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and who visited the diggings apparently without any fixed object in view. Those now engaged are reported to be profitably employed, and but little doubt exists that for many years to come that district will continue to give employment to a large number of persons at a rate of wages considerably above the average derived from any other industrial pursuit in this province, and that the produce of this district will continue to form, if not our first, certainly our second, staple export. With these views, formed after several personal inspections of the district, I have not hesitated to expend on the public works an amount considerably in excess of that placed at my disposal for that purpose by the Council.

10. While upon the subject of the gold-fields, I may observe, that an application was made to me to lease, for twenty-one years, a block of four square miles of the auriferous land of the Collingwood district; but as the existing land regulations did not warrant me in acceding to the request of the applicant, and as this Council had devoted much time and attention to the consideration of the best mode of dealing with that description of land, but for want of the necessary powers had not been able to embody its views into a law, but had expressed its desire that the General Assembly should receive its resolutions as an expression of its opinion of the requirements of this province on this particular subject, I had no alternative but to decline acceding to the request of the applicant. Other applications have since been made by combined bodies of practical diggers, or leases of blocks varying in size from three o one hundred acres, and I regret that the measures adopted by this Council, and subsequently passed, I believe with little substantial alteration, by the General Assembly, have not yet become law within the province; the bills relating to the subject having been reserved for the signification of her Majesty's pleasure thereon, in consequence of which the General Government have also been, and still are, unable to comply with the requests of the various applicants.

11. Reverting to the subject of the opening up of the country, I have to inform you that very great progress has been made during the past year in the survey of lands for sale or settlement. For sale, about 67,347 acres have been surveyed; and in addition to this there are tracts containing about 300,000 acres, all of which such general surveys have been executed that sales of them can be effected. About eighty miles of traversing, to connect the different parts of our previous surveys, have been also made, and a surveyor has been for some time engaged in a general outline survey of the western districts of the province, which, with the description to accompany it, will

greatly advance our knowledge of them, and prepare the way for their future settlement.

12. In accordance with the system of immigration which has for some time been adopted in this province, that of advancing the passage money of immigrants on a guarantee for its repayment by their friends resident in this settlement—a system affording the best security for the good character of the immigrants, and for their permanent residence in the province—about 300 souls have been sent for, all that have been applied for up to this time; the first portion of which number may be expected to arrive, the vessel they are to come in having left England on the 29th December last.

13. Among the measures which I consider it advisable to submit for your consideration during the present session will be a bill for providing the means to give compensation to those persons who were induced to emigrate to this province under promises made to them through the agents of the New Zealand Company, and which were not fulfilled; the consequence of which was an amount of suffering and distress, which, when viewed even at this distance of time, cannot be contemplated without feelings of sorrow, and for which redress could not be obtained in consequence of the poverty and helplessness of the claimants: had such not been the case, there is no reasonable doubt that the success which attended the claims of both resident and absentee purchasers of land, would have been the same in their cases. In accordance with the wishes of the Council, I instructed the Commissioners appointed under the Compensation Act, 1857, to collect further evidence in reference to the claims submitted to them: this has been done, and a report thereon presented to me, a copy of which will be laid before you. The facts elicited by this second investigation induce me to submit their claims again to your consideration, confidently anticipating that, their suffering and losses are patent to most members of this Council, you will aid me in doing, even at this distant period, that justice to which their claims entitle them.

14. I have particularly to urge on your consideration the claims of those who were left widows and orphans by the death of their husbands and fathers, in the affray at Wairau in 1843, in their attempt to support the legally constituted authorities.

15. A bill will also be laid before you, having for its object the making of free grants of land, under certain conditions, to naval and military settlers, who have been excluded under the existing regulations in consequence of their having received their discharge previous to the regulations becoming law. As most, if not all, of this class were