dinance, at least to allow it to be put practically
in operation. And although the compensation
which it awards is certainly somewhat large,
and appears moreover to be given without re-
ference to the merits of particular cases, on
which you have at different times addressed my
predecessor and myself, yet I am too sensible
of the great importance of setting these ques-
tions, as far as possible, at rest, to wish to
throw any obstacle in the way of the settlement
thus proposed by yourself, and enacted after
very full consideration by the Legislature of New
Zealand.

5. The leading provisions of the Ordinance
   forwarded in your despatch No. 133, appear to
   be these :—It authorizes the Governor to ap-
   point a Commissioner for deciding all claims
   upon Government arising under contracts with
   the New Zealand Company. It empowers the
   authorities to satisfy these claims in conformity
   with the Commissioner's award, by the issue of
   Crown Grants and of land scrip. It declares
   that by such issue the Government shall be
   exonerated from all further liability in respect
   to the contract which the land granted or scrip
   issued may have been intended to satisfy, and
   it extends the ordinary regulations for the dis-
   posal of Crown Land (including, of course,
   those which prescribe the minimum upset price
   of £1) to all the settlements of the New Zea-
   land Company.

6. In a legal point of view, this Ordinance
   appears open to two objections. First, as I
   have already indicated, it materially interferes
   with, and in some cases assumes to extinguish
   obligations which are imposed upon the Crown
   by the Imperial Act 10 and 11 Vic., c. 112,
   sec. 19; those, namely, of performing all sub-
   sisting contracts of the New Zealand Company
   in regard to any of their lands. It is true that
   all persons who voluntarily submit themselves
   to the Colonial Ordinance will have waived
   their right to a strict performance of this sta-
   tutory obligation, but the Ordinance not only
   deals with the claims of such persons, but, in
   cases where a claim may have been wrongly
   admitted by the Government and satis-
   fied accordingly by the Government, it assumes
   to exonerate the Crown from its liability to sa-
   tisfy the rightful claimant, on the way may have
   referred his claim under the local Ordinance,
   and who consequently remains in possession of
   his strict legal rights.

7. Next, the Ordinance restores the upset
   price of £1 an acre throughout the islands, in
   direct contravention of the rights of the Can-
   terbury Association, as secured by the Act of
   Parliament—the contracts of the New Zea-
   land Company (which have now devolved upon
   the Crown) with the Otago Association, and
   of the provisions of the 14th and 15th Victoria,
   c. 86, sec. 1, which enacted, that so long as
   the Cook's Straits settlements (in which, for
   the present purpose, I include New Plymouth)
   exist, land should not be sold in them below
   its then price.

8. On these grounds, as I have already said,
   her Majesty cannot be advised to confirm this
   law. But it will be allowed to remain in force;
   and I wish to point out to you the effect which
   the recent legislation in this country will have
   in enabling you to give practical effect to its
   most important provisions, comprising some of
   those which, when originally enacted, were
   contrary to the Imperial law, and could not be
   rendered effective by any exercise of the pre-
   rogative.

9. By the Act 14th and 15th Victoria, c. 86,
   sec. 10, taken in connection with the previous
   Act 9th and 10th Victoria, c. 382, sec. 51, the
   award of an officer to be nominated by you will
   have the exonerating effect which the Colonial
   Ordinance assumes to give to the decision of a
   Government Commissioner, subject only to this
   limitation, that as the English Acts of Parlia-
   ment only contemplate the issue of grants of
   land, the exonerating effect will not extend to
   cases in which the alleged liabilities of the Crown
   have been satisfied in scrip. If, therefore, an
   award wrongly made in favour of a person who
   shall prove not entitled has been so satisfied, the
   Crown will remain liable to discharge its obli-
   gation a second time when the rightful owner
   appears. Some mode may occur to you of
   obviating this possibility; but even should this
   not be the case, I do not think the mere chance
   of such an inconvenience need interfere with your
   operations in settling the claims of the Com-
   pany's settlers. I need scarcely observe, how-
   ever, that it furnishes an additional reason for
   caution in examining them.

10. I have next to point out, that under the
    first section of the same Act, and the instructions
    conveyed in Lord Grey's despatch of August
    8th, 1851, you are not only empowered (subject
    to the above condition as to price) to make re-
    gulations for the disposal of Crown Lands with-
    in the Cook's Straits settlements, but, without
    any such restriction, to make regulations "for
    the closing and determination of the affairs of the
    said settlements." If you think it advisable (in
    concurrence with the general feeling of the set-
    tlers) to exercise this power, I apprehend that
    the regulations respecting the price of land con-
    tained in the New Zealand Company's terms of
    purchase would fall of themselves, and the in-
    structions as to the sale of land, which are in
    force in the rest of the Colony, would at once
    take effect within the settlements. Further, the
    72nd section of the new Constitutional Act in-
    vests the General Assembly with a power wholly
    unrestricted (except as regards Canterbury and
    Otago) of "regulating the sale, letting, disposal,
    and occupation of the Waste Lands of the Crown
    in New Zealand." And the proviso contained
    in the same section, taken conjointly with the