The Ordinance for the appropriation of the revenue expires, however, at the close of this month; and after that time, unless it is renewed with your sanction, no ordinance will be in force under the authority of which the current expenditure could be conducted. A sudden cessation of that expenditure, and a consequent stoppage of the entire machinery of Government would, however, inflict such injury upon the various settlements established in these islands, that I have felt it to be my duty, although at a shorter notice than I could have desired, to request your attendance at Wellington, as the most central point, for the purpose of submitting to your consideration the propriety of re-enacting the existing Appropriation Ordinance, and of authorising the continuance of its operation for such a period of time as may permit of provision being made for the appropriation of the revenues by the Legislatures to be constituted under the authority of the recent Constitutional Act.

In addition to the Appropriation Ordinance, I propose to submit for your consideration a few other Bills, which relate to subjects of pressing importance. But I shall be careful to propose to you only such measures as are absolutely necessary for the welfare and progress of the entire Islands; because I am anxious that the rights and functions of the Provincial Legislatures, which are so shortly to be elected, may not even appear to be in any manner unnecessarily interfered with.

There is also the less reason for entering upon any extensive system of Legislation during the present session of the Council; because, although it is not in my power upon this occasion to lay before you the instructions which will accompany the recent Act of Parliament conferring Representative Institutions upon this colony, I am enabled to state that those Instructions were, at the date of my latest advices from England, in course of preparation; and that both Her Majesty’s Government and the local authorities will make every effort to introduce them into full operation in the colony with as little delay as is consistent with the care and attention which the importance of the subject requires.

A Bill has been prepared for your consideration, which provides for the Registration of Deeds and Instruments affecting real Property within the Canterbury settlement. From an oversight upon the part of the framers of the Act of Parliament to empower the Canterbury Association to dispose of certain lands in New Zealand (13th and 14th Victoria, cap. 70, 1850) no provision was made for the registration, in conformity with the terms of the local Ordinance, of such conveyances as the agent of the Canterbury Association might issue to their purchasers. The Bill which has been prepared provides a remedy for that omission; and I have no doubt that you will cordially co-operate with the government in its efforts to render the titles to property in the Canterbury settlement more secure, and to facilitate the transfer of such property.

A correspondence will be laid before you which has passed between the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonial Department and the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury, upon the subject of the Bank Charters Ordinance of last Session. You will find from that correspondence, that some slight amendment in that Ordinance will probably be necessary before it can be brought into beneficial operation.

By the terms of the Naturalization Ordinance, Session XI, No. 9, it is requisite that I should submit to you a Bill for the final Naturalization of those persons who have been declared in the interval which has elapsed since the last Session of the Legislative Council, by the proclamations which I have issued for that purpose, to be free from the disabilities to which aliens are by law subject. A measure for this purpose has been therefore prepared, and will be laid before you.

The most recent despatches I have received from the Lieutenant-Governor of New Ulster, upon the subject of the discovery of gold in the valley of the Thames in that Province, will be laid before you. From these you will gather that the Lieutenant-Governor is given to understand that there can be no doubt that an available Gold Field has been discovered in several places in the mountain ranges which separate the river Thames from the Eastern Coast of the Northern Island. Should these anticipations be fully realized, there can be little doubt that a source of great wealth and prosperity will be laid open for the Northern Province of New Zealand, which will afford a fair earnest of the mineral wealth of the entire New Zealand Islands, and justly encourage hopes