lency, men cannot starve, and if things go on so we cannot answer for ourselves; hunger will cause things to be done that would never have entered in our heads otherwise.

We therefore humbly Petition your Excellency to consider the matter over well. There are now upwards of fifty persons unemployed, and more expected daily from the Fisheries, who are mostly as bad off as what we are, having had bad seasons. We therefore hope your Excellency will do something for us, for which, as in duty bound, your Petitioners will ever pray.

(Signed) Arthur Goldvan, and others.

We have formed a deputation to wait upon your Excellency, to state our case more particularly.

To which His Excellency was pleased to return the following reply :-

To Arthur Goldvan, and the Workmen on whose behalf he is deputed,--

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your petition on the subject of the change which has lately taken place on the Road Parties, stating that many of you having been thrown out of work are now unable to get employment elsewhere, and are likely to be plunged into great distress.

I should regret extremely should such be the case, but when I daily hear the employers of labour complain that they have great difficulty in procuring workmen, and are unable to extend their cultivations or improvements, in consequence; that the rate of Wages (as I am myself aware) is exorbitantly high, and that the Government Road Parties monopolize the little European labor in the colony, I cannot believe that, if you are, as you state yourselves to be, both able and willing to work, you cannot obtain constant and remunerating employment.

I must remind you that the Government are not bound, and could not possibly find the means if they wished it, to employ all persons who might emigrate from Great Britain to the Colonies, at high or exorbitant wages. In your own cases too it must not be forgotten that in emigrating to this country, you did so under arrangements with which the Government had nothing to do; and for the success or failure of which they were not responsible.

Should, however, such an unfortunate state of things arise in this Colony as you seem to contemplate, (but which in present circumstances I cannot believe possible) and many of Her Majesty’s subjects be really unable to procure work, and be left in a destitute condition, I should deem it my duty (as I am sure it would be the wish of Her Majesty that I should, as far as I could,) to relieve this distress and to afford Her suffering subjects that subsistence which they could not procure for themselves. Do not, however, misunderstand me;—I could not and should not be justified in doing more than affording the means of necessary subsistence, and this you admit in your Petition, you have yet the means of obtaining for yourselves.

With respect to the Roads—I would briefly make one or two observations—They are works of great magnitude and importance, undertaken for the general good, and requiring both time and large means to complete them. When finished they will throw open new and extensive tracts of country, and by enabling Settlers and others, to push further out with their farms or their stock stations, will be the means of affording to the labouring classes that very work which you are now seeking; if left incomplete, they will be available to no one, and will rather have been a positive evil, from having created a sudden stimulus to occupations of all kinds, only to be checked by an abrupt termination.

To prevent this very serious evil, is my bounden duty; I need not inform you that Government, any more than individuals, have not unlimited resources,—certain amounts only can be expended in certain ways, and if these are not so economized in application as to complete the work they are appropriated for, these works must remain unfinished—thus in the case of the roads, if Government continued to pay the rates of wages they have hitherto done, they would be unable to complete them, and the whole Colony, and yourselves among the number, would suffer in consequence.

Another point in your Petition seems an apparent dissatisfaction at being, as you term it, placed on a par with Natives. I am sure I need only point out your error to remove it. You are, as you observe with, I trust, a just pride, Britons;—remember, too, that Britons are just and generous, too confident in their own character and capabilities to fear comparison or competition with any, and too noble to undervalue another race because they happen to be of another colour.

I admit, as stated in your Petition, that the Natives can live cheaper than Europeans, and it is owing to this very cause that we are able to make the Roads which will, as completed, open out and afford to you constantly increasing employment at the various homesteads and stations to which these roads will lead. Were they to have been carried on solely by European labor, they might indeed have been commenced, but certainly never could have been completed. Another circumstance to which I would direct your attention, and it is an important one, is this—Many of you have travelled about the country, and have seen how little cultivation is carried on by Europeans, and how many of the articles of food are supplied, and almost wholly supplied, by the Maoris; reflect a little, and consider what would have been your position if there were no natives from whom to obtain pigs, potatoes,