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conjunction with my advisers, to advance such sums as the exigency of the circumstances might require; and it cannot fail to be to you, as it has been to me, a source of much pleasure to know that the sum of six thousand pounds which I advanced before arrangements could be made by the General Government, aided materially to ameliorate the condition of those whose unfortunate position presented so strong a claim on our sympathies and support.

4. In consequence of this advance, some portion of the Public Works, for the execution of which this sum had been voted, were delayed, while whether the for the present, in consequence of the lateness of the season, been postponed until the coming spring. The districts which have been least attended to under these circumstances have been those containing the smallest population, and as such are likely to be put in the same convenience.

5. The Public Works carried on since your last Session have been chiefly such as were already commenced when I last addressed you. The New Wharf has been, as you are aware, some time completed, and realizes to the fullest extent the advantages anticipated from its erection. The iron lighthouse, sent to England before your last meeting, was to be shipped, as I learnt by the last mail, with every appurtenance for the erection of the building and the maintenance of the light in the completest order, on board the Glenshee, on the 25th of February last. The letters detailing these arrangements will be laid before you; and I take this opportunity of publicly expressing my sense of the obligation under which, I think you will agree with me, the Province of Nelson lies to the gentleman to the power of accepting the contract, and deciding on other matters connected with the work, was entrusted—Mr. James Stuart Tytler, of Edinburgh, on so many occasions has evinced, by active services, the interest he feels in the settlement of which he was one of the most valued pioneers.

6. The large sums voted by you, and placed at the disposal of the respective Road Boards, have enabled them, not only to keep the main Trunk lines in a state of good repair, but by aiding in settlement, to assist the residents on and near the Branch lines, to put those lines into such a condition as will in many cases bear comparison with the men and contribute much to the prosperity and convenience of those resident in their neighborhood.

7. The Gold Fields' Act having made the Collingwood and part of the Takaka District, an almost totally distinct and isolated part of the Province, so far as their government is concerned, and there being no provision on the Act whereby either the Superintendent of the Province, or this Council can claim to be made acquainted with its operation, I am unable to give you any official information as to its progress or otherwise. I have however caused the sums, which I placed on the Estimates and which were voted by you, to be expended under circumstances with which you will be more fully informed by the correspondence which will be laid before you. The sums expended by me on that District since the Act came into operation amounted to £7,893 15s. 1d. up to the 31st of March last. These works I consider to be necessary for the present requirements and the progress of what I am still desirous of viewing as a component and important part of our Province, and I shall have occasion to request of you to vote some further sums for the improvement of certain portions of the works and for some repairs rendered necessary by the late disastrous floods.

8. On former occasions I have alluded to the great lines of Road to the different out-lying Districts of the Province, on the construction and extension of which its advance so greatly depends. The middle line to Canterbury by the Waiau Gorge and the Acheron now be considered a good and convenient bridle road, for the summer, through the heart of the Province, though some improvements remain to be effected which are now in progress.

9. The road thence through the Amuri District to the Coast and some other works in that quarter have for reasons which I have before stated, as well on account of the great demand on the time of the Provincial Engineer for other works, been unavoidably postponed to next season.

10. The branch road from the middle line to the Grey District by Lake Tennyson and the upper Waiau, which from the explorations of last year was expected would be found practicable along the whole route, appears from the reports of the last season, to present difficulties about the valleys leading into the Grey District than were anticipated. The line opened by Messrs. Travers and Maling, alluded to in my address last year, was pursued by Mr. Lewis, of the Survey Department; but the two streams supposed by that gentleman to lead into the Ahaura (a great tributary of the Grey) were found by the subsequent explorations of Messrs. Maling and Handyside to turn suddenly to the eastward and fall into the Waiau River. Further explorations may yet prove a pass to be practicable to the Grey in that direction, when some of the natural difficulties of the country have been removed by a little road-making. In the meantime the attention of Government has been directed to opening a route on the northward and westward by Mount Arthur and the valleys running south from the Karamea River to the Buller, recommended by Mr. Rochfort, and across the last named river by the Inangahua or Thackeray Valley to the Grey. The sheet is now exploring the former part of this route, and if the result of his labors prove satisfactory, it will form a continuation of the road to the new diggings in the neighborhood of the Wangapeka.

11. The road to these diggings at present in use is the old one over Spooner's range from Fox Hill to the Motueka Valley by Norris's Gully. A party is now employed in continuing this dray road up the Tadmore Valley, and across the Tadmore range to the Sherry and Wangapeka plains; so that in about a month's time a dray road will be opened from Nelson to the head of the Wangapeka plain, within ten miles of the spot where the diggers are actually at work. This last ten miles of the road will be opened as a bullock track in about a fortnight.

12. A new road, by which a saving of fourteen miles in distance to the diggings will be effected, has been indicated and partially explored, and there is little doubt that the result of these explorations, which are still going on, will be a practicable route for drays from Waimea West, by a valley which has been named Dove Dale, into the Motueka Valley and thence up the Wangapeka River to the plain of that name. This line will also open up a considerable quantity of available agricultural land, in the valleys intervening between Waimea West and the Motueka, which it is highly desirable to render accessible for settlement, either by our old settlers or newly arriving immigrants.

13. For greater facility of communication, and also to open up the available land in Pigeon Valley, a bullock-track should be made, connecting the road up the latter valley with the one from Waimea West through Dove Dale to Motueka.

14. The new tracts of available land to which I have just alluded, in addition to those already surveyed and for sale, supply, as I have said, the means of settling a considerable population, and sufficiently