importance.

21. I would recommend the appointment of a Committee of the Council to investigate and report upon the question of the debt to the New Zealand Company, in so far as it may affect this Province. Such a report will be of great assistance to Mr. Adderley, who has been appointed by the General Assembly for the purpose of conducting an investigation into the character of a debt, with respect to the imposition of which the inhabitants of the Province have