10

before your Excellency the enclosed copy of
Resolutions which have been passed by the
Provincial Council of this Province.
I have, &c.,
JAMES EDWARD FITZGERALD.

His Excellency
the Governor of New Zealand.
&c., &c.

CANTERBURY.

Extract from the Journal of Proceedings of
the Provincial Council.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1856.
"Motion made and question proposed-
"That this Council learns with the greatest
concern that the General Government have
determined that the New Zealand Mail brought
by the steamers from England to Melbourne
shall be forwarded thence to Auckland, as such
an arrangement will entirely deprive the
Southern Provinces of the advantages which
they ought to derive from the steam service,
for which they will have to pay the largest
share of the required bonus.

"That in the opinion of this Council any
steam service from Australia which is suppor-
ted out of the General Public Revenues, ought
to provide for the conveyance of the English
Mail to the most central port of the Colony,
so that all the Provinces may share in the
benefit of the arrangement.

"That a copy of these Resolutions be trans-
mitted to his Honor the Superintendent, with a
respectful request that his Honor will cause
them to be laid before his Excellency the Go-
vernor and the Government.

"That Mr. Speaker do also transmit a copy
of these Resolutions to the Honorable the
Speaker of each House of the General As-
sembly.

"Question put and agreed to."
GEORGE H. Ross,
Clerk to the Council.

Port Lyttelton, New Zealand,
17th December, 1856.

SIR-Be pleased to take an early oppor-
tunity to bring, under his Excellency the
Governor's consideration, the accompanying
Memorial of the Merchants and other residents
of this Province, touching the prejudice to the
Southern Settlements of the proposed steam
postal communication for the entirety of New
Zealand, to be passed from Melbourne only,
and always thence direct to Auckland.
I am, &c.,
R. LATTER.

E. W. ford, Esq.,
Colonial Secretary,
Auckland.

To His Excellency Colonel THOMAS GORE
BROWNE, Companion of the Most Honor-
able Order of the Bath, Governor and
Commander-in-Chief in and over Her
Majesty's Colony of New Zealand, and
Vice-Admiral of the same, &c., &c.

The humble memorial of the undersigned,
Merchants, Traders, and Residents in
the Province of Canterbury New Zea-
land,

Humbly sheweth,-

That your Memorialists respectfully desire to
lay before your Excellency the injustice done
to Canterbury by the arrangement made by
your Excellency's Government as to the de-
livery of Mails at Auckland for the whole of
New Zealand, under the new Steam Postal
Service.

Your Memorialists submit in the first place,
that by the abovementioned arrangement their
mails are made to undergo a most circuitous
route to Canterbury, and secondly from the
very short stay the steamer is to make in
Auckland, that it will be quite impossible for
your memorialists or the residents in any other
of the Southern ports to reply to their letters
by the same steamer on her return trip to Mel-
bourne.

Your Memorialists would most respectfully
have been disposed to submit to your Excel-
lency that Wellington, from its more central
position, would have afforded Canterbury and
all the other Southern Settlements more faci-
lity in communication, were it not that Auck-
land would thus have been deprived of a direct
conveyance for her mails.

Your Memorialists would, under the peculiar
circumstances of the case, therefore venture to
suggest for the purpose of affording to all the
New Zealand Settlements some participation in
the advantages intended to be granted to all
the Australasian and New Zealand Colonies by
the new Steam Postal service, that the Branch
service with New Zealand should consist of two
steamers instead of one as proposed; the one
to run to Auckland, Taranaki, and Nelson;
the other to Otago, Lyttelton, and Wellington
-the latter taking her departure for Mel-
bourne from Wellington.

Your Memorialists, in conclusion, humbly
but earnestly pray your Excellency that if the
petition of your memorialists cannot be granted,
the mails for Canterbury may be sent to Syd-
ney as at present, to be thence forwarded by
the first opportunity, instead of being subjected
to the lengthy and uncertain route via Auck-
land.

And your Memorialists, as in duty bound,
will ever pray &c.

[111 Signatures.]

Colonial Secretary's Office,
Auckland, January 6th, 1857.

Sir-

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt
of your letter of the 17th ultimo, covering a
Memorial from merchants and residents in the
Province of Canterbury, relative to the Steam
Postal Service proposed to be established for
New Zealand, and to forward for the informa-
tion of the Memorialists copies of correspondence.