Secretary’s Office, Wellington,
31st January, 1848.

HIS EXCELLENCY THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR has been pleased to direct that the following appointments (which have been made subject to Her Majesty’s approval) be notified for general information.

MAJOR ALFRED FRANCIS WILLIAM WYATT, 65TH REGIMENT,

to be Resident Magistrate for the District of Wanganui, to date from the 14th inst.

WILLIAM GISBORNE, Esq.,

to be Clerk of the Executive Council, from the 1st proximo.

ROBERT RODGER STRANG, ESQ.,

to be Registrar-General of Deeds, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, and Registrar of the Supreme Court, from the same date.

PETER DODS HOGG, Esq.,

to be Collector of Customs at Wellington, from the same date.

DANIEL WAKEFIELD, ESQ.,

to be Crown Solicitor, Legal Adviser, and Standing Counsel for the Natives, from the same date.

JOHN FITZGERALD, ESQ., M.D.,

to be Colonial Surgeon, from the same date.

MR. JAMES RUMSEY FORSTER,

to be Clerk to the Registrar-General, and to the Registrar of the Supreme Court, from the same date.

MR. RICHARD DEIGHTON,

to be Interpreter to the Supreme and Resident Magistrate’s Courts, from the same date.

MR. JAMES SPIERS,

to be Crier to the Supreme Court, from the 24th instant.

By His Excellency’s Command,
S. E. GRIMSTONE,
Acting Secretary.

Secretary’s Office, Wellington,
27th January, 1848.

HIS EXCELLENCY THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR has been pleased to direct the publication of the following Reports for general information.

By His Excellency’s Command,
S. E. GRIMSTONE,
Acting Secretary.

ROADS.

Wellington, New Zealand,
1st January, 1848.

Sir,—In compliance with your Excellency’s request to be furnished with a Report shewing the progress of the line of road under my superintendence, during the last three months, and embracing an explicit account of the stages of advancement in which each part now is, I have the honor to report that the Porirua portion to Jackson’s Ferry has within that period been completed, the working parties withdrawn, and the road placed under the care of two European labourers. As the traffic with the Porirua District increases (and which has already been transferred from coasting vessels to this road) it will be necessary to increase this number of labourers, but the tolls, when established, will more than keep it in repair.

The expense of its construction has exceeded seven hundred pounds per mile, nor do I think it safe to estimate any future road making in this Division below that sum. I have no means of ascertaining with certainty the comparative cost of road making in other countries, but am informed an ordinary parish road in England costs about eighteen hundred pounds per mile. The Holyhead road appears to have cost from three to four thousand pounds per mile. The roads of Van Diemen’s Land appear to have been still more expensive. Those lately constructed at Hong Kong to have cost about a thousand pounds per mile, the rate of wages for labourers being about ten pence a day.

If these sums be correct, and it be considered that the rate of wages paid to the natives has been 2s. 6d. and 2s. a day, and that the roads have been carried through a country unequalled in difficulty by anything which I have seen but the Cockpits of the West India Islands, it will appear that the labour of the natives must have borne a fair proportion to their wages. A comparison of the cost of this road with such portions of the Hutt road as have been formed exclusively by Europeans, would furnish some further ground for an estimate of native labour, due allowance being made for difference of locality.

From Jackson’s Ferry a beach road by either shore of Porirua Harbour communicates by means of a bush bridle path with the Horokiwi Road, which was commenced where the bush track terminated at the foot of Rangihaeata’s Hill, the scene of the skirmish of the 6th August, 1846. The bridle road is completed from this point through to the beach near Wainui, and notwithstanding the difficulties of the bush track between Rangihaeata’s Hill and Porirua Harbour, the still greater difficulties of the Para Para Rocks, the Pukerua Bush, and Parramatta Ferry have already diverted the communication to this line, horses, cattle, pigs and sheep passing to the interruption of the workmen now employed in widening the bridle into a carriage road, at each end of the line, and which Mr. Compton’s party has effected to the extent of a mile and a quarter, and Mr. Yule’s party two miles.

There remain between those two parties about three miles of the bridle road impracticable for a wheel carriage, which 150 men might open in three months, and it would then be possible to take a vehicle through to Wainui, as the bush track between Porirua Harbour and Rangihaeata’s Hill could be widened in a few days for that purpose, but it would almost immediately fall into as bad a state as the old Porirua Road, the constant rain of this climate speedily rendering a road impassable, unless constructed with the greatest regard to durability; such a road might, however, serve a temporary purpose, but the line by which I propose reaching Pauhatahanui is fallen and burnt off, and may with 150 men be completed in six months; while, therefore, it would require but three months to allow a wheel carriage to pass from Pauhatahanui to Wainui, it would require nine months to form a road for that distance.

Pauhatahanui is already accessible by the eastern and southern shores of the harbour, but a good inland road might be made by 150 men in six months or less.

I proceed, in obedience to your Excellency’s wish, to furnish such information respecting the labourers as I have been able to obtain from personal