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who are able to wait upon themselves, by removing them to the Taranaki Buildings, amongst the other infirm poor. It is therefore not my intention to ask for a vote for enlarging the hospital this session, but should it next year appear that more hospital accommodation should be provided, I think it would be best provided by erecting a new and convenient hospital on more elevated and open ground, a little further removed from the centre of the town, and offering a greater space for exercise, &c. Much of the necessary expense of such an erection could be met by the sale of the building and land now used for a purpose for which the building was never designed or adapted.

XVIII.—The treatment of the lunatics in this province has been improving for many years past, and is now tolerably satisfactory, considering the means at our command, being humane and rational. Nine patients have during the past year left the asylum cured, and two have returned to their friends, so that although ten new cases have been admitted the number at present in the establishment is one, one than at the close of last year. I shall ask you to sanction some small outlay that will tend to relieve the patients from apparent restraint, and furnish them when possible with interesting occupation.

XIX.—Full returns of the census taken in December last will be laid upon your table. By those returns the increase of population since 1861 appears to have been only 1800, but many gold miners travelling and living in tents would necessarily escape enumeration. During the four months which have passed of the present year, 2090 males and 144 females have left the Port of Nelson, and 2151 males and 255 females have arrived, leaving a balance in favor of immigration of 61 males and 111 females.

There has been a considerable decrease in the number of acres sown with wheat and barley, although a large increase in the acreage of oats. The quantity of land laid down in artificial grasses has been increased from 12,156 acres to 22,740 acres.

Horses have increased from 2,355 in 1861, to 3,597 in 1864. Cattle from 11,105 to 15,525.

The absence of progress in agriculture apparent in these statistics is satisfactorily accounted for by facts which show that the industry of our population has been largely directed to mining and pastoral pursuits, our export of gold having in three years increased from £25,278 to £90,049, and wool from £5,801 to £14,768, the number of sheep having also increased from 181,376 to 344,281.

On the important question of education the facts brought to light by the census will probably compare favorably with the returns from the other provinces of this colony, and continue to show a marked and adequate results have been obtained by the great in-crease of public money that has been voted with a view to increase their efficiency.

The number of the population above 15 years of age who cannot read is now reduced to 2.44 per cent.

whilst the proportion of those above 16 years who could not read in 1861 was 4.86 per cent.; the number under the same ages who cannot write has decreased from 11.06 per cent. to 7.80 per cent. Of those under 15 years of age last December 63.72 per cent. could read, and 47.51 per cent. could read and write; whilst of those under the age of 16 in 1861 only 52.80 per cent. could read, and 38.30 per cent. could read and write.

The attendance at the schools supported by the large grants you have so liberally voted for that purpose has not even kept pace with the increase of population, having only increased from 1260 in 1861 to 1450 in 1864, whilst in the city of Nelson the attendance at the female schools supported by Government aid appears to have decreased from 241 in 1861 to 122 in 1864, and nearly five-sevenths of the girls attending school are sent to private schools. You will regret to learn by these figures that whilst in 1861, 1360 children were educated at Government schools supported by a grant including the proportion of land sales of £3,240 17s. 8d., or £2 7s. 7d. each child, in 1864 1450 children were educated by a grant of £5,200 or £3 11s. 8d. each child, this latter grant being exclusive of the proportion of land sales paid to the Central Board, which I believe is now set apart as a permanent endowment fund for educational purposes.

The census return upon this subject will be valued for their admitted impartiality rather than for their absolute reliability, and it may be right to observe that there are strong grounds for believing that there is some exaggeration in the number of children there recorded as attending day schools.

XX.—In thoughtfully reviewing the history of this province since the management of our public provincial interests has been entrusted to its inhabitants, we find great cause for congratulation and thankfulness. If our progress cannot be called rapid, it has been remarkably steady; if we have not participated in the large government expenditure which has added to the apparent, if not to the real, prosperity of some other provinces, we have been free from the alarm and depression which always attends the withdrawal of such extraneous support; and if our natural advancement has not been greatly anticipated by the disbursement of any very extensive loans, we can look with more confidence to a failure that will not show such large portions of our revenue annually impounded for interest and sinking fund.

In material progress, as shown by the quality and length of roads; in the general education of those who have grown up in the province, as seen by the facts collected in the census last December; and by the remarkable security to life and property, which is perhaps most strikingly evinced by the general neglect of the common precautions for its protection that are considered necessary in almost every other place,—Nelson occupies a creditable, if not a prominent, position amongst the offshoots of the great Empire to which we are so proud to owe our origin and our allegiance.

ALFRED SAUNDERS.
Superintendent.

Printed under the authority of the Provincial Government of Nelson, by R. LUCAS, Bridge-street, Nelson,
Official Printer for the time being to the said Government.