52

The unanimous and unreserved manner in
which you have approved and sanctioned the
large unauthorised expenditure that I felt
called upon to make during the last Financial
year, cannot fail to assure me that the Ex-
ecutive of this Province need be under no
apprehension that the large but necessary
and constitutional powers given to the Pro-
vincial Council under the Audit Act, will
ever be used by you in a spirit of hostility
or unfairness.

It must be a subject of congratulation to
you that you have been able to vote so large
a proportion of the ordinary revenue of the
Province to be expended on Public Works
and permanent improvements, and to set
apart such a handsome instalment towards
the repayment of the only debt incurred by
this Province.

I have to thank you for the energy with
which you have investigated every claim or
grievance that has been brought under your
notice by any individual, and I may be per-
mitted to express a hope that the public of
this province may long feel confident that
your Council offers an inexpensive tribunal
at which they may secure a patient and im-
partial inquiry into the manner in which the
necessarily large powers of the Provincial
Executive have been exercised upon any
subject affecting their liberty, their reputa-
tion, or their interest.

The liberal terms you have now enabled
the Waste Lands Board to offer to capitalists,
who may be prepared to construct such a
road as would place some of our best and
largest Coal Mines within easy reach of the
Buller Port will, I earnestly hope be the
means of inducing them to undertake a work
that could hardly fail to be a profitable in-
vestment, whilst it would add so largely to
the wealth and prosperity of this Province,
and give a great impetus to the commerce
and manufactures of Australasia, by giving
access to a supply of coal practically unli-
mited in quantity, and shown by the report
laid before you to be superior in quality to
any coal yet discovered in the southern
hemisphere.

I will immediately communicate with the
General Government with the view to ob-
taining permission to offer two or three mil-
lion acres of land to any company who
may undertake the construction of a railway,
connecting the Port of Nelson with the Ports
of the Buller and Grey. Without professing
to be at all sanguine that it will be possible
to induce capitalists to undertake the work,
I can unhesitatingly recommend the Governu-
ment to sanction an exchange that would im-
prove the security of the Colonial Creditor
as much as it would add to the real wealth
and value of this Province, and if the sanc-
tion of the General Assembly be obtained it
will be my duty to carry out your expressed
wishes by laying the offer fully before the
public without any unnecessary delay.

I now declare this Council prorogued.

ALFRED SAUNDERS,
Superintendent.

PROCLAMATION.

By his Honor ALFRED SAUNDERS, Esquire,
Superintendent of the Province of Nel-
son, in the Islands of New Zealand,
&c., &c.

WHEREAS by an Act passed
by the General Assembly of New
Zealand, intituled "The Gold-fields Acts
Amendment Act, 1865," it is enacted that
it shall be lawful for the Governor, at any
time subsequent to the proclamation of a
Gold-field to reserve or withdraw therefrom
any lands which he may deem necessary,
and such lands shall thenceforth be dealt
with under the Waste Lands Regulations of
the Province, in which such Gold-field is
situate :

And whereas by an instrument under the
hand of his Excellency the Governor and
the Seal of the Colony, bearing date the
Eighteenth day of November, 1865, the
above-mentioned powers were delegated to
me as Superintendent of the Province of
Nelson, to have, hold, and exercise within
the said Province.

Now, therefore, I, the Superintendent of
the Province of Nelson, do hereby withdraw
from the Collingwood Gold-fields, and from
the operation of the Gold-fields Acts—

All that parcel of land containing by ad-
measurement, one hundred and thirty-
eight acres and two roods, be the same
more or less ; situated in the district
of Takaka : bounded on the north-
ward (5,100 links) partly by Crown
lands and partly by section numbered
166 on the plan of the said district ;
on the eastward by the River Ana-
toki ; and on the southward (4,150
links) ; and westward (3,800 links)
by Crown lands.